The Pauper of Park Lane

“Sufficiently well to have nothing to do with him.”

“Then that accounts for his refusal to allow me to confide in you,” said Barclay. “I see the reason now.”

“Of course, act just as you think fit. Only recollect that what I’ve told you is bed-rock fact. The man who calls himself Adam is a person to be avoided.”

“Have you had dealings with him?”

“Just once – and they had a very unpleasant result.”

He reflected upon certain remarks and criticisms which the Frenchman had uttered concerning Statham and his normal methods. In the light of what he now knew, he saw that the two men were enemies. It seemed as though one man wished to tell him something, and yet was hesitant.

“Have you put any money into the scheme?” the millionaire asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then don’t. Tell him to take it somewhere else. Better still, tell him to bring it to me. You need not, however, say that it is I who warned you. Leave him in the dark in that direction. He’s a clever fellow – extraordinarily clever. Who is with him now?”

“Well, he has a friend named Lyle – a mining engineer.”

“Leonard Lyle – a hunchback?” asked Statham quickly.

The millionaire’s countenance went a trifle paler, and about the corners of his thin lips was a hard expression. To him, the seriousness of the conspiracy was only too apparent.

Those two men intended that he should be driven to take his own life – to die an ignominious death.

“You’ve spoken to this man Lyle?” he asked in as steady a voice as he could.

“Once or twice. He seems to possess a very intimate knowledge of Servia, Bulgaria, and European Turkey. Is he an adventurer like Adam?”

“Not exactly,” was the rather ambiguous reply. “But his association with Adam shows plainly that fraud is intended.”

“But why does he want me to go post-haste out to Turkey?” queried Max, who had risen from his chair in the excitement of this sudden revelation which caused his brilliant scheme to vanish into thin air.

“To induce confidence, I expect he would have introduced you to some men wearing fezzes, and declared them to be Pashas high in favour at the Yildiz Kiosk. Then before you left Constantinople he would have held you to your bargain to put money into the thing. Oh! never fear, you would have fallen a victim in one way or another. So it’s best that you should know the character of the two men with whom you are dealing. Take my advice; treat them with caution, but refuse to stir from London. They will, no doubt, use every persuasion to induce you to go, but your best course is to hear all their arguments, watch the gradual development of their scheme, and inform me of it. Will you do it?”

“Will my information assist you in any way, Mr Statham?”

“Yes, it will – very materially,” the old man answered.

“I have revealed to you the truth, and I ask you, in return, to render me this little assistance. What I desire to know, is their movements daily, and how they intend to act.”

“Towards whom?”

“Towards myself.”

“Then they are associated against you, you believe?”

“I suspect them to be,” the old man replied. “I know them to be my enemies. They are, like thousands of other men, jealous of my success, and believe they have a grievance against me – one that is entirely unfounded.”

“And if I do this will you assist me to obtain knowledge of the reason why Marion Rolfe has been dismissed?” asked Max eagerly.

The old man hesitated, but only for a second. It was easy enough to give him a letter to Cunnington, and afterwards to telephone to Oxford Street instructions to the head of the firm to refuse a reply.

So, consenting, he took a sheet of note-paper, and scribbled a few lines of request to Mr Cunnington, which he handed to Max, saying:

“There, I hope that will have the desired effect, Mr Barclay. On your part, remember, you will keep in with Adam and Lyle, and give me all the information you can gather. I know how to repay a friendly service rendered to me, so you are, no doubt, well aware. You will be welcome here at any hour. I shall tell Levi to admit you.”

“That’s a bargain,” the younger man asserted. “When will Rolfe return?”

“To-morrow, or next day. He’s in Paris. Shall I tell him you wish to see him?”

“Please.”

“But say nothing regarding Adam or his friend. Our compact is a strictly private one, remember.”

And then Max, grasping the hands of the man whom he believed was his friend, placed the note in his pocket and went out into the blazing hot September afternoon.

As he disappeared along the pavement the old millionaire watched him unseen from behind the blind.

“To the friendship of that man – that man whom I have wronged – I shall owe my life,” he murmured aloud.

And then, crossing to the telephone on his table, he asked for Mr Cunnington.

Chapter Thirty Nine.

The City of Unrest

Ten days had passed since Charlie had met the mysterious Lorena in Paris.

To both Charlie and Max – though now separated by the breadth of Europe – they had been breathless, anxious, never-to-be-forgotten days.

The ominous words of Lorena ever recurred to him. Apparently the girl knew far more than she had told him, and her declaration that confirmation of Adams’s charges would be found beyond that white-enamelled door in Park Lane gripped his senses. He could think of nothing else.

She had left him in the Rue de Rivoli, outside the Gardens, refusing her address or any further account of herself. She had warned him – that was, she said, all-sufficient.

He blamed himself a thousand times for not having followed her; for not having sought some further information concerning the peril of old Sam Statham.

Yet the afternoon following, just as he was about to drive from the Grand Hotel to the Gare du Nord, to return to London, one of the clerks from Old Broad Street had arrived, bearing a letter from the head of the firm, giving him instructions to proceed to Servia at once and transact certain business with the Government regarding certain copper concessions in the district of Kaopanik. The deal meant the introduction of a considerable amount of British capital into Servia, and had support from his Majesty King Peter downwards. Indeed, all were in favour save the Opposition in the Skuptchina, or Parliament, a set of unruly peasants who opposed every measure the Pashitch Government put forward.

The business brooked no delay. Therefore Charlie, that same night, entered the Orient express, that train of dusty wagons-lit which runs three times a week between Paris and Constantinople, and three days later arrived in Belgrade, the Servian capital.

He was no stranger in that rather pleasant town, perched high up at the junction of the Save with the broad Danube. The passport officer at Semlin station recognised him, and gave him a visa at once, and on alighting at Belgrade the little ferret-eyed man idling outside the station did not follow him, for he knew him by sight and was well aware that the Grand Hotel was his destination.

There are more spies in Belgrade than in any other city in Europe. So much foreign intrigue is ever in progress that the Servian authorities are compelled to support a whole army of secret agents to watch and report. Hence it is that the stranger, from the moment he sets foot in Belgrade to the moment he leaves it, is watched, and his every movement noted and reported. Yet all is so well managed that the foreigner is never aware of the close surveillance upon him, and Belgrade is as gay a town in the matter of entertaining and general freedom as, well, as any other you may choose to name.

During the days when, owing to the unfortunate events which terminated the reign of the half-imbecile King Alexander and the designing woman who became his Queen, when England had suspended diplomatic negotiations, the great stakes held in the country by Statham Brothers were in a somewhat precarious condition. For two years Servian finance had been in anything but a flourishing condition, but now, under the rule of King Peter, who had done his very utmost to reinstate his country in its former flourishing position, the confidence of Europe had been restored, and Statham Brothers were ready to make further investments.

In Charles Rolfe the great millionaire had the most perfect confidence. The letter he had sent him to Paris was clear and explicit in its instructions. If the concessions were confirmed by the Prime Minister Pashitch and the Council, a million dinars (or francs) were already deposited in the National Bank of Servia, and could be drawn at an hour’s notice upon Charlie’s signature.