Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

"What is it, my dear?" he said solicitously. "Bored?"

"No, not bored," she answered. "Whatever may be your failings, mon ami, boring me is not one of them. I was just wondering what it would feel like if you and I were content to go on a paddle-wheel steamer with a Baedeker and a Kodak, and a paper bag full of bananas."

"We will try tomorrow," said the man, gravely lighting a cigar.

"It wouldn't be any good," laughed the girl. "Just once in a way we should probably love it. I meant I wonder what it would feel like if that was our life."

Her companion nodded.

"I know, carissima," he answered gently. "I have sometimes wondered the same thing. I suppose there must be compensations in respectability, otherwise so many people wouldn't be respectable. But I'm afraid it is one of those things that we shall never know."

"I think it's that," said the girl, waving her hand towards the mountains opposite—"that has caused my mood. It's all so perfectly lovely: the sky is just so wonderfully blue. And look at that sailing boat."

She pointed to one of the big lake barges, with its two huge lateen sails, creeping gently along in the centre of the lake. "It's all so peaceful, and sometimes one wants peace."

"True," agreed the man; "one does. It's just reaction, and we've been busy lately."

He rose and began to pace slowly up and down the balcony. "To be quite honest, I myself have once or twice thought recently that if I could pull off some really big coup—something, I mean, that ran into the millions—I would give things up."

The girl smiled and shook her head.

"Don't misunderstand me, my dear," he went on. "I do not suggest for a moment that we should settle down to a life of toping and ease. We could neither of us exist without employing our brains. But with really big money behind one, we should be in a position to employ our brains a little more legitimately, shall I say, than we are able to at present, and still get all the excitement we require.

"Take Drakshoff: that man controls three of the principal Governments of Europe. The general public don't know it; the Governments themselves won't admit it: but it's true for all that. As you know, that little job I carried out for him in Germany averted a second revolution. He didn't want one at the time; and so he called me in. And it cost him in all five million pounds. What was that to him?" He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "A mere flea-bite—a bagatelle. Why, with that man an odd million or two one way or the other wouldn't be noticed in his pass-book."

He paused and stared over the sunlit lake, while the girl watched him in silence.

"Given money as big as that, and a man can rule the world. Moreover, he can rule it without fear of consequences. He can have all the excitement he requires; he can wield all the power he desires—and have special posses of police to guard him. I'm afraid we don't have many to guard us."

The girl laughed and lit another cigarette. "You are right, mon ami, we do not. Hullo! who can that be?" Inside the sitting-room the telephone bell was ringing, and with a slight frown Mr Edward Blackton took off the receiver.

"What is it?" From the other end came the voice of the manager, suitably deferential as befitted a client of such obvious wealth installed in the most palatial suite of the Palace Hotel.

"Two gentlemen are here, Mr Blackton," said the manager, "who wish to know when they can have the pleasure of seeing you. Their names are Sir Raymond Blantyre and Mr Jabez Leibhaus. They arrived this morning from England by the Simplon Orient express, and they say that their business is most urgent."

A sudden gleam had come into Mr Blackton's eyes as he listened, but his voice as he answered was almost bored.

"I shall be pleased to see both gentlemen at eleven o'clock up here. Kindly have champagne and sandwiches sent to my sitting room at that hour."

He replaced the receiver, and stood for a moment thinking deeply.

"Who was it?" called the girl from the balcony.

"Blantyre and Leibhaus, my dear," answered the man. "Now, what the deuce can they want with me so urgently?"

"Aren't they both big diamond men?" said the girl, coming into the room.

"They are," said Blackton. "In romantic fiction they would be described as two diamond kings. Anyway, it won't do them any harm to wait for half an hour."

"How did they find out your address? I thought you had left strict instructions that you were not to be disturbed."

There was regret in the girl's voice, and with a faint smile the man tilted back her head and kissed her.

"In our profession, cara mia," he said gently, "there are times when the strictest instructions have to be disobeyed. Freyder would never have dreamed of worrying me over a little thing, but unless I am much mistaken this isn't going to be little. It's going to be big: those two below don't go chasing half across Europe because they've mislaid a collar stud. Why—who knows?—it might prove to be the big coup we were discussing a few minutes ago."

He kissed her again; then he turned abruptly away and the girl gave a little sigh. For the look had come into those grey-blue eyes that she knew so well: the alert, keen look which meant business.

He crossed the room, and unlocked a heavy leather dispatch-case. From it he took out a biggish book which he laid on the table. Then, having made himself comfortable on the balcony, he lit another cigar, and began to turn over the pages.

It was of the loose-leaf variety, and every page had entries on it in Blackton's small, neat hand-writing. It was what he called his "Who's Who", but it differed from that excellent production in one marked respect. The people in Mr Edward Blackton's production had not compiled their own notices, which rendered it considerably more truthful even if less complimentary than the orthodox volume.

It was arranged alphabetically, and it contained an astounding wealth of information. In fact in his lighter moments the author was wont to say that when he retired from active life he would publish it, and die in luxury on the large sums paid him to suppress it. Mentioned in it were the names of practically every man and woman possessed of real wealth—as Blackton regarded wealth—in Europe and America.

There were, of course, many omissions, but in the course of years an extraordinary amount of strange and useful information had been collected. In many cases just the bare details of the person were given: these were the uninteresting ones, and consisted of people who passed the test as far as money was concerned but about whom the author had no personal knowledge.

In others, however, the entries were far more human. After the name would be recorded certain details, frequently of a most scurrilous description. And these details had one object and one object only—to assist at the proper time and place in parting the victim from his money.

Not that Mr Edward Blackton was a common blackmailer—far from it. Blackmailing pure and simple was a form of amusement which revolted his feelings as an artist. But to make use of certain privately gained information about a man when dealing with him was a different matter altogether.

It was a great assistance in estimating character when meeting a man for the first time to know that his previous wife had divorced him for carrying on with the housemaid, and that he had then failed to marry the housemaid. Nothing of blackmail in that: just a pointer as to character.

In the immense ramifications of Mr Blackton's activities it was of course impossible for him to keep all these details in his head. And so little by little the book had grown until it now comprised over three hundred pages. Information obtained first-hand or from absolutely certain sources was entered in red; items not quite so reliable in black. And under Sir Raymond Blantyre's name the entry was in red.