The Four Philanthropists/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
A PAINFUL BUSINESS
Before a week was out Gutermann had every reason to believe himself intimate with us. He was a pale, gentle fellow, looking very little like the intrepid financier who could raven along with Honest John Driver and Albert Amsted Pudleigh. Indeed we were sorry that he never once showed the cloven hoof of the financier at the bottom of the well-fitting trouser-legs of the British gentleman: it would have made us feel happier about his kidnapping. He saw some, or all, of us every day; we dined with him and he with us, and we played many rubbers of Bridge together. His admiration of Angel grew and grew, a hardy flower that needed no fostering from her. It got none; and I reckoned her power of maintaining a civility so equal and so bare a proof of considerable genius. Her attitude excited my curiosity, and I asked her how she could bring herself to give him no encouragement, when a hopeless infatuation on his part might prove so useful to us.
She knitted her brow and her chin set somewhat obstinate: "I will never do it—never," she said slowly. "It isn't so much that Mr. Gutermann seems quite harmless and so I don't want to take any of the blame for kidnapping him; and I'm not a bit sorry for having—having encouraged Sir Reginald Blackthwaite, and been civil to that objectionable Driver man. But I won't do it again, not to any one. I don't like—I don't want to."
"So the Company loses its most valuable asset, its most effective weapon, Humanity its most useful helper," I said sadly. "And all because you have done your hair up."
"I don't care," she said stubbornly, flushing a little.
"To be quite frank, I don't care either. In fact I'm very glad you won't."
She gave me a grateful look with no little surprise in it.
"I didn't like it ever," I explained. "Though I must say it sometimes amused me to see you letting that awful terror Sir Reginald Blackthwaite exercise his fascination on you."
"Yes," she said with a delightful smile. "It did amuse me, too. But under the amusement I felt uncomfortable somehow."
"I understand."
"You always do, I believe," she said, half with a sigh. "Though sometimes you hide your understanding extremely well."
"You wrong me: concealment is foreign to my nature. But look here, I'm afraid that we've got to face the fact that we're getting a little tired of our philanthropic endeavor. After all we've set the Children's Hospital well on its feet."
"Do you mean that you want to stop?" she cried, and her face grew bright
"Well, I find my enthusiasm for practical Philanthropy on the wane. I gaze upon the objectionable and the unobjectionable with indifferent eyes as long as they keep away from me. Perhaps it's the caution of age. I feel, too, that practical Philanthropy divorced from passionate enthusiasm has no adequate justification.
"Then the General Philanthropic Removal Company will come to an end!" she cried almost joyfully.
"Well as far as my resigning my directorship goes."
"And I shall resign mine, too," she said quickly.
"Then I think that will about smash it up, though it may always suffer a change—Chelubai and Bottiger may co-opt new directors. But what has become of your war with the world?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "I don't feel about it as I did—after that horrible time."
We were both pleased by our unanimous weariness of practical Philanthropy, but we were of the opinion that we ought to help carry through the kidnapping of Gutermann. We could not desert Chelubai and Bottiger in the middle of an enterprise. The difficulty was that we could devise no feasible plan. Every morning we met each other with hopeful faces expecting that one of us had hit upon a scheme; every morning we were disappointed. Then it was my luck to find the way. I was considering the methods we had followed in our other operations, how the loneliness of the town and country had alike served us, when it occurred to me of a sudden that we had utterly neglected our Island Heritage, the sea. In a very short time I saw my way to repairing this inexcusable neglect by carrying out our bargain with Honest John Driver. Chelubai was a yachtsman of the first order; he had gained a thorough knowledge of seamanship, trading in schooners about the Eastern Seas, and only last summer he had imparted much of that knowledge to Bottiger and myself during a two months' cruise up and down the West coast. It was not the time of year, or hardly yet the time of year for yachting, but we must lure Gutermann out on a premature,week-end cruise, and protract it for ten days. I wired to Chelubai to come to me at once, and he was with us very soon after breakfast. With his usual quickness he saw the advantages of the scheme and approved it. Two hours later he was off to Yarmouth to hire and equip a yacht.
It chanced that I was alone when Gutermann came that afternoon to play bridge, and at once I invited him to join on the cruise.
"Next Saturday?" he said doubtfully, "I suppose I could be sure of being back on Monday night."
"Well, the sea is the sea," said I.
"Next week happens to be a very important week," he said, still doubtfully. "Who are going?"
"All of us—my sister, Kearsage, Bottiger and myself."
"It would be very nice," he said; and he sat down, lighted a cigarette and began to think hard.
I watched him, interested by the change in his face. As a rule his expression was gentle and even vacuous; now his face hardened, his lips set, and a very strong light of intelligence shone in his eyes. He said nothing for five minutes; then he smiled a very curious cunning smile: "I'll come," he said, "I shall be very pleased to." And his face was again serenely vacuous.
"That's all right," I said heartily; but I was a little startled by his smile. I wondered could he suspect anything; it was surely impossible.
