“He’ll never do that, for he knows his suicide would mean the ruin of Statham Brothers, and perhaps the ruin of hundreds of families. The canting old hypocrite would rather do anything nowadays than ruin the poor investor.”
“Yet look at his operations in earlier days! Did he not lay the foundation of the house by the exercise of cunning and unscrupulous double-dealing? Was it not mainly by his influence that a great war was forced on, and did he not clear, it is declared, more than half a million by sacrificing the lives of thousands? And he actually has the audacity to dole out sums to charities, and contributions to hospitals and convalescent homes!”
“The world always looks at a man’s present, my dear old chap, never at his past,” responded the hunchback.
“Unfortunately that is so, otherwise the truth would be remembered and the name of Statham held up to scorn and universal disgust. Yet,” Adams went on, “I grant you that he is not much worse than others in the same category. The smug frock coat and light waistcoat of the successful City man so very often conceals a black and ungenerous heart.”
“But if you really make this exposure as you threaten, it will arouse the greatest sensation ever produced in England in modern years,” Lyle remarked, slowly lighting a fresh cigarette.
“I will make it—and more!” he declared, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table. “I have waited all these years for my revenge, and, depend upon it, it will be humiliating and complete.”
For a few moments neither man spoke. At last Lyle said: “I have more than once wondered whether you are not making a mistake in your association with that young man Barclay.”
“Max Barclay is a fool. He doesn’t dream the real game we are playing with him.”
“No. If he did, he wouldn’t have anything to do with us.”
“I suppose he wouldn’t. But the whole thing appears to him such a gilt-edged one that we’ve fascinated him—and he’ll be devilish useful to us in the near future.”