IT was shortly after nine o’clock in the morning that young Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood, in a most leisurely fashion, descended the front steps of his town house into the street. The young man was almost too perfectly dressed. Every article of his costume, from his shiny hat to the polished boots, was so exactly what it should he, that he ran some danger of being regarded as a model for one of those beautiful engravings of well-dressed mankind which decorate the shops of Bond-Street tailors. He was evidently one who did no useful work in the world, and as a practical person might remark, why should he, when his income was more than thirty thousand pounds a year? The slightly bored expression of his countenance, the languid droop of his eyelids, the easy but indifferent grace of motion that distinguished him, might have proclaimed to a keen observer that the young man had tested all things, and found there was nothing worth getting excited about. He was evidently a person without enthusiasm, for even the sweet perfection of his attire might be attributed to the thought and care of his tailor, rather than to any active meditation on his own part. Indeed, his indolence of attitude made the very words “active” or “energetic” seem superfluous in our language. His friends found it difficult, if not impossible, to interest Lord Stranleigh in anything, even in a horse race, or the fling of the dice, for he possessed so much more money than he needed, that gain or loss failed to excite a passing flutter of emotion. If he was equipped with brains, as some of his more intimate friends darkly hinted, he had hitherto given no evidence of the fact. Although well set up, he was not an athlete. He shot a little, hunted a little, came to town during the season, went to the Continent when the continental exodus took place, always doing the conventional thing, but not doing it well enough or bad enough to excite comment. He was the human embodiment of the sentiment: “There is nothing really worth while.”
In marked contrast to him stood, undecided, a man of his own age, with one foot on the lower stone step which led up to the front door of his lordship’s town house. His clothes, of undistinguished cut, were worn so carelessly that they almost gave the impression of being ready-made. His flung-on, black slouch hat suggested Western America or Southern Africa. His boots were coarse and clumsy.
But if the attire was uninspiring, the face merited, and usually received, a second glance. It was smooth-shaven, massive and strong, tanned to a slight mahogany tinge by a more eager sun than ever shines on England. The eyes were deep, penetrating, determined, masterful.
Lord Stranleigh’s delicate upper lip supported a silken mustache carefully tended; his eyes were languid and tired, capable of no such gleam of intensity as was now turned upon him from the eyes of the other.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but are you Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood?”
His lordship paused on the upper steps, and drawled the one word “Yes.”
“My name is Peter Mackeller, and the Honorable John Hazel gave me a letter of introduction to you, saying I should probably catch you in at this hour. It seems he underestimated your energy, for you are already abroad.”
There was an undercurrent of resentment in the impatient tone Mackeller had used. He was manifestly impressed unfavorably by this modern representative of a very ancient family, but the purpose he had in view caused him to curb his dislike, although he had not been tactful enough to prevent a hint of it appearing in his words. If the other had gathered any impression of that hint, he was too perfectly trained to betray his knowledge, either in phrase or expression of countenance. The opinion of his fellows was a matter of complete indifference to him. A rather engaging smile stirred the silken mustache.
“Oh, Jack always underestimates my good qualities, so we won’t trouble about his note of introduction. Besides, a man cannot read a letter in the street, can he?”
“I see no reason against it,” replied the other sharply.
“Don’t you really? Well, I am going across to my club, and perhaps as we walk along together, you will be good enough to say why you wish to see me.”
Lord Stranleigh was about to proceed down another step when the other answered “No” so brusquely that his lordship paused once more, with a scarcely perceptible elevation of the eyebrows, for, as a rule, people did not say “No” to Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood, who was known to enjoy thirty thousand pounds a year.
“Then what do you propose?” asked his lordship, as though his own suggestion had exhausted all the possibilities of action.
“I propose that you open the door, invite me in, and give me ten minutes of your valuable time.”
The smile on his lordship’s countenance visibly increased.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said, with the air of one listening to unexpected originality. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Mackeller?” and with his latchkey he opened the door, politely motioning the other to precede him.
