RGL e-Book Cover^©

The Blue Book Magazine, January 1925, with "Wine-Vaulting Ambition"

WINE-VAULTING AMBITION

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"Wine-Vaulting Ambition" deals with a specially exciting adventure
in rascality and includes a quaint assortment of crime and criminals.

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"IN our life a man must have a little stimulant now and again—as well as good food," said the Honorable John Brass emphatically, as he set down an empty liqueur glass. "And there goes the last of the old brandy," he added sadly.

Ex-Lord Fortworth—now his partner—nodded fiercely. Although some months had elapsed since he dropped his title in favor of the more modest name of Colonel Clumber, he found it difficult to bring himself to think economically before he spent money.

The two had not made a coup since they obtained the bulk of Lady Fortworth's jewels on the occasion of their bolting from the Fortworth mansion in Park Lane, and money was getting tight. They were holding the jewels until the hue-and-cry had died down sufficiently to enable them to get a fair price, and although, between them, they had some fifteen hundred pounds or so in ready money, that was not a large sum for men who dined in the thorough manner to which they had become accustomed, and who had a big moor, a fiat in town, and a quiet, unobtrusive little country resort on the Hampshire-Surrey border to keep up.

It was at this stage that they discovered that the stock of "stimulants" at the fiat was running out.

"What we ought to do is to lay in a thoroughly good supply of wines and stuff in the cellars at Purdston. We can supply the flat from there as we need it," said the Honorable John. "Only it'll cost us a thousand pounds that we can't afford."

"But we must have something to drink," said Lord Colonel Fortworth Clumber across the luncheon table.

"Well, then, we shall have to commit sacrilege, and rob a brewery," suggested Mr. Brass luminously.

The Colonel nodded.

"Sure," said he, "that's it. What's the matter with taking the car down to Purdston, running out from there one night to the wine-vaults at Andover, and bringing away a load or two of the pick of the stuff?"

The Honorable John's eyes brightened, and he raised them from the empty liqueur glass he had been wistfully regarding.

"Fort—Colonel, you're a man of ideas. I always knew that a man who'd gone through a course of financial work in the City would make the finest crook in the world—the— finest—crook—in—the—world," he said enthusiastically. "Why haven't we done it before? You ought to know those works like a book—they belong to you by rights, if it wasn't for that lot of creditors. Brewery, distillery and wine-vaults, all in one, aint it? We might have a look at the safe, too, when we're there." He pressed the bell for Sing. "Pack our bags for a week in the country, Sing, my son," he commanded, "and order the car to be round from the garage in an hour's time."

"Yes, Master."

The bright, beady eyes of the saffron scoundrel twinkled as he remarked this sudden activity.

"You needn't look so delighted," commanded Mr. Brass genially. "You'll probably end by getting ten years. Hook it, now."

Sing let out a flicker of teeth as he smiled and noiselessly hooked it, while his masters proceeded to finish their cigars and take a short nap each, for sake of their digestions.

SOME three hours later the big, luxurious motor slid along the drive of the lonely and retired old house outside Purdston, which the partners had fitted up according to their own ideas of what a headquarters should be.

It was a convenient place from which to rob the huge brewery of which, in his palmy days, Lord Fortworth had been chairman and controlling shareholder. The works were at Crayton, just outside An-dover, and Purdston was some twenty-five miles or so away.

A stout, very polite manservant of about thirty years received them at the door and took the car round to the garage. This was Mr. Bloom, an ex-butler of Fort-worth's, who had been surprised halfway through an ingenious little forgery scheme involving the borrowing of his master's name. He had escaped in the nick of time; but shortly after Fortworth's failure the ex-millionaire had encountered him, very poverty-stricken, on the pavement, and had put him and his wife into the house at Purdston to look after the place, at the low figure that the lack of a reference made Bloom only too anxious to accept.

The partners had discussed their plans on the way down, and after an unambitious dinner and a couple of cigars, they had the motor round, and with a final injunction to Bloom to keep sober if he valued his job (and liberty, for Fortworth still held the attempted forgery over his head), they started for Andover, planning to reach the works at about twelve o'clock.

