“Very well, my dear fellow,” replied Adam lightly. “I don’t want to persuade you. There are a thousand men in the City who’ll be ready to put up money to-morrow morning.”
And the pair finished their luncheon and parted, Adam, of course, entirely unsuspicious of the part Statham had played in upsetting his deeply-laid plans.
To every address which Marion’s brother had furnished he had gone at post-haste, only to draw blank every time. Charlie had, at Statham’s instructions, gone first to Constantinople, then to Odessa and Batoum, after which he had returned direct to London.
In Odessa he had been met by a special messenger from the London office bearing a number of documents, and his business in that city had occupied him nearly a fortnight. Therefore it was early in October when, arriving by the evening train at Charing Cross from Paris, he took a cab straight to Park Lane.
In greeting him, old Sam was rather curious in his manner, he thought. There was a lack of cordiality. Usually, when he came off a long journey, the old fellow ordered Levi to bring the decanter of whisky and a syphon. But on this occasion the head of the great financial house merely sat in his chair at his desk and heard his secretary’s report without even suggesting that he might be fagged by his rush across Europe.
Rolfe related, briefly and plainly, the various points upon which he had failed, and those upon which he had been successful. Some of his decisions had brought many thousands of pounds into the already overflowing coffers of Statham Brothers, and yet the old man made no sign. He heard all without any comment save now and then a grunt of satisfaction.
The younger man could not disguise from himself the fact that the millionaire was not himself. His face was paler and more transparent, while the green-shaded electric lamp shed upon it a hue that was unreal and ghastly. Old Levi, too, as he flitted in and out like a white-breasted shadow, seemed to regard him with unusual suspicion and distrust.
What could it all mean?
He looked from one to the other in puzzled surprise.
He was unaware that only on the previous night a thin, dark, bearded man had been ushered into that very room and had sat for two hours with the great financier. His countenance, his gestures, the cut of his clothes, all showed plainly that he was not English. Besides, the consultation was in French, a language which old Sam knew fairly well.