Young Mackeller was ushered into a small room to the left of the hall. It was most severely plain, paneled somberly in old oak, lit by one window, and furnished with several heavy leather-covered chairs. In the center stood a small table, carrying a huge bottle of ink, like a great dab of black metal which had been flung while soft on its surface, and now, hardened, sat broad and squat as if it were part of the table itself. On a mat lay several pens, and at one end of the table stood a rack such as holds paper and envelopes, but in this case of most minute proportions, displaying three tiers, one above the other, of what appeared to be visiting cards; twelve minute compact packs all in all, four in each row.
“This,” said Lord Stranleigh, with almost an air of geniality, “is my business office.”
The visitor looked around him. There were no desks; no pillars of drawers; no japanned-metal boxes that held documents; no cupboards; no books; no pictures.
“Pray be seated, Mr. Mackeller,” and when the young man had accepted the invitation, Lord Stranleigh drew up opposite to him at the small table with the packets of cards close to his right hand.
“And now, if you will oblige me with Jack’s letter, I will glance over it, though he rarely writes anything worth reading.”
Mackeller handed him the letter in an open envelope. His lordship slowly withdrew the document, adjusted an eyeglass, and read it; then he returned it to the envelope, and passed it back to its owner.
“Would it be too much if I asked you to replace it in your pocket, as there is no waste-paper basket in this room?”
Mackeller acted as requested, but the frown on his broad brow deepened. This butterfly seemed to annoy him with his imperturbable manner, and his trifling, finicky, childish insincerity. Confronted with a real man, Mackeller felt he might succeed, but he had already begun to fear that this bit of mental thistle-down would evade him, so instead of going on with his recital, he sat there glowering at Lord Stranleigh, who proved even more of a nonentity than the Honorable John Hazel had led him to believe. He had been prepared to meet some measure of irresponsible inanity, but not quite so much as this. It was Lord Stranleigh himself who broke the silence.
“What do you want?” he asked, almost as if some of his opponent’s churlishness had hypnotically permeated into his own being.
“Money,” snapped the other shortly.
“Ah, they all do,” sighed his lordship, once more a picture of indolent nonchalance.
He selected from the rack beside him four cards, one from each of the little packs in the lower range. These he spread face upward on the table before him.
“I never trouble about money,” said his lordship, smiling.
“You probably don’t need to, with thirty thousand a year,” suggested Mackeller.
“Ah, that’s exaggerated,” explained his lordship. “You forget the beastly income tax. Still, I was not referring to the amount; I merely wished to explain my methods of dealing with it. Here are the names and addresses of four eminent solicitor persons in the city. There is little use of my keeping four dogs and barking myself, is there? I’ve really twelve dogs altogether, as represented in this cardcase, but one or other of these four will doubtless suit our purpose. Now, this firm of solicitors attends to one form of charity.”
“I don’t want charity,” growled Mackeller.
“Quite so. I am merely explaining. This firm attends to all the charities that are recognized in our set; the hospitals, the—well whatever they happen to be. When applied to personally in these matters, I write my name on the card of these solicitors, and forward it. Application is then made to them. They look into the matter, and save me the fatigue of investigation. The next firm”—holding up a second card—“deals with charities that are our of our purview; halfdays at the seaside, and that sort of thing. Now I come to business. This firm”—showing the third card—“looks after permanent investments, while this”—lifting the fourth—“takes charge of anything which is speculative in its nature. The applicant receives the particular card which pertains to his particular line of desire. He calls upon the estimable firm of solicitors, and either convinces them, or fails: gets his money, or doesn’t. So you see, my affairs are competently transacted, and I avoid the emotional strain of listening to explanations which probably I have not the mental grasp of business to understand. Now, which of these four cards may I have the pleasure of autographing for you?”
“Not one of them, my lord,” replied Mackeller. “The Honorable John Hazel said that if you would listen to me, he thought I might interest you.”
