"I don't," he said. "My ward, who has been over here at school for the past few years, has been a classmate of Miss Marlin, and she is spending part of the summer with them."
"Oh, I see!" Howard Locke tapped the end of his cigarette on the edge of an ash tray once or twice, and glanced in evident indecision at his companion.
"Go on!" invited Captain Francis Newcombe. "What is it?"
Howard Locke laughed a little awkwardly.
"Well, I don't know," he said. "Nothing very much. And I'm afraid it's not done, as you English put it, for me to say anything, since he is your prospective host; still, as you say you are not personally acquainted with him yourself, I think perhaps you ought to know just the same. I haven't anything definite to go on, no authoritative source of information, but it is rather generally understood that old Marlin's gone a bit queer in the head."
"Really!" ejaculated Captain Francis Newcombe. "Good lord! I had no idea of any such thing! And my ward's on this island of his in the Florida Keys, and—"
"There's nothing whatever to be alarmed about," said the young American hastily. "It's nothing like that. He's as harmless as you are, or as I am. It's only on one subject—money. I suppose he was one of the wealthiest men in America at the close of the war, and since then he's been wiped out."
"Wiped out?" Captain Francis echoed incredulously.
"Comparatively, of course," said Howard Locke. "I don't know how much he has got left—nobody does. It's been the talk of the financial district. There isn't a share of stock anywhere to be found standing in his name. He sold everything; and how much was used to cover losses, and how much remained to himself no one knows. You see, the last few years, to put it mildly, have been hell in a financial and business way. The foreign exchange situation has been a big factor in helping to play the devil with all sorts of holdings. Values have depreciated; the market has gone smash. Industries that were big dividend payers haven't been able to meet their overhead. You may not believe it, but hundreds and hundreds have taken their money out of the banks, and, insisting on being paid in American gold certificates, when they couldn't get the actual gold itself, have hoarded it in the safe deposit vaults. God knows why! Just instances the general panicky conditions everywhere, I suppose. The aftermath of the war! History repeating itself, so the writers on economics tell us. Small consolation! However! Marlin met with crash after crash. He lost millions. He's not a young man, you know, and it evidently got him finally in the shape of a monomania. Finance! You understand? He was on a dozen big directorates and his trouble began to show itself in the shape of an obsession that everything should be turned into cash, buildings, plants, everything—into American cash. Naturally he was quietly and unostentatiously dropped. Poor devil! Certainly, his losses were terrific. I don't know whether he's got anything left or not."
"By Jove!" said Captain Francis Newcombe gravely. "I'm glad you told me. Pretty rough that, I call it."