I heard from Chelubai that he was working like a nigger to get the yacht ready, and on Wednesday I sent Bottiger down to help him. On the Friday evening Angel, I and Gutermann went down to Yarmouth, and we weighed anchor and started before breakfast on Saturday morning. Chelubai, Bottiger and I did most of the working of the yacht; besides us there were four deckhands, carefully chosen for their ignorance of seamanship. They would never know whether the protraction of the cruise were justified or not. The day was cold enough but sunny. Angel was at the height of delight; I had never seen her in such charming spirits; the sea, the bracing air, the bright sunlight ravished her, and little smiles of pleasure played without ceasing across her face. She seemed, confronted with this fresh and vigorous mood of Nature, to grow at once a natural part of it. Chelubai was subdued; the accomplished seafarer's distrust of the sea weighed on his spirit. I and Bottiger shared Angel's cheerfulness; Gutermann was merely uncomfortable.
The wind held in the Northeast all that day, and we beat up against it. But about the middle of the night it began to veer round, and before morning it was blowing half a gale from the southwest. This was the best of luck; and when I went on deck at six o'clock to relieve Chelubai, he said cheerfully, "If this holds for twenty-four hours, we needn't see land for a fortnight."
It held for thirty hours, now abating, now freshening again, but never very heavy. It was a poor thirty hours for Gutermann; he lay sea-sick in his stateroom. The steward and cook looked after him, and the three of us went now and again and said a cheering word.
About noon on Monday he came on deck, looking pale and worn out; we gave him soup and champagne, and presently he fell asleep. At noon Chelubai took our reckoning and found that we were nearly four hundred miles from Yarmouth. All the rest of the day we enjoyed light and shifting breezes very convenient for Bridge; and Gutermann recovered enough to enjoy watching our game.
On Tuesday a steady breeze blew from the Northeast and Chelubai spent the favorable hours in tacking across and across the North Sea. We began to grumble at having been driven so far from land, but as yet Gutermann showed no anxiety. On the Wednesday we grumbled yet louder, and began to express doubts as to our getting back before Saturday. Still Gutermann was at ease and even cheerful. He played Bridge or dangled about Angel with perfect serenity. We could not understand it; for we had supposed that there was some matter of unloading shares on hand, as there had been in the case of Albert Amsted Pudleigh, and all Chelubai's knowledge of business could not suggest any other trick that Honest John Driver could be playing his unsuspecting partner. On the other hand we could not believe for a moment that Gutermann could be trusting that financial worthy to unload his shares for him. We grew sorry for Gutermann, and were very kind and gentle to him. Even Angel relaxed from her bare civility and gave the poor unsuspicious fellow smiles to sun himself in. As the days passed and he still wore his untroubled air, we grew sorrier and sorrier for him. It spoiled the cruise for us.
We did not reach Yarmouth till the following Wednesday, having kept Gutermann out of touch with civilization for twelve days. We landed full of sorrow for the unhappy awakening which awaited him. We were just in time to catch a train, and had barely time to buy newspapers. We all had one, and were eager enough to learn the news of the world during the last twelve days. But when Gutermann unfolded The Financial Times and began to read it, all four of us watched him in an anxious breathlessness over the tops of our sheets. He ran his eye down the columns quickly, pausing here and there; then he laid it down, and took up The Standard with a contented smile.
"How's the city?" I said, in a not very assured voice.
"Oh, it's all right," said Gutermann cheerfully.
We looked at one another with questioning, unbelieving eyes.
All the way to town my purpose grew and grew. On the platform I told Chelubai what I wanted, and, leaving Bottiger and Gutermann to take Angel home, he and I drove straight to the offices of Honest John Driver. We were ushered into the great man at once, and found him sitting before the fire, idle, with a half-smoked cigar in his month which had long gone out. His greeting lacked warmth, his air was dejected, and I fancied that his expression of brazen honesty had lost a little of its lustrous sheen.
We shook hands with him, and Chelubai said cheerfully, "Well, Mr. Driver, we've completed our contract. We have had Gutermann safely out of touch with civilization for the last twelve days."
The King of Finance raised his ponderous bulk from the chair, and stood frowning at us: "Never," he said, with heavy solemnity—"never let me hear that man's name again!"
"Why, what's the matter?" said Chelubai.
"The matter is that he's a rascal—a thorough-paced rascal! A treacherous scoundrel! I've done with him! Done with him for good! I'm taking steps to have our partnership dissolved as soon as ever it can be arranged!"
His voice rose to an angry roar; his face flushed; his eyes sparkled with fury.
"What's he done?" said Chelubai.
"Done? He's sold me out—me—his partner and his friend!" His voice broke, and I thought he was going to sob.
"Never!" cried Chelubai. "How?"
"We had agreed to begin unloading our holdings in Golden Banks on the 2d, and go on unloading slowly till the 10th. Knowing that I had to be in Manchester on the 1st, he instructed his brokers to sell on that afternoon, and sell hard, and while I was in the train on my way back to town, the market was being knocked to pieces—to pieces! When I looked at the evening paper you could have knocked me down with a feather—and I'm a heavy man. And he was my friend!"
"Disgraceful! Scandalous! " said Chelubai, with warm sympathy. "What did you lose?"
