The Battle of Basinghall Street E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The story of a young man, Lord Sandbrook, who takes revenge against the directors of a company he holds responsible for the deaths of his father and mother. The battlefield is Basinghall Street, where the offices of Woolito, Limited, are situated. A textile business is the center of strange machinations – suicides, failures, conflagrations, disaster to various directors, finally a raid on the stock, and the president is a ruined man. In this story Mr. Oppenheim takes a vacation from international intrigue in a Monte Carlo setting and devotes himself to describing a big business battle in London. The story is told with the usual Oppenheim flourish, a great deal of action, many details of personality and adventures.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER I

Nathaniel Edgar Pontifex, first Baron Marsom, chairman of the famous textile business known as Woolito, Limited, stood at the head of a long mahogany table in the magnificent library of his Park Lane mansion and looked swiftly around the room with quick, birdlike glances, as though to assure himself that everything was in order. He had purposely outstripped his guests, who were loitering across the winter garden from the dining room. He wanted just this one minute to himself.

They were a strange-looking company, these warriors of commerce who were following him, not one of them bearing in gait or features any suggestion of gentle birth. There were big men and small men, some dark-haired and some fair-complexioned, differing in many respects, but every one of them with the hard mouth and keen eyes of the successful man. That they had met with success was a proven thing, for each one was a member of the board of the celebrated Woolito Company. Their cheeks were a trifle flushed with wine. Most of them were smoking large and very wonderful cigars. They trooped rather noisily into the room and, as each arrived, he was shown to his seat by a pale-faced, bespectacled young man in morning clothes, Andrew Crooks, Lord Marsom’s private secretary.

“You will sit here, Sir Sigismund,” he indicated, singling out one of the group, a small, elderly man with a narrow chin and prominent forehead, “at Lord Marsom’s right. And you, Sir Alfred,” he added, turning to another of the little company, a man of heavier build and coarser appearance, “exactly opposite. There are place cards everywhere, according to his lordship’s directions.”

They all sank into high-backed, but well-cushioned chairs, still keeping up a running fire of conversation, two or three of them leaning forward to hear the end of a story one of the party had commenced in the winter garden. Lord Marsom paused for a moment before taking his own seat. He was a bulky, dark-complexioned man, with huge shoulders; pale–almost olive–cheeks; black hair in abundance; cruel, curving lips which, hard though they were, still contrived to remain licentious; and deep-set, brilliant eyes. A thousand years ago he might have played well enough the part of a great Asiatic merchant at home in his palace. One almost looked for the turban on his head and the rich magenta robes of the Orient instead of the well-fitting but unbecoming dress coat and oversized, but priceless, pearls…. Then he leaned forward to take his place and another likeness presented itself. The moderation, the gentle dignity of the East had passed away. It was the bird of prey who smiled down the table, his white fingers, with their glossy nails, leisurely tapping its polished surface. Civilisation had marched, after all, with halting footsteps.

“My friends,” he began in a throaty, but somehow clear voice, “this is an informal gathering in order that we may exchange just a word or two together before the meeting to-morrow week. Some of you, perhaps, have not heard the latest news. The official receiver has accepted our offer for the purchase of the Ossulton Company which went into liquidation last month.”

There was a low concerted murmur, which seemed to take to itself the sound of a malevolent chuckle. Lord Marsom moistened his lips.

“The Ossulton Company,” he went on, “was the last of the group who ventured to hold out against us. We have bought them up, as we have bought up all the others. They went into liquidation because their obstinate directors preferred that course to being taken over by our larger interests. Events have proved that they were ill advised.”

Sir Sigismund Lunt, the small, grey-haired man who sat on the chairman’s right, leaned forward.

“Have the board of the Ossulton Company given any public explanation to their shareholders as to why they refused our previous offers?” he asked, in a shrill, parrotlike voice.

“Not yet,” Marsom answered. “When they do, we shall be ready for them. With their passing out of the business, no other licencee of the great Woolito patent remains. In other words, gentlemen, competition is dead. If you will continue to give me your attention for a few minutes, I will place some figures before you which should, I think, help your digestion.”

They all leaned forward in their places. There were seven of them and the expression upon the face of each one was the same. There was the same rapacious gleam in their eyes, the same satyrlike grin on their lips. They had drifted into their positions through a common passion–the hunger and greed for wealth. They were assisting to-night at a banquet. They were tearing to pieces a carcass.

