‘Yes,’ Racksole assented. ‘Know anything about them?’
‘Well—no, not exactly,’ said Mr Levi. ‘But I had a fancy you and I might be useful to each other; I had a kind of fancy to that effect.’
‘Come back and sit down again, Mr Levi,’ Racksole said, attracted by the evident straightforwardness of the man’s tone. ‘Now, how can we be of service to each other? I flatter myself I’m something of a judge of character, especially financial character, and I tell you—if you’ll put your cards on the table, I’ll do ditto with mine.’
‘Agreed,’ said Mr Sampson Levi. ‘I’ll begin by explaining my interest in your hotel. I have been expecting to receive a summons from a certain Prince Eugen of Posen to attend him here, and that summons hasn’t arrived. It appears that Prince Eugen hasn’t come to London at all. Now, I could have taken my dying davy that he would have been here yesterday at the latest.’
‘Why were you so sure?’
‘Question for question,’ said Levi. ‘Let’s clear the ground first, Mr Racksole. Why did you buy this hotel? That’s a conundrum that’s been puzzling a lot of our fellows in the City for some days past. Why did you buy the Grand Babylon? And what is the next move to be?’
‘There is no next move,’ answered Racksole candidly, ‘and I will tell you why I bought the hotel; there need be no secret about it. I bought it because of a whim.’ And then Theodore Racksole gave this little Jew, whom he had begun to respect, a faithful account of the transaction with Mr Felix Babylon. ‘I suppose,’ he added, ‘you find a difficulty in appreciating my state of mind when I did the deal.’
‘Not a bit,’ said Mr Levi. ‘I once bought an electric launch on the Thames in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most satisfactory purchases I ever made. Then it’s a simple accident that you own this hotel at the present moment?’
‘A simple accident—all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass.’
‘Um!’ grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.