Read the book: «The Pauper of Park Lane», page 13
Chapter Twenty Five.
Two Men and a Woman
The face of Charlie Rolfe went pale as death.
He was in doubt, and uncertain as to how much, or how little, was known by this man who loved his sister.
“I saw you there, Rolfe, with my own eyes,” repeated Max, looking straight into his face.
He tried to speak. What could he say? For an instant his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.
“I – I don’t quite understand you,” he faltered. “What do you mean?”
“Simply that I saw you at the Doctor’s house on the night of their disappearance.”
“My dear fellow,” he laughed, in a moment, perfectly cool, “you must have been mistaken. You actually say you saw me?”
“Most certainly I did,” declared Max, his eyes still upon his friend.
“Then all I can say is that you saw somebody who resembled me. Tell me exactly what you did see.”
Max was for a moment silent. He never expected that Rolfe would flatly deny his presence there. This very fact had increased his suspicions a hundredfold.
“Well, the only person I saw, Charlie, was you yourself – leaving the house. That’s all.”
“Somebody who closely resembled me, I expect.”
“Then you deny having been at the house that evening?” asked Max in great surprise.
“Why, of course I do. You’re absolutely mistaken, old chap,” was Charlie’s response. “Of course, I can quite see how this must have puzzled you. But what now arises in my mind is whether someone has not endeavoured to personate me. It seems very much as though they have. You say that I left the house. When?”
“After the removal. You were in the empty house, which you left secretly.”
“And you were there also, then?” he asked.
“Of course. I called, ignorant that they had left.” Charlie Rolfe did not speak for several moments.
“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “it seems that somebody has been impersonating me. I certainly was not there.”
“Why should they impersonate you?”
“Who knows? Is there not mystery in the whole affair?”
“But if somebody went there dressed to resemble you, there must have been a motive in their visit,” Max said.
“Well, old fellow, as you know, I have kept away from the house of late – at Maud’s request. She feared that her father did not approve of my too frequent visits.”
“And so you met her at dusk in the quiet streets about Nevern Square and the adjacent thoroughfares?”
“Certainly. I told you so. I made no secret of it to you. Why should I?”
“Then why make a secret about your visit to the house on that particular evening?”
“I don’t make any secret of it,” he protested. “As I’ve already told you, I was not there.”
“But you didn’t leave Charing Cross, as you made people believe you had done. You didn’t even go to the station,” returned Max.
“Certainly I did not.”
“You had no intention, when you saw Marion at Cunnington’s, of leaving at all. Come, admit that.”
“You are quite right. I did not intend to leave London.”
“But Statham had given you orders to go.”
“I do not always obey his orders when it is to his own interest that I should disregard them,” he replied enigmatically.
“Then you had a reason for not going to Servia?”
“I had – a very strong one.”
“Connected with Maud Petrovitch?”
“In no way whatever. It was a purely personal motive.”
“And you thought fit to disregard Statham’s injunctions in order to attend to your own private business!”
“It was his business, as well as mine,” declared Charlie, who, after a pause, asked: “Now tell me, Max, why are you cross-examining me like a criminal lawyer? What do you suspect me of?”
“Well – shall I be frank?”
“Certainly. We are old enough friends for that.”
“Then I’m sorry to say, Charlie, that I suspect you of telling a lie.”
“Lies are permissible in certain cases – for instance, where a woman’s honour is at stake,” he replied, fixing his eyes steadily upon those of his friend.
“Then you admit that what you have just told me is not the truth?”
“I admit nothing. I only repeat that I was not in Cromwell Road on the evening in question.”
“But my eyes don’t deceive me, man! I saw your face, remember.”
“If it was actually my face, it was not in Cromwell Road. That’s quite certain?” laughed old Statham’s secretary. “But it was your face.”
“It was, I repeat, somebody who resembled me,” he declared. “But you haven’t told me what the person was doing in the empty house.”
“That’s just what I don’t know,” Barclay replied. “I only know this: When I entered that night I saw nothing of a safe let into the wall. But on going there the next day the safe stood revealed, the door was open, and it was empty.”
“And so you charge me with being a thief!” cried Rolfe, his cheek flushing.
“Not at all. You asked me for the truth, and I’ve told you.”
“Well, it’s evident that you suspect me of sneaking into the house, breaking open the Doctor’s safe, and taking the contents,” he said plainly, annoyed.
