Bones in London Part 20

Bones looked at Hamilton. They and the elderly man, who had driven up to the door of the Wardour Street studio in a magnificent car, were the only three people, besides the operator, who were present.

Hamilton nodded.

"Well," said Bones, "business, dear old thing, is my weakness. Buying and selling is my pa.s.sion and Lobby. From first to last, after paying jolly old Brickdust, this thing is going to cost me more than three thousand pounds--say, three thousand five hundred."

The elderly man nodded.

"Let's make a quick deal," he said. "I'll give you six thousand pounds for the whole concern, with the pictures as you have taken them--negatives, positives, cameras, etc. Is it a bargain?"

Bones held out his hand.

They dined together, a jubilant Bones and a more jubilant Hamilton, at a little restaurant in Soho.

"My dear old Ham," said Bones, "it only shows you how things happen.

This would have been a grand week for me if those beastly oil shares of mine had gone up. I'm holding 'em for a rise." He opened a newspaper he had bought in the restaurant. "I see that Jorris and Walters--they're the two oil men--deny that they've ever met or that they're going to amalgamate. But can you believe these people?" he asked. "My dear old thing, the mendacity of these wretched financiers----"

"Have you ever seen them?" asked Hamilton, to whom the names of Jorris and Walters were as well known as to any other man who read his daily newspaper.

"Seen them?" said Bones. "My dear old fellow, I've met them time and time again. Two of the jolliest old birds in the world. Well, here's luck!"

At that particular moment Mr. Walters and Mr. Jorris were sitting together in the library of a house in Berkeley Square, the blinds being lowered and the curtains being drawn, and Mr. Walters was saying:

"We'll have to make this thing public on Wednesday. My dear fellow, I nearly fainted when I heard that that impossible young person had photographed us together. When do you go back to Paris?"

"I think I had better stay here," said Mr. Jorris. "Did the young man bleed you?"

"Only for six thousand," said the pleasant Mr. Walters. "I hope the young beggar's a bear in oil," he added viciously.

But Bones, as we know, was a bull.

CHAPTER VI

A DEAL IN JUTE

It is a reasonable theory that every man of genius is two men, one visible, one unseen and often unsuspected by his counterpart. For who has not felt the shadow's influence in dealing with such as have the Spark? Napoleon spoke of stars, being Corsican and a mystic. Those who met him in his last days were uneasily conscious that the second Bonaparte had died on the eve of Waterloo, leaving derelict his brother, a stout and commonplace man who was in turn sycophantic, choleric, and pathetic, but never great.

Noticeable is the influence of the Shadow in the process of money-making. It is humanly impossible for some men to be fortunate.

They may ama.s.s wealth by sheer hard work and hard reasoning, but if they seek a shorter cut to opulence, be sure that short cut ends in a cul-de-sac where sits a Bankruptcy Judge and a phalanx of stony-faced creditors. "Luck" is not for them--they were born single.

For others, the whole management of life is taken from their hands by their busy Second, who ranges the world to discover opportunities for his partner.

So it comes about that there are certain men, and Augustus Tibbetts--or, as he was named, "Bones"--was one of these, to whom the increments of life come miraculously. They could come in no other way, be he ever so learned and experienced.

Rather would a greater worldliness have hampered his familiar and in time destroyed its power, just as education destroys the more subtle instincts. Whilst the learned seismographer eats his dinner, cheerfully unconscious of the coming earthquake, his dog shivers beneath the table.

By this preamble I am not suggesting that Bones was a fool. Far from it. Bones was wise--uncannily wise in some respects. His success was due, as to nine-tenths, to his native sense. His _x_ supplied the other fraction.

No better ill.u.s.tration of the working of this concealed quant.i.ty can be given than the story of the great jute sale and Miss Bertha Stegg.

The truth about the Government speculation in jute is simply told. It is the story of an official who, in the middle of the War, was seized with the bright idea of procuring enormous quant.i.ties of jute for the manufacture of sand-bags. The fact that by this transaction he might have driven the jute lords of Dundee into frenzy did not enter into his calculations. Nor did it occur to him that the advantageous position in which he hoped to place his Department depended for its attainment upon a total lack of foresight on the part of the Dundee merchants.

