The Market-Place Part 29

"Hallo! How d'ye do!" he called out to him from where he sat at his desk.

The hilarity of the manner into which he had been betrayed, upon the instant surprised and rather confused him. He had not been altogether clear as to how he should receive Plowden, but certainly a warm joviality had not occurred to him as appropriate.

The n.o.bleman was even more taken aback. He stared momentarily at the big man's beaming mask, and then, with nervous awkwardness, executed a series of changes in his own facial expression and demeanour. He flushed red, opened his lips to say "Ah!" and then twisted them into a doubting and seemingly painful smile. He looked with very bright-eyed intentness at Thorpe, as he advanced, and somewhat spasmodically put out his hand.

It occurred to Thorpe not to see this hand. "How are you!" he repeated in a more mechanical voice, and withdrew his smile. Lord Plowden fidgeted on his feet for a brief, embarra.s.sed interval before the desk, and then dropped into a chair at its side. With a deliberate effort at nonchalance, he crossed his legs, and caressed the ankle on his knee with a careless hand. "Anything new?" he asked.

Thorpe lolled back in his arm-chair. "I'm going to be able to get away in a few days' time," he said, indifferently. "I expect to finally wind up the business on the Stock Exchange tomorrow."

"Ah--yes," commented Plowden, vacantly. He seemed to be searching after thoughts which had wandered astray. "Yes--of course."

"Yes--of course," Thorpe said after him, with a latent touch of significance.

The other looked up quickly, then glanced away again. "It's all going as you expected, is it?" he asked.

"Better than I expected," Thorpe told him, energetically. "Much better than anybody expected."

"Hah!" said Plowden. After a moment's reflection he went on hesitatingly: "I didn't know. I saw something in one of the papers this morning,--one of the money articles,--which spoke as if there were some doubt about the result. That's why I called."

"Well--it's d.a.m.ned good of you to come round, and show such a friendly interest." Thorpe's voice seemed candid enough, but there was an enigmatic something in his glance which aroused the other's distrust.

"I'm afraid you don't take very much stock in the 'friendly interest,'"

he said, with a constrained little laugh.

"I'm not taking stock in anything new just now," replied Thorpe, lending himself lazily to the other's metaphor. "I'm loaded up to the gunnels already."

A minute of rather oppressive silence ensued. Then Plowden ventured upon an opening. "All the same, it WAS with an idea of,--perhaps being of use to you,--that I came here," he affirmed. "In what way?" Thorpe put the query almost listlessly.

Lord Plowden turned his hands and let his dark eyes sparkle in a gesture of amiable uncertainty. "That depended upon what was needed. I got the impression that you were in trouble--the paper spoke as if there were no doubt of it--and I imagined that quite probably you would be glad to talk with me about it."

"Quite right," said Thorpe. "So I should."

This comprehensive a.s.surance seemed not, however, to facilitate conversation. The n.o.bleman looked at the pattern of the sock on the ankle he was nursing, and knitted his brows in perplexity. "What if the Committee of the Stock Exchange decide to interfere?" he asked at last.

"Oh, that would knock me sky-high," Thorpe admitted.

"Approximately, how much may one take 'sky-high' to mean?"

Thorpe appeared to calculate. "Almost anything up to a quarter of a million," he answered.

"Hah!" said Lord Plowden again. "Well--I understand--I'm given to understand--that very likely that is what the Committee will decide."

"Does it say that in the papers?" asked Thorpe. He essayed an effect of concern. "Where did you see that?"

"I didn't see it," the other explained. "It--it came to me."

"G.o.d!" said Thorpe. "That'll be awful! But are you really in earnest? Is that what you hear? And does it come at all straight?"

Lord Plowden nodded portentously. "Absolutely straight," he said, with gravity.

Thorpe, after a momentary stare of what looked like bewilderment, was seen to clutch at a straw. "But what was it you were saying?" he demanded, with eagerness. "You talked about help--a minute ago. Did you mean it? Have you got a plan? Is there something that you can do?"

Plowden weighed his words. "It would be necessary to have a very complete understanding," he remarked.

"Whatever you like," exclaimed the other.

"Pardon me--it would have to be a good deal more definite than that,"

Plowden declared. "A 'burnt child'--you know."