* * * * *

Upstairs Miss Frances Moore, publicity and social secretary to the great Woolito Company, who by virtue of her office had a small but seldom-used room in the mansion of the chairman of the company, dismissed her typist, smoothed her hair before the glass and prepared to receive her unexpected caller. There was a knock at the door and one of the many footmen of the establishment made an announcement.

“The young gentleman to see you, Miss Moore.”

The latter looked curiously at her visitor, who was not in the least the type of person she had expected to see. He was a young man of excellent features and presence, slim and gracious, with the lines of humour abundantly displayed at the corners of his eyes and lips. He had the air of one who found life a great joke, which he was not too eagerly disposed to share with others. His hair was of a pleasing shade of dark brown, brushed up a little behind the ears. He was dressed in informal dinner clothes, with small black pearl studs and a black tie. It occurred to Miss Moore at once that he was not of the type of guests who frequented number 31a, Park Lane.

“Good evening, Miss Moore,” he said, in a pleasant and ingratiating voice, as soon as the door was closed behind the departing servant.

“You asked to see me?” she enquired a little dubiously. “Surely you are Lord Sandbrook?”

“Quite true,” he admitted. “That is my name.”

“You wish to see Lord Marsom, of course,” she continued. “I am very sorry, but he is engaged at a meeting.”

“I should like to attend the meeting,” the young man confided.

“I’m afraid that is quite out of the question,” she told him. “Lord Marsom has been giving a dinner to the directors of the company and he is now engaged with them, making plans for the meeting next week.”

“Miss Moore–”

She responded to the appeal in his tone.

“Lord Sandbrook,” she rejoined more amiably.

“You look good-natured.”

“My friends,” she said, with a faint emphasis upon the word, “usually find me so.”

“Well, consider me as a friend,” he begged. “Take me down to the meeting.”

“And lose my post and a very comfortable salary?”

He shook his head.

“You wouldn’t risk anything. You’re too valuable. If you daren’t land me amongst them unannounced, go down and ask Lord Marsom whether he will receive me for a few minutes. Say I should like to meet him in company with the directors.”

“But why?” she asked curiously.

“Listen,” he explained. “I have been down in the country for several weeks and, not having a perfect secretary, my letters have got a trifle mixed up. Looking through them this evening, I found one from Lord Marsom begging me to call and see him as soon as possible, either here or in the City. Well, here I am.”

“But can’t you see,” she pointed out, “that you have chosen a most inconvenient time?”

“I’m not at all sure about that,” he protested. “I believe Lord Marsom wishes me to become a director of the firm. Well, before I decide, I should like to have a look at the other directors. This would be such a wonderful opportunity. Please do as I ask.”

She considered the matter. There had been rumours of some trouble in connection with his father’s resignation from the board, but she could not remember that they were of any vital importance. It seemed to her that, considering Lord Marsom’s pressing invitation, he had a certain right to be received if he insisted.

“The situation is beyond me,” she confessed at last. “I will grant the last part of your request. I will not risk taking you into the meeting, but I will go down and tell Lord Marsom that you have only just received his letter, that you are here now and wish for a few words. If he snaps my head off, it will be your fault!”

He smiled, and, like a great many other people in the world, she felt the charm of that swift and pleasant lightening of his whole expression.

“You are a dear!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “I will wait patiently until you come back….”

Miss Moore’s mission met with success. In less than ten minutes Lord Sandbrook was solemnly ushered into the presence of the seven men who, with their chief, formed the board of the great Woolito Company. They all turned to look at him as he walked with long, springy footsteps across the palatial apartment. Marsom, puzzled but determined to take no false step, rose to his feet and awaited the coming of his visitor with a hard, stereotyped smile of welcome. The young man, however, vanquished all hostility from the start. He grasped Marsom’s outstretched hand and made a gesture down the table.

“You I have had the pleasure of meeting before, Lord Marsom,” he said. “Will you present me–en bloc if you will–to the directors of the Woolito Company?”

Marsom laid one hand upon the young man’s shoulder; with the other he indicated separately each member of the gathering.

