"You're complimentary to what you call my profession--you are, by George! but that's neither here nor there. Suppose--I only say suppose--that I've had little or nothing to do with any of Streightley's money transactions; that though I've conducted them and carried them out; though he has had my cheques for the cash, and I've had his signature to the deeds--suppose all the time that I've not been acting for myself, but merely as agent to a third party, who wanted to lay their claws on R.S. What do you think of that? Ah! I thought I'd make you look interested at last."
"This is true, Mr. Thacker? you're not romancing, or trying to trot me out in any way, are you?"
"As true as that I'm sitting before you at this present moment."
"Then I must ask why, having kept up the delusion so long, you come here now to disclose it? The motive requires a little elucidation, Mr. Thacker. It's not spontaneous penitence, I suppose?"
"Of course I know you'll want to know the motive," replied Mr. Thacker, daintily removing the cigar from his full red lips, and as daintily replacing it, wholly unmoved by Yeldham's observation; "and I'll tell you. Because I've been badly treated by my principal--ah, you smile and shrug your shoulders! the usual 'discharged servant's' tactics, you think. Only understand, I discharged myself."
"I must ask you to be more explicit, Mr. Thacker. I have no time for circumlocution. In the first place, who is your principal?"
"That's coming home at once," said Mr. Thacker; "but I don't mind. Miss Hester Gould that was--Mrs. Gordon Frere that is."
Even Charles Yeldham's placid equanimity--placid by nature, more placid by training--gave way under his astonishment at this revelation, and Thacker's quick ears heard him mutter "The devil!" under his breath.
"Ah! I thought that would astonish you," he said triumphantly. "You're not one of those that have much to learn, Mr. Yeldham; but there are very few people of my acquaintance that I couldn't wake up one way or another, I fancy. Yes, sir, that lady is my principal. Her husband don't know or care much about business, I daresay, and so much the better--a good fellow, I daresay; but soft, sir--soft."
"And so Mrs. Frere is your principal, Mr. Thacker," said Yeldham, after a moment's pause, to recover his equanimity, "and was her friend's principal creditor, eh? Well, well, that's strange enough. And you and she don't put your horses together now? What can have made you agree to differ?"