CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPANY FINDS AN INVESTMENT
We drove to my rooms in the Temple, where we found Bottiger awaiting us. He told us that he had cashed the check without any difficulty, and we gave him the news of the resurrection of Albert Amsted Pudleigh. Our natural depression at the unforeseen thickness of the financial skull, which had balked our well-planned efforts to remove him, was deep indeed. It was but little relieved by the comfortable size of the subscription the effort had brought in, or by the thought that his return had relieved us utterly of all uneasiness about the doings of the police. We were sure that Pudleigh would do his best to hush up a business which might reveal to the East Surbiton widow how he came to lie by the Oval at midnight.
Bottiger handed over to me notes and gold to the amount. of £4,115 8s. 6d. for the Children's Hospital. They warmed my heart. Two thousand pounds would have been good, but £4,000 seemed too good to be true. I burned to get off to Jamaica Place with them, but it was too late to go that night. We dressed and dined at the Savoy, since Chelubai insisted on celebrating the receipt of the Company's first check in a befitting fashion.
I was in the highest spirits; my head was teeming with the details of the enlargement of the Children's Hospital. Angel and Bottiger had been cheered and brightened by the visit to the country, but Chelubai seemed depressed.
I asked him what ailed him, and he said heavily, "It's the thickness of that rascal Pudleigh's head."
"Never mind," I said, "you gave him a bad time, I'm sure. He didn't enjoy his stay in the hospital, and he was prevented stealing £8,000."
"I do like thorough conscientionsness in work," said Chelubai monrnfnlly. "And it isn't only that, but we have failed to benefit Humanity. He is still alive to pursue his nefarious career."
"But you've benefited Humanity to the tune of over four thousand pounds! You've no idea what a help this will be in Stepney, none whatever," I said vehemently.
"I only look on that as a by-product of our real work. Our true mission is to benefit Humanity by removing its enemies," said Chelubai, uncomforted. "We ought to have put him out of harm's way."
"It is a pity that horrible man's alive to go on swindling people," said Angel sadly.
"There's no excuse for me. I ought to have made a better job of him," said Chelubai.
"Couldn't you have another try at him?" said Angel brightly.
Chelubai shook his head and said: "I'm afraid not. There'll be no getting within a hundred yards of him for the next three years. He'll jump ten yards whenever he sees his own shadow."
"Anyhow, it's a blessing that we haven't got to worry any more about what the police are up to," said Bottiger cheerfully.
"That's a very personal way of looking at it—there's an element of selfishness in it," said Chelubai.
"Well, my head does feel tighter on my shoulders," said Bottiger stubbornly.
"You mustn't be discouraged by a partial failure at the beginning; wait till we get our hands in," said I in a cheering tone.
"Oh, I'm not discouraged. I'm like Bruce and the spider: a check like this only makes me more strenuous," said Chelubai. "I'm for our going into it more earnestly than ever."
"Yes, that's my feeling. And I think we ought to set about making a list of all the heirs we know at once."
"Why of the heirs?" said Angel.
"Because always behind an heir you find an enemy of Humanity—an objectionable person with money," said I.
"I'm beginning to dislike this idea of yours of always having our removable subscribed for," said Chelubai. " It doesn't leave space enough for the ideal."
"As a good Socialist, I'm bound to be practical—even in philanthropy," I said firmly. "The idea of killing two birds with one stone, of knocking an enemy of Humanity on the head and subsidizing my hospital with the same sand-bag, appeals to me very strongly. Besides, what else did we form the company for but to run our enterprise on those lines?"
"Yes, there is that," said Chelubai. "But I do long for one pure, romantic removal—something high-souled. However, I mustn't fix romance with philanthropy—real, business-like philanthropy—it never works. I expect that this failure with Amsted A. Pudleigh's thick skull has shaken me."
"Well, we'll make out that list of heirs," said I; and I made haste to get the talk away from our work, to divert his attention from his failure. After a while I succeeded, and he grew quite cheerful telling Angel stories about the life of Shanghai.
The next morning's post brought me in three checks; the passing monetary cloud had lifted. At the end of breakfast, I said to Angel: "My money has come in, and now there is no longer any reason for you remaining in this compromising position. We must find some rooms for you."
Then I sighed.
Angel looked at me quickly, and then her eyes fell. "I expect you have found me awfully in the way," she said.
"Nothing of the kind!" I said with some heat. "It's been delightful having you here. I think it suits me to have some one to look after. It makes life more interesting."
"It's been awfully nice, being looked after. I've not been so happy since my father died," she said simply.
"And it's been awfully nice having a companion—a—an intimate friend to talk to."
"I've found that," she said.
