The syndicate consumed the full week, and made an appointment with Mr. Mackeller and Lord Stranleigh on the last day before the shares would begin to go up. This time Mr. Hahn did not appear, but Conrad Schwartzbrod, unmistakably German and unmistakably Hebraic, came cringing in. He spent hours trying to get improved terms, and indeed Lord Stranleigh made him several important concessions. At last he delivered over everything that was demanded, and got from Lord Stranleigh a signed document giving Conrad Schwartzbrod full acquittance of everything he had done up to date. This document was witnessed by Mackeller, and, placing it safely in his pocketbook, the old financier cringed out of the office with an evil leer that would have done credit to the late Sir Henry Irving’s Shy-lock.
“I wouldn’t have conceded an inch to him,” said the stern Mackeller.
“Ah, well, what does it matter. If he’d treated a little longer I’d have given him easier terms yet, so I’m glad he’s gone.”
A telegraph messenger entered the room with a dispatch for Mr. Mackeller, who tore it open, read it, and swore. It was from his son.
“Do not settle with those scoundrels,” it ran. “Three days ago when I was seeing to the storing of cargo in the Rajah, I was battened down in the hold, and the steamer sailed. I was put ashore with the pilot, and have just been landed at Plymouth.”
“By God!” cried Mackeller, bringing his fist down on the desk. “That document you have signed and I have witnessed, gives him quittance for this theft of the steamer. Now they are going to loot the surface gold and recoup themselves. They have three days’ start of us, and it will take a week to get a steamer and fit her out.”
His lordship’s countenance was serene, and he blew slowly some rings of cigarette smoke up into the air.
“I can’t help admiring the courage of old Schwartzbrod,” he said. “Think how fine he cut it! And yet it might disturb him to know I’m a friend of the Honorable Mr. Parsons.”
“What has that to do with it?” growled Mackeller.
“Nothing, except that the speed of the Rajah is seven knots an hour, and my large yacht, The Woman in White, lying in Plymouth Harbor, is fitted with Parsons’s latest turbines and can, at a pinch, steam twenty-five knots an hour. Poor old Schwartzbrod! We’re going to have some fun with him after all.”