“This is not a friendly call, Mr. Sinclair,” he said, “but simply a matter of business. I wish to clear my account with you to the last halfpenny, and I will take my shares away with me. I have paid in the amount I owe. Let one of your clerks make out the interest account.”
The manager rang the bell for the key of the security safe. He opened it and took out the shares with fingers which trembled a good deal.
“Did I understand you, Mr. Trent, that you desired to absolutely close the account?” he asked.
“Most decidedly,” Trent answered.
“We shall be very sorry to lose you.”
“The sorrow will be all on your side, then,” Trent answered grimly. “You have done your best to ruin me, you and that blackguard Da Souza, who brought me here. If you had succeeded in lumping those shares upon the market to-day or to-morrow, you know very well what the result would have been. I don't know whose game you have been playing, but I can guess!”
“I can assure you, Mr. Trent,” the manager declared in his suavest and most professional manner, “that you are acting under a complete misapprehension. I will admit that our notice was a little short. Suppose we withdraw it altogether, eh? I am quite satisfied. We will put back the shares in the safe and you shall keep your money.”
“No, I'm d—d if you do!” Trent answered bluntly. “You've had your money and I'll have the shares. I don't leave this bank without them, and I'll be shot if ever I enter it again.”
So Trent, with his back against the wall and not a friend to help him, faced for twenty-four hours the most powerful bull syndicate which had ever been formed against a single Company. Inquiries as to his right of title had poured in upon him, and to all of them he had returned the most absolute and final assurances. Yet he knew when closing-time came, that he had exhausted every farthing he possessed in the world—it seemed hopeless to imagine that he could survive another day. But with the morning came a booming cable from Bekwando. There had been a great find of gold before ever a shaft had been sunk; an expert, from whom as yet nothing had been heard, wired an excited and wonderful report. Then the men who had held on to their Bekwandos rustled their morning papers and walked smiling to their offices. Prices leaped up. Trent's directors ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End. The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks of finance.
Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night. He had not a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid away right and left. But when it was all over he left the City, and, leaning back in the corner of his little brougham, was driven away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his room, took off his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar between his teeth.