“Sir Sigismund Lunt, Sir Alfred Honeyman, Mr. Archibald Somerville, Mr. Bomford, Mr. Sidney Littleburn, Mr. Thomas Moody and Mr. Mayden-Harte.”

“Delighted to meet you all, gentlemen,” Sandbrook responded genially. “I flatter myself that I never forget a face, so you are now all known to me. I trust that we may become better acquainted.”

There was a little murmur of polite acquiescence. This self-assured young man, bringing with him the fascinating suggestion of another atmosphere, very quickly took their fancy.

“I must apologise for my intrusion, Lord Marsom,” his visitor continued, “but I have been absent from London for some weeks and have only just received your message. I happened to be disengaged so I called round on the chance of finding you at home.”

“Please sit down,” Lord Marsom invited, pointing to the chair, which Mr. Crooks, the secretary, had just wheeled forward.

Sandbrook accepted the invitation. Some part of the geniality of his manner, however, seemed to have left him. There was a more serious note in his tone as he turned towards his host.

“I think I ought to warn you, Lord Marsom,” he said, “that I have come here in a terribly inquisitive frame of mind.”

Marsom leaned back in his chair. His lips protruded in unpleasant fashion. The light in the hard, dry eyes underneath his clustering brows was almost menacing.

“Inquisitive!” he repeated. “Just what do you mean by that? Your father must have attended at least fifty directors’ meetings and never asked a single question, so far as I can remember.”

“My father was what you might call an acquiescent type of man,” Sandbrook agreed cheerfully. “He found pleasant occupation for his spare time with you and more than ample remuneration for it. The trouble was that towards the end his conscience began to trouble him.”

Conscience! Lord Marsom repeated the word. His tongue seemed to linger over it. Somerville, a large, florid man at the end of the table, laughed softly to himself. Sir Sigismund distinctly chuckled. Sir Alfred Honeyman looked puzzled. A gleam of humour shone behind Mr. Mayden-Harte’s thick spectacles.

“It was very likely because he had foolish ideas,” the young man continued apologetically, “but my father certainly died a very unhappy man. He was flattered at being invited to join your board, but he joined it without the least inside knowledge of your outlook or the details of the business. It was only within the last year that he realised a certain–may I call it, from his undoubtedly old-fashioned point of view–ruthlessness with which the business of the Woolito Company was being carried on. He resigned at once but he never recovered from the shock.”

“Do you mean to tell me that your father’s health was seriously affected because he suddenly took a dislike to our way of doing business?” Marsom asked caustically.

“That is precisely what I am told happened,” was the deprecating reply. “Mind you, I am not associating myself with his point of view, but my father had very old-fashioned ideas. Towards the end Ellerton, our family lawyer, assured me that he was ashamed to walk the streets; he was ashamed to look his friends in the face. Even in the City, you, perhaps, know, Lord Marsom, one hears that Woolito’s methods are not looked upon with great favour.”

Lord Marsom smiled.

“The banks approve of us,” he declared. “Your father approved of his dividend cheques.”

“I’m afraid the poor old gentleman had no idea how the money was being earned.”

“Rubbish!” Marsom scoffed. “You have a lot to learn yourself, young gentleman, I can see that. The first duty of a firm engaged in a business like ours is to rid itself of competition. We were being undersold by half-a-dozen small concerns who were working on unexpired licences of the Woolito patent which we had acquired. They had to sell quickly or come to grief, so they sold at too small a profit. They were doing nobody any good and they were hurting us.”

“So you broke them.”

“Exactly. We broke them to prevent their breaking us.”

“That sounds reasonable enough. There was a strike at Colwell–”

“Precisely,” Marsom interrupted. “I daresay you know the truth and if you don’t, you can hear it. We not only engineered it but we financed the strikers. A great many of them are in our employ at the present moment and the mills are ours.”

“The Croylton mills, which were burnt down?”

“You are venturing upon dangerous ground,” Marsom murmured, leaning back in his chair. “A great misfortune, the burning of the Croylton mills. Fortunately, we were on the spot to take over their contracts and employ as many of their staff as were worth employing.”

“Then there came what my father seems to have thought was the greatest tragedy of all,” Sandbrook went on. “A group of mills near Nottingham–what did they call themselves?–found somehow or other that the whole of their yarns were infected and their pits poisoned. They lost several hundred thousand pounds’ worth of goods and most of their trade.”