“The Doctor may have returned himself in secret,” Max replied. “But such could hardly be the case, for the door had been blown open by explosives.”
“That would have created a noise,” Charlie remarked quickly. “Shows that whoever did it was a blunderer.”
“Exactly. That’s just my opinion. What I want to establish is the motive for the secret visit, and who made it.”
“Well, I can assure you that I’m in entire ignorance of the existence of any safe in the Doctor’s house.”
“And so was I. It was concealed by the furniture until my second visit, on the following morning.”
“Curious,” Rolfe said. “Very curious indeed. The whole thing is most remarkable – especially how both father and daughter got away without leaving the least trace of their flight.”
“Then you don’t anticipate foul play?” Max asked quickly.
“Why should one?”
“The Doctor had a good many political enemies.”
“We all have enemies. Who has not? But they don’t come and murder one and take away one’s household goods.”
“Then I am to take it that it was not you I saw at Cromwell Road, Charlie?” asked his friend in deep earnestness, at the same time filled with suspicion. He felt that his eyes could not deceive him.
“In all seriousness,” was the other’s reply. “I was not there. This personation of myself shows that there was some very clever and deeply-laid scheme.”
“But you’ve just declared that a falsehood was permissible where a woman’s honour was concerned?”
“Well, and will not every man with a sense of honour towards a woman hold the same opinion? You yourself, Max, for instance, are not the man to give a woman away?”
“I know! I know – only – ”
“Only what? Surely you do not disagree with me!”
“In a sense I don’t, but I’m anxious to clear up this matter as far as you yourself are concerned.”
Rolfe saw that he had shaken his friend’s fixed belief that he had seen him in Cromwell Road. Max was now debating in his mind whether he had not suspected Charlie unjustly. It is so easy to suspect, and so difficult to satisfy one’s self of the actual truth. The mind is, alas! too apt to receive ill-formed impressions contrary to fact.
“It is already cleared up,” Rolfe answered without hesitation. “I was not there. You were entirely mistaken. Besides, my dear chap, why should I go there when I had been particularly asked by Maud not to visit the house?”
“When did she ask you?”
“Only the night before. That very fact is, in itself, curious. She urged me that whatever might occur, I was not to go to the house.”
“Then she anticipated something – eh?”
“It seems as though she did.”
“And she told Marion something on the night when she and her father disappeared.”
“I know.”
“You know what she told her?”
“No. Marion refuses to tell me, I wish I could induce her to speak. Marion knows the truth – that’s my firm belief.”
“And mine also.”
“The two girls have some secret in common,” Rolfe said. “Can’t you get Marion to tell you?”
“She refuses. I’ve asked her half a dozen times already.”
“I wonder why! There must be some reason.”
“Of course there is. She is loyal to her friend. But tell me honestly, Charlie. Do you know the Doctor’s whereabouts?”
“I tell you honestly that I haven’t the slightest idea. The affair is just as great a mystery to me as to you.”
“But why have you kept away from me till to-day?” Barclay asked. “It isn’t like you.”
“Well,” answered Rolfe, with a slight hesitation, “to tell you the truth, because I thought your manner had rather changed towards me of late.”
“Why, my dear fellow, I’m sure it never has.”
“But you suspected me of being in that house on the night of the disappearance!”
“Of course, because I saw you.”
“Because you thought you saw me,” Charlie said, correcting him. “You surely would not misjudge me for that.”
“No. But your theory regarding falsehoods has, I must admit, caused some suspicion in my mind.”
“Of what?”
“Well, of prevaricating in order to shield a woman – Maud it may be.”
“I am not shielding her!” he declared. “There is nothing to shield. I love her very dearly indeed, and she loves me devotedly in return. Cannot you imagine, Max, my perturbed state of mind now that she has disappeared without a word?”
“Has she sent you no secret message of her safety?” Max asked, seriously.
“Not a word.”
“And you do not know, then, if she has not met with foul play?”
“I don’t. That’s just it! Sometimes – ” And he rose from his chair and paced the room in agony of mind. “Sometimes – I – I feel as if I shall go mad. I love her – just as you love Marion! Sometimes I feel assured of her safety – that she and her father have been compelled to disappear for political or other reasons – and then at others a horrible idea haunts me that my love may be dead – the victim of some vile, treacherous plot to take from me all that has made my life worth living!”
“Stop!” cried Max, starting to his feet and facing him. “You love her – eh?”
