The Four Philanthropists/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE G. P. R. C. COLLECTS A DEBT
Angel and I played Chelubai and Bottiger a match of five rubbers. To the accompaniment of Driver's loud snoring we had played two rubbers, of which either side had won one, and were in the middle of the third, when he awoke with the resounding snort of the rhinoceros.
Chelubai, who had just dealt, laid down his hand and said, "Do you feel fit to talk business, Mr. Driver?"
The King of Finance only groaned, and his eyes wandered in an utterly vacant glance round the room, and then rested on each of us in turn in a plainly vain effort to recognize us.
"Your declaration, partner," said Chelubai, and we went on playing.
Driver groaned several times, and at last said in a whining voice, very unbecoming to a man of his fine bulk, "My head is splitting and the ropes are cutting my wrists."
"It will teach you to act up to your nickname," said Chelubai coldly.
"Oh, but if he is being hurt you must stop it!" said Angel.
We laid down our cards; I loosened the ropes round his wrists a little and propped him up on the sofa; Chelubai mixed him an effervescing draught which Bottiger had found cleared the head of the drug very quickly and poured it down his throat. Then, leaving him sitting up, we went back to our game. Angel and I won the third rubber. During the next I watched Honest John Driver at intervals, and saw that his eye grew brighter and his face fuller and fuller of discomfort The fourth rubber was a hard-fought fight, but in the end Angel and I won it.
I pushed away my chair from the table, faced him and said sternly: "Now, Mr. Driver, first of all you had better realize what dishonesty has done for you. It has delivered you bound hand and foot into the hands of the very people you have defrauded of the money you promised them for removing your financial accomplice, Albert Pudleigh—people who, as you have the best reason in the world to know, stick at nothing."
Driver's flabby face faded to an unpleasant cream color, which was as near white as it could get.
"B—b—b—but you're wrong!" he stammered. "I n—n—never had any intention of defrauding you! N—none at all."
"It's not a question of your intentions, but of our intentions," I said grimly. "Do you smell kerosene?"
"Y—y—yes," said Driver.
"And do you see those demijohns?"
"Yes."
"Well, we're going to tie you to the sofa, pour kerosene over you till you and the sofa and the floor are soaking with it and burn you and the house altogether. It's insured."
"You never would!" cried Honest John Driver, and his voice rose to a screech.
We all laughed together the fiendish laugh of a villain of melodrama.
"Wouldn't we?" I said, and the others rose.
I took from the corner a coil of stout rope, and said: "You will be dead before this rope is burnt through. A painful death, but quick."
Bottiger and Chelubai laid him flat on the sofa.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Stop, stop!" he screamed. "I will pay up! I always meant to pay up!"
"Yes, yes," I said impatiently; "we know all about stumers." And I uncoiled the rope.
"No, no; I'll give you an open check, and stay here till it's cashed," he yelled, and all his face glistened with sweat.
"He seems to me to be talking," said Chelubai, and we paused and looked at one another.
"But by the time we have cashed the check he will have had the money for twenty-four hours," I said.
"Well, he must pay interest," said Chelubai.
"That will make the check £3,000."
"Three thousand pounds!" cried Honest John Driver. "Why, that's over eighteen thousand per cent. per annum!"
"So it is," said Chelubai carelessly. "I guess you'll ask what the rate is before you borrow our money another time."
"And we've had all the trouble of kidnapping him and bringing him down here," growled Bottiger.
"Oh, our fee for kidnapping him is a thousand pounds, of course," I said. "We couldn't charge you less, Mr. Driver, a man of your standing in the city."
Honest John Driver groaned.
"And his board and lodging," said Angel, whose mind ran, with reason, on housekeeping.
"Yes," said Chelubai; "I like an odd sum in an open check, it looks better."
"Well, a hundred and fifteen pounds eight and sixpence is a nice odd sum," I said. "That will make the check £4,115 8s. 6d., Mr. Driver."
The King of Finance groaned piteously, as if his very vitals were racked with pain. "You've bested me, and I must pay," he said, in a voice full of tears.
His emotion did not touch us. We untied his hands, set him in a chair before the table and put blotting-paper, pens and ink before him. Chelubai took a note-case from his pocket, drew from it a folded sheet of paper and laid it on the blotting-paper. "First of all," he said, "we want a letter from you explaining things."
"Why, it's my office paper!" cried the King of Finance.
"Yes, I thought you might want it, so I brought it away with me when I called on you," said Chelubai. "Write away. Date it yesterday."