There was a bright moon; the roads were good; and the car ran silent and tranquil as a happy dream.

Mr. Brass sniffed the cool night air appreciatively.

"I feel good tonight," he said, "good and lucky and greedy. I've got an idea we're going to make a haul. I suppose there's some pretty hot stuff lying idle in the vaults, aint there?"

Fortworth nodded solemnly over the steering-wheel.

"There's a bin of '42 brandy in the spirit vaults, worth pounds a bottle," he replied reverently. "We used to try it at board meetings sometimes. And there's some wonderful East India Madeira. It's not a wine that's so very popular, for some foolish reason or other, but—well, you and I know all that's necessary to know about Madeira. And some of the white wines—particularly an '81 Château d'Yquem—are worth attention. The best of the champagne is good,—I'm talking of the cream of the vaults,—and there's a curious old port that we paid a fancy price for; there was only fifty dozen, and we'll grab the lot, if the directors have left any for us to grab. It's a heavy wine—a very heavy wine to an ordinary man. I guess we shall find it a nice, reasonable port."

The Honorable John sighed regretfully.

"I wish we had a motor pantechnicon," he said, "and were able to take our time."

Clumber-Fortworth agreed.

"Still, this is a big car," he added, "and if all goes well, we'll call again some day. We turn in here."

HE switched off his lights, and the motor swung silently off the main road toward a number of big buildings that stood up blackly in the moonlight.

"They're working in the brewery,—that big place with the lights away to the right,—but we turn off for the wine-vaults before we get very near the beer department," muttered Fortworth. "We shall have to chance the watchman. If we meet him, leave him to me. I did him a good turn in the wealthy weather—when he needed it."

He turned again, ran right up under a long, low building, and completing a circle, backed the car into the heavy shadows of a paved courtyard. They alighted quickly as firemen, and silent as only fat men and thieves when they wish.

Fortworth led the way along the side of the building, and stopped some fifteen yards from the motor at a small door.

"Here we are!" he said. "It's locked; but there are no bolts on the inside, if I remember rightly."

Mr. Brass bent to the keyhole, taking a bunch of rather thick skeleton keys from his pocket. Before starting work on the lock, he tentatively turned the handle, and—the door opened!

"It's not locked," said the Honorable John, and stepped in.

"Ought to be," grunted Fortworth, following.

Sing was about to enter in his turn, blandly smiling at the thought of the opportunity to quench his patient Celestial thirst, when Mr. Brass leaned back and, over Fortworth's shoulder, gave him his instructions in a sharp whisper.

"You mind the door. Sing, and keep your lamps trimmed for the watchman. If he comes along, keep inside till he's past. If he spots the motor, hop out and stop him from giving the alarm."

"Killee him, Master?"

"No, you ape! I've spoken to you about your 'killee' tricks before. You start killing anybody while you're in my employment, my primrose coon, and I'll put a magazineful of bullets into your clockwork. See? When I say 'stop him,' I mean trip him up and gag him. When you hear me whistle, come quietly on down the passage for a bit of weight-lifting."

He flashed a discreet ray from his electric torch through the gloom ahead.

"Lead on, Magog!" he said, with a dim idea that he was quoting poetry to Fortworth; and the two moved quietly down the passage. At the end of it—some six yards along—they came to a small square recess. The Honorable John flashed the light in, and both men stiffened. In the recess was a plain deal table and an ordinary Windsor chair with wooden arms. A man was sitting in the chair, his arms sprawling across the table, and his head on his arms, dead asleep. On the table was a bottle of milky-looking tea, half empty.

"The watchman," whispered Fortworth.

The Honorable John tiptoed up to the table, took up the bottle, and smelt it.

"It's tea, all right," he said, and looked curiously at the sleeping man, listening to his slow, heavy breathing. "But not the kind of tea I care about myself!" He craned over the man's flattened shoulder and sniffed. "Drugged!" he said.

"Gee!" muttered Fortworth softly. In the white light of the flash-lamp the two looked at each other interrogatively. "Queer, aint it?" whispered Fortworth.

