The Pauper of Park Lane Part 13

But there was none. His past had that day risen against him, and he was self-condemned.

His chin sank again upon his chest, and his deep-set eyes were fixed upon the soft, dark-green carpet. The marble clock chimed the hour of four, and recalled him to a sense of his surroundings.

He stretched himself, sighing deeply. He was wondering, when that shabby watcher, who held his life in his dirty talons, would return.

Thoughts of the past, tragic and bitter, arose within him, and a muttered imprecation escaped his thin, white lips. He was faced with a problem that even the expenditure of his millions could not solve. He could purchase anything on earth, but he could not buy a few more years of his own life.

He envied the man who was poor and struggling, the man with a cheerful wife and loving children, the man who worked and earned and had no far-reaching interests. The wage-earner was to him the ideal life of a man, for he obtained an income without the enormous responsibility consequent upon being a "princ.i.p.al." His vast wealth was but a millstone about his neck.

That little leather book, with its bra.s.s lock, wherein was recorded his financial position in a nutsh.e.l.l, was lying upon the table. When he had consulted it he had been appalled. He was worth far more than he had ever imagined. And yet, by an irony of fate, the acc.u.mulation of that wealth was now to cost him his life!

The long bar of sunlight had been moving slowly across the carpet, all the afternoon. Old Sam Statham has risen and crossed again to his writing-table, searching among some papers in a drawer, and finding a silver cigarette case, much tarnished by long neglect. This he opened, and within was displayed one tiny object. It was not a cigarette, but a tiny gla.s.s tube with a gla.s.s stopper, containing a number of very small white pilules.

He was gazing thoughtfully upon these, without removing the tube from its hiding-place, when, of a sudden, the door opened, and Levi, his pale face flushed with excitement and half breathless, entered, exclaiming in a low whisper:

"Rolfe is here! Shall I show him in?"

"Rolfe!" gasped the millionaire in a voice of amazement. "Are you serious, Levi?"

"Serious? Of course. He has just called and asked if you can see him."

"Show him in instantly," was Statham's answer, as hope became at that instant renewed. "We may find a way out of this difficulty yet--with his aid."

"We may," echoed Levi, closing the door for a moment behind him, so that the young man might not overhear his words. "We may; but recollect that he is a man in love."

"Well?"

"And he loves that girl Maud Petrovitch. Don't you understand--eh?"

asked Levi, with an evil flash in his eyes.

"Ah! I see," replied his master, biting his under lip. "I follow you, Levi. It is good that you warned me. Leave the girl to me. Show him in."

"You know what I told you a few days ago--of his friendship with Petrovitch," the old servant went on. "Recollect that what I said was the truth, and act upon the confidential information I gave you. In this matter you've a difficult task before you, but don't be chicken-hearted and generous, as you are so very often. You're in a tight corner, and you must get out of it somehow, by hook or by crook."

"Trust me to look after myself," responded the millionaire, with a sudden smile upon his pale, haggard face, for he saw that with his secretary in London he might after all escape, and he had already closed the tarnished cigarette case that contained those pilules by which he had been contemplating ending his stormy existence. "Tell him to come in."

"But I beg of you to be firm. You're not a fool," urged Levi, bending earnestly towards him. "What is a woman's honour as compared with your future? You must sacrifice her--or yourself. There are many women in the world, recollect--but there is only one Samuel Statham!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

SAMUEL STATHAM MAKES CONFESSION.

When Rolfe entered old Sam's presence he saw that something was amiss.

Was it possible that his employer knew his secret--the secret of his visit to Cromwell Road on the previous night? Perhaps he did. The suggestion crossed his mind, and he stood breathless for a few seconds.

"I thought you had left for Servia, Rolfe," exclaimed the old man in his thin, weak voice. He had seated himself at the writing-table prior to his secretary's appearance, and had tried to a.s.sume a businesslike air.

But his face was unusually drawn and haggard.

"I missed the train last night," was the young man's reply. "It is useless to leave till to-night, as I can then catch the Orient Express from Paris to-morrow morning. Therefore I thought I'd call to see if you have any further instructions."

The old man grunted. His keen eyes were fixed upon the other's face.

The explanation was an unsatisfactory one.

Samuel Statham, as became a great financier, had a wonderful knack of knowing all that pa.s.sed. He had his spies and secret agents in every capital, and was always well informed of every financial move in progress. To him, early information often meant profits of many thousands, and that information was indeed paid for generously.

In London, too, his spies were ever at work. Queer, mysterious persons of both s.e.xes often called there in Park Lane, and were admitted to private audience of the king of the financial world. Rolfe knew them to be his secret agents, and, further, that his employer's knowledge of his own movements was often wider than he had ever dreamed.

No man in the whole City of London was more shrewd or more cunning than old Sam Statham. It was to the interest of Statham Brothers to be so.

Indeed, he had once remarked to his secretary that no secret, however carefully kept, was safe from his agents, and that he could discover without difficulty anything he wanted to know.

Had he discovered the truth regarding the strange disappearance of the Doctor and his daughter?

"Why did you lose the train last night, Rolfe?" asked the great financier. "You did not go to Charing Cross," he added.

Rolfe held his breath again. Yes, as he had feared, his departure had been watched for.

"I--well, it was too late, and so I didn't attempt to catch the train."

"Why too late?" asked Statham, reprovingly. "In a matter of business-- and especially of the magnitude of yours at this moment--one should never be behindhand. Your arrival in Belgrade twenty-four hours late may mean a loss of about twenty thousand to the firm."

"I hope not, sir," Rolfe exclaimed, quickly. "I trust that the business will go through all right. I--I did my best to catch the train!"

"Your best! Why, you had half a day in which to pack and get to Charing Cross!"

"I quite admit that, but I was prevented."

"By what?" asked Statham, fixing his eyes upon the young man before him.

"By a matter of private business."

"Yes--a woman! You may as well admit it, Rolfe, for I know all about it. You can't deceive me, you know."

The other's face went ghastly white, much to Statham's surprise. The latter saw that he had unconsciously touched a point which had filled his secretary with either shame or fear, and made a mental note of it.

"I don't deny it, sir," he faltered, much confused. He had no idea that his employer had any knowledge of Maud.

"Well--you're an idiot," he said, very plainly. "You'll never get on in the world if you're tied to a woman's shoe strings, depend upon it.

Girls are the ruin of young men like you. When a man is free, he's his own master, but as soon as he becomes the slave of a pretty face then he's a lost soul both to himself and to those who employ him. Take the advice of an old man, Rolfe," he added, not unkindly. "Cast off the trammels, and be free to go hither and thither. When I was your age, I believed in what men call love. Bah! Live as long as I have, and watch human nature as I have watched it, and you'll come to the same conclusion as I have arrived at."

"And what is that?" asked Rolfe, for such conversation was altogether unusual.

"That woman is man's ruin always--that the more beautiful the woman the more complete the ruin," he answered, in the hard, unsympathetic way which he sometimes did when he wished to emphasise a point.

Charlie Rolfe was silent. He was familiar with old Sam's eccentricities, one of which was that he must never be contradicted.

His amazing prosperity had induced an overbearing egotism. It was better to make no reply.

At heart the old man was beside himself with delight that his secretary had not left London, but it was his policy never to betray pleasure at anything. He seldom bestowed a single word of praise upon anyone. He was silent when satisfied, and bitterly sarcastic when not pleased.