“Better – ah! better than my own life!” he cried in deep earnestness, his troubled face being an index of his mind.
“Then – then upon her honour – the honour of the woman you love – swear to me that you have spoken the truth!”
He looked into his friend’s eyes for a moment. Then he answered:
“I swear, Max! I swear by my love for Maud that I have spoken the truth!”
And Barclay stood silent – so puzzled as to be unable to utter a word.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Which Puts a Serious Question
At last Max spoke, slowly and with great deliberation.
“And you declare yourself as ignorant as I am myself of their whereabouts?”
“I do,” was Rolfe’s response. Then after a second’s hesitation he added in a changed voice: “I really think, Max, that you are scarcely treating me fairly in this matter. Sorely it is in my interests to discover the whereabouts of Maud! I have done my best.”
“Well?”
“And I’ve failed to discover any clue whatever – except one – that – ”
And he broke off, without finishing his sentence.
“What have you discovered? Tell me. Be frank with me.”
“I’ve not yet established whether it is a real clue, or whether a mere false surmise. When I have, I will tell you.”
“But cannot we join forces in endeavouring to solve the problem?” Max suggested, his suspicion of his friend now removed.
“That is exactly what I would wish. But how shall we begin? Where shall we commence?” asked Rolfe.
“The truth that it was not you whom I saw leaving the house in Cromwell Road adds fresh mystery to the already astounding circumstance,” Max declared. “The man who so closely resembled you was purposely made up to be mistaken for you. There was some strong motive for this. What do you suggest it could be?”
“To implicate me! But in what?”
The thought of that blood-stained bodice ever haunted Max. It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal his discovery to his friend, yet on second thoughts he resolved to at present retain his secret. He had withheld it from the police, therefore he was perfectly justified in withholding it from Charlie.
The flat denial of the latter regarding his visit to Cromwell Road caused him deep reflection. He watched his friend’s attitude, and was compelled to admit within himself that now, at any rate, he was speaking the truth.
“The only reason for the visit of the man whom I must have mistaken for yourself, Charlie,” he said, “must have been to open that safe.”
“Probably so.”
Then Max explained, in detail, the position of the safe, and how he had discovered it being open, and its contents abstracted.
“On your first visit, then, the safe was hidden?”
“Yes. But when I went in the morning it stood revealed, the door blown open by some explosive.”
“By an enemy of the Doctor’s,” remarked Charlie.
Max did not reply. The Doctor’s words regarding his friend on the last occasion they had sat together recurred to him at that moment with a queer significance. The Doctor certainly did not like Rolfe. For what reason? he wondered. Why had he taken such a sudden dislike to him?
Hitherto, they had been quite friendly, ever since the well-remembered meeting at the Villa des Fleurs, in Aix-les-Bains, and the Doctor had never, to his knowledge, objected to Maud’s association with the smart young fellow whose keen business instincts had commended him to such a man as old Sam Statham. The Doctor held no doubt, either secret knowledge of something detrimental to Rolfe, or else entertained one of those sudden and unaccountable prejudices which some men form, and which they are unable to put behind them.
“The one main point we have first to decide, Charlie,” he said at last, standing at the window and gazing thoughtfully down into the narrow London street, “is whether or not then has been foul play.”
Rolfe made no reply, a circumstance which caused him to turn and look straight into his friend’s face. He saw a change there.
His countenance was blanched; but whether by fear of the loss of the woman he loved, or by a guilty knowledge, Max knew not.
“Marion can tell us,” he answered at last. “But she refuses.”
“You, her brother, can surely obtain the truth from her?”
“Not when you, her lover, fail,” Charlie responded, his brows knit deeply.
“But a moment ago you said you had a clue?”
“I think I have one. It is only a surmise.”
“And in what direction does it trend?”
“Towards foul play,” he said hoarsely.
“Political?”
“It may be.”
“And were both victims of the plot?”
“I cannot tell. At present I’m making all the secret inquiries possible – far afield in a Continental city. It takes time, care, and patience. As soon as I obtain anything tangible, I will tell you. But first of all, Max,” he added, “I wish to have your assurance that you no longer suspect me. I am not your enemy – why should you be mine?”
“I am not, my dear fellow,” declared Barclay. “How can I be the enemy of Marion’s brother? I was only suspicious. You would have been the same in similar circumstances, I’m sure.”
