"You've a very insinuating manner, Mr. Yeldham. It's a pity you're not in the courts instead of in chamber practice. You'd get it out of them wonderfully there. But it's only due to myself to tell you that I see your every move, and that I should not tumble to it in the least if I had not previously made up my mind to have it all out."
Charles Yeldham smiled and bowed, and Mr. Thacker proceeded.
"You know these women don't understand business; and because it had suited my book, for other than mere monetary reasons"--and here he settled his cravat and looked conscious--"to do work for Miss Gould, she began to look upon me as a mere clerk. She forgot, tins young woman, that while she was a poor governess, glad enough to come up to Hampstead and have tea with my sisters, I was one of the leading financiers of the West-end. She forgot that in my bureau I had the names of half the peerage on stamped paper; that I dined here, and lunched there; and was hand-and-glove with some of the best men in London. She forgot that--I see you grinning, Yeldham; and all this time that I'm swaggering you're waiting to get at the story. Well, I'll tell it you as shortly as I can. You're too well posted up in these matters not to know that a tremendous smash like that in the City two years ago could not have passed over without touching most of us at the West-end. We've been all of us under the harrow, more or less, ever since; and I found it hard work to pull up the losses of that time. I just did that, however, and no more. But there are two or three affairs in which I'm largely interested, which have been excellent, and which will be better still, only just at this particular moment they want a little bolstering. All I could do for them I have done; but a lot of my money was still locked up, and I knew that these things only wanted backing to be splendid investments. So, a short time ago, I went to our friend Mrs. F., and told her all about it; took her a sheet of paper full of figures--women always like that; most of 'em can't understand 'em, but she can--and went thoroughly into it with her; proved that it would be a good thing for her, and urged it as a personal favour to myself. Damme, sir, she refused to have any thing to do with it!"
Mr. Thacker brought down his fist upon the table with a bang. Then, seeing Mr. Yeldham was not particularly moved, he went on. "I was not to be beaten at the first go off; so, after she had spoken, I asked her, if she would not go into the matter herself, whether she would let me have the money--of course on unexceptionable security. She refused point-blank; and when pressed to give her reasons, said she did not want to go into any more speculations. I never saw a woman so altered in my life. I don't know what the devil has come over her--gone mad on her money, I suppose. I don't know what induced me to say it,--I can generally manage to take these things quietly enough,--but I was a little bit annoyed, I suppose; but, at all events, I did say, 'This is not quite the manner in which you answered me when I proposed to you to take that mortgage on Middlemeads, Mrs. Frere.' The words were hardly out of my mouth when she turned round on me as quick as lightning, and said, 'You think of nothing but the interest on your money. I had another motive in that investment.' 'And that was--?' I asked. 'To serve my--my own purposes,' she replied. 'I had a long-standing account to settle with Robert Streightley, and that was the method I chose of doing it.' You would not have liked the expression of my lady's face when she said this. For the first time in her life she seemed to drop the mask. I saw her eyes glowing, her lips livid; and then I felt certain of what I had always suspected."
"And that was--?"
"That when she was down on her luck, and intimate with his people, she had really intended to make Robert Streightley marry her; and that when she found he did not care for her, and eventually married Miss Guyon, she determined to be revenged on them both."
"Certainly, Mr. Thacker, your boast of being able to tell strange things is fulfilled in the present instance. I had no idea of this."
"How should you have? But it's fact, nevertheless; take my word for it. I suppose I let on by the expression of my face--for she is as downy as a cat--that I had spotted her game; for she tried in every possible way to wriggle out of what she had said. 'Middlemeads was such a good investment.' 'Money wasn't so scarce then.' 'In these times one ought to be particularly careful,' &c. &c. But I wasn't to be put off with any such humbug as that; I just asked her plainly once more, whether she would make the advances I suggested, on the security I offered; and when she again decidedly refused, I took up my hat and wished her good morning. And I took my oath, as I crossed her hall-mat, that I'd go out of my way to do her a bad turn; and, as luck would have it, now I'm able to do it without going out of my way."
"That is splendid! we're really coming to it!"
"You're still chaffing me, Mr. Yeldham. I might have told you that interest in Streightley was the sole motive for my coming here to tell you what I am going to tell you presently, whereas I don't disguise for a minute that the hope of doing Mrs. Frere a bad turn entirely governs me in the matter. I thought at first that what would annoy her most would be to see Streightley's business doing well again. And, mind you, that could be very easily managed. He came out of his troubles with a high character, and money is getting plenty. There are heaps of fellows who, from old respect and friendship, would come forward to help to put Robert Streightley on his legs again. I'd do my little share--from another motive. I thought of that plan; I've got it all down in detail at home; it may be of use some day; but in the mean time something else has turned up which looks infinitely more promising, in the way of sticking a dagger into my lady's breast."