The big man tapped musingly with his finger-nails on the desk. "We won't quarrel about that," he said. "But what I'd like to know first,--you needn't give anything away that you don't want to,--but what's your plan? You say that they've got me in a hole, and that you can get me out." "In effect--yes."

"But how do you know that I can't get myself out? What do you know about the whole thing anyway? Supposing I tell you that I laugh at it--that there's no more ground for raising the suspicion of fraud than there is for--for suspecting that you've got wings and can fly."

"I--I don't think you'll tell me that," said Plowden, placidly.

"Well then, supposing I don't tell you that," the other resumed, argumentatively. "Supposing I say instead that it can't be proved. If the Committee doesn't have proof NOW,--within twenty-one or twenty-two hours,--they can't do anything at all. Tomorrow is settling day. All along, I've said I would wind up the thing tomorrow. The market-price has been made for me by the jobbers yesterday and today. I'm all ready to end the whole business tomorrow--close it all out. And after that's done, what do I care about the Stock Exchange Committee? They can investigate and be d.a.m.ned! What could they do to me?"

"I think a man can always be arrested and indicted, and sent to penal servitude," said Lord Plowden, with a certain solemnity of tone. "There are even well-known instances of extradition."

Thorpe buried his chin deep in his collar, and regarded his companion with a fixed gaze, in which the latter detected signs of trepidation.

"But about the Committee--and tomorrow," he said slowly. "What do you say about that? How can they act in that lightning fashion? And even if proofs could be got, how do you suppose they are to be got on the drop of the hat, at a minute's notice?"

"The case is of sufficient importance to warrant a special meeting tomorrow morning," the other rejoined. "One hour's notice, posted in the House, is sufficient, I believe. Any three members of the Committee can call such a meeting, and I understand that seven make a quorum. You will see that a meeting could be held at noon tomorrow, and within half an hour could make you a ruined man."

"I don't know--would you call it quite ruined?" commented Thorpe. "I should still have a few sovereigns to go on with."

"A criminal prosecution would be practically inevitable--after such a disclosure," Plowden reminded him, with augmented severity of tone.

"Don't mix the two things up," the other urged. There seemed to the listener to be supplication in the voice. "It's the action of the Committee that you said you could influence. That's what we were talking about. You say there will be a special meeting at noon tomorrow----

"I said there could be one," Plowden corrected him.

"All right. There CAN be one. And do you say that there can be proof,--proof against me of fraud,--produced at that meeting?"

"Yes--I say that," the n.o.bleman affirmed, quietly.

"And further still--do you say that it rests with you whether that proof shall be produced or not?"

Lord Plowden looked into the impa.s.sive, deep-eyed gaze which covered him, and looked away from it again. "I haven't put it in just that form," he said, hesitatingly. "But in essentials--yes, that may be taken as true."

"And what is your figure? How much do you want for holding this proof of yours back, and letting me finish scooping the money of your Hebrew friends Aronson and Rostocker?"

The peer raised his head, and shot a keenly enquiring glance at the other. "Are they my friends?" he asked, with challenging insolence.

"I'm bound to a.s.sume that you have been dealing with them, just as you are dealing with me." Thorpe explained his meaning dispa.s.sionately, as if the transaction were entirely commonplace. "You tell them that you're in a position to produce proof against me, and ask them what they'll give for it. Then naturally enough you come to me, and ask what I'll be willing to pay to have the proof suppressed. I quite understand that I must bid against these men--and of course I take it for granted that, since you know their figure, you've arranged in your mind what mine is to be. I quite understand, too, that I am to pay more than they have offered. That is on account of 'friendly interest.'"

"Since you allude to it," Lord Plowden observed, with a certain calm loftiness of tone, "there is no harm in saying that you WILL pay something on that old score. Once you thrust the promise of something like a hundred thousand pounds positively upon me. You insisted on my believing it, and I did so, like a fool. I came to you to redeem the promise, and you laughed in my face. Very well. It is my turn now. I hold the whip-hand, and I should be an a.s.s not to remember things. I shall want that entire one hundred thousand pounds from you, and fifty thousand added to it 'on account of the 'friendly interest,' as you so intelligently expressed it."

Thorpe's chin burrowed still deeper upon his breast. "It's an outrage,"