Now he showed them their chance. While the shares of the affiliated companies in Puto-Congo Consolidated lay battered on the market, opportunity for good Samaritans presented itself on a large scale. For the preaching missionary, who also travelled for Native Industries Limited, had done his agency thoroughly and well, and Mr. Trimblerigg’s saving hopes were abundantly realized. Here they all were, almost without knowing it—some not knowing it at all; others knowing it but lying low, trusting that affiliation carried with it no responsibility for the administrative acts of Puto-Congo Consolidated, and finding much virtue in the difference of a name—here they all were in the same box, and the lid of it suddenly opened like graves for the day of judgment.
Yes, they were all in it; but, so Mr. Trimblerigg assured them, with this important difference. They were there of set purpose and intent like himself: had gone into it, for strategical reasons, with the sword of the spirit, to prepare the way of the Lord and bring deliverance to the oppressed. They heard from Mr. Trimblerigg how he had invested his little all for that purpose alone, watching and waiting, with never a penny of profit, biding his time for the great day of deliverance. (He had, in fact, that very day, sold out all his other investments in order to secure a yet larger holding for the confirmation of his case.)
They also, he had not a doubt, had invested for a like purpose—or if not, were eager and willing to do so now that the time had come for that purpose to be declared.
For here was the case; the Free Evangelical Church could now at a push in a falling market obtain a shareholders’ majority in one of the most important and prosperous companies which had come together under the ægis of the Puto-Congo Consolidated: had, therefore, power to call and control a special meeting of the shareholders for the reform—root, branch, lock, stock and barrel—of the whole abominable system to which it had become linked.
Free Church Presidents, Evangelical financiers, shining lights in the Temperance movement, and others with reputations above suspicion, listened, sat up, and were amazed; only too thankful in that dark hour to have good motives so generously imputed to them and their way of salvation made plain. Very few attempted to remain irresponsible, incredulous, or indifferent; when they did, Mr. Trimblerigg launched his attack, and their opposition wilted and crumbled. Nor did he mince the inspired word which came to him: his brisk little figure sparkled with flashes of divine fire, even as the wireless apparatus sparkles with the message which descends to it from the outer air; and there to hand was the circular appeal which within twenty-four hours would have received the signatures of over a hundred Free Church ministers and elders calling for an emergency meeting of the shareholders. At that meeting the Puto-Congo atrocities would be denounced, and the present Directors of the Company called on to resign and make room for others. Native Industries Limited, by reason of its secured monopolies, held the key to the position. Though small, it could impose its terms; close its depots and landing-stages to proved abuse of contract by the affiliated companies, and if it became a question of law, dare the rest to come on; for now it would have the entire country behind it, even, if need be, the power of Parliament. Let them blow their blast loud and long enough, and the whole huge financial fabric of Puto-Congo Consolidated which had sought to absorb them into identity with its own guilty prosperity, would have to cleanse itself or go.
And as these reverend elders listened, and bent their heads for the whitewash provided by Mr. Trimblerigg, there was the offered vision before them of the great Free Church body, too long couchant in moneyed ease, rising upon its hind legs at last, and uttering no meek lowing of kine, but the combined roar and scream of the Lion and the Eagle—and over them in feathers of silver and gold, the covering wings of the Dove; and there was the Visionary himself wanting to know, here and now, whether their voice would swell the chorus or only be raised in futile opposition. That question received but one answer.
So, like fire through stubble, did Mr. Trimblerigg burn his way into the consciences and fears of the Native Industries shareholders; and by the time the sun had set upon the second day of his labours he knew that he had won.
The next day a letter from the ‘Voice’—or from its informant—appeared in the press challenging once more Mr. Trimblerigg’s publicly uttered denial of having lot or share in the nefarious activities of Puto-Congo Consolidated. The letter made no assertion, but presented a series of neat interrogations—yes or no; and ended with the smooth reposeful sneer of one certain of his facts.
Mr. Trimblerigg’s reply gave that dirty platter the clean lick it required inside and out. In the Puto-Congo Consolidated he held no shares at all: in the affiliated ‘Native Industries Limited’ he did hold some, and since the meeting in question had succeeded in getting hold of a few more.
His purpose, which together with others, he had been obliged hitherto to conceal, lest the Puto-Congo Executive should get wind of it and take steps to prevent, he could now declare. He did so resoundingly.