"Maybe some one else on the same business as ours," replied the Honorable John. "I've known it happen before. But—we'll soon see."

He backed down the passage and uttered a low, soft whistle that resembled the sound of wind passing a keyhole as much as anything. Sing floated noiselessly up, and Mr. Brass flashed his light over the sleeper.

"See that man?" he said. "It's the watchman—and he's drugged, Sing. You stand here in the dark and watch the watchman—until I want you."

Sing took up a coldly businesslike position behind the watchman, ready to grip him the instant he stirred, and the Honorable John turned away. Fortworth was already moving to a door facing the recess. But he did not touch the handle. He waited for his partner. All that sort of delicate, soundless business was in charge of Mr. Brass. When Fortworth had been one of the money-captains, he exacted obedience from his assistants, and now he was an assistant, he had the sense to extend obedience to his superior—his superior in practical burglary, at any rate.

UNDER the Honorable John's firm but suave manipulation the door opened into a room in pitch darkness.

"The General Manager's room," breathed Fortworth. "There's a door opposite, leading into the counting-house—where the safe is. The entrance to the cellars is on the far side of the counting-house. If there's anybody here, they're at the safe."

"Listen!" counseled the Honorable John sharply.

His fingers closed on Fortworth's arm like steel hooks. They stood in the dark, listening. Then, very faint, came a quiet, unexpected sound—as of someone sobbing quietly in the counting-house.

It is a very disconcerting noise to hear at black midnight in a huge, echoing building—the sound of grief. The Honorable John lighted up the door for half a second and then crept across. Fortworth waited where he was. He heard nothing, but presently he saw a faint, perpendicular knife-edge of light appear on the blackness. His partner was opening the door with the silence and infinitesimal movement of a cat stalking an unsuspecting prey. The sound of subdued weeping grew louder, and the light-streak broadened fractionally, until it was some two inches wide. Then it ceased, and Fortworth suddenly became aware of a shadow at his side.

"Go over and take a look," came the Honorable John's keen whisper in his ear. "This is a new kind of puzzle to me."

Together they stole over and peered through.

All they saw was the slim, black-frocked figure of a woman bending over a big roll-top desk near the fireplace, hiding her face in her hands and crying hopelessly to herself. Her hat was off, and the gleam from a small bicycle lamp on the top of the desk fell full upon her hair, burnishing it to a bright gold.

"Why, it's Eily—poor little kid!" whispered Fortworth to himself. "What's wrong, anyway?"

"That's Eily Desmond—the most reliable little dame at figures I've ever struck. She came to me, and I liked the look of her and the way of her. Gave her a trial, and she knocked spots off most of the men. So I made her assistant cashier—though crying here at midnight by the light of a bicycle lamp is no part of her duties."

"How about those account-books, though?" whispered the Honorable John. The desk at which the girl sat was piled with big businesslike books.

"Don't know. Let's ask," said Fortworth, and walked into the counting-house as though he were still monarch of the place. He placed his hand on the girl's shoulder. "Why, Eily, what's the matter? You mustn't cry like this," he said, more kindly than he usually spoke to any woman—not excluding his wife that had been.

THE girl looked up with a start. The A Honorable John, his electric lamp in full flood, saw that she was very pretty, in a sweet, wistful, clinging way—only now her face was pale and drawn with weeping.

"It—it's Lord Fortworth!" she said incredulously.

"That's right, Eily Desmond—bankrupt old Lord Fortworth come back again," said the ex-baron.

But he spoke absently, for his eyes were skimming a sheet of foolscap paper that lay on the desk before the girl, starred with tears. His brows were drawn together in a black frown.

The girl started again, and reached out for the sheet of paper.

"Oh, please, please don't look—" she began.

But Fortworth caught her hands quickly, though not ungently.

"I must, Eily. It's my business, I think."

The girl lost control of herself suddenly. She fought to free her hands.

"You mustn't—you mustn't," she panted.

The Honorable John reached swiftly under her arms and switched the paper off the desk. Fortworth dropped the girl's hands and turned to his partner. His eyes were suddenly bloodshot, and Mr. Brass saw that they glittered with a pale mad light that sent a thrill through him. His hard mouth and jaw were set like stone.