“Probably,” laughed Charlie. “Yet what you’ve told me about the endeavour to implicate myself in the affair is certainly extraordinary. I don’t see any motive.”
“Except that you were known by the conspirators, whoever they are, to be Maud’s lover.”
“If so, then they intend, most probably, to bring some false charge against me. And – and – ”
“And what?” asked Max in some surprise.
“Why, don’t you see?” he said hoarsely, staring straight into his friend’s face with a horrified expression as a terrible truth arose within him. “Don’t you see that you yourself, Max, would become the principal witness against me!”
Max stood wondering at the other’s sudden anticipation of disaster. What could he dread if this denial of his was the actual truth?
Again he grew suspicious.
“How can I be witness against you if you are innocent of any connection with the affair?” he queried.
“Because the Doctor’s enemies have done this, in order to shield themselves.”
“But if the Doctor is really still alive, what have you to fear?”
“Is he alive? That is the point.”
“Marion gives me to understand that both he and Maud are safe,” Max responded quickly.
The other shook his head dubiously, saying: “If she has told you that, then it is exactly contrary to what she has given me to understand.”
“What? She has expressed a suspicion of foul play?”
“Yes – more than a suspicion.”
“Well – this is certainly strange,” Max declared. “Marion has all along been trying to allay my fears.”
“Because she feared to upset you, perhaps. With me it is different. She does not mind my feelings.”
“I’m sure she does, Charlie. She’s devoted to you. And she ought to be. Few brothers would do what you have done.”
“That’s quite outside the question,” he said, quickly pacing anxiously up and down the room. “She told me distinctly the other day that her fears were of the worst.”
“Ah! if you could only induce her to tell us what Maud confessed to her. It was a confession – a serious and tragic one, I believe.”
“Yes. It was, no doubt; and if she would only speak we could, I believe, quickly get at the truth,” Rolfe said. “To me it seems incredible that the Doctor, your most intimate friend, should not have found some secret manner by which to communicate with you, and assure you of his safety.”
There was a pause. Suddenly Max turned to the speaker and exclaimed —
“Tell me, Charlie. Be perfectly frank with me. Have you, do you think, at any time recently given some cause for offence to the Doctor?”
“Why do you ask that?” inquired the other in quick surprise.
“I have reasons for asking. I’ll tell you after you’ve answered my question.”
“I don’t know,” he laughed uneasily. “Some men, and especially foreigners, are very easily offended.”
“But have you offended the Doctor?”
“Perhaps. A man never knows when he gives unintentional offence.”
“Are you aware of having done anything to offend him?”
“No, except that Maud asked me not to visit there so often, as her father did not approve of it.”
“Did she ever tell you that the Doctor had suddenly entertained a dislike of you?”
“Certainly not. I always believed that he was very friendly disposed towards me. But – well – why do you ask all this?”
“I merely ask for information.”
“Of course, but you promised to tell me the reason.”
“Well, the fact is this. On the afternoon prior to their disappearance, the Doctor expressed feelings towards you that were not exactly friendly. It seemed to me that he had formed some extraordinary prejudice. Fathers do this often towards the men who love their daughters, you know. They are sometimes apt to be over-cautious, with the result that the girl loses a very good chance of marriage,” he added. “I’ve known several similar cases.”
“Well,” said Charlie thoughtfully, “that’s quite new to me. I had flattered myself that the Doctor was very well disposed towards me. This is quite a revelation?”
“Didn’t Maud ever tell you?”
“Not a word.”
“She feared, of course, to hurt your feelings. It was quite natural. She loves you.”
“If what we fear be true, you should put your words into the past tense, Max,” was his reply in a hard voice. Barclay knew that his friend loved the sweet-faced girl with the stray, unruly wisp of hair which fell always across her white brow and gave her such a piquante appearance. And if he loved her so well, was it possible that he could have been author of, or implicated, in a foul and secret crime?
Recollection of that dress-bodice with the ugly stain still wet upon it flashed upon him. Was it not in itself circumstantial evidence that some terrible crime had been committed?
The man before him denied all knowledge of the disappearance of his well-beloved, and yet Max, with his own eyes, had seen him slinking from the house!
Had he spoken the truth, or was he an ingenious liar?
Such was the problem which Max Barclay put to himself – a question which was the whole crux of the extraordinary situation. If what Rolfe had declared was the truth, then the mystery became an enigma beyond solution.