Honest John Driver dated the letter, and wrote, with many protests, at Chelubai's dictation:
"My dear Sir Ralph Bottiger:
"I shall have much pleasure in dining with you at the Cecil, and motoring down to your Hertfordshire cottage for a night at Bridge. But let us play good high points, for, thanks to the timely disappearance of my fellow-director, Mr. Pudleigh, I have made twice as much out of the silly British Public over Amalgamated Fertilizers as I expected, and I should like a good gamble.
"Yours sincerely,
"A cynical letter," said Chelubai sadly, as he put it in his note-case. "It would do you a lot of harm if ever it became public property."
"There will be no need—no need," said the King of Finance.
"I hope not," said Chelubai. "Now for the check."
Honest John Driver pulled himself together and looked round. The honesty, which had not been conspicuous for some time in his face, shone out in all its old brazen ostentation, and he said: "I'm afraid I haven't got my check-book with me. I'll send you a check as soon as I get back to town."
"What!" I shouted. "No check! Burn him! Burn him!"
"Burn him! Burn him!" yelled Chelubai.
"Burn him!" cried Angel.
"Burn him!" roared Bottiger, and catching him by the scruff of the neck, he shook him vigorously.
"Wait! Wait!" screeched the King of Finance. "I may have a blank check on me! I sometimes carry one," and with fumbling fingers he groped furiously in his waistcoat pocket and brought out a folded check.
"What an escape you've had!" said Angel.
"The King of Finance opened the check with such shaking fingers that we gave him a brandy and soda before we let him fill it up. Our righteous indignation seemed to have unnerved him.
"Don't leave out your private mark or change your signature. We can burn you just as easily to-morrow, and we will," said I coldly.
The King of Finance shook his head. "Honest John Driver doesn't play dirty tricks like that," he said firmly.
"He'd much better not," said I.
He made the check payable to Bottiger, and Bottiger put it in his pocket. The King of Finance kept his eyes glued to it till it vanished from sight, then he sighed heavily.
And now, having finished our day's work, we thought of bed. There were two double-bedded rooms in the cottage, and the linen had been aired against our coming by a neighboring cottager. Angel bade us good-night, and went off to one room; Chelubai and Bottiger, having tossed with me for the order in which we should keep our turns of watch over Driver, went off to the other. Driver's legs were still bound; I helped him on to the sofa and threw a rug over him. He composed himself to rest; but for a while he sighed and sighed, still teeming with emotion, apparently at having had to disgorge a percentage of his plunder of the British Public. Then he snored. I amused myself with a pipe and a novel for a couple of hours; then I awoke Chelubai, and, leaving him on guard, went to bed.
Angel and Bottiger cooked the breakfast, since in the circumstances we could not bring in outside help; and we all came to it very cheerful. All of us, that is, except our guest. We four had a change of clothes with us, but he was still in evening dress, and that rumpled. Moreover, we had had our cold tubs, but he had not washed to an extent appreciable by the naked eye. Indeed, he assured me that he hated cold water; and the frankness of his admission, though hardly the admission itself, raised him in my esteem. After all, he seemed to have some shadow of a claim to his title of Honest.
After breakfast Bottiger set off to walk to the station, and while Angel read a novel, Chelubai and I cleaned our guns.
Honest John Driver watched us a while in silence, and I observed that a settled melancholy brooded over his flabby face like a mist over a marsh. Presently he said: "Now that young friend of yours, is he really a baronet?"
"Of course he is," said Chelubai. "The Bottigers have been baronets since the reign of Charles I."
"Well," said Honest John Driver, "it's something to have been robbed by a baronet—if one must be robbed."
"Robbed by a baronet! Failed to rob a baronet, you meant!" I said indignantly.
"Yes, yes; no offence!" said Driver hastily. And then slower: "Do you think he'd dine with me at the Savoy? I might be able to put some business in your way. If I could see my way to always having people like poor Pudleigh removed I could work with a freer hand."
"There's no doubt you could," said Chelubai.
"Well, do you think your friend the baronet would dine with me?"
"I dare say he would," I said indifferently, "if you promised not to make so many jokes."
"Ah, I am a bit too much of a wag—sometimes," he said thoughtfully.
His talk set me considering, and I could not but conclude that Gregson had misinformed me. Honest John Driver could not really be a King of Finance; he must be a mere princelet of that realm, or he would not hanker so greedily for the society of a baronet—he would have reached the stage of craving for dukes. It was a little disappointing; he might as yet have stolen no more than half a million from the intelligent investor, and we had been treating him as a veritable King of Finance. I could only console myself by the thought that he was the more likely to often need our help.