We were silent, and it was being borne in upon me that I should find her going a good deal of a wrench.
"I suppose I ought to go," she said. "But I shall find it very lonely."
"No, you won't find that. You'll see plenty of us—Chelubai and Bottiger and myself. We shan't let you be lonely."
"It won't be at all the same though," she said with a sigh.
"No, worse luck, it won't."
She was silent again; then she looked at me and said, "You like having me here? Really?"
"You know I do. I never heard of a brother and sister getting on better together."
"Then why shouldn't I stay?"
My sense of the proprieties rose in revolt; but an equally strong feeling that it was a purely artificial, unworthy sense rose with it. I said weakly, "It's very tempting."
"There's nothing really wrong in it, is there?" she said, looking at me squarely in the eyes.
"No, there is not. But people are evil-minded, and we have to reckon with that fact. And these things have a way of coming out."
"No one knows that you're not my brother. Indeed, no one this side of Cumberland knows anything about me," she said thoughtfully.
"No. And only Chelubai and Bottiger and Mrs. Plimsoll know that you are staying here. And I could always answer for Chelubai and Bottiger."
"Yes; even if they found out we were not really brother and sister, they would not say anything."
"Really, I don't think that they are very likely to find out. And we're not likely to tell them—not at present, at any rate."
"Why should we ever?" she said, opening her eyes.
"Oh, we might have to."
"Then I shall stay," she said joyfully. "After all, the Company should keep together. We can work better."
"Of course we can," I said, with hearty agreement.
We sighed in unison; but this time they were sighs of relief.
She was silent a while, then she said: "And there's another thing. It's costing you a lot of money my staying here. How ever am I going to pay you?"
"It's costing me nothing," I protested. "And any way brothers don't let their sisters pay. Besides, you do the housekeeping and help me review novels. I ought to pay you."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's—it's horrid having to talk about money. But I must. I can't let you pay for me—I couldn't, really. My father was always so keen that I should be very particular in those matters. And I really couldn't stand the feeling that I was a burden on you."
"Well, well, you shall pay up when Morton has disentangled your affairs, and the Granite quarry is working again."
"But Mr. Morton gave me to understand that the Granite quarry was lost," she said, knitting her brow.
"He was wrong—quite wrong. I got hold of a paper, when we dealt with Pudleigh by the Oval, which puts quite another complexion on your affairs. In a year or so, when we've got the Company cleared and working properly again, you'll be a rich young woman. Till then you can very well let me be your banker. I tell you what, I'll start you with a banking account of your own, then your pass-book will tell you exactly how we stand whenever the time comes to settle."
The plan pleased me greatly, for I had several times already been face to face with the necessity and the awkwardness of giving Angel pocket-money for her private wants, and found it quite impossible to find a way. Her good fortune at Bridge had helped me, so far, over the difficulty; but here was the proper arrangement.
Angel's eyes shone with pleasure and gratitude, and she said, "That will be nice."
Accordingly, we went round to the bank. I paid my checks into my account, and started Angel with a banking account of thirty pounds. I explained to her the art of drawing checks and keeping an eye on one's balance.
Then I took her back to the Temple, for I would not take the risk of letting her come to the hospital, since Sister Elizabeth, who ran it, was not only a friend, but a second cousin of mine. I put the four thousand pounds into my breast pocket, took a hansom, bought ten pounds of grapes on the way, and came to Jamaica Place.
I was taken straight to Sister Elizabeth's room and found her over the accounts. As I have said, she runs the hospital. She is chief of the nursing staff, secretary and housekeeper. All the burden of responsibility rests on her shoulders. They are good broad shoulders, for she weighs sixteen stone, if she weighs an ounce. Yet she moves about as softly as a man of ten stone who keeps his muscles hard. Her round, kind face brightened with a smile at the sight of me, and she said: "I'm very pleased to see you, Roger. Those checks you sent were a godsend. We have come out at the end of the quarter with a balance to the good—a balance of £43 4s. 7d."
These were the checks of Chelubai and Bottiger.
"I'm glad of it," I said cheerfully.
"I'm not asking how you got them, and I don't care. I—I'd take Rockefeller's tainted money joyfully, if he would send it this way. Those checks were a godsend, and I'm thankful to you for them. God truly moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."
Sister Elizabeth has convinced herself by some odd feminine mental process that I am a very wicked young man about town. Simple soul that she is, she believes my Bridge to be a form of reckless gambling; and she knows that some of the proceeds of a run of good luck always come to the hospital. I never try to shake her conviction. Why should It It pleases her, and it does not hurt me. She lives among saints, but she has a liking for sinners—those sinners who do not grind her poor. That is the reason why she is a power in Plaistow.