But if, on the other hand, he was now endeavouring to shield himself from the shadow of guilt upon him, then at least one fact was rendered more hideous than the rest.
The question was one – and only one.
Had this man, brother of his own dear Marion, sworn falsely upon what he had held to be most sacred – his love for Maud?
What was the real and actual truth?
Chapter Twenty Seven.
In the Web
It was four o’clock on the following afternoon, dark and threatening outside, precursory of a thunderstorm.
In that chair in Max’s room, where Charlie Rolfe had sat on the previous morning, was the polished cosmopolitan, Jean Adam, lazily lolling back, smoking a cigarette.
Max had lunched over at White’s, and just come in to find Adam awaiting him. The Frenchman had risen and greeted him merrily, took the proffered Russian cigarette, and they; had settled themselves to chat.
“I’ve been expecting every day to hear from you,” Adam exclaimed at last. “When do you propose starting for Constantinople?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking over the matter, and I’ve come to the conclusion that just at present it is impossible for me to leave London. I have other interests here.”
Adam stirred uneasily in his chair. This reply filled him with chagrin, yet so clever was he, and such a perfect type of ingenious adventurer, that he never showed the least trace of surprise.
“Really,” he laughed, “that’s very unfortunate – for you!”
“Why, for me?”
“Well, the missing of such a chance would be unfortunate, even to a Rothschild,” he said. “There’s hundreds of thousands in the deal, if you’ll only go out with me. You’re not a man of straw. You can afford to risk a thousand or two, just as well as I can – even better.”
“I would willingly go if it were not for the fact that I find I must remain in London.”
Adam laughed, with just a touch of sarcasm.
“Ah! the lady! I quite understand, my dear fellow. The charming young lady whom I met with you the other night does not wish you to leave her side – eh? We have all of us been through that stage of amorous ecstasy. I have myself, I know that; and if I may tell you with the frankness of a friend, I’ve regretted it,” he added, holding up his white palms.
“All men do not regret I hope to be the exception,” remarked Max Barclay, pensively watching the smoke from his lips rise to the ceiling.
“Of course. But is it wise to turn one’s back upon Fortune in this way?” asked Adam, in that insidious manner by which he had entrapped many a man. “Review the position calmly. Here is a project which, by good luck, has fallen into my hands. I want somebody to go shares with me in it. You are my friend, I like you. I know you are an upright man, and I ask you to become my partner in the venture. Yet you refuse to do so because – well, merely because a woman’s pretty face has attracted you, and you think that you please her by remaining here in London!
“Is it not rather foolish in your own interests? Constantinople is not the Pole. A fortnight will suffice for you to get there and back and clinch the bargain. Muhil is awaiting us. I had a wire only yesterday. Do reconsider the whole question – there’s a good fellow.”
Max had said nothing about the meeting with Marion. Therefore he believed that she had not told her lover. Adam was reflecting whether she might not, after all, be a woman to be trusted. This refusal of Max’s to go out to Turkey interfered seriously with the plans he had formed. Yet what those plans actually were he had not even told the hunchback. He was a man who took counsel of nobody. His ingenious schemes he evolved in his own brain, and carried them into effect by his own unaided efforts.
The past history of Jean Adam, alias John Adams, had been one of amazing ups-and-downs and clever chicanery. He knew that Samuel Statham held him in awe, and was now playing upon his fears, and gloating over the success which must inevitably be his whenever he thought fit to deal the blow. It would be irresistible and crushing. He held the millionaire in his power. But before he moved forward to strike, he intended that Max should be induced to go abroad. And if he went – well, when he thought of his victim’s departure his small, near-set eyes gleamed, and about the corners of his mouth there played an expression of evil.
“My decision does not require any reconsideration,” said the young fellow, after a pause. “I shall remain in London.”
“And lose the chance of a lifetime – eh?” exclaimed Adam, as though perfectly unconcerned.
“I have some very important private matters to attend to.”
“I, too, used to have when I was your age.”
“They do not concern the lady,” Max said quickly. “It is purely a personal matter.”
“Of business? Why, you’d make as much in an hour over this Railway business as you’d make in twenty years here in London,” Adam declared. “Besides, you want a change. Come out to the Bosphorus. It’s charming beside the Sweet Waters.”
“All sounds very delightful; but even though I may let the chance of a fortune slip through my fingers, I cannot leave London at present.”