“Oh, impossible,” drawled his lordship, sitting back languidly in his chair.
“Yes, he said it would be a hard task, but I am accustomed to difficulties. I asked you, as we came in, to give me ten minutes. Will you do it?”
“Why,” protested his lordship, “we have already spent ten minutes at least.”
“Yes, fooling with cards.”
“Ah, I’m more accustomed to handling cards than listening to a financial conversation; not these kind of cards, either.”
“Will you, for the sake of John Hazel, who tells me he is a friend of yours, give me ten minutes more of your time?”
“What has Jack Hazel to do with this? Are you going to share with him? Is he setting you on to me for loot, and then do you retire into a dark corner, and divide? Jack Hazel’s always short of money.”
“No, we don’t divide, my lord. Mr. Hazel has been speculating in the city, and he stands to win a bit if I can pull off what I’m trying to do. So, if you agree to my proposal, he will prove a winner, so will I, so will you, for you will share in the profits.”
“Oh, but I don’t need the money.”
“Well, we do.”
“So I understand. Why doesn’t Jack confine himself to the comparative honesty of the dice? What does he want to muddle about in the city for?”
“I suppose because he hasn’t got thirty thousand a year.”
“Very likely; very likely. Yes, that strikes me as a sufficient explanation. All right, Mr. Mac-keller, take your ten minutes, and try to make your statement as simple as possible. I hope statistics do not come into it. I’ve no head for figures.”
“My father,” began the young man, with blunt directness, “is a stockbroker in the city. The firm is Mackeller and Son. I am the son.”
“You don’t look to me like a stockbroker. That is, what I’ve always expected such a person to be: I’ve never met one.”
“No, I’m in reality a mining engineer.”
“But, my dear sir, you have just said you were a stockbroker.”
“I said my father was.”
“You said Mackeller and Son, and that you were the son.”
“Yes, I am a partner in the firm, but, nevertheless, a mining engineer.”
“Do stockbrokers make mining engineers of their sons?”
“One of them did. My father is a rigidly honest man, and preferred me to be an engineer.” His lordship’s eyebrows again elevated themselves.
“An honest man and a stockbroker? Ah, you do interest me, in spite of my pessimism.”
“The great difficulty,” went on Mackeller, unheeding, “is to obtain an honest estimate of the real value of any distant mining property which is offered for sale in London. There has never been a mining swindle floated on the public which has not had engineer’s reports by men of high standing, showing it to possess a value which after events proved quite unreliable. So my father made me a mining engineer, and before he touches any property of this nature, or advises his clients to invest, he compels the promoters to send me out to the mine, and investigate.”
“I see,” said his lordship, with almost a glimmer of comprehension in his eyes. “Rather a shrewd old man, I take it. He protects himself and his customers, provides a good livelihood for you, his son, and that at the expense of the promoters. Excellent. Go on.”
For the first time young Peter Mackeller smiled. “Yes,” he said, “my father is very shrewd. He comes from the North, but for once he has got nipped, and the next few hours will decide whether the accumulations of a lifetime are swept away or not. Indeed,” he continued, glancing at his watch, “that will be decided within eight minutes, depending on whether I interest you or not.”
“Continue,” commanded his lordship.
“Early in the year a property called the Red Shallows, situated in West Africa, was brought to him by a syndicate of seven men, able, but somewhat unscrupulous financiers. Their story appeared incredible on its face, for it was no less than that the gold was on the surface, in estimated value a thousand times the amount for which they wished the company formed. They wished my father to underwrite the company for a hundred thousand pounds, and they stipulated that the shares should be sold, not by public subscription, but taken up privately among my father’s clients. Afterwards, when the value of the property was fully proved, there would be an immense flotation running into millions, and the profit of this my father was to share.”
“Pardon my interruption,” said his lordship.
“If what these men stated was true, why didn’t they send some one with a basket, and gather the gold they needed, without going to any stockbroker and sharing with him.”
