Sunday in Glasgow is always a dismal day. The weather had been grey and depressing, but he had remained in the hotel, busy with correspondence. He had arrived there on Saturday upon some urgent business connected with that huge engineering concern, the Clyde and Motherwell Locomotive Works, in which old Sam Statham held a controlling interest, but as the manager was away till Monday, he had been compelled to wait until his return.
The matter which he was about to decide involved the gain or loss of some 25,000 pounds, and a good deal of latitude old Statham had allowed him in his decision. Indeed, it was Rolfe who practically ran the big business. He reported periodically to Statham, and the latter was always satisfied. During the last couple of years, by his clever finance, Rolfe had made much larger profits with smaller expenditure, even though his drastic reforms had very nearly caused a strike among the four thousand hands employed.
He had spent a most miserable day—a grey day, full of bitter reflection and of mourning over the might-have-beens. The morning he had idled away walking through Buchanan Street and the other main thoroughfares, where all the shops were closed and where the general aspect was inexpressibly dismal. In the afternoon he had taken a cab and gone for a long drive alone to while away the hours, and now, after dinner, he was concluding one of the most melancholy days of all his life.
There were one or two other men in the lounge, keen-faced men of commercial aspect, who were discussing, over their cigars, prices, freights, and other such matters. In the corner was a small party of American men and women, stranded for the day while on their round tour of Scotland—the West Highlands, the Trossachs, Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle, the Highlands, and the rest—anxious for Monday to come, so as to be on the move again.
Rolfe stretched his legs, and from his corner surveyed the scene through the smoke from his cigar. He tried to be interested in the people about him, but it was impossible. Ever and anon the words of old Sam Statham rang in his ears. If the house of Statham—which, after all, seemed to be but a house of cards—was to be saved, it must be saved at the sacrifice of Maud Petrovitch!
Why? That question he had asked himself a thousand times that day. The only reply was that the charming half-foreign girl held old Statham’s secret. But how could she? As far as he knew, they had only met once, years ago, when she was but a child.
And Statham, the elderly melancholy man who controlled so many interests, whose every action was noted by the City, and whose firm was believed to be as safe as the Bank of England, actually asked him to sacrifice her honour. What did he mean? Did he suggest that he was to wilfully compromise her in the eyes of the world?
“Ah, if he knew—if he only knew!” murmured Rolfe to himself, his face growing pale and hard-set. “Sam Statham believes himself clever, and so he is! Yet in this game I think I am his equal.” And he smoked on in silence, his frowning countenance being an index to his troubled mind.
He was reviewing the whole of the curious situation. In a few years he had risen from a harum-scarum youth to be the private secretary, confidant, and frequent adviser to one of the wealthiest men in England. Times without number, old Sam, sitting in his padded writing-chair in Park Lane, had commended him for his business acumen and foresight. Once, by a simple suggestion, daring though it was, Statham had, in a few hours, made ten thousand pounds, and, with many words of praise the dry, old fellow took out his chequebook and drew a cheque as a little present to his clever young secretary. Charlie Rolfe was however, unscrupulous, as a good many clever men of business are. In the world of commerce the dividing-line between unscrupulousness and what the City knows as smartness is invisible. So Marion’s brother was dubbed a smart man at Statham Brothers’ and in those big, old-fashioned, and rather gloomy offices he was envied as being “the governor’s favourite.”
Charlie intended to get on. He saw other men make money in the City by the exercise of shrewdness and commonsense, and he meant to do the same. The business secrets of old Sam Statham were all known to him, and he had more than once been half tempted to take into partnership some financier who, armed with the information he could give, could make many a brilliant coup, forestalling even old Statham himself. Up to the present, however, he had never found anybody he could implicitly trust. Of sharks he knew dozens, clever, energetic men, he admitted, but there was not one of these who would not give away their own mother when it came to making a thousand profit. So he was waiting—waiting until he found the man who could “go in” with him and make a fortune.