The Grey Lady Part 36

"And that when you got into it you knew exactly whereabout you were in it; where the centre was, and which was the shortest way out of it, to get clear away from the vortex and beyond the axis line, so as not to get into it again?"

"Yes. You're quite a Fitzroy."

Carr winked cheerily.

"And all this is a certainty?"

"A dead certainty," replied Luke. "It is a science."

Carr laid down his knife and fork.

"Suppose," he said, "that the next cyclone sends forty ships to kingdom come, and I've got a line of five hundred or a thousand insured on every one of them. I'll study these jolly old cyclones.

It will be easy enough to know about when they'll be coming. When one is about I'll have a line on every ship at sea between Colombo and Penang--do you see? I'll get a man on the coast here to watch the weather. When there's a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal he will wire me home one word, 'Milksop,' or 'Spongecake,' or something soft and innocent. I'll do the rest, my boy."

Luke was only pretending to eat. The desire to make money was strong upon him--as indeed were all his desires--it was almost a pa.s.sion; for money meant Agatha, and Agatha had grown to be the one absorbing pa.s.sion of his heart. Agatha had been at the back of the superhuman fight which he had waged all night against death. Agatha was behind Carr's words. The thought of her was tempting him through the man's arguments.

"But what will you insure?" he asked.

"Profit," replied Carr, in a whisper. "It is done every day--policy proof of interest--the fools!"

"What is policy proof of interest?"

"It means that they admit your insurance to be valid, whether you have anything on board the ship or not. It is not legal, but they know it when they sign the policy; and they know that it would ruin them if they refused to pay an 'honour policy.' I tell you they don't know their business and they have no combination. They all distrust each other, and tell lies to each other about their profits and their losses. If I insure profit I have only to say that I shall lose money if the ship does not reach her destination and deliver her cargo safely. The cargo may be mine; I may be buying it or selling it; no one can tell, and the underwriters don't ask.

They pocket their premium, and if they have to pay, and think they have been rooked, they keep it to themselves, because each man is against his neighbour."

"But do they know nothing about cyclones?" inquired Luke.

"My good sir, they hardly know the difference between Calcutta and Bombay. Half of them think that a cyclone and a monsoon are the same thing, and not one in ten could tell you the difference between a brig and a barquentine."

Luke gave a little half-convinced laugh. The man was so open and honest that his arguments had nothing underhand or crafty in them.

"It sounds very simple," he said.

"It is; d--d simple! So are the underwriters; but that is not our business. You see, FitzHenry, in all commerce there are a certain number of fools for the wise men to outwit. In marine insurance there are a large number. All insurance is nothing but a bet, and betting is a matter of intelligence. We bring more intelligence to bear upon it than the other chap, therefore we win."

He helped himself to marmalade with a jaunty hand. Luke hardly noticed the easy transition from "I" to "we." He had had no intention of suggesting a partnership in this easy manner of making money, but the partnership seemed to have formed itself.

"But--" Carr paused, holding in the air an emphatic spoon. "But, my boy, we want capital, we want to lay our hands on fifty thousand pounds."

"I am afraid I could not lay my hand on fifty thousand pence," said Luke.

Carr glanced at him sharply. There was a little pause while Carr ate marmalade and toast.

"Oh yes, you could," he said in a low tone. "Between us we could raise fifty thousand as easy as winking."

As if to demonstrate the facility of the latter, he looked up and closed his left eye confidentially.

"You're a sailor," he went on to say, "and a ripping good one at that. You know the perils of the deep, as the parsons say. It wouldn't be hard for you to tell when the Croonah was running into a tight place like yesterday. All you have to do is to wire home one word to me. My telegraphic address is 'Simple, London.' Say you wire home 'Milksop.' We could fix on 'Milksop'; it sounds so innocent! In twenty-four hours I'd have fifty thousand done on the Croonah in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, New York, Paris, and Germany- -spread about, you know. In four or five days the Croonah goes to the bottom, and we scoop in, your name never appearing--see?"

There was a little pause.

"See?" repeated Carr, in little more than a whisper. Luke looked up. He met Carr's eyes and knew that he was dealing with a villain.

The strange part of it was that he felt no anger. He could not free his mind from the thought of Agatha. There was one corner of the steamer which was almost sacred to him--the little s.p.a.ce behind the deckhouse where he had held Agatha in his arms for one moment of intense happiness--where she told him that she could not be poor.

Carr rose and threw down his table napkin with a certain grand air which was his.

"It would be the making of you," he said. "It is worth thinking about."

He threw back his shoulders--a trick common enough with strongly built men who incline to stoutness--nodded, and left him. He pa.s.sed down the length of the saloon, seeking his cigar-case in the pocket of his coat, exchanging loud and hearty greetings with those among the pa.s.sengers whom he knew. He was popular on account of the open British frankness which he cultivated, and which is supposed to be the outward sign of an honest heart. He seemed to be thinking of his great scheme no longer, but he left Luke to brood over it--to try and chase the word "Milksop" from his brain, where it seemed to be indelibly engraved.

He left Luke to fight against a great temptation alone and heavily handicapped, for Luke FitzHenry was held as in a vice by his pa.s.sionate love for Agatha. It is not all men who can love. It is only a few who are capable of a deep pa.s.sion. This is as rare as genius. A man of genius is usually a failure in all except his own special line. The man who can and does love pa.s.sionately must be a good man indeed if his love do not make a villain of him.

CHAPTER IX. THE EDITOR'S ROOM.

The greater man, the greater courtesy.

The Count de Lloseta and John Craik were sitting together in the editorial room of the Commentator.

It was a quiet room, with double windows and a permanent odour of tobacco smoke. An empty teacup stood on the table by John Craik's elbow.

"Name of G.o.d!" Cipriani de Lloseta had e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed when he saw it.

"At eleven o'clock in the morning!"

"Must stir the brain up," was the reply.

"I would not do it with a teaspoon," De Lloseta had answered, and then he sat down to correct the proof of Eve's fourth article on "Spain and Spanish Life."

They had been sitting thus together for half an hour in friendly silence, only broken by an occasional high-cla.s.s Spanish anathema hurled at the head of the printer.

"A dog's trade!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed De Lloseta at last, leaning back and throwing down his pen, "a dog's trade, my friend!"

"It is mine," replied Craik, without looking up. In fiction he was celebrated for a certain smartness of dialogue. His printed conversations were pretty displays of social sword-play. It had become a sort of habit with him to thrust and parry quickly; but the sudden smile on his lined face, the kindly glance from behind the spectacles, always took away the sting and demonstrated that it was mere "copy," to fill up the dull columns of life and throw in a sparkle here and there.

"Have you finished?" he inquired.

"Yes, thank Heaven! I was not intended for a literary calling.

That is number four, and I am not paid--I am not paid; there lies the sting."

"Number four, yes; two published and two in hand," replied John Craik. His mind was busy elsewhere; it was with the creatures of his own imagination, living their lives, rejoicing with them, sorrowing with them.

The Count rose and walked gravely to the hearthrug, holding the proof-sheets in his hand.

"Number four," he reiterated. "Will they go on, my friend?"

John Craik looked up sharply.

"No."