“Were any names mentioned?” he asked.
“Simmons told me the tempter was a city man; some rank scoundrel who wished to profit by another’s loss, and did not hesitate at robbery so long as he was legally safe in London, and others were taking the risk. They were to take the risk, and he was to secure the property. I even doubt if he intended to give the recompense he had promised. It amounted in Simmons’s case to nine thousand pounds, and only one thousand was needed for the purchase of the place on which he had set his heart.”
“But Simmons must have known, if such a sum was offered him, that he was undertaking a shady transaction?”
“That’s exactly what I told him, but, you see, he had committed himself before he realized what he was letting himself in for. ‘Chuck the whole business,’ I said to him. ‘You’ve got friends enough who’ll buy that little place and present it to you. I am willing myself to subscribe part of the money,’ and so Simmons struck. He is off, I understand, on another steamer. He has influential friends who got him a better situation than the one he held. Now, as I have said, I am willing to put some money on the table to buy that little house near Southampton. How much will you give, Mr. Schwartzbrod?”
Schwartzbrod now took a gulp of the whisky and soda. His courage was returning.
“Do you mean to tell me, Lord Stranleigh, that you have called a busy man like me to the West End in order to ask him for a charity subscription?”
“But surely you subscribe to many charities, Mr. Schwartzbrod?”
“I do not. It’s as much as I can do to keep my own head above water, without troubling with other people. I believe in being just before being generous. If I pay my debts, that’s all any man can ask.”
“Most true philosophy, Mr. Schwartzbrod, but a little hard, you know. Some poor fellows get under the harrow, and surely we may stop our cultivation for a moment, and lift the harrow long enough to allow him to crawl out.”
Schwartzbrod finished the whisky and soda, but made no further comment.