I laughed and said cheerfully: "The contributions of bad lots thankfully received, eh? Well, I've brought you some more—four thousand pounds odd."
"You're joking!" she cried in a scared voice.
"Joking?" I said. "Here are the good, gray notes." And I pulled them out and laid them on the table.
She stared at them, open-mouthed, the color fading out of her plump, red face. Then to my horror she burst into tears and fairly howled—just like a crying child.
"F-f-four—thousand—p-p-pounds!" she stammered. "It's—it's—a gift from heaven! Oh, the children! The children!"
I could not connect Honest John Driver with heaven, though he was a Whole-Hog Wapshot. But then the sum was hardly his gift.
I said: "Come, come, don't break down like that. It's a contribution from four philanthropists of my acquaintance."
Then I let her howl.
She pulled herself together presently, and was once more the composed, capable woman.
Then she wanted to thank me, but I said: "Look here, you've given twenty-five years of your life to the children. Do you think you ought to be thanking me for a piece of work which took up the odd hours of less than a fortnight. Drop it."
"I won't, if you don't like it," she said, almost humbly.
We got to the discussion of the spending of the money, the renting of the house next door, the cost of fitting it up, of the extra nurses and doctor. She thought that the money would run to thirty cots for two years. She is so sanguine. On the other hand, I knew that not ten pounds of it would be wasted.
When we had worked it out, she said: "And now you'd like to come round the wards."
"I won't!" I said firmly. "I've been over them once, and mine is the kind of mind that sort of thing sticks in. I don't need to. I shall do my best without seeing those wards again."
With that I took my leave, and caught a train back to town.
The next day we made out our list of heirs, and it contained seventeen names, after we had crossed out of it all whom it was hopeless to reckon possible contributors to the cause of Humanity. Angel. and I took up our pleasant joint life with a new sense of its permanence; and I am bound to confess that I was idler by far than either Chelubai or Bottiger in throwing myself in the way of heirs of my acquaintance, and sounding them as to the virtues, or lack of virtues, of those from whom they would inherit. Chelubai assured me that he was proving himself a hustler at philanthropy, but he complained bitterly that he was being balked by a great deal of callous indifference to the crying needs of Humanity.
One morning an advertisement in the Times caught my eye. It ran: "£100 reward. Lost, a small black bag containing papers of no use to any one but the owner. Any one bringing the same to A. Amsted Pudleigh, Esquire, 209B Old Jewry, E. C., will receive the above reward."
The advertisement reminded me somewhat sharply that I had been neglecting Angel's interest in the Quorley Granite Company. I had no very great desire to establish her in the position of heiress, and risk breaking our pleasant relationship; but there was no getting away from the duty, and, taking with me the transfer of her shares to Albert Amsted Pudleigh, I bent my steps to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
I found Morton at work, and after I had talked with him a while of other matters, I said: "By the way, in the matter of the Quorley Granite Company, are you sure that the forty thousand shares of Miss Pavis which her idiot guardian sold to Pudleigh are worth any more than the £200 he gave for them?"
"Well," said Morton, "her father drew two thousand a year out of it for a good many years. It is only since her fool of a trustee let Pudleigh turn it into a company for the purpose of raising capital to extend its operations that its revenue has sunk, till now it hardly pays its working expenses."
"Mismanagement, I suppose."
"Deliberate mismanagement, of course, to depreciate its value till Pudleigh has bought up all the shares at sixpence apiece or so, and put it in his pocket. Then it will pay again, and with improved methods he will draw five or six thousand a year out of it."
"But I suppose the public subscribed for the shares. What's become of the money?"
"Only fifteen thousand were ever really issued, and that money's gone in the expenses of promotion and directors' fees."
"Beautiful simplicity," I said, with gentle admiration.
"Infernal rascality!" said Morton hotly.
"But have you any evidence that Pudleigh really bought the forty thousand shares of Miss Pavis?"
"Evidence? Well, Pudleigh, or rather the Company, would have the transfer, of course, and we have the entry of Pudleigh's check for £200 in the trust account"
"Do you know whether the shares are now registered in Pudleigh's name, or still in the name of Miss Pavis?"
"I don't. But what difference does it make? Her trustee had full power to sell them."
"But did he sell them? Is there a transfer in existence, or, rather, could Pudleigh or the Company produce it?"
"What do you mean? What are you driving at?" said Morton, somewhat puzzled.
I showed him Pudleigh's advertisement.
"What has this got to do with it?"
"One of the documents in that bag he wants so badly was that very transfer. In fact, here it is." And I drew it from my pocket and gave it to him.
He took it and looked through it, and said, "It's quite in order."
"Oh, quite," I said. "But suppose you were to dispute the sale of the shares, could he produce it?"
