"My child, we can do nothing until we see and question young Homfray."
"You are right, dad. I"ll try at once to get hold of him. He is probably at Farncombe. I"ll telephone to the Towers and tell Bowyer to go to the Rectory at once."
This she did, but half an hour later the reply came back. The maid Bowyer had been to the Rectory, but Mr Homfray was out and would not return till five o"clock. She had left a message from Elma asking him to go to London at once.
At five o"clock Mrs Bentley at the Rectory opened the door to Edna Manners, but Roddy had not returned. For an hour she waited, idling most of the time in the garden. Then at last she asked leave to write him a note, which she did in the dead rector"s study, and then reluctantly left.
The evening pa.s.sed until at half-past nine a man from the Towers called to ask again for Roddy, but Mrs Bentley repeated that her young master had gone out that morning and had not yet returned. This report was later repeated to Elma over the telephone from the Towers to Park Lane.
Meanwhile Mr Sandys telegraphed to the Minister Mohammed ben Mussa in Tangier, asking for confirmation of Mr Rutherford"s concession, and just before midnight came a reply that the concession had been granted to Mr Rex Rutherford.
Elma"s father showed her the reply. All Roddy"s a.s.sertions were false!
All her hopes were crushed. She burst into tears and fled to her room.
Mr Sandys, left alone, faced the situation calmly. The only way to stave off ruin would be to deal with Rutherford.
Meanwhile the master criminal was playing a clever double game.
When he called next morning he asked to see Elma, pleading that he had something very important to say to her. When Hughes brought the message she was at first reluctant to accede to his wish, but in a few moments she steeled herself and walked to the morning-room into which he had been shown.
As usual, he was smartly-groomed and the essence of politeness. As he took her hand, he said:
"Miss Elma, I want to tell you that I sympathise very much with your father in his great misfortune, the secret of which I happen to know-- though as yet the world suspects nothing. But I fear it soon will, unless your father can come forward with some big and lucrative scheme.
I have it in my power to help him with the mining concession in Morocco.
I will do so on one condition."
"And what is that, Mr Rutherford?" she asked quite calmly.
He looked straight into her big, wide-open eyes and, after a second"s pause, replied:
"That I may be permitted to pay my attentions to you--for I confess that I love you."
The girl"s cheeks coloured slightly and the expression in her eyes altered.
"That cannot be," she said. "I am already engaged."
"To that young fellow Homfray, I believe?" he laughed. "Has he not already misled you and your father into believing that he is a rich man, inasmuch that he pretends to have been granted some worthless concession also in Morocco? Surely such a man is not suited to you as a husband, Miss Elma? Could you ever trust him?"
"I will not have Mr Homfray"s character besmirched in my presence, Mr Rutherford," she said haughtily. "And if this is the matter upon which you wished to speak with me I should prefer that you said nothing further."
"Elma! I love you!" he cried, with openly sensual admiration.
The girl was horrified and revolted. She told him so, but he treated with a conqueror"s contempt her frightened attempts to evade him. She was to be his toy, his plaything--or he would not lift a finger to save her father.
On her part she pleaded her love for Roddy, but he told her brutally that the young fellow was a liar. Why had he not produced the concession he alleged he had?
A last Elma, compelled to listen to his specious arguments, almost gave up hope, but before leaving the room she declared that she would starve rather than marry him. And then she closed the door after her.
Ten minutes later Rutherford was shown into the library, and in his most oleaginous manner greeted the ruined financier.
"I have called to keep my appointment, Mr Sandys," he said. "But since I saw you circ.u.mstances have altered somewhat, which makes it inc.u.mbent upon me to place the concession elsewhere."
"Why?" asked Sandys, his face falling. "Well, it is a private matter.
I--I really don"t care to discuss it, Mr Sandys. Indeed, I think it is best for me to say that our negotiations must conclude here, even though I regret it very deeply. It is not my fault, but the--well, the barrier--lies in another direction."
"In what direction?" asked the grey-bearded man who had been clutching at the straw offered him on the previous day.
"Well--if you ask Miss Elma, your daughter, she will explain."
"My daughter? What has she to do with our propositions?"
"I simply repeat my reply, Mr Sandys. I can"t say more. To tell the truth, I don"t feel capable. I must go now. If you want to see me later you know my telephone number."
And taking his hat, he stalked out of the fine library, well knowing himself to be the conqueror. To those who are patient and painstaking the fruits of the world will arrive. But there are exceptions, even though the devil controls his own.
When Elma"s father sought her he found her in a paroxysm of tears and tried to comfort her. She had thrown herself on a couch at the foot of her bed and was sobbing out her heart.
The ruined man told his daughter of Rutherford"s visit, and asked her for the explanation which he had said that she alone could give.
In a few halting sentences she related what had happened.
For some time the old man remained silent, standing at the great window past which the motor-"buses were pa.s.sing up and down London"s street of the wealthy.
"Ah! my dear!" he sighed. "I am sorry that you have so unfortunately fallen in love with young Homfray. At first I liked him, I confess.
But he seems to have sadly misled you, and is now afraid to face the truth."
"I agree, father. But I love him. There is some explanation, I feel sure."
"There can be none regarding the emerald concession. Rutherford has it, as well as the plan showing the whereabouts of the mine. I could float a big company to-morrow, even upon the concession and the official plan furnished by the Moorish Minister of the Interior. But he has, alas!
now withdrawn his offer."
"Because I have refused him," said Elma bitterly. "I love Roddy. How could I possibly become that man"s wife?"
Her father drew a long breath and shrugged his shoulders. He stood with his back towards her, looking idly out upon the traffic in Park Lane and the Park beyond.
"Yes, darling," he said at last. "But you must not sacrifice yourself for me. It would be grossly unfair. I am ruined through no fault of my own, I trust--ruined by a gambling partner who cared for nothing save his obsession with regard to games of chance. Let us say no more about it. Rutherford may take his concession elsewhere, and I will face the music. I have my comfort in my Yogi teaching--in those two words `I am." I have done my best in life, and to my knowledge have never injured anyone. I have tried to act up to my Yogi teachers, with their magnificent philosophy of the East. Therefore I will face disaster unflinchingly."
And seeing his daughter in tears, his further words were choked by emotion. He merely patted her upon the shoulder and, unable to bear the interview longer, withdrew.
For a fortnight past Rex Rutherford, like many crooks of his calibre, had actually engaged a "Press agent"--one of those parasites who fasten themselves upon the ambitious and put forward lies and photographs to the Press at so many guineas a time. The crook, in the financial Press, read of his own wonderful financial operations in Paris and in New York, reports which were calculated to raise him in the estimation of the great house of Sandys and Hornton. The City had read of Rex Rutherford day after day, and there were rumours of a great scheme he had for a new electric tube rail system for the outer suburbs of Paris, for which he was negotiating with the French Government.
Purcell Sandys had read all this--a Press campaign which had cost the master criminal a mere three hundred pounds. With that sum he had established a reputation in the financial papers. Editors of newspapers cannot always exclude the "puff paragraphs" when they are cleverly concealed by a master of that craft. And it often takes even a shrewd sub-editor to detect the gentle art of self-advertis.e.m.e.nt.
That afternoon the old financier walked alone through the Park as far as Kensington Gardens and back. He knew that the crash must come at latest in a day or two, and Sandys and Hornton must suspend payment.
There was no way out.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.