As a matter of fact, Dundee had bought well and wisely. It had sufficient stocks to meet all the demands which the Government made upon it; and when, after the War, the Department offered its purchase at a price which would show a handsome profit to the Government, Dundee laughed long and loudly.

And so there was left on the official hands, at the close of the War, a quant.i.ty of jute which n.o.body wanted, at a price which n.o.body would pay. And then somebody asked a question in the House of Commons, and the responsible Secretary went hot all over, and framed the reply which an Under-secretary subsequently made in such terms as would lead the country to believe that the jute purchased at a figure beyond the market value was a valuable a.s.set, and would one day be sold at a profit.

Mr. Augustus Tibbetts knew nothing about jute. But he did read, almost every morning in the daily newspapers, how one person or another had made enormous purchases of linen, or of cloth, or of motor cha.s.sis, paying fabulous sums on the nail and walking off almost immediately with colossal profits; and every time Bones read such an account he wriggled in his chair and made unhappy noises.

Then one afternoon there came to his office a suave gentleman in frock-coat, carrying with him a card which was inscribed "Ministry of Supplies." And the end of that conversation was that Bones, all a twitter of excitement, drove to a gloomy office in Whitehall, where he interviewed a most sacred public official, to whom members of the public were not admitted, perhaps, more than four times a year.

Hamilton had watched the proceedings with interest and suspicion. When Bones was mysterious he was very mysterious; and he returned that night in such a condition of mystery that none but a thought-reading detective could have unravelled him.

"You seem infernally pleased with yourself, Bones," said Hamilton.

"What lamentable error have you fallen into?"

"Dear old Ham," said Bones, with the helpless little laugh which characterised the very condition of mind which Hamilton had described, "dear old pryer, wait till to-morrow. Dear old thing, I wouldn't spoil it. Read your jolly old newspaper, dear old inquirer."

"Have you been to the police court?" asked Hamilton.

"Police court? Police court?" said Bones testily. "Good Heavens, lad!

Why this jolly old vulgarity? No, dear boy, live and learn, dear old thing!"

Hamilton undoubtedly lived until the next morning, and learnt. He saw the headlines the second he opened his newspaper.

GREAT DEAL IN JUTE.

PROMINENT CITY MAN BUYS GOVERNMENT SUPPLY OF JUTE FOR A MILLION.

Hamilton was on his way to the office, and fell back in the corner of the railway carriage with a suppressed moan. He almost ran to the office, to find Bones stalking up and down the room, dictating an interview to a reporter.

"One minute, one minute, dear old Ham," said. Bones warningly. And then, turning to the industrious journalist, he went on where Hamilton had evidently interrupted him. "You can say that I've spent a great deal of my life in fearfully dangerous conditions," he said. "You needn't say where, dear old reporter, just say 'fearfully dangerous conditions.'"

"What about jute?" asked the young man.

"Jute," said Bones with relish, "or, as we call it, _Corcharis capsilaris_, is the famous jute tree. I have always been interested in jute and all that sort of thing---- But you know what to say better than I can tell you. You can also say that I'm young--no, don't say that. Put it like this: 'Mr. Tibbetts, though apparently young-looking, bears on his hardened old face the marks of years spent in the service of his country. There is a sort of sadness about his funny old eyes----' You know what to say, old thing."

"I know," said the journalist, rising. "You'll see this in the next edition, Mr. Tibbetts."

When the young man had gone, Hamilton staggered across to him.

"Bones," he said, in a hollow voice, "you've never bought this stuff for a million?"

"A million's a bit of an exaggeration, dear old sportsman," said Bones.

"As a matter of fact, it's about half that sum, and it needn't be paid for a month. Here is the contract." He smacked his lips and smacked the contract, which was on the table, at the same time. "Don't get alarmed, don't get peevish, don't get panicky, don't be a wicked old flutterer, Ham, my boy!" he said. "I've reckoned it all out, and I shall make a cool fifty thousand by this time next week."