It was a fine hand she looked at. The fingers were well-shaped, long and even, without any of those thicknesses at the joints which so often mar the beauty of hands even in men. The finger-nails were not too long, and there was a sort of "well-upholstered" fulness of the fingers and palm which spoke of health and latent efficiency. It was not a small hand, or in any case, not too small a hand, and on the inside it possessed those soft corrugations that denote artistic sensibilities.
CHAPTER III
The central offices of Bullion and Bullion Ltd. were in Lombard Street. They occupied a large building constructed of ferroconcrete, on each floor of which, except the first, there was accommodation for hundreds of clerks.
The room occupied by Sir Joseph Bullion, on the first floor, was one of those apartments with very tall mantelpieces and enormous windows, which seem to have been designed for a race of giants. Certainly Sir Joseph himself, unless he had climbed on a chair, could never have rested his elbow against the mantelpiece, nor could he have deposited his cigar thereon without an unusually strenuous effort. The remaining appointments of the room, except for two or three exquisite Stuart cabinets and some priceless old masters on the walls, were designed on the same scale. Sir Joseph's own table, for instance, though of normal height, looked as if it might have been purchased by the acre, while the carpet, a huge Turkey, presented an enormously long pile, as soft as moss, to the feet. Even the chair on which the head of the firm sat was exceptionally large, and seemed to offer its occupant the constant alternative of definitely selecting either one or the other side of the extensive surface which lay between its arms.
Opposite him at a smaller table sat his chief private secretary, Denis Malster, a pale, clean-shaven, intelligent-looking young man, with mouse-coloured hair, grey eyes, and somewhat thin lips. Certainly Mrs. Delarayne must have been right about his sense of humour, for a pleasant twinkle played about his eyes, even while he was at work, which gave him the air of one amused by what he was doing.
Sir Joseph did not pretend to understand the people who served him; but having been hard driven himself in his day, he had a pretty shrewd notion of the power he could safely exercise over them, and of the duties, supplementary to the office routine, which he could reasonably induce them to fulfil. To make fourths at tennis or at bridge, to fill a gap at a Cinderella dance or at a dinner, or to help at a charity bazaar—these were some of the duties which Sir Joseph's highest personnel knew that they might be called upon to perform at any moment for one of Sir Joseph's numerous lady friends.
Thus a few days after his visit to Mrs. Delarayne, which has already been described, the Chairman of Bullion and Bullion Ltd., occupying the centre of his thronelike chair, was engaged on two tasks, either one of which would have been sufficient to occupy the wits of any ordinary man. He had before him the figures showing the business of his firm for the half year, and in the intervals of his study of these data, he was covertly watching his chief private secretary, with a view to estimating his chances of success in regard to a certain secret scheme in which this young man was to play a leading part.
Suddenly his dual activities were interrupted by the chief messenger, who, entering in his usual pompous fashion, presented a card to his chief, bearing the name Aubrey St. Maur. "The gentleman wishes to see you urgently, Sir Joseph," said the man.