The Profiteers Part 36

The third man stepped back to the door and, from the hands of another servant who was waiting there, took an ordinary cottage loaf of bread.

The three men now were seated around the table, bound to their chairs and gagged. In the middle of the table, just beyond their reach, Wingate, leaning over them, placed the loaf of bread.

"I am now," he announced, standing a little back, "going to tell Grant to release your gags. You will probably all try shouting. I can a.s.sure you that it is quite hopeless. This room looks out, as you know, upon a courtyard. The street is on the other side of the house. Every person under this roof is in my employ. There is no earthly chance of your being heard by any one. Still, if it pleases you to shout, shout!--Now, Grant!"

The man unfastened the gags,--first Phipps', then Rees', and finally Dredlinton's. Curiously enough, not one of the three men raised their voices. Wingate's words seemed to have impressed them. Phipps drew one or two deep breaths, Stanley Rees rubbed his mouth on his sleeve.

Dredlinton was the only one who broke into anything approaching violent speech.

"My G.o.d, Wingate," he exclaimed, "if you think I'll ever forget this, you're mistaken! I'll see you in prison for it, whatever it costs me!"

"The after-consequences of this little melodrama," Phipps interposed, with grim fury, "certainly present something of a problem, I have wondered, during the last hour or so, whether you can be perfectly sane, Wingate. What good can you expect to do by this brigandage?"

"The very word 'brigandage'," Wingate observed, with a smile, "suggests my answer--ransom."

"But you can't want money?" Phipps protested.

"You know what I want," was the stern rejoinder. "You and I have already discussed it when you came to see me about that young man."

Phipps laughed uneasily.

"I remember some preposterous suggestion about selling wheat," he admitted. "If you think, however, that you can alter our entire business principles by a piece of foolery like this, you are making the mistake of your life."

"We are wasting time," Wingate declared a little shortly. "It is better that we have a complete understanding. Get this into your head," he went on, drawing a long, ugly-looking pistol from his trousers pocket, and displaying it. "This is the finest automatic pistol in the world, and I am one of the best marksmen in the American Army. I shall leave you, for the present, ungagged, but if rescue comes to you by any efforts of your own, I give you my word of honour as an American gentleman that I shall shoot the three of you and be proud of my night's work."

"And swing for it afterwards," Dredlinton threatened. "The man's mad!"

"The man is in earnest," Phipps growled. "That much, at least, I think we can grant him. What is the meaning of that piece of mummery, Wingate?" he added, pointing to the loaf of bread. "What are your terms? You must state them, sooner or later. Let us have them now."

"Agreed," Wingate replied. "The costs of that loaf is, I believe, to be exact, one and tenpence ha'penny--one and tenpence ha'penny to poor people whose staple food it is. When you sign an authority to sell wheat in sufficient bulk to bring the cost down to sixpence, you can have the loaf and go as soon as the sale is finished. You will find here," he went on, laying a doc.u.ment upon the table, "a calculation which may help you.

Your approximate holdings of wheat may be exaggerated a trifle, although these lists came from some one in your own office, but I think you will find that the figures there will be of a.s.sistance to you when you decide to give the word."

"Let me get this clearly into my head," Phipps begged, after a moment's amazed silence, "without the possibility of any mistake. You mean that we are to sell wheat at about sixty per cent, less than the present market value--in many cases sixty per cent. less than we gave for it?"

"That, I imagine, will be about the position," Wingate admitted.

"The man is a fool!" Rees snarled. "It would mean ruin."

Wingate remained impa.s.sive.

"The British and Imperial Granaries, Limited," he said, "has been responsible for the ruin of a good many people. It is time now that the pendulum swung the other way.--Come, make up your minds."

"What if we refuse?" Dredlinton asked.

"You will be made a little more secure," Wingate explained, "your gags fastened, and your arms corded to the backs of the chairs."

"But for how long?"

"Until you give the word."

"And supposing we never give the word?" Stanley Rees demanded.

"Then you sit there," Wingate replied, "until you die."

Dredlinton glanced covertly across at Phipps, and, finding no inspiration there, turned to Wingate. The light of an evil imagining shone in his eyes.

"This is a matter which we ought to discuss in private conference," he said slowly. "What do you think, Phipps?"

"I agree--"

"I am afraid," Wingate interrupted suavely, "that Mr. Phipps' views will not affect the situation. You three gentlemen are my treasured and honoured guests. I shall not desert you--as a matter of fact, I shall scarcely leave you, except upon your own business--until your decision is made."

"Guests be d.a.m.ned!" Dredlinton exclaimed. "It's my house--not yours!"

"Mine for a short time by appropriation," Wingate answered, with a faint smile.

"Supposing," Rees suggested, "we were induced to knuckle under, to become the victims of your d.a.m.ned blackmailing scheme, surely then one of us would be allowed to go down to the City on parole, eh?"

Wingate shook his head.

"I regret to say that I should not feel justified in letting one of you out of my sight. In the event of your seeing reason, the telephone will be at your disposal, and a verbal message by its means could be confirmed by all three of you. I imagine that your office would sell on such instructions."

Phipps, who had been sitting during the last few minutes in a state almost of torpor, began to show signs of his old vigorous self. He shook his head firmly.

"This is a matter which need not be discussed," he declared. "You have taken our breath away, Wingate. Your amazing a.s.surance has made it difficult for us to answer you coherently. I am only now beginning to realise that you are in earnest in this idiotic piece of melodrama, but if you are--so are we.--You can starve us or shoot us or suffocate us, but we shall not sell wheat.--By G.o.d, we shan't!"

The man seemed for a moment to swell,--his eyes to flash fire. Wingate shrugged his shoulders.

"I accept your defiance," he announced. "Let us commence our tryst."

Dredlinton struck the table with his fist, Phipps' brave words seemed to have struck an alien note of fear in his fellow prisoner.

"I will not submit!" he exclaimed. "My health will not stand it!--Phipps!--Rees!"

There was meaning in his eyes as well as in his tone, a meaning which Phipps put brutally into words.

"It's no good, Dredlinton," he warned him. "We are going to stick it out, and you've got to stick it out with us. But," he added, glaring at Wingate, "remember this. Only half an hour before I was taken, Scotland Yard rang up to tell me that they thought they had a clue as to Stanley's disappearance. You risk five years' penal servitude by this freak."

"I am content," was the cool reply.

"But I am not!" Dredlinton shouted, straining at his cords. "I resign!

I resign from the Board! Do you hear that, Wingate? I chuck it! Set me free!"

"The proper moment for your resignation from the Board of the British and Imperial Granaries," Wingate told him sternly, "was a matter of six months ago. You are a little too late, Dredlinton. Better make up your mind to stick it out with your friends."

Dredlinton groaned. There was all the malice of hatred in his eyes, a note of despair in his exclamation.

"They are strong men, those two," he muttered. "They can stand more than I can. I demand my freedom."

Wingate threw himself into an easy-chair.