“Sheer carelessness on the part of the overseers,” the chairman declared. “We have inspectors watching the process of our manufacture at every stage, and no raw material comes into one of our mills without passing the most rigorous examination. Have I satisfied your curiosity by this time, my young friend?”

“I’m ashamed to have taken up so much of your time,” Sandbrook apologised genially; “but, after all, I did want to hear you deny that these various disasters which happened to your competitors were in any way abetted by you. My father was led to believe that they were. It was for that reason he resigned his directorship, the directorship that you have been kind enough to suggest that I might take over. He died a very unhappy man, you know, Lord Marsom. He was of far too sensitive a nature for the ups and downs of commercial life.”

The chairman of Woolito, Limited, leaned even farther back in his seat. He had the air of one endeavouring to assume a purely judicial attitude.

“Young man,” he said, “your father was elected a director of this board to give us the use of his name, to help us in our publicity campaign and mind his own business. For a time he was a great success and I imagine the cheques he drew were more than an adequate return for his services. Then one day he became afflicted with that disease–what did you call it?–conscience. He visited our offices one morning, when most of the responsible directors were away; he asked certain questions of the managers and obtained possession of certain papers which were outside the sphere of his legitimate activities. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.”

“As soon as he broached the matter to us,” Marsom continued, “we offered your father perfectly reasonable explanations; but we told him frankly, at the same time, that we should continue to do business in our own way, and that, if he had any qualms about our conduct of it, he had better resign his directorship–which he did. And that’s that. We’ve been glad to see you here to-night, Lord Sandbrook, and we trust that you belong to a more enlightened school than your father.”

There was a murmur of assent from down the table. They were all very much inclined to like this young man who was looking a little perplexed, but whose expression was still one of urbane good nature.

“Modern business methods,” Lord Marsom went on, “demand forcible measures. If you attend the meeting next week–”

“I can’t attend it,” Sandbrook interrupted. “I am not qualified.”

“What do you mean–you are not qualified?” Marsom asked. “Your father and mother between them held at least eight thousand shares.”

“Yes, but no one knows yet to whom they belong,” the young man confided. “The estate has not been apportioned and the will was executed so that there need be no forced selling of shares.”

Lord Marsom nodded.

“Well, that’s too bad,” he remarked. “Still, I think if we all club together, gentlemen, there might be enough shares found in our reserve box to entitle Lord Sandbrook to a place with us next Wednesday.”

There was a murmur of assent, but Sandbrook shook his head.

“I shall get my own shares all right, some day,” he declared. “As for coming to the meeting next week, why, you’ve told me to-night pretty well all I wanted to know. Very good of you to have received me like this, Lord Marsom,” he added, rising to his feet and holding out his hand. “I’ll wish you good night now, if I may, and good night, gentlemen. I shall look forward to meeting you all again and to our future association, if it can be arranged.”

They were all very cordial, they all considered him a most charming young man.

“Smart young fellow, that,” Lord Marsom pronounced. “An aristocrat, right enough, but with the making of a first-class business man in him.”

“Likely to be a very useful member of our board, I should imagine,” Sir Alfred Honeyman acquiesced.

CHAPTER II

Servants were waiting in the hall, the number and livery of whom seemed somehow reminiscent of musical comedy. One, with perfect gravity, handed the departing visitor his overcoat, another his hat, a third his stick and gloves.

“Taxicab or car, sir?” a superior person in plain evening clothes enquired from the background.

Sandbrook shook his head.

“I think I’ll walk, thanks,” he decided.

The door was closed behind him. He lingered upon the pavement for a few moments, deliberating. Before he had made up his mind upon the vital subject of his destination, the door reopened and Miss Frances Moore came out. She, too, hesitated. He raised his hat and approached her.

“You appear to be like myself–in a state of indecision,” he remarked. “Can I help you make up your mind?”

“My dilemma is too simple a one,” she laughed. “I am going home to my rooms and I was wondering whether I ought not to walk a short distance before taking a taxi.”

“I can help you,” he declared. “A little exercise at this time of the evening is the best thing in the world. You will permit me to accompany you part of the way?”

“How do you know that I haven’t someone waiting for me?” she asked, as they fell into step.