"Give me the paper, Brass," he said. "I'm ripe for murder!"

Eily Desmond covered her face with her hands again and groaned. It was a queer, plaintive little, hunted sound, such as a hare coursed to the limit of its strength—with death ravening a yard behind it—might utter, and it went to the heart of the Honorable John Brass like a knife. No man ever was more ready to help those who needed help (or to help himself from those who needed no help) than Mr. Brass.

"Don't cry, Eily, dear," he whispered. "It'll all come right—well see to that, Fortworth and me. Come on, Eily." He patted her shoulder. "You mustn't mind Fortworth. That's his way—besides, he wasn't thinking of you when he spoke about murder. You've got nothing to worry about. I'm here—and Sing's in the corridor outside," he added desperately, as the grief of the girl showed no sign of abating.

"Sheldrupp, by God! Sheldrupp!" The name came from behind them like a snap from a whip. The girl raised her head with a start, and both she and Mr. Brass turned to Fortworth, who was smiling cruelly at the paper in his hand. He looked across at Eily Desmond's frightened face, and his lips softened. "I say, Eily, tell me why you came here like this—midnight, bicycle lamp, drugged watchman, and all that—to get out this list of—things?" he asked.

His tone was kind, but his eyes pierced her.

Suddenly she flushed—flushed from the curls at her forehead to the lace at her slender throat. She said nothing. Fortworth drew his own conclusion from the flush.

"Come, Eily—I want to be friends with you. You're in love with Sheldrupp, and don't know how to tell me. Is that it?"

She nodded slightly, and Fortworth made a little sound of regret with his tongue.

"The man's a thief," he said. "You must learn to forget him—he's not good enough for you. Is he still general manager—under the liquidator?"

The girl nodded again.

"And he's been faking things." His eyes skimmed over the list once more. "Why, the grafter must have been dipping up the money with a bushel measure! But why are you getting out this list, Eily? Every item is an I.O.U for penal servitude. Didn't you know that? Oh, you can't go on loving a crook like that, my dear. I thought he was planning to marry the rich old widow woman the other side of An-dover—Mrs. Whatsername—Melford. He told me so months ago. Is that all off?"

"No." The girl's reply came very faint. "They are going to be married next week."

"What!" Fortworth looked puzzled for a moment; then his heavy face lit up with a sort of savage triumph. He winked ferociously but furtively at Mr. Brass. "I see. Poor little Eily!" he said gently. "The fool threw you over for Missus Moneybags—not knowing that you knew about these secret commissions and things he had been taking and faking, and at the last moment you lost your head a little and decided to let him see that you had him in the hollow of your hand. Only we came and interrupted you—and saved you. Eily. We saved you sure from Sheldrupp, for he would have married you rather than risk this list—and you'd have been done for. You'd have hated him in a week—for the man's a swine, my dear. You're miles too good for him." He took the limp hand of the girl in his own. "Give it up, little Eily Desmond," he said. "We'll look after you—find you a nice boy, straight like an arrow, and blue eyes and curly hair, for a husband.—Wont we, Brass? You mustn't think any more about these brewery hogs. You'll give him up now?"

Very slowly she nodded.

"That's a good girl." He shook her hand and became businesslike. "Now, Eily Desmond, I want you to do me a small favor. Give me out the books and letters and anything you've got relating to this list, and let me run through 'em. While I'm doing that, you show my friend here the way to a few wines." He took a catalogue from a table close by, and rapidly ticked off a number of items therein. "There, Eily,—now you show him and his servant the way to the wines I've marked. I'll take all the responsibility." "Yes sir, and all the wines if I could carry 'em," he added under his breath.

THE girl obediently brought him the books and documents he asked for, supplementing them with a thick package of letters which were the outcome, apparently, of her own private inquiries, and leaving him alone poring over these in the light of the bicycle lamp, she led the Honorable John and Sing through the wine vaults.