“That, my lord, is practically what my father thought, although, of course, he did not believe a word of their story. Still, he understood that these men were not mine magnates in the proper sense of the word; they were merely financiers, speculators, who did not wish to wait for the full development of their property, but simply intended, so they said, to go as far as was necessary to convince the public that this was an even bigger thing than the wealthiest mine of the Rand, and so loot their gold, not from the bosom of the earth, but from the pockets of the British public; but, as I have said, he did not believe a word of their story. However, he made the usual proviso that they should send me out there, and the seven men instantly placed in his hands the necessary amount for my expenses, and I sailed away.”
“Why should sane financiers spend good money when they knew they would be found out if they were not telling the truth?”
“Well, my lord, that thought occurred to both my father and myself. I reasoned it out in this way. These seven men had acquired the goldfields from a party of explorers, or from a single explorer, who had discovered it. They probably paid very little money to the discoverer, perhaps not buying it outright, but merely securing an option. Whoever had parted with his rights had evidently succeeded in convincing the syndicate that he spoke the truth. Whether the syndicate hadn’t sufficient capital to develop the property, or preferred to risk other people’s cash in opening the mine, I do not know, but they evidently thought it worth while to spend some of their own money and send me out there, that they might receive an independent and presumably honest opinion on its value. Be that as it may, there was no exposure forthcoming. The property proved even richer than they had stated. It so seldom happens in the city that anything offered for sale greatly exceeds in value the price asked for it, that the members of the syndicate were themselves surprised when they read my report. It had been arranged, and the document signed before I left England, that my father should get for them not less than fifty thousand pounds nor more than a hundred thousand, for working capital to send out an expedition, buy machinery, and so forth. Now, however, the syndicate proposed that the company should be formed for something like a million pounds. My father pointed out to them the impossibility of getting this sum, for the property was in a locality not hitherto known as a gold-bearing region. Then again, my own standing as a mining engineer carried no particular weight. Although my father believed implicitly in my reports, I was so lacking in celebrity in my profession, it would be folly to attempt to raise any considerable sum on my unsupported word, and rather unsafe to make this discovery public by sending out more eminent engineers. Besides, as I have said, the papers were all signed and stamped, and my father, having a good deal of northern stubbornness in his nature, insisted on the project being carried out as originally projected, so the syndicate was compelled to postpone its onslaught upon the purse of the public.
“My father’s compensation was to be a large allotment of paid-up shares in the company, but in addition to this, so great was his faith in my report he himself subscribed, and paid for stock to an extent that rather narrowed his resources. However, his bank agreed, the manager knowing him well, to advance money on his Red Shallows as soon as they had received a quotation on the Stock Exchange.
“The flotation was carried out successfully, my father’s friends subscribing largely on his mere word that Red Shallows was a good thing. Only fifty thousand pounds’ worth of shares were sold, that being considered enough to purchase the machinery, and send out men in a chartered steamer, with materials for the erection of whatever buildings and appliances as were supposed to be necessary. The rest of the stock was held by the syndicate, with the exception of the amount allotted to my father as compensation for his work. I was to have been appointed engineer of the mine, and had gone to Southampton to charter a suitable steamer, when suddenly an attack was opened upon the new company. Several of the financial papers led this attack, saying that the public had been grossly misled; that there was no gold or other minerals within hundreds of miles of the spot, and that all who had invested in the venture would lose their money. Immediately after this the syndicate dumped its shares on the market, and their price went down with a run.”
“Wait a moment,” interrupted his lordship. “I think I have given you more than the promised ten minutes, but I believe I have been able to follow you up to the present point. Now, I should like to ask a question or two. Didn’t the seven men know that throwing their shares on the market would lower the price?”
“Oh, they knew it perfectly well.”
“Then why should they wish to disparage their own property?”
“To freeze out my father and his friends.”
“How could they do that if your father and his friends refused to sell?”
