“I've worked out the whole scheme,” he began, as if introducing the product of many sleepless nights' cogitations. “I'm going to leave England almost immediately—go on the Continent and loaf about—I've never seen the Continent.”
Semple regarded him in silence. “Well?” he observed at last.
“You see the idea, don't you?” Thorpe demanded.
The broker twitched his shoulders slightly. “Go on,” he said.
“But the idea is everything,” protested the other. “We've been thinking of beginning the campaign straight away—but the true game now is to lie low—silent as the grave. I go away now, d'ye see? Nothing particular is said about it, of course, but in a month or two somebody notices that I'm not about, and he happens to mention it to somebody else—and so there gets to be the impression that things haven't gone well with me, d'ye see? On the same plan, I let all the clerks at my office go. The Secretary'll come round every once in a while to get letters, of course, and perhaps he'll keep a boy in the front office for show, but practically the place'll be shut up. That'll help out the general impression that I've gone to pieces. Now d'ye see?”
“It's the Special Settlement you're thinking of,” commented Semple.
“Of course. The fellows that we're going to squeeze would move heaven and hell to prevent our getting that Settlement, if they got wind of what was going on. The only weak point in our game is just there. Absolutely everything hangs on the Settlement being granted. Naturally, then, our play is to concentrate everything on getting it granted. We don't want to raise the remotest shadow of a suspicion of what we're up to, till after we're safe past that rock. So we go on in the way to attract the least possible attention. You or your jobber makes the ordinary application for a Special Settlement, with your six signatures and so on; and I go abroad quietly, and the office is as good as shut up, and nobody makes a peep about Rubber Consols—and the thing works itself. You do see it, don't you?”
“I see well enough the things that are to be seen,” replied Semple, with a certain brevity of manner. “There was a sermon of my father's that I remember, and it had for its text, 'We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.'”
Thorpe, pondering this for a moment, nodded his head. “Semple,” he said, bringing his chair forward to the desk, “that's what I've come for. I want to spread my cards on the table for you. I know the sum you've laid out already, in working this thing. We'll say that that is to be paid back to you, as a separate transaction, and we'll put that to one side. Now then, leaving that out of consideration, what do you think you ought to have out of the winnings, when we pull the thing off? Mind, I'm not thinking of your 2,000 vendor's shares——”
“No—I'm not thinking much of them, either,” interposed Semple, with a kind of dry significance.