“It is a disconcerting suggestion,” he sighed. “At the same time, I don’t believe in it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I imagine you to be a young lady of precise habits. You could not have told beforehand at what hour you would be able to leave that mausoleum of luxury, and I’m quite sure that you would never keep anyone waiting.”

“People have been content to wait for me before now,” she murmured.

“At the slightest sign of an intervener of whose appearance I approve,” he promised, “I will fade into a taxicab. Before that time comes, however, let me thank you for getting me that interview.”

“Did you do what you wanted to?” she asked.

“I saw what manner of men they were,” he replied, “and I confirmed certain impressions I had about them. I wish I needed a publicity secretary, Miss Moore! I should love to offer you the post.”

“Why?”

“Because you have created a halo of romance in an impossible place. After reading some of your articles and interviews, I looked upon the directors of Woolito, Limited, as gods upon the earth.”

“I’m sorry if you’re disappointed. Anyhow, I’m not thinking of making a change. I’m perfectly contented where I am.”

“I can’t believe it. I have nothing against them personally, but I cannot imagine you as being content to work for such a gang of money-grabbers.”

“If a business man to-day is not a money-grabber,” she replied, “he’d better get out of business–sit in the back yard and write poetry or something of that sort. The directors of the Woolito Company are very shrewd business men. Everyone says that it is going to be one of the richest companies in the world. There is not a single competitor who will be able to stand up against them.”

“Yes, I suppose they are shrewd,” he admitted. “It is a kindly adjective to apply to them, though. Tell me again the name of the man on Lord Marsom’s right–the little, wizened-up fellow with grey hair, puckered face and eyes like a cat.”

“You are not in a flattering mood this evening,” she laughed. “That is Sir Sigismund Lunt, the great engineer. He has just invented the most wonderful textile machine in the world.”

“Surely I have read about it in the papers somewhere lately,” he reflected.

“I should think it more than likely,” she observed drily. “A model of the machine itself is on exhibition every day to privileged visitors up at Tottenham, together with the most interesting model of the new factory Woolito’s are building.”

“I must run up and see it,” Sandbrook decided. “However wonderful I may find it, though, I sha’n’t change my idea about its inventor. A most unpleasant old gentleman: chuckled at my poor old dad’s old-fashioned ideas. Then there was another bilious-looking knight who sat on Lord Marsom’s left–a man with yellow teeth and a cadaverous expression.”

“That was Sir Alfred Honeyman. He is supposed to be one of the cleverest financiers in the City.”

“He may be,” Sandbrook agreed, “but someone ought to give him the address of a decent shirt-maker. I could see his undervest every time he leaned forward. Most upsetting for his neighbour at a dinner table, I should think.”

“Please talk sensibly,” she begged. “What did you want to see them all for this evening, and are you really going to take your father’s place on the board?”

“Something has been said about it. That’s why I was so keen to see them all together and ask a few questions. My father resigned from the board, you know, just before he died.”

“I’m afraid he was not exactly what you would call a business man, was he?” she ventured.

“Finicky,” Sandbrook acknowledged. “Straight-laced, beyond a doubt. I don’t suppose there was ever anything seriously wrong in the matters he took exception to but I felt that I ought to satisfy myself.”

“If you belong to the same school of thought as your father, you should keep away from the City altogether,” she advised him.

“I don’t,” he assured her. “All the same, I didn’t want to get mixed up with a pack of brigands.”

She frowned at him severely. They were passing an electric standard and, glancing towards her, Sandbrook was more than ever aware that she was a very attractive person. She walked, too, with a delightfully easy movement–a free swing from the hips which suggested the gymnasium.

“Englishmen of your position in life,” she said, “know nothing whatever about business or business methods. It is very wrong of you to criticise.”

“I am properly snubbed. But tell me–how much do you know of the inner working of Woolito, Limited?”

“Nothing at all. Don’t you understand, I am publicity secretary? I see that Woolito is talked about in all the newspapers, and where I give advertisements, I expect mention of it in the social gossip and that sort of thing. That’s what I have to look after.”

“Do you wear any of the stuff yourself?”

“That has nothing to do with it,” she told him. “We all made fun of artificial silk when it came out, but it’s holding its own, all right. No one believed even then that there could be a substitute for wool, but you see there is.”

