The Lady in the Car

“We admit,” exclaimed an old bald man, a director of one of London’s largest banks, “that it is a good thing, but the price you ask is prohibitive.”

“I can get it in Paris. So I shall go there,” was Tremlett’s prompt reply.

“Well,” exclaimed the bald man, “let’s get straight to facts. Your cousin, Lord Nassington, wants sixty thousand pounds in cash for the concession and a percentage of shares, and that, we have decided, is far too much.”

“Those are his figures,” remarked Tremlett.

“Well, then all we can offer is one-half – thirty thousand in cash and ten per cent, of shares in the company,” said the other, “and,” he added, “I venture to say that ours is a very handsome offer.” Tremlett rose from the table with a sarcastic smile.

“Let us talk of something else,” he said. “I haven’t come down here to the City to play at marbles.”

“Well,” asked the old man who was head of the syndicate. “What are your lowest terms?”

“I’ve stated them.”

“But you don’t give us time to inquire into the business,” he complained.

“I have shown you the actual concession. Surely you are satisfied with it!”

“We are.”

“And I’ve told you the conditions of the contract. Yet you postpone your decision from day to day!”

The five men glanced at each other, rather uneasily Tremlett thought.

“Well,” he went on. “This is the last time I shall attend any meeting. We come to a decision this morning, or the matter is off. You, gentlemen, don’t even show bona fides!”

“Well, I think you know something of the standing of all of us,” the banker said.

“That is so. But my cousin complains that he, having offered the concession, you on your part do not attempt to show your intention to take it up.”

“But we do. We wish to fix a price to-day,” remarked another of the men.

“A price, gentlemen, which is ridiculous,” declared Tremlett.

The five men consulted together in undertones, and in the end advanced their offer five thousand pounds. At this Tremlett only shook his shoulders. A further five thousand was the result, and a long discussion followed.

“Have you your cousin’s authority to accept terms?” asked one of the capitalists.

“I have.”

“Then forty thousand is all we can offer.”

Tremlett hesitated.

“I have a number of payments to make for bribery,” he declared. “It will take half that sum.”

“That does not concern us, my dear sir,” said the bald-headed banker. “We know that a concession such as this can only be obtained by the judicious application of palm-oil.”

“But I must pay out nearly twenty thousand almost immediately,” Tremlett said.

At this there was another long discussion, whereupon at last the bald-headed man said:

“If the payment of the bribes is imperative at once, we will, on consideration of the business being to-day concluded on a forty thousand pound basis, hand you over half the sum at once. That is our final decision.”

Tremlett was not at all anxious. Indeed he took up his hat and cane, and was about to leave, when two of the men present exercising all their powers of persuasion, got him at last to reseat himself and to accept the sum of twenty thousand pounds down, and twenty thousand thirty days from that date, in addition to a percentage of shares in the company to be formed.

Memoranda were drawn up and signed by all parties, whereupon Tremlett took from his pocket the official concession and handed it to the head of the syndicate.

That same afternoon, before four o’clock, he had received a draft for twenty thousand pounds, with which he had opened an account in Charles’s name at a branch bank in Tottenham Court Road.

At nine o’clock that same evening he left for Paris, putting up at a small obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord where he waited in patience for nearly a week.

Once or twice he telegraphed, and received replies.

Late one night the Parson arrived unexpectedly and entered the shabby bedroom where his Lordship was lounging in an armchair reading a French novel.

He sprung up at the entrance of the round-faced cleric, saying:

“Well, Tommy? How has it gone? Tell me quick.”

“You were quite right,” exclaimed the clergyman. “The crowd in London were going behind your back. They sent two clever men to Rome, and those fellows tried to deal with Boncini direct. They arrived the day after I did, and they offered him an extra twenty thousand if he would rescind your concession, and grant them a new one. Boncini was too avaricious and refused, so they then treated with you.”

“I got twenty thousand,” remarked his Lordship, “got it in cash safe in the bank.”

“Yes. I got your wire.”

“And what did you do?” asked his friend.

“I acted just as you ordered. As soon as I was convinced that the people in London were working behind our backs, I laid my plans. Then when your wire came that you’d netted the twenty thousand, I acted.”

“How?”

“I took all the signed proof you gave me of old Boncini’s acceptance of the bribe, and of Madame’s banking account at the Credit Lyonnais, to that scoundrel Ricci, the red-hot Socialist deputy in the Chamber.”

“And what did he say?” asked his Lordship breathlessly.

“Say!” echoed the other. “He was delighted. I spent the whole evening with him. Next day, he and his colleagues held a meeting, and that afternoon he asked in the Chamber whether his Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, had not been bribed by an English syndicate and put a number of similarly awkward questions. The Government had a difficulty in evading the truth, but imagine the sensation when he waved proofs of the corruptness of the Cabinet in the face of the House. A terrible scene of disorder ensued, and the greatest sensation has been caused. Look here,” – and he handed his friend a copy of Le Soir.

At the head of a column on the front page were the words in French, “Cabinet Crisis in Italy,” and beneath, a telegram from Rome announcing that in consequence of the exposure of grave scandals by the Socialists, the Italian Cabinet had placed their resignations in the hands of his Majesty.

“Serve that old thief Boncini right,” declared his Lordship. “He was ready to sell me for an extra few thousands, but I fortunately got in before him. I wonder if the pretty Velia has still any aspirations to enter the British peerage?”

And both men laughed merrily at thought of the nice little nest-egg they had managed to filch so cleverly from the hands of five of the smartest financiers in the City of London.

Chapter Ten

Love and the Outlaw