“As a matter of fact many of my father’s friends have sold. They became frightened, and preferred to lose part rather than the whole. You see, my father had placed every security he possessed into the bank, but with the persistent pounding down of the stock it’s going lower and lower every day; in fact, it is unsalable at the present moment. The bank has called upon him to put in further securities, or cash, otherwise it will sell all his possessions for what they will bring.”
“But in ruining your father, does not this syndicate ruin itself?”
“No. The financiers have held their annual meeting, appointed a president, board of directors, and all that, and this board is securely in office for a year. As soon as my father and his friends are wiped out the syndicate will quietly buy back the stock at a much lower price than that at which they sold it, and even in crushing my father they will have made a pot of money for themselves.”
“Killing two birds with one stone, eh? Isn’t there such a thing as gratitude in the City at all?”
“I fear, my lord, there isn’t very much of it.”
“What amount of money do you need to protect your father’s stock?”
“I think five thousand pounds would do.”
“I don’t pretend to know much about business, Mr. Mackeller, but it seems to me that would merely be the thin end of the wedge. Suppose they keep on, and lower the price of stock still further? Should not I need to put a second five thousand pounds into your hands to protect the first?”
“That is true, Lord Stranleigh, but I don’t see how the shares can go much lower than they are. They closed yesterday at two and nine per one-pound share. But in any case the bank will stand by my father if it can. The manager believes in him, although this official, of course, must look after his own employers, but the very fact that my father can put in five thousand pounds this morning will do much to maintain his credit with the manager, and within a very few days we will have time to turn round. I have already seen one or two financiers, and told them what the property is, but they are city-wise, and shake their heads at what they regard as an attempt to unload upon them. So I went to Mr. Hazel, and asked him for an introduction to some one who was rich, and who knew nothing of the ways of the city.”
For the first time during the interview, his lordship leaned back and laughed a little.
“You are playing on my ignorance, then?”
“No, I thought perhaps I could get you to believe me.”
His lordship did not say whether he believed him or not, but he pressed a button underneath the desk, and there entered to him a solemn-faced man, who stood like a statue, awaiting orders.
“Perkins, will you bring me four check books?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And, Perkins, tell Henri to be at the door with my red automobile within six minutes.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The man departed, and returned a few moments later, placing on the desk four very thin check books, finally retiring as noiselessly as he had entered.
“An ordinary check book,” said his lordship to Mackeller, “does so distort one’s coat when placed in an inside pocket, that I cause my books to be made with only one check each inside. I shall now write you out one for five thousand pounds, so that I shall not need to carry its cover with me.”
With great leisureliness the young man wrote out a check, tore it from its attachment, and handed it to Mackeller.
“I lend this to you, but I don’t think it will be of the slightest use, you know.”
“I am quite positive it will protect my father’s stock, my lord, and as I am sure that stock will be worth a hundred sovereigns on the pound, if you will accept half my father’s holding for this check, I can promise you this will be the biggest day’s work you’ve ever done.”
“Ah, that wouldn’t be saying very much. Of course, as I told you, I don’t pretend to understand business, but where the weak point in your defense lies seems to be in this. Your seven wise men have a year to play about in. I think you said the president and board of directors had been elected only the other day?”
“Yes, my lord, that is so.”
“Very well, don’t you see they have nearly twelve months during which they can still further press down your stock. The bank will tire of holding what they consider worthless securities, and unless your father can get enough money to redeem all that he has placed in the bank, this five thousand will not even prove a stop-gap.”
“I don’t agree with your lordship. You see, I shall now keep hammering away on my side. I shall print my report, and post it to every big financier in the city. I shall tell the whole sordid story of this syndicate’s action.”
“People won’t believe you, Mackeller.”
“A great many will not, but several may, and these will say ‘The stock is so cheap, we might as well take a flutter on a quantity of it.’ Then the members of the syndicate are shrewd enough to know that they will excite curiosity, and that some other engineer may be sent out to the property. No, I am convinced that if they do not manage to ruin my father before the end of next week, they will never risk what they now know to be a valuable property by letting its shares lie round loose for anyone to pick up.”
