The note was written. Charlie took it up to town that night and got it into the post just on the stroke of twelve.
At about twelve o’clock in the morning of the next day Mr. Petre was walking slowly along the Embankment, looking at the tide that rushed past and communing with his own soul. It was a breezy, sunny, spring day. The water was alive, and London had half forgotten its native misery.
It was an air in which new thoughts and clear ones should naturally come to a man; but none came to Mr. Petre. He was pondering upon that interview which he had to face, and went round it in his thoughts, coming no nearer to a center, but still remaining as he had been since the blow fell upon him, attendant upon Fate. It was to be about some horrid business called the Paddenham Site. It might be—he dared to hope!—that some words would be used which he should understand. It might be that those inimitable talents of his, which all seemed to accept, would return to him—but at the bottom of his heart he doubted it. It was in no very happy mood that he returned to his rooms and awaited his guest.
But men in those moods are compelled to abrupt decisions. It is the only escape from their torture, and to such a second decision was Mr. Petre led upon this enormous occasion.
Charlie Terrard came in all breeze and happiness, with a dancing light in his honest blue eyes—I had almost added, in his honest curling hair. He seemed ready to talk of anything but business, and he came to business only as a little tedious frill, necessary, and soon to be dismissed. But when he got it out he was clear enough, and he explained the matter with a fair concentration, leaning forward to Mr. Petre across the table and making his points distinctly with just that touch and gesture which helps such a catalogue.
“It’s about a bit of land called ‘The Paddenham Site.’”
Mr. Petre sat beside him, leaning back a little in his chair, and wearing that look which he himself felt to be a betrayal of complete incapacity, and which all who met him and knew his name (but none more than Charlie Terrard) revered as the mask of financial genius. Indeed, a sudden terror seized the young broker at the thought of his own audacity, but he conquered it and went ahead.
“The Paddenham Site: yes, the Paddenham Site. That’s the official name for it; or rather, the official name for it is Turner’s Estates and Paggles’ Addition, subject to the order of the Court—but I won’t trouble you with all that,” he said, as Mr. Petre, hearing these terms, very slightly moved his head as one experienced in all such things. “You won’t hear it called that,” went on Charlie rapidly. “What people call it, you know, is ‘That waste space where the Hospital used to be.’ Quite young people nowadays mostly just call it ‘that funny big waste space in Paddenham Street,’ because they can’t remember the Hospital. I can’t remember it myself. At least, I was a child when they pulled it down. And look here,” he said, putting a greater intensity into his voice, “I have got first of all to tell you the drawback.”
What drawback, or why, or what it was all about Mr. Petre could not have told you under threat of torture. Therefore he looked still more solemn, and slightly emphasized the movement of his head, as one who was taking it all in and glancing with eagle eye over every opportunity and every disadvantage.