For the Allinson Honor Part 54

"Carnally and Graham should be here before night," he said. "They were getting ready to come up when we left. Jake allowed he wanted to be on the ground."

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE EVE OF BATTLE

It was evening when the big liner which had left Montreal at daybreak steamed slowly past the ramparts of Quebec, the roar of her whistle echoing among the rocks. The tide which had floated her across the shoals of Lake St. Peter was running low, the great river was unruffled, and Andrew leaned on her saloon-deck rails, watching the city open up as she swung insh.o.r.e with the slack stream. Behind the wharves and warehouses at the waterside old buildings and loftier modern ones, stores, banks and churches, rose in picturesque confusion, tier above tier, to the heights girdled by Dufferin Avenue, and the huge Frontenac Hotel. It struck him as a beautiful city, viewed from the river, but it bore an exotic stamp. In spite of the sooty smoke of the locomotives and the rattle of steamboat winches, it had a stronger resemblance to the old romantic towns of France than the business centers of essentially modern Canada.

A feeble scream answered the sonorous whistle, and the engines stopped for a few minutes as a tug steamed out from the wharf. She brought a dozen pa.s.sengers besides a number of mailbags, and when she cast off the screw throbbed again and the liner forged ahead. It was with mixed feelings that Andrew watched the city drop behind and the white thread of Montmorency Falls disappear behind a long green island. Beyond it the river widened, the sh.o.r.es were falling back, and dusk was creeping across the oily water. Open sea was still far away, but Andrew felt that he had parted from Canada, and though he was going home with his work successfully done, the thought filled him with wistful regret. In spite of many hardships and difficulties, he had been happy in the northern wilds, and happier with Geraldine by the Lake of Shadows. He meant to come back when he had finished his fight for Allinson's and he thrilled as he wondered how Geraldine would welcome him. She had given him a gracious farewell and her sincere good wishes; but she had with gentle firmness prevented his making any direct appeal. This he determined should not be the same again. When he returned she should hear him out; but there was still much to be done before he could prove his right to claim her, for the possibility of ignominious failure confronted him.

Before the next few weeks had pa.s.sed he might be beaten and discredited--jeered at as a rash fool who, undertaking a task beyond his powers, had brought disaster upon those he meant to benefit and wrecked an honored firm. But apart from such considerations, he knew that he had turned his back upon the strenuous life of the wilderness.

Even if he returned to the lode for a month or two, he would travel by well-marked roads, surrounded by some degree of civilized comfort.

There would be no more of the zest of the unknown trail; the charm of the lonely North would be broken by the crash of machinery and the voices of busy men.

The dinner bugle broke his reverie, and when he was leaving the saloon a steward gave him a letter the tender had brought. Recognizing Carnally's writing, he opened it eagerly in a quiet corner of the smoking-room, and as he read it he felt a faint envy of his comrade who was using pick and powder in the wilds. This, however, gave place to more practical considerations. Carnally related the jumpers'

defeat, which he described as Mappin's last attempt to trouble them.

The claims, he said, were safe from any fresh attack, and there was a marked improvement in the ore as they opened up the lode. He thought Andrew could devote himself to his English business with undisturbed confidence.

Andrew realized that the latter would need all his attention, and during the short voyage he had little to say to his fellow-pa.s.sengers.

Revolving schemes in his mind, he found weak points in all of them, for it was a serious problem he had to attack. He could see several ways of regulating the Rain Bluff Company's affairs, if Leonard would agree, and he could bring charges against his brother-in-law which would cost him his relatives' support; but this course was not admissible. Leonard must be deprived of all control over Allinson's but it must be done without suspicion being cast upon the integrity of the firm. That would be difficult. Then Florence's position required thought. Andrew wished the unraveling of the matter had been left to somebody else with more tact and acuteness, but it was his duty and he must do the best he could.

On landing he traveled straight to London, and after taking a room at a hotel went on foot to the Allinson offices. It was a sultry day with rain at intervals; the streets were miry, and smoke thickened the listless air. As he walked eastward along the Strand the roar of traffic jarred on his ears and he noticed the streaky grime on the wet buildings; but it was the intent, pallid faces of the pa.s.sers-by that impressed him most when he approached the city. Some were pinched and hungrily eager, some were gross and fleshy, but the steady, direct frankness of the Canadian glance was missing, and there was a more marked difference in the movements of Andrew's city countrymen. All were in a hurry, bolting into and out of dingy offices, but they had not the free virile grace of the men who followed the lonely Canadian trails. Nor had they, so far as their expressions hinted, the optimistic cheerfulness that is common in the West.

Though he was glad to be at home, Andrew was sensible of a faint depression. The people he saw about him were those he would henceforward work among; he must change the drill and canoe paddle for the pen, and breathe the close air of offices instead of the fragrance of the pines. Had the option been his, he would have turned away from the city; but, as the head of Allinson's, he was not free to choose.

Doggedly, as when he had followed the frozen trail on a morsel of food, he held on eastward past the Law Courts.

At the office he learned that Leonard was away at a German health resort, but would be back in a few days, and that Florence was staying at Ghyllside. Andrew was sorry for Florence and felt guilty when he thought of her. Though she had always taken her husband's view and refused to consider him a person of any importance, she was his eldest sister. Had she been less prejudiced, she might have helped him to come to some understanding with Leonard which would have prevented a direct conflict, but he feared he could look only for opposition and bitterness. Next he learned that the Rain Bluff shareholders' meeting, which he had suggested, had been fixed for an unexpectedly early date. He surmised that Leonard, having his plans ready, meant to get them adopted before his own were prepared.

