"I wouldn"t be discouraged, Mr. Weldon," she had said kindly. "Your case is not so uncommon--really. He has cured much worse."
"You"re very kind, Miss--Miss Jessop," he had answered gratefully (her rich, brown colouring was so restful, her hand on his shoulder so firm and deftly powerful).
He had thought of her all the way home.
Now, curiously enough, perhaps because the president"s desk was placed in the same position as Dr. Stanchon"s desk had been, he thought of her again, irrelevantly. That was the trouble--not to be irrelevant!
The president"s careless glance conveyed just such a tinge of critical surprise as the occasion called for: he toyed with a slender tortoise-sh.e.l.l paper-cutter. The pendulum of the sombre, costly grandfather clock behind him swung tolerantly, silently; the murmur of the bank beyond them was utterly lost behind the heavy double doors and forgotten behind the bronze velvet curtains. The president"s voice sounded on--he seemed to Weldon to have been uttering pompous plat.i.tudes since time began. His voice was as meaningless as a cardboard mask: how could people pay attention to him? Weldon wondered irritably.
"...Nor has it ever been my policy to render myself inaccessible to my--my corps of a.s.sistants. No. Not in the slightest degree. Our interests..."
Here Weldon"s mind slipped softly from its moorings and drifted off on seas that soon grew tropic: should it be Bermuda, after all? Oleanders and a turquoise bay--what a relief to pavement-gritted eyes!
"Nevertheless, trivial, inconsequent interviews between one in my position and those of my--my corps of a.s.sistants who may so far forget themselves as to seek them, must always be deplored. They tend only to weaken..."
And yet this man had a reputation for cleverness--nay, it was no empty reputation. Did not Weldon know what he could do, know better than any living man? And yet, how he babbled! Hark, here was his own name.
"You inform me, Mr. Weldon, that you have been ten years in the employ of the bank, a gratifying but by no means unusual record. Our cashier, you know, is now in his twenty-third year, if I am not mistaken. Yes.
Was it to inform me of this only that you requested this interview?"
"No," said Weldon wearily, for the president"s voice hit like a dull hammer on his ear. "No, it was not for that."
"I trust, Mr. Weldon, that your mention of the fact that your salary is two thousand dollars was not intended in any way ... was not, in short, to be regarded in the light of..."
"No, no, no," Weldon murmured impatiently, trying to shake off a compelling drowsiness that threatened him.
"Because in that case ... in that case ... it was, I remember, only upon Mr. Bingham"s urgent recommendation that it was made two thousand.
The post has never carried but eighteen hundred. But your exceptional work, according to Mr. Bingham ... I am glad to hear it is not a question of salary. I never discuss..."
Again Weldon"s mind slipped off, and this time groves of palms hovered between the grooved Corinthian pillars of the president"s office, palms and frosty coral wreaths. To breathe that languid, blue-stained air!
"... May I ask, then, Mr. Weldon, for what purpose you have requested this interview?"
Consciousness returned with a flash and Weldon straightened in his red leather chair.
"I have been waiting for some time the opportunity to tell you, sir,"
he said coolly, and the angry start that greeted this positively strengthened him. It was a natural start, at least.
"Mr. Deeping," he continued, with only a little catch of the breath, "what you describe as my "exceptional work" has led me to request this interview. I believe it to be in many ways exceptional. During Mr.
Russell"s illness I a.s.sisted Mr. Bingham, and after his recovery I continued this a.s.sistance in other ways. Mr. Bingham has perhaps intrusted me with more responsibility than was in every respect wise--certainly with more than he realised. I was enabled to give him some opportune help on the occasion of the last inspection, and this gave me a fairly general survey----"
"One moment, Mr. Weldon."
The president glanced at the clock and laid the paper-cutter down with a decisive motion.
"Let me suggest to you that whatever a.s.sistance you may have rendered Mr. Bingham (for which, by the way, I consider you have received ample compensation), you rendered it entirely of your own volition and on your own responsibility. It is quite your own personal affair. I could not for a moment consider----"
Weldon"s taut control snapped short under these booming syllables.
"d.a.m.n it all!" he cried fiercely, "shall we talk here all night? This should have been over long ago. Listen to me, if you can. I have been for a month convinced that there is something vitally wrong in this bank. In the beginning I couldn"t tell why. Some men have an instinct for false figures, a sort of scent for rotten conditions, I suppose.
I"m one of them. I"ve been working at it for a month. And now I know."
The president laid the paper-cutter gently down again, and Weldon realised that he must have picked it up. As it touched the polished desk one half of it was seen to be at the least angle from the other: it was in two parts.
"And now you know, Mr. Weldon?" he repeated quietly. "You surprise me.
What do you know?"
Weldon smiled approvingly at him. There was stuff in this babbler, this hypnotist, this phrase-maker.
"I know that one of the cleverest frauds in the history of banking has been accomplished in this bank, Mr. Deeping, and I know by whom and how it has been accomplished. I know how Mr. Bingham has been used in the matter and how ignorant he is of the tool he has been. I know how completely the directors have been deceived and how ably the books have been doctored. I know precisely where the discrepancies are and how great they are."
"You have been very diligent, Mr. Weldon," said the president gently.
"I presume you to have the proofs of all you a.s.sert?"
Weldon put his hand into an inner pocket and drew out a slip--a small slip--of paper.
"You must, of course, have a memorandum by which to check this," he said a little huskily, but meeting the older man"s eyes steadily, "so I made it as condensed as possible. You will understand it, however, I am sure."
Without a moment"s hesitation the president put out his hand and took the slip. Weldon touched his thumb and it was like an icicle. For a brief s.p.a.ce he studied the close, tiny figures, then he raised his eyes from them.
"You are to be congratulated, young man," he said, pausing slightly between his words, "on the possession of a very keen mind and abilities far from ordinary. I believe you said you had no a.s.sistance in all this?"
"I did not say so," Weldon replied, "but it is true."
"And no confidants, I infer?"
"Absolutely none."
"It would be idle," said the president, "to a.s.sume ignorance of your motive in obtaining this interview."
Weldon bowed in silence.
"I will merely inquire of you what guaranty I have, in case I arrange for the purchase of this slip from you, that the terms will be final?"
"Only my word to that effect," said Weldon composedly, "which I do not think I have broken since I was eighteen. Also the fact that I intend to leave the country--finally, to the best of my belief."
"But you must have a duplicate of this slip?"
"None. I have a ma.s.s of rough memoranda, from which I could after some trouble reconstruct it, but this I should destroy. After that, unless I had free access to the bank, I should be helpless. And in six months, barring accidents, you will be able to set everything straight: you have left the way open admirably."
The president folded the list small, and pushing aside the tail of his frock-coat, put the square of paper into his hip pocket--an odd selection, it seemed to Weldon.
"And where did you say you were going?" he inquired, in his perfunctory voice.
"I did not say," Weldon returned, marvelling at the man"s control, "but I am going south somewhere."
"No," said the president quickly, still pushing the list deep into his hip pocket, "you are not. You are going to die, Mr. Weldon," and something shone in his hand on the flap of the pocket.