“All the same, I wish you didn’t work for them,” he said doggedly.

“What difference does it make to you where I work?”

He hesitated and glanced towards her. For some reason or other, her attitude seemed to him to have become faintly belligerent.

“Have you any great friends on the board?”

“None at all. My father knew Lord Marsom when he was in New York.”

“You are American, then?”

“How clever of you! Have I lost as much of my accent as all that?”

“There was something, of course,” he admitted, “but it might have been Canadian. I am glad you’re American. You like people to be plain-spoken, don’t you?”

“Up to a certain point.”

He slackened his pace. They were outside his club in Piccadilly.

“I never saw one of them before,” he confided, leaning towards her, “but every one of those seven men to whom Lord Marsom introduced me to-night is a wrong ‘un. Some day they will be found out. You will have all you can do as publicity secretary to defend them one by one. Woolito may be all right. The men who are making it aren’t up to much. However, as you have pointed out, it doesn’t matter, if the money rolls in. Good-bye; I’m going in here.”

“You are,” she declared, with an angry little flash in her eyes, “one of the most prejudiced Englishmen I ever knew. You are exactly what I was told. You are all alike.”

He lingered with his hat in his hand.

“What night will you dine with me to discover how shockingly you are mistaken?” he invited.

“I do not dine out,” she replied coldly.

“It seems to me,” he complained, “that your manner lacks cordiality. You are in a strange country and I am trying to justify our reputation for hospitality.”

“It is not a strange country. I have been here for four years.”

“And you have not found out these Woolito people yet?”

“I have only been with them for two years and there is nothing about them to find out–nothing bad, that is to say. They are shrewd, that’s all. You have to fight the other man in business, or else go under yourself. Americans have always recognised the fact and that’s why they are better business people than you English.”

“Now I know,” he murmured ruefully.

“Now you know,” she assented. “Good night.”

* * * * *

The old man in the front room of a house on the far outskirts of Finsbury seemed absolutely unconscious that the door had been opened, that anyone else was in the room. He was seated before a complicated piece of wooden machinery, the large wheel of which he worked with his feet, and by his side was a basket filled with wool, one end of which was attached to the wheel. At intervals of a few yards were several exactly similar looms and their respective stools. Two things impressed themselves upon the visitor who had just entered the room. The first was that, for all its seeming complexity, the machine did nothing but wind up the wool, the second that the wool was of brilliant scarlet colour.

“Good evening,” the caller said.

“Whoever you are, you must wait,” the man on the stool snapped. “Can’t you see–this is the most critical point of the whole thing? Stand back out of the light and be quiet.”

The speaker had not once turned his head. He was untidily dressed, without coat or waistcoat, and the whole of the energy of his brain and shrivelled muscles seemed to be devoted to pedalling his machine and keeping the wool upon the huge reel. In course of time, the whole of it was through. The basket was empty. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief and, taking up a hand bell by his side, rang it. The woman who had admitted the caller answered the summons.

“Take off the reel, James,” the old man directed. “Bring another basketful of yarn.”

The woman unfastened the reel with practised fingers, took up the basket and departed. She accepted the whole thing as a matter of course. The man turned upon his stool towards the waiting figure.

“I am very busy,” he said peevishly. “Couldn’t they attend to you in the office?”

“I only deal with principals,” was the important reply. “They tell me that you are the only one who really understands the great Woolito process. I wanted to see it.”

The old man appeared pleased.

“Well, well,” he approved, “that’s right, lad. If you are a buyer, though, you will be disappointed. I can’t supply you. I have orders for ten years ahead.”

“That’s too bad,” the visitor regretted. “I’ve come quite a long way to have a chat with you.”

“No good, my friend. No new customers for us. We have two thousand looms running and eighteen thousand men at work. I could send my manager to the telephone there and book orders for twenty years. All my clever lad, too!”

“I should like to hear about him.”

“He doesn’t often come to the mills,” the old man explained. “He’s a member of parliament! He goes about here and there–hobnobs with all the great people. Why not? His brain did it.”

“What’s his name?” the shadowy person in the background asked.

“That’s a foolish question,” was the irritable response. “Everyone in England knows his name. Everyone knows Leonard Blunt. Did you see those hampers of wool that just went out?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice the colour of it?”

