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

"Do you remember what we were talking about this morning?" he said. "The big coup? Don't you see that even if this is not quite it, it will fill in the time?" She looked a little puzzled.

"I'm damned if I do," she cried tersely. "You can't ask 'em more than half a million."

"Funnily enough, that is the exact figure I intended to ask them," he replied. "But you've missed the point, my love—and I'm surprised at you. Everything that Blantyre said this morning was correct with regard to the impossibility of letting such a discovery become known to the world at large.

"I have no intention of letting it become known; but I have still less intention of letting it be lost. That would be an act of almost suicidal folly. Spread abroad, the knowledge would wreck everything; retained by one individual, it places that individual in a position of supreme power. And needless to say, I propose to be that individual."

He was staring thoughtfully over the lake, and suddenly she seized his left hand.

"Ted—stop it."

For a moment he looked at her in surprise; then he laughed. "Was I doing it again?" he asked. "It's a good thing you spotted that trick of mine, my dear. If there ever is a next time with Drummond"—his eyes blazed suddenly—"if there ever is—well, we will see. Just at the moment, however, let us concentrate on Professor Goodman.

"A telling picture that—wasn't it? Can't you see the old man, blinking behind his spectacles, absorbed in calculations on proteins for infants, with a ring of men around him not one of whom but would have murdered him then and there if he had dared!"

"But I still don't see how this is going to be anything out of the ordinary," persisted the girl.

"My dear, I'm afraid that the balmy air of the Lake of Geneva has had a bad effect on you."

Mr Blackton looked at her in genuine surprise. "I confess that I haven't worked out the details yet, but one point is quite obvious. Before Professor Goodman departs this life he is going to make several hundred diamonds for me, though it would never do to let the two anxious gentlemen downstairs know it. They might say that I wasn't earning my half-million.

"Those diamonds I shall unload with care and discretion during the years to come, so as not to cause a slump in prices. So it really boils down to the fact that the Metropolitan Diamond Syndicate will be paying me half a million for the express purpose of putting some five or ten million pounds' worth of stones in my pocket. My dear! It's a gift; It's one of those things which make strong men consult a doctor for fear they may be imagining things."

The girl laughed. "Where do I come in?"

"At the moment I'm not sure. So much will depend on circumstances. At any rate, for the present you had better stop on here, and I will send for you when things are a little more advanced."

A waiter knocked and began to lay the table for lunch; and when at two o'clock the coffee and liqueurs arrived, closely followed by his two visitors, Mr Blackton was in a genial mood. An excellent bottle of Marcobrunner followed by a glass of his own particular old brandy had mellowed him to such an extent that he very nearly produced the bottle for them, but sanity prevailed. It was true that they were going to pay him half a million for swindling them soundly, but there were only three bottles of that brandy left in the world.

The two men looked curiously at the girl as Blackton introduced them—Baron Vanderton had told them about the beauty of this so-called daughter who was his constant and invariable companion. Only she, so he had affirmed, knew what the man who now called himself Blackton really looked like when shorn of his innumerable disguises into which he fitted himself so marvellously.

But there were more important matters at stake than that, and Sir Raymond Blantyre's hand shook a little as he helped himself to a cigarette from the box on the table.

"Well, Mr Blackton," he said as the door closed behind the waiter. "Have you decided?"

"I have," returned the other calmly. "Professor Goodman's discovery will not be made public. He will not speak or give a demonstration at the Royal Society."

With a vast sigh of relief Sir Raymond sank into a chair. "And your—er—fee?"

"Half a million pounds. Two hundred and fifty thousand paid by cheque made out to Self—now; the remainder when you receive indisputable proof that I have carried out the job."

It was significant that Sir Raymond made no attempt to haggle. Without a word he drew his cheque-book from his pocket, and going over to the writing- table he filled in the required amount.

"I would be glad if it was not presented for two or three days," he remarked, "as it is drawn on my private account, and I shall have to put in funds to meet it on my return to England."

Mr Blackton bowed. "You return tonight?" he asked.

"By the Orient Express. And you?" Mr Blackton shrugged his shoulders. "The view here is delightful," he murmured.

And with that the representatives of the Metropolitan Diamond Syndicate had to rest content for the time—until, in fact, the train was approaching the Swiss frontier. They had just finished their dinner, their zest for which, though considerably greater than on the previous night in view of the success of their mission, had been greatly impaired by the manners of an elderly German sitting at the next table.

He was a bent and withered old man with a long hook nose and white hair, who, in the intervals of querulously swearing at the attendant, deposited his dinner on his waistcoat.

At length he rose, and having pressed ten centimes into the outraged hand of the head waiter, he stood for a moment by their table, swaying with the motion of the train. And suddenly he bent down and spoke to Sir Raymond.

"Two or three days, I think you said, Sir Raymond."

With a dry chuckle he was gone, tottering and lurching down the carriage, leaving the President of the Metropolitan Diamond Syndicate gasping audibly.

Table of Content

When Brenda Goodman, in a moment of mental aberration, consented to marry Algy Longworth, she little guessed the result.

From being just an ordinary, partially wanting specimen he became a raving imbecile. Presumably she must have thought it was natural as she showed no signs of terror, at any rate in public, but it was otherwise with his friends.

Men who had been wont to foregather with him to consume the matutinal cocktail now fled with shouts of alarm whenever he hove in sight. Only the baser members of that celebrated society, the main object of which is to cultivate the muscles of the left arm when consuming liquid refreshment, clung to him in his fall from grace.

They found that his mental fog was so opaque that he habitually forgot the only rule and raised his glass to his lips with his right hand.

And since that immediately necessitated a further round at his expense, they gave great glory to Allah for such an eminently satisfactory state of affairs. And when it is further added that he was actually discovered by Peter Darrell reading the poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox on the morning of the Derby, it will be readily conceded that matters looked black.

That the state of affairs was only temporary was, of course, recognised; but while it lasted it became necessary for him to leave the councils of men. A fellow who wants to trot back to the club-house from the ninth green in the middle of a four-ball foursome to blow his fiancée a kiss through the telephone is a truly hideous spectacle.

And so the sudden action of Hugh Drummond, one fine morning in June, is quite understandable. He had been standing by the window of his room staring into the street, and playing Beaver to himself, when with a wild yell he darted to the bell. He pealed it several times; then he rushed to the door and shouted: "Denny! Where the devil are you, Denny?"