"Somebody," corrected the taciturn Webber. "The question is, who?"
"I tell you, boys, I"m in a pretty bad way," said Seepidge earnestly.
"I don"t think, even if I"d backed that winner, I could have got out of trouble. The business is practically in p.a.w.n; I"m getting a police inspection once a week. I"ve got a job now which may save my bacon, if I can dodge the "splits"--an order for a million leaflets for a Hamburg lottery house. And I want the money--bad! I owe about three thousand pounds."
"I know where there"s money for asking," said Webber, and they looked at him.
His interesting disclosure was not to follow immediately, for they had reached closing-time, and were respectfully ushered into the street.
"Come over to my club," said Mr. Seepidge.
His club was off the Tottenham Court Road, and its membership was artistic. It had changed its name after every raid that had been made upon it, and the fact that the people arrested had described themselves as artists and actresses consolidated the New Napoli Club as one of the artistic inst.i.tutions of London.
"Now, where"s this money?" asked Seepidge, when they were seated round a little table.
"There"s a fellow called Bones----" began Mr. Webber.
"Oh, him!" interrupted Mr. Morris, in disgust. "Good Heavens! You"re not going to try him again!"
"We"d have got him before if you hadn"t been so clever," said Webber.
"I tell you, he"s rolling in money. He"s just moved into a new flat in Devonshire Street that can"t cost him less than six hundred a year."
"How do you know this?" asked the interested Morris.
"Well," confessed Webber, without embarra.s.sment, "I"ve been working solo on him, and I thought I"d be able to pull the job off myself."
"That"s a bit selfish," reproached Morris, shaking his head. "I didn"t expect this from you, Webbie."
"Never mind what you expected," said Webber, unperturbed. "I tell you I tried it. I"ve been nosing round his place, getting information from his servants, and I"ve learned a lot about him. Mind you," said Mr.
Webber, "I"m not quite certain how to use what I know to make money.
If I"d known that, I shouldn"t have told you two chaps anything about it. But I"ve got an idea that this chap Bones is a bit sensitive on a certain matter, and Cully Tring, who"s forgotten more about human men than I ever knew, told me that, if you can get a mug on his sensitive spot, you can bleed him to death. Now, three heads are better than one, and I think, if we get together, we"ll lift enough stuff from Mr.
Blinking Bones to keep us at Monte Carlo for six months."
"Then," said Mr. Seepidge impressively, "let us put our "eads together."
In emotional moments that enterprising printer was apt to overlook the box where the little "h"s" were kept.
Bones had indeed moved into the intellectual atmosphere of Devonshire Street. He had hired a flat of great beauty and magnificence, with lofty rooms and distempered walls and marble chimney-pieces, for all the world like those rooms in the catalogues of furniture dealers which so admirably show off the fifty-pound drawing-room suite offered on the easiest terms.
"My dear old thing," he said, describing his new splendours to Hamilton, "you ought to see the jolly old bathroom!"
"What do you want a bath for?" asked Hamilton innocently. "You"ve only got the place for three years."
"Now, dear old thing, don"t be humorous," said Bones severely. "Don"t be cheap, dear old comic one."
"The question is," said Hamilton, "why the d.i.c.kens do you want a new flat? Your old flat was quite a palatial establishment. Are you thinking of setting up housekeeping?"
Bones turned very red. In his embarra.s.sment he stood first upon one leg and then the other, lifting his eyebrows almost to the roof of his head to let in his monocle, and lifted them as violently to let it out again.
"Don"t pry, don"t pry, dear old Ham," he said testily. "Great Heavens and Moses! Can"t a fellow take a desirable flat, with all modern conveniences, in the most fashionable part of the West End, and all that sort of thing, without exciting the voice of scandal, dear old thing? I"m surprised at you, really I am, Ham. I am, Ham," he repeated. "That sounds good," he said, brightening up. "Am Ham!"
"But what is the scheme?" persisted Hamilton.
"A bargain, a bargain, dear old officer," said Bones, hurriedly, and proceeded to the next business.
That next business included the rejection of several very promising offers which had arrived from different directors of companies, and people. Bones was known as a financier. People who wanted other people to put money into things invariably left Bones to the last, because they liked trying the hard things first. The inventor and patentee of the reaping machine that could be worked by the farmer in his study, by means of push keys, was sure, sooner or later, to meet a man who scratched his chin and said:
"Hard luck, but why don"t you try that man Tibbetts? He"s got an office somewhere around. You"ll find it in the telephone book. He"s got more money than he knows what to do with, and your invention is the very thing he"d finance."
As a rule, it was the very thing that Bones did not finance.
Companies that required ten thousand pounds for the extension of their premises, and the fulfilment of the orders which were certain to come next year, drafted through their secretaries the most wonderful letters, offering Bones a seat on their board, or even two seats, in exchange for his autograph on the south-east corner of a cheque. These letters usually began somehow like this:
"At a moment when the eyes of the world are turned upon Great Britain, and when her commercial supremacy is threatened, it behoves us all to increase production...." And usually there was some reference to "the patriotic duty of capital."
There was a time when these appeals to his better nature would have moved Bones to amazing extravagance, but happily that time was before he had any money to speak about.
For Bones was growing in wisdom and in wiliness as the days pa.s.sed.
Going through the pile of correspondence, he came upon a letter which he read thoughtfully, and then read again before he reached to the telephone and called a number. In the City of London there was a business-like agency which supplied him with a great deal of useful information, and it was to these gentlemen that he addressed his query: "Who are Messrs. Seepidge & Soomes?"
He waited for some time with the receiver at his ear, a far-away look in his eyes, and then the reply came:
"A little firm of printers run by a rascal named Seepidge, who has been twice bankrupt and is now insolvent. His firm has been visited by the police for illegal printing several times, and the firm is in such a low condition that it has a job to pay its wages bill."
"Thank you," said Bones. "Thank you, dear old commercial guardian.
What is the business worth?"
"It"s worth your while to keep away from it," said the humorous reply, and Bones hung up the receiver.
"Ham, old dear," he said, and Hamilton looked up. "Suppose," said Bones, stretching out his legs and fixing his monocle, "suppose, my jolly old accountant and partner, you were offered a business which was worth"--he paused--"which was worth your while keeping away from it--that"s a pretty good line, don"t you think, old literary critic?"
"A very good line," said Hamilton calmly; "but you have rather a loud-speaking telephone, and I think I have heard the phrase before."
"Oh, have you?" said Bones by no means abashed. "Still, it"s a very good line. And suppose you were offered this printing business for fifteen thousand pounds, what would you say?"
"It depends on who was present," said Ham, "and where I was. For example, if I were in the gorgeous drawing-room of your wonderful flat, in the splendid presence of your lovely lady wife to be----"
Bones rose and wagged his finger.
"Is nothing sacred to you, dear old Ham?" he choked. "Are the most tender emotions, dear old thing, which have ever been experienced by any human being----"
"Oh, shut up," said Hamilton, "and let"s hear about this financial problem of yours."
Bones was ruffled, and blinked, and it was some time before he could bring himself back to sordid matters of business.
"Well, suppose this jolly old brigand offered you his perfectly beastly business for fifteen thousand pounds, what would you do?"
"Send for the police," said Hamilton.