“But why?”
“A purely private matter,” was his reply, for he did not wish to tell this man anything concerning the strange disappearance of the Doctor and his grave suspicions of Charlie Rolfe. “I can tell you nothing more than that.”
“Well, I’m sure the lady, if she knew that it was in your interests to go to Turkey, would urge you to go,” declared Adam. “She would never keep you here if she knew that you could pull off such a deal as I have put before you.”
“She does know.”
“Oh! And what does she say?”
“She suggested that I should go with you.”
“Then why not come?”
“Because, as I’ve already told you, it is impossible. I am kept in London by something which concerns the welfare of a very dear friend,” Max answered. “You must put it before somebody else. I suppose the affair cannot wait?”
“I don’t want to put it before anybody else. If we do business, I want you and I to share the profits.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure; but at present I am quite unable to leave London.”
Max was wondering for the first time why this man was so pressing. If the thing was a really good one – as it undoubtedly was, according to the friend he had consulted in the City – then there could not be any lack of persons ready to go into the venture. Was it sheer luck that had led this man Adam to offer to take him into it, or had the man some ulterior motive? Max Barclay was no fool. He had sown his wild oats in London, and knew the ways of men. He had met many a city shark, and had been the poorer in pocket through the meeting. But about this man Adam was something which had always fascinated him. The pair had been drawn together by some indescribable but mutual attraction, and the concession by the Sultan which must result in great profits was now within his reach. Nevertheless, he felt that in the present circumstances it was impossible to leave London. Before doing so he was desirous of solving the problem of the disappearance of Doctor Petrovitch, and clearing up the question of whether or not there had been foul play.
Rolfe’s denial of the previous day had complicated matters even further. He was convinced, now that he had reflected calmly, that his friend was concealing something from him – some fact which had an important bearing upon the astounding affair.
Was Charlie playing a straight game? After long consideration he had come again to the conclusion that he was not!
In his ear was the voice of the tempter Jean Adam. Fortune awaited him in that sunlit city of white domes and minarets beside the Bosphorus – the city of veiled women and of mystery he had always hoped to visit. Would he not spare fourteen days, travel there, and obtain it?
It was a great temptation. The concession for that railway would indeed have been a temptation to any man. Did not the late Baron Hirsch lay the foundation of his huge fortune by a similar iradé of his Majesty the Sultan?
The man seated in the deep armchair with the cigarette between his lips looked at his victim through his half-closed eyes, as a snake watches the bird he fascinates.
Jean Adam was an excellent judge of human nature. He had placed there a bait which could not fail to attract, if not to-day, then to-morrow – or the next day. He had gauged Max Barclay with a precision only given to those who live upon their wits.
To every rule there are, of course, exceptions. Every man who lives upon his wits is not altogether bad. Curious though it may be, there are many adventurers to be met with in every capital in Europe, who, though utterly unscrupulous, have in their nature one point of the most scrupulous honour – one point which redeems them from being classed as utter blackguards.
Many a man, who will stick at nothing where money can be made, is loyal, honest, and upright towards a woman; while another will with one hand swindle the wealthy, and with the other give charity to the poor. Few men, indeed, are altogether bad. Yet when they are, they are, alas! outsiders indeed.
Adam was a man who had no compunction where men were concerned, and very little when a woman stood in his way. His own adventures would have made one of the most interesting volumes ever written. Full of ingenuity and tact, fearless when it came to facing exposure, and light-hearted whenever the world smiled upon him, he was a marvellous admixture of good fellow and scoundrel.
He knew that his clever story had fascinated the man before him, and that it was only a question of time before he would fall into the net so cleverly spread.
“When do you anticipate you could go East – that is, providing I can get the matter postponed?” asked Adam at last, as he placed his cigarette end in the ash-tray.
“I can’t give you a date,” replied Max. “It is quite uncertain. Why not go to somebody else?”
“I tell you I have no desire to do so, my dear friend,” was the Frenchman’s reply. “I like you. That is why I placed the business before you. I know, of course, there are a thousand men in the City who would only jump at this chance of such a big thing.”
“Then why not go to them?” repeated Max, a little surprised and yet a little flattered.
“As I have told you, I would rather take you into partnership. We have already decided to do the thing on a sound business basis. Indeed, I went to my lawyers only yesterday and gave orders for the agreement to be drawn up between us. You’ll receive it to-night or to-morrow.”