"Lose?" said the King of Finance, and a tear stood in his eye, "every penny of sixteen thousand pounds! Why, when I began to sell on the morning of the 2d, it was as much as I could do to save myself from loss on what I originally paid for the shares. I did not clear seventy pounds on them."
"Um. Do you think he suspected anything?" said Chelubai.
"How could he?"
"Well, he knew what happened to Pudleigh."
"But that was quite different! He was in the whole of that business with me—barring that he didn't know that Pudleigh was out of the way. We did not sell a share before the day agreed upon; and even then when Pudleigh did not turn up in the morning, I insisted—yes, I insisted on giving him three hours' grace before we began to unload."
"You may bet that's where he got the idea, all the same," said Chelubai.
"And saw his way to going one better," said I.
"Never mind," said Honest John Driver, with swelling dignity, "I have had my lesson. Gutermann was my friend—I trusted him—I may say, implicitly—and this is how he served me. I shall never trust again—never."
"A very wise resolution," I said, with hearty approval. "Between business men trust is misplaced."
"You are right, Mr. Armitage—quite right. But I know now—once bit, twice shy."
He fell into a thoughtful, silent gloom, pondering his wrongs. We, too, were silent, with the silence of sympathy, badly as I wanted to laugh. Presently, with a plain effort, he roused himself and said, "Well, gentlemen, I must not keep you; and I'm glad to have had the chance of letting you know what a rascal Gutermann is."
"We are glad to have been warned," I said gratefully, "and we should like our check."
"Your check?" said the King of Finance, with an excellent start of surprise. "What check?"
"Our check for three thousand five hundred for removing Gutermann out of touch with civilization from the first to the twelfth of March."
"I don't understand," he said, frowning upon me severely. "The purpose for which he was removed came to nothing; you can't expect me to pay over a failure."
"Your failure or success does not affect us," I said coldly. "We contracted to remove Gutermann, and we removed him; we want paying."
"But this is nonsense! I tell you I lost money!"
"That's got nothing to do with your bargain with us."
"But it has! We were all in the swim together. I only contracted to pay you if I succeeded."
"Now, you're not really going to talk nonsense to us, Mr. Driver," I said gently.
"Nonsense? It's only fair! If I win I pay you; but if I lose, I don't. It's—it's not honest to ask for it."
"Well, well," I said cheerfully, "we won't wrangle about it. You tried to let us down once, and it cost you over £2,000. This time it will cost you twice as much."
"You don't think you'll catch me again!"
"I don't think, I know I shall."
"I shall go to Scotland Yard at once, and put myself under the protection of the police," he blustered.
"You might as well put yourself under the protection of your grandmother, if you have one. If we find that the police prevent our getting hold of you, and extracting our £7,000, 1 wouldn't give a lump of sugar for your life," I said, with a serene air.
He turned a little pale, and lost his brave air, but still he blustered, "Do I understand you to threaten me?"
"I don't know whether you understand it or not; but that's what I'm doing," I said cheerfully.
"That's so," said Chelubai. "The day you go to the police will be the best day you ever knew to make your will on."
Honest John Driver looked from one to the other of us with something of the air of a wild beast in a trap. "It's not fair! It's not honest!" he cried.
"I'm not in any great hurry," I said. "But it would save time if you gave us a definite answer."
"I won't pay!" he blustered, valorous again.
"Very good," I said. "We'd as soon do two jobs as one. Come along, Kearsage," and I moved to the door.
Our confidence shook him. "Wait," he said—"wait a minute."
"What for?" I said, opening the door. "Your answer is good enough for me, and kerosene is cheap."
"I—I tell you what. I'll pay your expenses, your out-of-pocket expenses." The bluster had gone.
I laughed a sinister laugh.
"Half!" he cried, still weakening. "Half!"
"You'll give me a check for £3,500 now, or £7,000 later," I said; and I laughed another sinister laugh, and went out of the room, followed by Chelubai.
He was shutting the door when the King of Finance ran to it, dragged it open, and cried: "Come back! Come back! I'll pay!"
We came back; and mopping the sweat from his brow, and swearing softly, he sat down at his desk and wrote out a check, payable to Bottiger, for £3,500.
"I don't think it's fair," he almost wailed. "If I'd not been betrayed by that rascal Gutermann, I'd have paid it cheerfully. But this isn't right. I do it on compulsion."
"Never mind," I said soothingly, as I put the check in my pocket. "You'll have another partner soon, and you'll need us again."
"Yes, and another time I'll have him knocked on the head! No more friendship for me! I wouldn't mind it half as much if I only knew that young swine, Gutermann, had been knocked on the head!" he cried savagely.
We were affable with him for a while, and tried to soothe his ruffled feelings. His last words were, "You don't know what it is to have been betrayed by a friend."
As we came down the stairs I laughed consumedly to think how the gentle Gutermann had defeated the rascal with his own weapons. At the bottom I said to Chelubai, "But he's an impostor—a gross impostor!"
"Oh, I don't think so," said Chelubai. "I believe he was sold out."
"I wasn't speaking of Driver," I said. "I meant Gutermann. Look at the sorrowful compassion he got out of us under false pretences."