My Strangest Case Part 12

"Yes, sir, I remember him perfectly," Turner replied. "A tall, burly man, with a bushy beard, the top of his little finger on the left hand missing, and a long white scar over his right eyebrow."

"The same," I answered. "I see you have not forgotten him. Well, I want you to find him out, and let me have an exact account of his movements during the next three weeks. The office will arrange your expenses in the usual way, and you had better leave by the mail-train. In all probability I shall see you off."

"Very good, sir," the man responded, and withdrew.

He had scarcely gone before one of my clerks entered the room and handed me a card. On it was printed the name of Mr. Edward Bayley, and in the left-hand bottom corner was the announcement that he was the Managing Director of the Santa Cruz Mining Company of Forzoda, in the Argentine Republic.

"Show the gentleman in, Walters," I said.

In a few minutes a tall, handsome man, irreproachably turned out, entered the office. He seated himself in a chair the clerk placed for him, put his hat and umbrella on another, and then turned to me.

"My card has made you familiar with my name, Mr. Fairfax," he began, "and doubtless, if you are at all familiar with mines and mining, you are acquainted with the name of the company I have the honour to represent?"

"I am very much afraid the Mining Market does not possess very much interest for me," I replied. "I have to work so hard for my money, that when I have got it I prefer to invest it in something a little more reliable. May I inquire the nature of your business with me?"

"I have come to see you, Mr. Fairfax," he said, speaking very impressively, and regarding me deliberately as he did so, "on rather a delicate subject. Before I explain what it is, may I ask that you will treat what I am about to tell you as purely confidential?"

"My business is invariably a confidential one," I answered for the second time in two days. "I venture to think that this room has heard more secrets than almost any other in England. But though they say walls have ears, I have never heard it said that they have tongues."

"It is sometimes a good thing that they have not," he replied. "And now let me tell you what business has brought me here. In the first place, if you do not already know it, I may say that the Company I represent is an exceedingly wealthy one, and, as our business lies a long way from Threadneedle Street, if I may so put it, it is necessary for us to trust very largely to the honesty of our _employes_ on the other side of the world. Of course we make all sorts of inquiries about them prior to engaging their services, and it is also needless to say that we keep a sharp eye on them when they have entered our employ. Nevertheless, it is quite possible, all precautions notwithstanding, for an unscrupulous man to take advantage of us. As a matter of fact, that is what has happened, and what has also brought me to you. For some considerable time past we have had our suspicions that our manager at the mines has been in league with a notorious rascal in New York. In proof of this, I might say that our returns have shown a decided falling off, while our manager has, so we have lately discovered, within the past year become rich enough to purchase property to a considerable extent in the United States.

Unfortunately for us, owing to a lack of direct evidence, we are unable to bring his defalcations home to him, though of course we are as certain of our facts as we can well be of anything."

"I think I understand," I said. "Your business with me is to endeavour to induce me to go out to the Argentine and make inquiries on your behalf with the idea of bringing this man to book. Is that not so?"

"That is my errand," he replied gravely. "If you care to undertake the task, we, on our side--and I speak as the mouthpiece of the Company--will be prepared to pay you very high terms for your services; in point of fact, almost what you may ask in reason. The matter, as you may suppose, is a most serious one for us, and every day's delay is adding to it. May I ask what your terms would be, and when would you be prepared to start?"

"Your offer is a most liberal one," I said. "Unfortunately, however, I fear there is a considerable difficulty in the way of my accepting it."

"A difficulty!" he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows as if in astonishment. "But surely that obstacle can be removed. Especially for an offer of such magnitude as we are prepared to make you."

"Excuse me," I said, somewhat tartly, "but however great the inducement may be, I never break faith with my clients. The fact of the matter is, only yesterday I promised to undertake another piece of business which, while not being so remunerative, perhaps, as that you are now putting before me, means a very great deal to those who are, for the time being, my employers."

"Would it be impertinent on my part to ask at what time yesterday afternoon you arrived at this momentous decision?"

"Shortly after four o'clock," I answered, but not without a little wonderment as to his reason for putting the question. For my own part I did not see what it had to do with the matter in hand.

"Dear me, how very vexing, to be sure!" he observed. "This is certainly another instance of the contrariness of Fate."

"How so?" I asked.

"Because it was my intention to have called upon you shortly after lunch yesterday on this matter," he answered. "Unfortunately I was prevented at the last moment. Had I been able to get here, I might have forestalled your more successful client. Are you quite sure, Mr.

Fairfax, that it is out of the question for you to undertake what we want?"

"If it is necessary for me to go at once, I fear it is," I answered.

"But if it would be of any use to you, I could send you a trustworthy subordinate; one who would be quite capable of undertaking the work, and who would give you every satisfaction."