“Ah, you are optimistic, I see. That’s because you have been out in the open so much, instead of haunting your father’s office.”
At this moment the arrival of the automobile was announced, and his lordship rose slowly to his feet.
“I’m going to give you a lift as far as your father’s office, and I want you to introduce him to me. I have been looking at this question merely from the mining engineer’s standpoint. I should like to know what the city point of view is, and that I shall get from your father, if he is the honest man you say he is. So we will run down into the city together. I suppose the sooner my check is in your bank the better.”
“Yes, the bank opens at ten, and it is past that hour now.”
“We have taken a little more than our ten minutes,” said his lordship, beaming on his guest with that inane smile of his, as they stepped together into the tonneau of a very large red automobile, which was soon humming eastward.
Into the private room of the stockbroker, Mac-keller ushered Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood, and there they found at his desk a rugged-faced, white-haired, haggard-looking man, who glanced up at them with lowering brows.
“I’ve got five thousand pounds,” said the son at once.
“Then run with it to the bank.”
“I will, as soon as I have introduced to you Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood. Your lordship will excuse me, I am sure.”
“Oh, yes. I stipulated for your absence, you remember, because I do not in the least rely upon your plan,” but the young man had departed before his lordship’s sentence was finished.
The elder Mackeller looked intently at the newcomer. Being offered a chair, his lordship sat down.
“Is it from you that my son got the money?”
“Yes.”
“If you did not believe in his plan, why did you give him the cash?”
“Well, Mr. Mackeller, that is just the question I have been asking myself. I suppose I rather took to him, and in spite of my determination not to, I became interested in the story he told me. I think your seven syndicate men must be rather exceptional, are they not?”
“No. I am exceptional in allowing myself to be caught like a schoolboy.”
“I am quite unversed in the ways of the city, Mr. Mackeller, and I should like to know the modus operandi of a case like this. Are your seven men personally selling their stock?”
“How do you mean personally? They don’t go on the market and trade, of course.”
“Then they must employ some one else?”
“Oh, they are employing a score of brokers, all offering the shares with no takers.”
“Do you know these brokers, Mr. Mackeller?”
“Every man jack of them.”
“Are they enemies of yours?”
“There is neither enmity nor friendship in the city, Lord Stranleigh.”
“Your most intimate acquaintance, then, would smash you up all in the way of business?”
“Of course.”
“What a den of wild beasts you are!”
“Yes, I have long thought so, and, indeed, with this transaction I had intended to withdraw from the business and settle on my farm. You see, I did not bring up my son—he’s the only boy I have—to this business, but unluckily I got nipped just at the moment I intended to stop, as is so often the case. I expected that my holding in this mine would leave me not only well off, but rich, for I have the utmost confidence in my son’s report, and my certainty of a fortune caused me to relax my natural caution at exactly the moment when I should have been most wide awake.”
“Do you think the five thousand pounds will clear you?”
“I don’t know. There’s been a panic among those whom I induced to go in with me on this deal, but if I say it myself, my reputation is good, and I think if I can hold on for a week or two longer, the tide will turn. All my life I have endeavored to conduct this business strictly on a truth-telling plan, and that is bound to tell in my favor the moment the panic ceases.”
“Do you mean, then, Mr. Mackeller, that the hammering of this mine has caused a financial panic in the city?”
“Oh, no, no! When I refer to a panic, I mean only among those few that have gone in with me; that believed me when I told them this was one of the best things I ever had offered to me. The Red Shallows flotation is too small an affair to cause even a flutter in the city, yet it threatens to grind me to pieces.”
“There are, you say, twenty stockbrokers selling these shares, and you know their names. Where do they offer the shares?”
“On the Stock Exchange, in their offices, in the street, anywhere.”
“Is there another twenty stockbrokers whom you could trust?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose at twelve o’clock to-day, exactly to the minute, your twenty went to the offices of the other twenty, would they find in those offices some one to sell them this stock?”
