The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
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within the next few weeks or so.
He eyed me sternly. “Wentworth,” he said, “you’re a fool!” (Except on occasions when he is very angry, my respected connection never calls me “Wentworth”; the familiar abbreviation, “Sey”—derived from Seymour—is his usual mode of address to me in private.) “Is it likely I would unload, and wreck the confidence of the public in the Cloetedorp Company at such a moment? As a director—as Chairman—would it be just or right of me? I ask you, sir, could I reconcile it to my conscience?”
“Charles,” I answered, “you are right. Your conduct is noble. You will not save your own personal interests at the expense of those who have put their trust in you. Such probity is, alas! very rare in finance!” And I sighed involuntarily; for I had lost in Liberators.
At the same time I thought to myself, “I am not a director. No trust is reposed in me. I have to think first of dear Isabel and the baby. Before the crash comes I will sell out tomorrow the few shares I hold, through Charles’s kindness, in the Cloetedorp Golcondas.”
With his marvellous business instinct, Charles seemed to divine my thought, for he turned round to me sharply. “Look here, Sey,” he remarked, in an acidulous tone, “recollect, you’re my brother-in-law. You are also my secretary. The eyes of London will be upon us tomorrow. If you were to sell out, and operators got to know of it, they’d suspect there was something up, and the company would suffer for it. Of course, you can do what you like with your own property. I can’t interfere with that. I do not dictate to you. But as Chairman of the Golcondas, I am bound to see that the interests of widows and orphans whose All is invested with me should not suffer at this crisis.” His voice seemed to falter. “Therefore, though I don’t like to threaten,” he went on, “I am bound to give you warning: if you sell out those shares of yours, openly or secretly, you are no longer my secretary; you receive forthwith six months’ salary in lieu of notice, and—you leave me instantly.”
“Very well, Charles,” I answered, in a submissive voice; though I debated with myself for a moment whether it would be best to stick to the ready money and quit the sinking ship, or to hold fast by my friend, and back Charles’s luck against the Professor’s science. After a short, sharp struggle within my own mind, I am proud to say, friendship and gratitude won. I felt sure that, whether diamonds went up or down, Charles Vandrift was the sort of man who would come to the top in the end in spite of everything. And I decided to stand by him!
I slept little that night, however. My mind was a whirlwind. At breakfast Charles also looked haggard and moody. He ordered the carriage early, and drove straight into the City.
There was a block in Cheapside. Charles, impatient and nervous, jumped out and walked. I walked beside him. Near Wood Street a man we knew casually stopped us.
“I think I ought to mention to you,” he said, confidentially, “that I have it on the very best authority that Schleiermacher, of Jena—”
“Thank you,” Charles said, crustily, “I know that tale, and—there’s not a word of truth in it.”
He brushed on in haste. A yard or two farther a broker paused in front of us.
“Halloa, Sir Charles!” he called out, in a bantering tone. “What’s all this about diamonds? Where are Cloetedorps today? Is it Golconda, or Queer Street?”
Charles drew himself up very stiff. “I fail to understand you,” he answered, with dignity.
“Why, you were there yourself,” the man cried. “Last night at Sir Adolphus’s! Oh yes, it’s all over the place; Schleiermacher of Jena has succeeded in making the most perfect diamonds—for sixpence apiece—as good as real—and South Africa’s ancient history. In less than six weeks Kimberley, they say, will be a howling desert. Every costermonger in Whitechapel will wear genuine Koh-i-noors for buttons on his coat; every girl in Bermondsey will sport a rivière like Lady Vandrift’s to her favourite music-hall. There’s a slump in Golcondas. Sly, sly, I can see; but we know all about it!”
Charles moved on, disgusted. The man’s manners were atrocious. Near the Bank we ran up against a most respectable jobber.
“Ah, Sir Charles,” he said; “you here? Well, this is strange news, isn’t it? For my part, I advise you not to take it too seriously. Your stock will go down, of course, like lead this morning. But it’ll rise tomorrow, mark my words, and fluctuate every hour till the discovery’s proved or disproved for certain. There’s a fine time coming for operators, I feel sure. Reports this way and that. Rumours, rumours, rumours. And nobody will know which way to believe till Sir Adolphus has tested it.”
We moved on towards the House. Black care was seated on Sir Charles’s shoulders. As we drew nearer and nearer, everybody was discussing the one fact of the moment. The seal of secrecy had proved more potent than publication on the housetops. Some people told us of the exciting news in confidential whispers; some proclaimed it aloud in vulgar exultation. The general opinion was that Cloetedorps were doomed, and that the sooner a man cleared out the less was he likely to lose by it.
Charles strode on like a general; but it was a Napoleon brazening out his retreat from Moscow. His mien was resolute. He disappeared at last into the precincts of an office, waving me back, not to follow. After a long consultation he came out and rejoined me.
All day long the City rang with Golcondas, Golcondas. Everybody murmured, “Slump, slump in Golcondas.” The brokers had more business to do than they could manage; though, to be sure, almost every one was a seller and no one a buyer. But Charles stood firm as a rock, and so did his brokers. “I don’t want to sell,” he said, doggedly. “The whole thing is trumped up. It’s a mere piece of jugglery. For my own part, I believe Professor Schleiermacher is deceived, or else is deceiving us. In another week the bubble will have burst, and prices will restore themselves.” His brokers, Finglemores, had only one answer to all inquiries: “Sir Charles has every confidence in the stability of Golcondas, and doesn’t wish to sell or to increase the panic.”
All the world said he was splendid, splendid! There he stationed himself on ’Change like some granite stack against which the waves roll and break themselves in vain. He took no notice of the slump, but ostentatiously bought up a few shares here and there so as to restore public confidence.
“I would buy more,” he said, freely, “and make my fortune; only, as I was one of those who happened to spend last night at Sir Adolphus’s, people might think I had helped to spread the rumour and produce the slump, in order to buy in at panic rates for my own advantage. A chairman, like Caesar’s wife, should be above suspicion. So I shall only buy up just enough, now and again, to let people see I, at least, have no doubt as to the firm future of Cloetedorps.”
He went home that night, more harassed and ill than I have ever seen him. Next day was as bad. The slump continued, with varying episodes. Now, a rumour would surge up that Sir Adolphus had declared the whole affair a sham, and prices would steady a little; now, another would break out that the diamonds were actually being put upon the market in Berlin by the cart-load, and timid old ladies would wire down to their brokers to realise off-hand at whatever hazard. It was an awful day. I shall never forget it.
The morning after, as if by miracle, things righted themselves of a sudden. While we were wondering what it meant, Charles received a telegram from Sir Adolphus Cordery:—
“The man is a fraud. Not Schleiermacher at all. Just had a wire from Jena saying the Professor knows nothing about him. Sorry unintentionally to have caused you trouble. Come round and see me.”
“Sorry unintentionally to have caused you trouble.” Charles was beside himself with anger. Sir Adolphus had upset the share-market for forty-eight mortal hours, half-ruined a round dozen of wealthy operators, convulsed the City, upheaved the House, and now—he apologised for it as one might apologise for being late ten minutes for dinner! Charles jumped into a hansom and rushed round to see him. How had he dared to introduce the impostor to solid men as Professor Schleiermacher? Sir Adolphus shrugged his shoulders. The fellow had come and introduced himself as the great Jena chemist; he had long white hair, and a stoop in the