"I fear that would not be the same thing," he said. "My firm have such implicit faith in you that they would not entertain the idea of any one else going. Now think, Mr. Fairfax, for a moment. If you are prepared to go, I, in my turn, on behalf of my Company, am prepared to offer you your expenses and a sum of five thousand pounds. You need not be away more than three months at longest, so that you see our offer is at the rate of twenty thousand pounds a year. It is princely remuneration."

I looked at him closely. It was plain that he was in earnest--in deadly earnest, so it seemed. Even a defaulting manager would scarcely seem to warrant so much zeal.

"I am very much flattered by your offer," I said; "and believe me, I most truly appreciate the generosity of your Company; but, as I said before, if it is necessary for me to go at once, that is to say, before I have completed my present case, then I have no option but to most reluctantly decline."

"Perhaps you will think it over," he continued, "and let me know, say to-morrow?"

"No amount of thinking it over will induce me to alter my decision," I replied. "You must see for yourself that I have no right to accept a retainer from one party and then throw them over in order to favour another. That would not only be a dishonourable action on my part, but would be bad from a business point of view. No, Mr. Bayley, I am exceedingly sorry, but I have no option but to act as I am doing."

"In that case I must wish you a very good-morning," he remarked, and took up his hat and umbrella. I could see, however, that he was still reluctant to go.

"Good-morning," I answered. "I hope your affairs in the Argentine may brighten before very long."

He shook his head gloomily, and then left the office without another word.

When he had gone I answered some letters, gave some instructions to my managing clerk, and then donned my hat and set off for the office of the Shipping Company that had brought Gideon Hayle to England.

Unfortunately it transpired that they were not in a position to do very much in the way of helping me. Mr. Bertram had certainly travelled home in one of their steamers, so the manager informed me, a boat that as a rule did not carry pa.s.sengers. He had landed at the docks, and from that moment they had neither seen nor heard anything of him. I inquired for the steamer, only to learn that she was now somewhere on her way between Singapore and Hong Kong. This was decidedly disappointing, but as most of the cases in which I have been ultimately successful have had unpromising beginnings, I did not take it too seriously to heart.

Leaving the Shipping Office, I next turned my attention to Hatton Garden, where I called upon Messrs. Jacob and Bulenthall, one of the largest firms in the gem trade. We had had many dealings together in the past, and as I had had the good fortune on one occasion to do them a signal service, I knew that they would now do all that they could for me in return.

"Good-day, Mr. Fairfax," said the chief partner, as I entered his snug little sanctum, which leads out of the main office. "What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?"

"I am in search of some information," I replied, "and I think you may be able to help me."

"I will do all that is in my power to render you a.s.sistance," he returned, as he wiped his gla.s.ses and placed them on his somewhat fleshy nose. "What is the information you require? Has there been another big robbery of stones, and you think it possible that some of them may have come into our hands?"

"There certainly has been a robbery," I replied, "and the stones may have been offered to you, but not in the way you mean. The fact of the matter is, I want to discover whether or not a large consignment of uncut rubies and sapphires of great value have been placed upon the market within the last two months."

"Uncut rubies and sapphires are being continually placed upon the market," he observed, leaning back in his chair and rattling his keys.

"But not such stones as those I am looking for," I said, and furnished him with the rough weights that had been supplied to me.

"This is interesting--decidedly interesting," he remarked. "Especially since it serves to offer an explanation on a certain matter in which we have been interested for some little time past. On the sixteenth of last month, a gentleman called upon us here, who stated that he had lately returned from the Far East. He had had, so he declared, the good fortune to discover a valuable mine, the locality of which he was most careful not to disclose. He thereupon showed my partner and myself ten stones, consisting of five rubies and five sapphires, each of which weighed between fifty-five and sixty carats."

"And you purchased them?"

"We did, and for a very heavy sum. I can a.s.sure you the vendor was very well aware of their value, as we soon discovered, and he was also a good hand at a bargain. Would you care to see the stones? I shall be pleased to show them to you if you would."

"I should like to see them immensely." I replied.

Thereupon he crossed the room to a safe in the corner, and, when he had unlocked it, took from it a wash-leather bag. Presently ten superb gems were lying before me on the table.

"There they are," he said, waving his hands towards them, "and as you can see for yourself, they are worthy of being set in the crown of an emperor. It is not often that we are enthusiastic in such matters, but in this case we have very good reason to be. When they are properly cut, they will be well nigh priceless."

"Do you happen to know whether he sold any more of a similar kind in London?" I asked, as he returned them to their place in the safe.

"I know that he sold fifteen smaller ones to Henderson and Soil, and three almost as large as those I have just shown you to a firm in Amsterdam."

"If he is the man I want to get hold of, that accounts for twenty-eight," I said, making a note of the fact as I spoke. "Originally he had ninety-three in his possession."

"Ninety-three?" the merchant replied, as if he could scarcely believe his ears. "Why, his mine must be a source of unlimited wealth. I wish I had known this before."