“I did, indeed. The most brilliant scarlet I ever saw in my life.”

The old man grinned. His sunken eyes flashed with triumph.

“That’s my Len,” he declared. “That’s him. I never held with schooling, but it was his chemistry that taught him that. There were other folks that thought they could make wool from imitation yarn–let ‘em try. Grey and greasy when they’ve done with it. Look at ours–scarlet, blue, any colour you like in the world. That’s my Len. That’s why we employ eighteen thousand hands. That’s why the roar of our machinery shakes the countryside day and night. I will tell you something, Mister. I’ll tell you something quaint.”

“I’m listening.”

“There was another firm thought it could make artificial wool,” the old man chuckled. “They started like we are now. They went on, and big people they became, and what are they now? I’ll tell you, Mister. I can’t do business with you. You’ve got a decent sort of face, but no new customers for us–not for many a year. But I’ll tell you something. Not far from here there’s an old man sitting in a single room, working an old hand machine, gone crazy because my Len found out the secret and he didn’t; and he works all day and he thinks he is turning out Woolito! He fills his basket with nasty, dirty grey stuff and day by day and week by week it comes out always the same colour and they throw it on the ash heap. What do you think of that, Mister?”

The old man rocked with laughter so that he nearly fell from his seat. The door was opened and the woman reëntered. She laid another basket of wool, this time a bright green, upon the floor. She fastened the end of it to the reel. The tenant of the room drew a long breath.

“You’ll excuse me now, sir,” he begged. “I have a hundred looms in this place to look after and the bell’s gone. We’re off.”

He bent over his task. Again his feet were on the treadles–again his fingers were guiding the wool. The woman led the visitor away.

“You can’t do any more good,” she said. “That’s him day by day. He thinks he’s working in the greatest factory of the world and you can’t get it out of his head, but he don’t do nobody any harm and he’s got enough to live on, and there you are.”

The intruder slipped a pound note into her hand and stepped out into the dirty obscure side street. Inside the room which he had left, the old man, his lips parted with eagerness, the lines of his worn flinty face deepened with earnestness, moved his feet upon the treadles and guided the wool with bony, shaking fingers.

CHAPTER III

Andrew Crooks stepped out of Sandbrook’s sporting Rolls- Royce with a sigh of relief. He removed his hat, straightened his hair and paused for a moment to regain his breath. He was a young man of sedate habits and he was not used to being whirled through the North London traffic at anything from thirty to fifty miles an hour.

“I am very much obliged for the lift, your lordship,” he said. “If you will step this way with me, I will have your ticket stamped.”

“Very nice of Lord Marsom to send you up with me,” Sandbrook replied, following his guide towards the turnstile. “I only sent round for a ticket to see this marvellous machine. I didn’t expect to be personally conducted. Looks like the entrance to Lords’!”

They crossed the jealously guarded portals and Sandbrook glanced around him curiously.

“I apologise to Lords’,” he observed. “Looks more like a filthy dust heap than anything.”

“That is only temporary,” Andrew Crooks explained. “Over four hundred houses have been demolished to clear this space. It is the site of what may be the largest factory in the world. As you see,” he pointed out, “it contains at the present moment only three insignificant buildings. The one opposite is an old-fashioned house which was left when the rest of the property was razed to the ground and is now occupied by various employees of the firm and a staff of draughtsmen from the architects’. The large shed over there contains what you have come to see–the wonderful model of the factory of which everyone is talking. The third building, with the corrugated iron roof which looks like a hangar and which is guarded by policemen, contains the most marvellous machine in the world…. If your lordship will excuse me now, I must go and look after the two visitors I was to meet here. I see them waiting for me in the corner.”

Sandbrook glanced across in the direction which his companion had indicated.

“So those are your distinguished visitors,” he observed quietly.

“The taller one,” Andrew Crooks confided, “is Van Stretton, the great Dutch scientist. The other is an American–a manufacturer from Philadelphia.”

“I won’t detain you,” Sandbrook exclaimed, with a sudden change in his manner. “Many thanks, once more, for showing me the way up.”

He moved back towards the turnstiles in time to welcome Miss Frances Moore, who had just arrived. She was wearing a long coat trimmed with fur and a turban hat. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed after the ride in an open car. She looked up at him in surprise.