Morton rose and walked across the room looking exceedingly uncomfortable. "We shall have to give it back to him, I suppose," he said weakly.
"It isn't a case of we, it's a case of I," said I, taking up the transfer from his desk. "And I do not propose to give it back to him at all. It would be merely putting a premium on roguery."
"There is that point of view, of course," said Morton; and he looked out of the window, fidgeting on his feet.
"And it's good enough for me," said I. "In fact, I'm going to consider the loss of this document my contribution to the cause of the orphan," I added, with generous warmth.
"It would be felony!" said Morton.
"My good chap," I said stiffly, "I should never dream of committing felony. There is no such thing as felony till it's proved."
"That's true, of course," said Morton. "But still"
"However," I broke in, "that doesn't concern you. The important thing for you is that you can reckon your client to be worth 40,000 shares in the Quorley Granite Company."
Morton's face cleared a little as he said: "It's not the way we like to do business, but with a man of that stamp we can very well follow the old rule, admit nothing and ask for proof. I can't understand, though, how it is he didn't register the shares at once."
"It is odd. But I think that the fact of the matter is that for some months Pudleigh has been very busy with a splendid plant called Amalgamated Fertilizers. It has filled up his time; but now he and his accomplices have unloaded, and it's my impression that he was going to set about gathering up the Quorley Granite Company when he lost his bag."
"That's very likely," said Morton, and his face grew yet brighter as he added: "This puts a very different complexion on Miss Pavis's affairs."
"The shares of the Quorley Granite Company ought to be worth something."
"If we could get the Company out of Pudleigh's hands, and set it going again, they would indeed."
"That means that we want the control of anything over 50,000 shares, and you already control 40,000. If we could get hold of another 10,000 we could shunt the Pudleigh gang, and put in another board of directors."
"Exactly. And this reminds me that I don't know what has become of Miss Pavis of late. I haven't seen her for more than three weeks. I must make inquiries."
"Yes, she's grown worth inquiring about," I said heartily, and damped Morton's zeal at once, as I knew I should, for he was of a sensitiveness unusual in a lawyer.
"Perhaps—perhaps," he said, with some hesitation, "I had better wait till I have really good news for her."
As I walked back to the Temple, I tore the transfer into small pieces, scattering them along the gutter as I went.
When I reached home, I had a long talk with Angel about the quarry, and she gave me a good deal of information of the means by which Pudleigh had depreciated its value. Customers had been allowed to slip away, or had been driven away by the slovenly execution of their orders; the staff of workmen had been reduced till the output was but a tithe of what it had been. When the rest of the General Philanthropic Removal Company came to my rooms at tea-time on the pretence of being eager to play Bridge—really to see Angel—I was ready for them.
"I have a new idea," I said. "I've found a way of endowing that hospital at very small cost to ourselves. You remember my telling you that Pudleigh, who played that scurvy trick on us at the Oval, by means of the disgraceful thickness of his skull, had stolen a granite quarry from an orphan. Now, I suggest that we set about taking that quarry out of his pocket. The capital is £100,000 in one-pound shares. I can control 40,000 shares. If we buy 11,000—and we can get them very cheap—for the Children's Hospital at Stepney we shall kill three birds with one stone instead of our usual two. We shall restore the fortunes of the unlucky orphan, we shall provide the hospital with a small regular income which will pay its rent and gas bill, and we shall take it out of Pudleigh for going about with such a thick skull."
"I don't quite like the idea of mixing up a private grudge with benefiting Humanity," said Chelubai earnestly. "It doesn't keep it on the higher plane."
There was a thud and down he went.—Page 55
"I want to take it out of the sweep. Think of poor old Chantrey," said Bottiger savagely.
"I'm bound to say the chance of playing a square financial game attracts me," said Chelubai. "One doesn't often get it."
With that I gave him some of the Quorley Granite Company documents I had had from Morton, when I gave his firm counsel's opinion on the matter.
He studied them for a while with the eye of an expert. Then he said: "The proper place for British investors is an asylum for imbeciles. Look at the cost of promotion and the directors' fees. What fools they are!"
I expressed my warm and professional agreement with his estimate of the investor's intelligence. Then we deliberated. The upshot was that we made up our minds to begin buying Quorley Granite shares at once, to buy them slowly and without ceasing till they rose to a shilling, then stop and let them sink till the time came to buy again.
The next day, accordingly, we instructed a broker to begin buying them for the Children's Hospital, and I went again to see Morton, and begged him to ascertain for us who were the shareholders in the Company, that when the time came we might invoke their aid to make a clean sweep of the Pudleigh gang.
By the end of the week we owned fifteen hundred shares.