Summoning Sharpe, the elderly chief accountant who had served his father, Andrew spent some hours with him, mastering so far as possible the state of the firm's affairs. With a few exceptions, they were prospering; there was no doubt that, in a sense, Leonard had done his work well. In particular, the returns from foreign ventures were excellent, and though Sharpe could not tell him precisely how the profits had been made, Andrew with wider knowledge on some points could guess. He feared that a full explanation would not redound to the honor of the firm. He knew of lands to which Allinson's money had been sent, where the high interest was wrung out of subject races with fiendish cruelty.

At last, when the electric lights were burning in the lavishly-decorated office, Sharpe closed his books.

"I think that is all I can tell you, Mr. Allinson," he said. "On the whole, I venture to believe you must find our position eminently satisfactory. The one weak point, if I may say so, is the Rain Bluff mine. You will have seen that the shares are quoted down."

"I've noticed it. What's the reason? The directors wouldn't let any information that might have a depressing effect leak out."

"There has been some selling," Sharpe answered with a shrug. "It's possible that things have been kept too close. A little encouraging news given to the press now and then goes a long way, but silence tends to uneasiness." He hesitated. "I suppose I must not ask about the Company's prospects until you have met the Board?"

"You have been investing?"

Sharpe admitted it.

"I bought in the open market, with no favor shown. The firm has treated me liberally, but I may have to make room for a younger man by and by, and I had two boys to start. One at law, the other as surgeon; but they are only beginning to stand on their own feet, and it was a drain. What was left went into the Rain Bluff. I felt I was safe in a venture organized by us."

He looked at Andrew eagerly, but for a few moments the latter mused.

It was, he thought, such men as this old servant, patient, highly trained toilers, who would have been hardest hit by the failure of the mine. When he answered, his expression was unusually grave.

"I think I can say that you have no cause for anxiety."

"Thank you," said Sharpe. "Your a.s.surance is a great relief. I wonder whether I may mention that you have your father's manner; it was his habit to make a curt statement without an explanation, but it always carried weight. You remind me of him strongly, though I never noticed the resemblance until to-day."

"You have paid me a sincere compliment," said Andrew quietly.

He spent the evening studying figures in his hotel, with no thought of the attractions the city had to offer, and the next day he proceeded to call on as many of the Rain Bluff directors as he could find in their offices. They were city men, ignorant of any but the financial side of mining, and he saw that the first two regarded him as an inexperienced meddler. These, he thought, had been given a hint by Leonard, though he did not question their honesty. Another insisted on talking about Canadian sport, with the fixed impression that he had really gone out to shoot and fish, and Andrew abandoned the attempt to undeceive him. The fourth, however, heard what he had to say with close attention.

"To divulge this news would bring about a dangerous crisis," he warned Andrew. "I must strongly urge you to consult with Hathersage and defer any mention of new arrangements until after the meeting."

"Then I should have you gentlemen united against me."

"You do us injustice," Rahway protested. "On some of the points involved our judgment is necessarily better than yours, and we would no doubt insist on following it, but you will not find us neglectful of the real interests of the Company."

"They can be served only by a radical change of plans. As it stands, the Company is rotten!"

"Grave language, Mr. Allinson."

"It's warranted. You must submit a report to the shareholders. Is it prepared?"

The director handed him some sheets of paper which Andrew studied with rising indignation.

"I recognize Hathersage's work!" he exclaimed. "There's no hint of the difficulties that confront us. He wrote this?"

"It's a draft I have just received from him."

"And after what I've told you about the mine, you think it should stand?"

Rahway looked disturbed. "With a few exceptions, I must say that I do.

You are new to these matters, and don't realize how undesirable it is that we should make our troubles public. Give us time to consider and mature fresh schemes, and, if matters are really so serious as they seem to you, we may find some judicious remedy. Undue haste can only have disastrous results."

Andrew lost his patience.

"You want to tinker with the situation, to keep the shareholders in the dark, while you try to patch up a tottering concern? It's an impossible course! The truth must be faced boldly and the Company reorganized from the start!'

"If that is so, it must be done by the directors, with great caution.

I must beg you not to force our hands."

"Well," replied Andrew, "I have nothing more to say. I shall attend the meeting and do what seems advisable."

He left the office, convinced that he could take only a bold, independent course, for no help could be expected from the men he had called on. Leonard's influence over them could not be combated. He thought they might honestly doubt that the state of affairs was as serious as he had represented; but if they were convinced of this, their chief desire would be to keep the mine going long enough to save their credit, and to make disclosure gradually. He was glad he had told them nothing about the richness of the Graham lode and that the claims on it were held under his personal control. On reaching his hotel, he wrote to the directors he had not been able to see, though he did not expect much result from this, and the next morning he left for his home.

Though he had a cordial welcome, he did not explain his plans to his relatives, and Florence seemed to regard him with suspicion. A week later Leonard came down to take her home, and asked for a private interview after dinner on the night of his arrival. Andrew went with him to the library and waited calmly until he began.

"We must understand each other," Leonard said. "I hear you have found the lode. Will you tell me your plans?"

"Not to begin with. I want some information about yours first. No doubt Mappin cabled you news of our discovery?"