"When we were ready we put on him a Norfolk jacket and cap, and started out to walk up partridges, pointing out to him that if he tried to run away we would assuredly shoot him by accident. He did not enjoy the sport; he was afraid of the guns, and jumped lightly every time we fired. His patent leather boots were tight and ill-suited to the rough going, nor were his black trousers in keeping with his amusement. He looked, indeed, a curious hybrid, a sportsman from his crown to the bottom of his jacket, and a man of the world about the legs. Moreover, his wind was not good, and we were without compassion; we drove him along, and brought him home foot-sore and weary. Angel, on the other hand, enjoyed herself exceedingly; she made nothing of the rough going, and came back as fresh, or rather fresher, than she started.
We were eager for lunch, and a very little while getting it ready. In the middle of it Bottiger's wire came. It ran:
"Dine with me at the Cecil, Bottiger."
It was the formula which announced his success.
Half an hour later we had packed and were in the motor car. Honest John Driver was but a pale rider, and clung tightly to the side whenever Chelubai let her rip. When she was going up the long hill beyond Watford I took the quiet opportunity to say to Honest John Driver: "Now, Mr. Driver, I have no doubt you have been thinking of giving the police a quiet hint to keep watch on us, and catch us in our next operation."
"I haven't! I never thought of it!" said Honest John Driver, with a quickness which assured me that he had.
"Well, I want to warn you that the moment we find ourselves being watched, and we are sure to find it out, we shall instantly take steps to knock, you on the head. I needn't point out how likely we are to succeed. We've shown you what we can do."
"I shouldn't dream of it! I shouldn't dream of it!" cried Driver. "I know what an escape I've had! Besides, I bear no malice in business—never. If a man bests me, he bests me. Why, I may be working with him again in a month—as I hope to be with you, as I hope to be with you."
"Our terms will be cash in advance for the future," I said coldly.
"It's a system I object to—strongly—on principle. But—but—yes; in your case I'd make an exception."
"You'd have to," said I.
"There's really no need for you to be afraid of me. There isn't, really," he said earnestly. "After all, I've only paid you twenty-five per cent. for the extra profit I made by getting poor Pudleigh out of the way."
"We'd have made it more, if we'd known," said I.
"I'd have made it less, if I'd known—you. I'd have paid up the £2,000," he said, with a groan.
Chelubai stopped our talk by again letting the car rip, which made Honest John Driver very busy holding on, till we came to Kilburn Hill. Half-way up it he had recovered himself enough to say, "How did you remove poor Pudleigh?"
"That's a trade secret," I said stiffly.
"I hope it wasn't a very painful death," he said, with a sigh.
"Death! Who said we killed him?" I said sharply. "Our agreement was that he should disappear for a fortnight."
Honest John Driver's face fell. "This is disappointing," he sighed. "He'll make a great fuss when he comes back."
"He won't make sixteen thousand pounds' worth of fuss," I said shortly, for he seemed to me to be lacking in common gratitude.
"That's true," he said more cheerfully. "And after all he can't do anything—anything at all."
"I expect he can't," I said.
For the rest of the way he was busy turning pale and holding on, and when at last we drew up before his offices his sigh of relief was almost a groan.
He shook hands warmly with each of us, and said, "Very pleased to have met you."
Then he removed his tall flabby bulk stiffly from the car, and said, "What's your friend the baronet's address?"
I gave him Bottiger's club, and he said good-afternoon and turned to go in. As he turned, there came bouncing down the steps, his coat-tails dancing, his hat tottering, his copper-colored face distorted with fury, his pig's eyes blazing, the late Albert Amsted Pudleigh.
In a breath he had gripped Honest John Driver's collar, and, hanging on to it, shrieked: "You rascal! You scoundrel! Where's my money? Where's my share of Amalgamated Fertilizers? You thought I'd gone for good. But I haven't. I've just come out of hospital, and got my memory back, to find that you've unloaded without waiting for me. But I'm going to have my money! I'm going to have it!"
Honest John Driver shook himself free, his face once more brazenly honest. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, with splendid dignity. "I'm Honest John Driver, and this is no way to talk to me. What's the good of making a scene, man? Come inside and I'll talk to you there." And he caught Pudleigh's arm and bundled him up the steps with an activity which surprised me.
Chelubai started the car, and drove her gently along on third speed; he seemed unusually careful of the traffic.
Presently he turned to me a very sad face, and said in a very sad voice: "This is very disappointing—very. And I used the best sand—silver sand, too. What a skull! What a skull!"
I could find no words to comfort him. But for my own part I had felt a singular feeling of relief at the sight of Albert Amsted Pudleigh alive and raging. I feared that the feeling was hardly consistent with true philanthropy. This imperfection in his removal had robbed it of some of its value to Humanity.