Bones jumped up, a man inspired.
"The naughty old One, who married your sainted mother?" he gurgled.
"My miss! My young an" jolly old Marguerite!"
He sat down at his desk, yanked open the drawer, and slapped down his cheque-book.
"Three thousand pounds," he babbled, writing rapidly. "You"d better keep it for her, dear old friend of Faust."
"But I don"t understand," she said, bewildered.
"Telegram," said Bones briefly. "Read it."
She picked up the buff form and read. It was postmarked from Cowes, and ran:
"In accordance your telegraphed instructions, have sold your schooner-yacht to Mr. Dibbs, who paid cash. Did not give name of owner. Dibbs did not ask to see boat. All he wanted was receipt for money."
"They are calling this afternoon for my fifteen thousand," said Bones, cackling light-headedly. "Ring up jolly old Scotland Yard, and ask "em to send me all the police they"ve got in stock!"
CHAPTER III
BONES AND THE WHARFINGERS
I
The kite wheeling invisible in the blue heavens, the vulture appearing mysteriously from nowhere in the track of the staggering buck, possess qualities which are shared by certain favoured human beings. No newspaper announced the fact that there had arrived in the City of London a young man tremendously wealthy and as tremendously inexperienced.
There were no meetings of organized robber gangs, where masked men laid nefarious plans and plots, but the instinct which called the kite to his quarry and the carrion to the kill brought many strangers--who were equally strange to Bones and to one another--to the beautiful office which he had fitted for himself for the better furtherance of his business.
One day a respectable man brought to Mr. Tibbetts a plan of a warehouse. He came like a gale of wind, almost before Bones had digested the name on the card which announced his existence and ident.i.ty.
His visitor was red-faced and big, and had need to use a handkerchief to mop his brow and neck at intervals of every few minutes. His geniality was overpowering.
Before the startled Bones could ask his business, he had put his hat upon one chair, hooked his umbrella on another, and was unrolling, with that professional tremblement of hand peculiar to all who unroll large stiff sheets of paper, a large coloured plan, a greater portion of which was taken up by the River Thames, as Bones saw at a glance.
He knew that blue stood for water, and, twisting his neck, he read "Thames." He therefore gathered that this was the plan of a property adjacent to the London river.
"You"re a busy man; and I"m a busy man," said the stentorian man breathlessly. "I"ve just bought this property, and if it doesn"t interest you I"ll eat my hat! My motto is small profits and quick returns. Keep your money at work, and you won"t have to. Do you see what I mean?"
"Dear old hurricane," said Bones feebly, "this is awfully interesting, and all that sort of thing, but would you be so kind as to explain why and where--why you came in in this perfectly informal manner? Against all the rules of my office, dear old thing, if you don"t mind me snubbing you a bit. You are sure you aren"t hurt?" he asked.
"Not a bit, not a bit!" bellowed the intruder. "Honest John, I am--John Staines. You have heard of me?"
"I have," said Bones, and the visitor was so surprised that he showed it.
"You have?" he said, not without a hint of incredulity.
"Yes," said Bones calmly. "Yes, I have just heard you say it, Honest John Staines. Any relation to John o" Gaunt?"
This made the visitor look up sharply.
"Ha, ha!" he said, his laugh lacking sincerity. "You"re a bit of a joker, Mr. Tibbetts. Now, what do you say to this? This is Stivvins"
Wharf and Warehouse. Came into the market on Sat.u.r.day, and I bought it on Sat.u.r.day. The only river frontage which is vacant between Greenwich and Gravesend. Stivvins, precious metal refiner, went broke in the War, as you may have heard. Now, I am a man of few words and admittedly a speculator. I bought this property for fifteen thousand pounds. Show me a profit of five thousand pounds and it"s yours."
Before Bones could speak, he stopped him with a gesture.
"Let me tell you this: if you like to sit on that property for a month, you"ll make a sheer profit of twenty thousand pounds. You can afford to do it--I can"t. I tell you there isn"t a vacant wharf.a.ge between Greenwich and Gravesend, and here you have a warehouse with thirty thousand feet of floor-s.p.a.ce, derricks--derrick, named after the hangman of that name: I"ll bet you didn"t know that?--cranes, everything in---- Well, it"s not in apple-pie order," he admitted, "but it won"t take much to make it so. What do you say?"
Bones started violently.
"Excuse me, old speaker, I was thinking of something else. Do you mind saying that all over again?"
Honest John Staines swallowed something and repeated his proposition.
Bones shook his head violently.
"Nothing doing!" he said. "Wharves and ships--_no!_"
But Honest John was not the kind that accepts refusal without protest.
"What I"ll do," said he confidentially, "is this: I"ll leave the matter for twenty-four hours in your hands."
"No, go, my reliable old wharf-seller," said Bones. "I never go up the river under any possible circ.u.mstances---- By Jove, I"ve got an idea!"
He brought his knuckly fist down upon the unoffending desk, and Honest John watched hopefully.
"Now, if--yes, it"s an idea!"
Bones seized paper, and his long-feathered quill squeaked violently.
"That"s it--a thousand members at ten pounds a year, four hundred bedrooms at, say, ten shillings a night---- How many is four hundred times ten shillings multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five? Well, let"s say twenty thousand pounds. That"s it! A club!"
"A club?" said Honest John blankly.
"A river club. You said Greenhithe--that"s somewhere near Henley, isn"t it?"
Honest John sighed.
"No, sir," he said gently, "it"s in the other direction--toward the sea."
Bones dropped his pen and pinched his lip in an effort of memory.
"Is it? Now, where was I thinking about? I know--Maidenhead! Is it near Maidenhead?"
"It"s in the opposite direction from London," said the perspiring Mr.