For the next half-hour Mr. Brass kept the Chinaman busy giving a mighty lifelike imitation of an overworked baggage camel. Case after case of expensive wine was carried swiftly, silently and gladsomely out to the big motor, until at last the car would take no more. It was filled to the brim with bottles, quickly but carefully packed in straw. A shallow hole had been left for one passenger,—for appearance's sake,—and two fur rugs were flung carelessly over all. Then the Honorable John and the girl went back to Fortworth. He had almost finished what he had set himself to do. He asked one or two quick questions, and then folded up his papers and put them away.

"And now you must run away, Eily. It's past two o'clock. Have you got your bicycle? Yes. All right, then. How about your landlady? You've arranged all that, have you? Thinks you're at a party, eh? Well, the sooner you're in bed, the better for those white cheeks, my dear. So good-by. Say nothing at all about tonight to anybody, and it'll all come right. We shall write to you or come and see you soon—when we've found that boy." He chuckled. "Good night, Eily."

They escorted the girl to the door and watched her ride away. Then they returned to the watchman, poured away the remainder of the drugged tea, removed all traces of their visit, closed the doors, and, climbing into the car, glided silently out into the main road, with Sing sitting like a Chinese Bacchus amidst the wine, A little way along, they switched on their lamps, and without a hitch or mishap boomed home to a supper which both honestly felt they had earned. They wound up with a bottle of the Imperial Tokay. Its jolting had not improved it, but nevertheless it was imperial enough to enable them to perceive that the staircase seemed to have taken a Futurist angle as they went upstairs to bed.

FORENOON of the following day they devoted to figures—clouds of them, like gnats in a sunbeam. And the sunbeam shone full upon one Gregory Sheldrupp—general manager of the Imperial Supply Breweries Company, limited, of Crayton.

Briefly, it was abundantly dear that Mr. Sheldrupp had for some years past been laboring under the delusion that the I.S.B. Co. Ltd., was in business to act as a kind of automatic annuity-supply to Gregory Sheldrupp. He had robbed the Company with both hands. Secret commissions, faked purchases, discounts that came back to the giver like a boomerang, advance payments on account for visionary plant, contracts renewed (for heavy secret payments) for months beyond the time-limit, and a score of similar subterranean thefts, some of which had appeared in the books—as, for instance, purchases at prices considerably above market value, and some of which did not appear in any of the firm's books at all. But the letters which Eily Desmond had received from various people and firms shed daylight on these latter transactions. The girl must haw worked desperately to find out what the letters proved.

At last, just as Bloom ballooned silently into the room and announced lunch. Lord Fortworth put down his pen and stood up.

"Well, that hippopotamus-mouthed hog has taken a bite the size of a new moon out of the Company—as near twenty-four thousand pounds as you can get. Proved pinchings, mind you! It's made up in about forty items,—some big, some small,—but the penalty of each is sure penal servitude. We must haw him pulled, Brass."

The Honorable John smiled.

"Pulled!" he said. "I do not pense, as they say in France. You leave this to me from now onward. There is money in it. Let's have lunch now, and when we've taken the edge off our appetite, I'll tell you the way we must get it."

THAT night Mr. Gregory Sheldrupp was dining at "Missus Moneybags'," as Lord Fortworth had so coarsely put it The lady, certainly, was distressingly wealthy, even as she was likely to be profoundly intolerant of the lapses of her fiance from the straight but narrow path of rectitude; but save for these little idiosyncrasies she was an average, ordinary, everyday woman, kind, food of entertaining, interested in her clothes, and fond of the homage of good-looking, youngish men. Practically every hard-up "stiff" (from Lord Fortworth's extensive vocabulary) in the south of England had proposed to her. But the happiness of settling down within easy reach of that bank-balance seemed to have been reserved for Gregory Sheldrupp—who, when he had seen the opportunity, had incontinently broken off his engagement to pretty Eily Desmond.

There were some fifteen guests, including Sheldrupp, at Crayton House, the residence of the wealthy Mrs. Melford, and they were just toying with their dessert in the faintly flushed and slightly overfed manner for which these country-house spreads are not infrequently peculiar, when a big, powerful motor drove up to the door, with two burly, official-looking men in front and a hard-looking yellowish companion behind.