“Yes.”
“Even if the principal were absent?”
“Yes.”
“Before selling, would the syndicate score of stockbrokers communicate with each other, or with their principals?”
“I don’t know. It would depend on their instructions.”
“Suppose they refused to sell when a bona fide offer was made?”
“Then the stock would instantly rise, and your five thousand pounds would not be needed. I see what you mean, Lord Stranleigh. You are going to make what they call a bluff. But, you see, they’d instantly unload the stock on you. They wouldn’t refuse to sell.”
“Ah, I was afraid they would. Very well, Mr. Mackeller, take this commission from me, the first I have ever given in the city. I am more accustomed to gambling in my club, or at Monte Carlo, so I must depend on you to look after the details. Quietly but quickly select your twenty men; give them carte blanche, but make it a sure proviso that they each attack the stockbroker you direct them to, at exactly the same moment. Let there be no intercommunication if possible, and tell your twenty to buy everything in sight so far as the Red Shallows are concerned.”
“But, my lord, that may take a fortune, and the sellers will insist on immediate payment.”
“They will get it, Mr. Mackeller. I am naturally a plunger, and this game fascinates me, because I don’t understand it.”
“I think you understand it a great deal better than you pretend, my lord, but this may require half a million of money.”
“Very well. Get whatever papers ready that are necessary to protect you. I’ll place the money at your disposal, and we ought to have all the stock that’s for sale by ten minutes after twelve. Your son and I have been doing business on a ten-minutes’ basis, but in this case we’ll allow half an hour, and see what happens.”
The elder Mackeller looked sternly at this dapper young man of the bandbox, so beautiful, so neat, so debonair, so well-groomed, and the young man became so uncomfortable under the fierce scrutiny of those hawklike eyes, that his own drooped modestly like those of a girl, and with the thin, elegant glove which he held loosely in his right hand Stranleigh flicked an invisible particle of dust from his trouser leg.
One need not be deeply versed in human nature to understand the temptation which now assailed the gray-haired stockbroker. It was as if a fawn-colored dove had made an appeal to a bald eagle that had swooped down from its eyrie in the crags where its young lay starving. It was as if a bleating lamb, all alone, were making courteous suggestions to a hungry wolf. Here was reproduced the situation of which city men dream when they enjoy a good night. Here, into the den of a stockbroker had innocently walked a West-end clubman, a titled person, almost shamefully rich, concealing beneath the culture of the colleges an arrogance and an ignorance equally colossal. Here was a fowl to be plucked, and its feathers were not only abundant but of the most costly eiderdown nature, and here the astute Mackeller had the victim entirely to himself, with none to protect or interfere. The aged stockbroker, wise in the ways of the city, and yet but now entrapped by them, drew a long breath and heaved a deep sigh ere he spoke.
“Lord Stranleigh,” he said at last, with severity, “it is my duty to warn you that you are putting your foot into a quagmire which may be so bottomless that it will overwhelm you. No man can say what this syndicate has up its sleeve, and once you involve yourself, you may be drawn in and stripped of all your possessions, great as I am told they are. You have given a check for five thousand pounds to my boy, and you say it is because you believed in him. That expression touches my flinty heart. I believe in him, and this belief is about everything of value I retain in the world to-day. Now, if you wish to protect that five thousand, do it by giving him another five, or another. My boy is all I’ve got left. I’m fighting for him more than for myself. Now here are you, about his own age, yet completely inexperienced in financial trickery, so I cannot allow you to walk blindly into this financial turmoil.”
The young man looked up at the speaker, and his smile was singularly winning. The usual vacant expression of his countenance had given place to pleasurable animation.
“But you are experienced, Mr. Mackeller?”
“Yes, and see where my experience has landed me. I’m up to the neck, yes, to the very lips, in this foul quagmire; a bankrupt at a word from my banker.”
“Are you a college man, Mr. Mackeller?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you have little faith in a college training?”
