“And among the letters was the one you wrote to me making the appointment. He must have stolen it from the pocket of my office coat, which I never wear while I am working.” Cornish was nodding his head slowly. “I see,” he said, at length—“I see. It was a pretty coup. To kill me, and fix the crime on you—and hang you?”
“Yes,” said Roden, with a sudden laugh, which neither forgot to his dying day.
They walked on in silence. For there are times in nearly every man's life when events seem suddenly to outpace thought, and we can only act as seems best at the moment; times when the babbler is still and the busybody at rest; times when the cleverest of us must recognize that the long and short of it all is that man agitates himself and God leads him. At the corner of the Vyverberg they parted—Cornish to return to his hotel, Roden to go back to the works. His carriage was awaiting him in a shady corner of the Binnenhof. For Roden had his carriage now, and, like many possessing suddenly such a vehicle, spent much time and thought in getting his money's worth out of it.
“If you want me, send for me, or come to the hotel,” were Cornish's last words, as he shut the successful financier into his brougham.
At the hotel, Cornish found Mr. Wade and Marguerite lingering over a late breakfast.
“You look,” said Marguerite, “as if you had been up to something.” She glanced at him shrewdly. “Have you smashed Roden's Corner?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered Cornish, turning to Mr. Wade; “and if you will come out into the garden, I will tell you how it has been done. Monsieur Creil said that the paper-makers could begin supplying themselves with malgamite at a day's notice. We must give them that notice this morning.”
Mr. Wade, who was never hurried and never late, paused at the open window to light his cigar before following Marguerite.
“Ah,” he said placidly, “then fortune must have favored you, or something has happened to Von Holzen.”
Cornish knew that it was useless to attempt to conceal anything whatsoever from the discerning Marguerite, so—in the quiet garden of the hotel, where the doves murmur sleepily on the tiles, and the breeze only stirs the flowers and shrubs sufficiently to disseminate their scents—he told father and daughter the end of Roden's Corner.