One of those in front, and the tough-featured gentleman at the back, alighted in a quick, businesslike style. The driver—goggled and peak-capped and heavily coated—remained in his seat. Without hesitation the two proceeded to the door, and while one knocked peremptorily, the other played a short but doubtless effective solo on the door-bell push.

Just before they did so, the burlier of the two leaned over to the other, whispering:

"Sing, my lad, if you mess this up I shall take a chisel and mallet to you when we get back to Purdston. See? So mind your orders—and stick to em."

Sing, in regulation boots and clothes which, although quite plain, had a pronounced official look about them, nodded and squared himself. He did not speak.

It was one of his orders not to speak that night.

The door opened, and a footman framed himself in the doorway. The Honorable John and Sing stepped in without words.

MR. BRASS fixed the footman with an eye of steel.

"Mr. Gregory Sheldrupp here, my man? If so, fetch him. Tell him quietly that Detective Inspector Irons, of Scotland Yard, would like to speak to him."

The footman opened his mouth, observed that in the face of this peremptory caller with the sinister name that caused him to close it, and with a muttered, "Yes sir," departed, leaving them alone in the hall.

The Honorable John's swift eye fell on A gold-mounted jewel-set fan lying slightly under an oak seat at one side of the big hall. Obviously it had been dropped unnoticed by some one who had been sitting on the seat. He picked it up, with a muttered comment on the untidiness of the rich, and put it—in his pocket. He was a most fastidiously tidy man, was Mr. Brass.

Presently the footman returned, followed by Sheldrupp, a tall, fair fellow, handsome in the florid, full-faced style that in the long run develops into terraces of double chins and a port wine complexion, with blue eyes that were bold enough in a watchful sort of way. He had just reached the age when a man begins to speculate in hair-tonics as a sort of insurance against the time when the leaves begin to fall, and he looked precisely the sort of man who would be likely to get a sixty-horsepower clutch on the heart of a rich widow with a bias towards plainness of face. He came forward briskly enough—the color on his cheeks going a little patchy as his quick eyes took in the grim, unfriendly aspect of the callers.

"Ah, Inspector!" he said quickly. "You want to see me about that insurance case, I suppose?" His eyes implored Mr. Brass to avoid a scene before the footman, and another of his kind who had arrived from nowhere. "Will you and your assistant come this way?"

The Honorable John nodded dourly, and Sheldrupp led them to a small room opening off the hall. He carefully closed the door and turned—very pale now.

"Well, Inspector Irons?"

"I have a warrant for your arr—" began Mr. Brass metallically, but Sheldrupp threw out his hand defiantly.

"Oh, never mind the recitative!" he said cynically. "You can do it well enough for an encore, I don't doubt. What do I do now?"

"Oh, you just come along—that's the usual thing nowadays," said the Honorable John. "You come along with me—I've got a car outside."

He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a pair of well-polished handcuffs that shone evilly and suggestively in the electric light. Sheldrupp's face changed.

"Oh, hang it all—can't you manage without those beastly things?" he said, agitated. "Look here, who has put you on to all this?" he added quickly. "At whose instance are you arresting me? The Board of the I.S.B. Co.?"

The Honorable John shook his head.

"No—Lord Fortworth."

"Lord Fortworth!" echoed Sheldrupp. "Why, he's bolted! Absconded! The police want him as well."

"That's all right, my friend. The police know where to find him when the time comes, but we want a few of the crooks that robbed him first. You leave the police to attend to their own business—which at the moment is to land you in the refrigerator."

SHELDRUPP made one more effort. He came close to Mr. Brass and whispered furiously in his ear.

"Look here, Inspector," said Sheldrupp. "This is hard luck. I've had about thirty thousand quid from the Company all told. If I go to jail, the Company'll get nothing—not a farthing. If they wait till next week, I shall be controlling nearly half a million of money—I'm marrying it. And the Company will get back every penny, plus interest. Give me a week—I'll make it worth your while, too. I'll see the Board tomorrow and fix them. They stand to make thirty thousand quid by calling you people off. They'll not get an oat by putting me in jail. It's too well hidden, I assure you. And you're on a thousand quid to nothing if you can fix it! Say you couldn't find me—anything. I'll lie low till I fix the Board. Come now, is it a go?"