“I have none at all for a practical man. It is the worst training in the world for a person who is to be engaged in business.”
“In that case, Mr. Mackeller, I hesitate to cite a historical instance which occurred to my mind when your son was talking to me of your syndicate of seven. As the incident is six hundred years old, it is unlikely to impress a modern city man. Nevertheless, there was once upon this earth a syndicate of seven much more powerful and important than your johnnies. The chief of this syndicate was Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, and the other six were his powerful, pious officers. They were arrogant people, and their wealth was enormous. Kings and noblemen had deposited their treasures with the Templars, the bankers of that time, and the Order was so rich it had become a menace to the world. Why, your seven nonentities, with which you try to frighten me, are mere helpless puppets compared with those seven giants of finance, and besides money this notable seven had an armed force of veterans at their back before whom even a king with his army might tremble. But Philippe le Bel, King of France, did not tremble. He worked in on the seven the twelve-o’clock rule that I am recommending to you. At high noon, on the 13th October, 1307 (please note the fatal conjunction of the two thirteens) every Templar in France was arrested. He gave them no chance of communicating with each other. The army of the Templars lay helpless and officerless. The wealth of the Templars was at the mercy of the king. The syndicated seven were burned at the stake in Paris.
“I imagine that your son thought my attention wandered two or three times during his narrative. I saw him set his jaw as one who says ‘I will interest this man in spite of his brainlessness.’ But I was thinking of the magnificent simultaneousness of the king’s action, and I have no doubt the Mackeller of his day warned him of his danger in meddling with the Templars. An unholy desire filled me to try this six-century-old method, the king’s move, as we would say at chess, on our modern and alert city. I have some loose cash in the bank, and don’t need to sell any securities. For the last ten years my income has been thirty thousand pounds annually, and very seldom have I spent more than five thousand of that sum in one twelvemonth. My automobile is at your door, and at your disposal. You and I will drive first to my bankers, and arrange that there will be no hitch so far as cash is concerned; then I shall take a cab to my club. Telephone number, 15760 Mayfair. Just note that down, please. Now what are the shares of Red Shallows selling for this morning?”
“They opened at two shillings and sevenpence on the pound share, but have dropped several points since.”
“Ah, well, a few hundred thousand pounds will buy quite a quantity of half-crown shares, and if we act simultaneously, as the king struck, we will acquire everything in sight before the stuff has time to rise. Come along, Mr. Mackeller, there’s not a moment to lose. If you organize this sortie in silence and effectively, you will show the savage seven there’s life in the old dog yet.”
At ten minutes after one that day a large red automobile drew up in front of the Camperdown Club on Pall Mall, and Mackeller with his son stepped out of it. Lord Stranleigh met them in the hall apparently cool and unexcited, but he was coming away from the tape machine, which was recording that Red Shallows were leaping up toward par. Lord Stranleigh led his visitors in to the Strangers’ Room, which was empty, and closed the door.
“Well, my lord,” said Mackeller, “those fools have sold some fifty thousand shares more of stock than there is in existence.”
“It seems to me,” drawled his lordship, “although I know nothing of city ways, that such overselling is injudicious.”
“Injudicious!” shouted young Mackeller, “why, you’ve got them like that,” and he raised his huge fist into the air and clenched it with a force resembling hydraulic pressure. “You can smash them. They can’t deliver. They’ve not only lost the mine, but you can ruin them by placing any price you please on the shares they’ve sold and cannot produce.”
“That’s true,” corroborated old Mackeller, nodding his head, “and the bank didn’t use your five-thousand-pound check after all.”
“Here it is,” said the young man, producing it.
“Ah, well,” said Lord Stranleigh, slipping the paper into his waistcoat pocket. “Let us be thankful you two are just in time to join me at an excellent meal. I’ve been expecting you, and I’ve ordered a French lunch in honor of the late Philippe le Bel. He burned his syndicate of seven at the stake, but we’ll merely burn our syndicate’s fingers.”