The Honorable John pondered it with deliberation that must have been maddening to the man watching him.

"Well, is it a go?" demanded Sheldrupp.

"IV got my job to think of," Mr. Brass reminded him.

"Oh, well, say two thousand for you, then!" snapped Sheldrupp impatiently.

The Honorable John looked at him heavily.

"And my pension," he said.

"Three thousand!"

Detective Irons slowly shook his head.

"Then there's my wife," he mused aloud.

Sheldrupp stamped with impatience.

"Oh, say four thousand!"

But still Mr. Brass shook his head.

"Well, how much do you want, you shark?" demanded Sheldrupp, and the Honorable John's face brightened up a little.

"I want the lot," he said frankly.

Sheldrupp looked dazed.

"But how about the Company? If I give it to you instead of refunding to them, I'm no better off. I shall only get another detective down for me," he said.

The Honorable John raised his hand.

"Now, I ask you—is that any of my business? Is it? Your debts to the Company is your business. Your debts to me is my business. Please yourself whether you pay the Company or whether you don't. But if we do business, I've got to have my little bit."

Sheldrupp glared at him,

"It means paying twice over—once to the Company, once to you. Sixty thousand quid!"

"What do you keep on dragging your private affairs into it for?" said Mr. Brass.

Sheldrupp gave in—not gracefully.

"All right, you wolf!" he said. "How do you want it? I must have time."

"I'm no wolf," replied the Honorable John. "I'm your best friend. I'll give you time. I want ten thousand down—first thing tomorrow. And five thousand a month—kindly close your phonograph till I've finished speaking—five thousand a month for four months. And 111 fix him—no extra charge!" he indicated Sing. "I'll keep off arresting you for a week," he said, "and it's for you to arrange with the Board within that time. After that you will be safe enough—unless you try any funny business with me," he added with sudden menace. "I'll take your promissory notes now—so that it doesn't slip my memory."

He produced a packet of stamped forms and a fountain pen.

"I've sold my reputation cheap," he said regretfully as he handed them over.

"Your what?" sneered Sheldrupp.

But he filled in the forms.

"And now get out of my sight," he said, his voice thick with rage.

The Honorable John read the notes, folded them, and tucked them away in his pocket.

"Yes," he said blandly, "I expect you feel as though you would like to be alone for a little while, don't you?"

SHELDRUPP rang the bell for the foot-man without answering. The servant appeared.

"Well," said Mr. Brass, taking his hat, "good night, Mr. Sheldrupp. I will keep in close touch with you—and shall hope to see you at least once a month—until the affair is settled. You may rely upon that. Good night."

Sheldrupp growled "Good night!" and the pair followed the footman. Not till the motor was halfway down the drive did Fortworth speak.

"Get anything?" he muttered.

"Thirty thousand—ten down and five thousand a month."

"Good Lord, you're a genius! Don't speak. Let it soak in! And I wanted to waste the man on Dartmoor."

"We shall only get the ten," said the Honorable John. "He'll bolt as soon as we draw the ten tomorrow. We must warn Mrs. Melford. Can't let a woman marry a crook like that without warning!"

"True—true," agreed Fortworth. "Still, ten thousand looks good to me."

Presently he added ruminatingly:

"Eily deserves a share—and she shall have it. How about a share for the Chink—Sing?"

"Sing!" echoed the Honorable John. "That lemon! Sing can go to the devil. What do I pay him eight bob a week for?"

Sing, sitting behind, heard, for he had ears like a bat—both in size and quality. But he only smiled blandly. He Knew all about his master. While the Honorable John lasted, Sing was perfectly aware that he was provided for—both as regards work and money.

He chuckled a heathen chuckle, and settled down to take a short nap.

And the big car slid silently on through the night to the comfortable retreat at Purdston.

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THE END

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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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