The Man Who Bought London

by Edgar Wallace

  ‘Thus perish all traitors!’ quoth he gaily. ‘There was something in that envelope which I very much wanted to destroy.’

  ‘I gathered that,’ she laughed.

  He walked over to her desk.

  ‘You’re getting snowed under,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy you one of those talking machines, and you can dictate your replies. There’s room in the commissionaire’s office for a typist.’

  She shook her head. ‘There isn’t enough work, really,’ she protested.

  He made no further allusion to the burnt envelope. She might speculate (as she did) upon the contents: what precious secret was here hidden, what urgency dictated its destruction. There were such secret places in this unknown world into which she had entered in the joyous spirit of exploration – thick jungles where lurked the beast of prey waiting to spring, dark woods above and morasses beneath her feet, pitfalls cunningly dug and traps ingeniously laid.

  Kerry was an experienced hunter. He skirted trap and fall, walked warily always, with an eye to dangers of the tall grasses, and never penetrated the dim channels of his profession without being sure that every weapon in his arsenal was in good working order and to hand.

  Notes, letters, telegrams came every minute of the day. Mysterious and brief epistles unintelligible to her, full of meaning to him. The telephone bell would ring: ‘Yes!’ he would reply, or ‘No!’ and hang up the receiver. What was his objective in this campaign of his? The newspapers were asking, his friends were asking, his enemies were demanding an answer to that question. Why was he buying up unfashionable Tottenham Court Road and Lambeth Walk and a score of other places which just stood on the fringe of the shopping centre of London?

  ‘He is acting,’ said one critic, ‘as though he expected shopping London to shift from the circle – the centre of which is halfway along Regent Street to –?’

  Here the critic must pause irresolutely.

  ‘To whither?’

  It seemed that Kerry anticipated not so much the shifting of the centre, as the extension of the circle. A sanguine man if he imagined that his operations and the operations of his syndicate would so increase the prosperity of London that he would double the shopping area of fashionable London.

  There was a Mr Biglow Holden, a pompous, self-important man who had earned a fortune as a designer of semi-important buildings, who wrote a very learned article in the Building Mail. It was filled with statistical tables (printed in small type) showing the growth of London in relation to population, and it proved conclusively that Mr King Kerry must wait some three hundred and fifty years before his dream materialized.

  Gordon Bray, who happened to be engaged in Mr Holden’s office, typed the article for his employer, and heartily disagreed with every conclusion, every split infinitive and error of taste and grammar that it contained.

  Holden asked him his opinion of the article, and the young man in his honesty hesitated before replying.

  ‘I suppose you think you could do it better?’ said Mr Biglow Holden, in his heavy jocular style.

  ‘I think I could,’ replied Gordon innocently.

  Mr Holden glowered at him.

  ‘You’re getting a swelled head, Bray!’ he said, warningly. ‘This isn’t the office for young fellows with swelled heads, remember that.’

  King Kerry read the article and frowned. He had a very good reason for frowning. He sent for Mr Holden, and, for one who had so openly despised ‘Yankee acumen’, to quote his own phrase, he obeyed the summons with considerable alacrity.

  ‘So you think my scheme is all wrong?’ asked the millionaire.

  ‘I think your judgement is at fault,’ said Mr Holden with an ingratiating smile.

  ‘Does everybody think that?’

  ‘Everybody except my draughtsman,’ smiled Mr Holden again.

  It was intended to be a politely crushing answer, and to convey the fact that only the more inexperienced and menial departments of architecture would be found ranged on the side of the amateur designer.

  ‘Your draughtsman?’ Kerry frowned again. ‘I have an idea we know him.’ He turned to the girl.

  ‘Mr Bray is the gentleman, I think,’ said Elsie.

  ‘You see,’ explained Holden hurriedly, ‘his ideas are rather fantastic. He’s a product of what I might term the Evening Class – all theory and half-digested knowledge. He has an idea that you can jump into the middle of London and push it out.’

  ‘Humph!’ said King Kerry thoughtfully – then – ‘And you would not advise me to rebuild – let us say, Tottenham Court Road?’

  The architect hesitated.

  ‘No,’ he said – and what else could he say in the face of his article?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said King Kerry shortly, ‘for I was going to ask you to submit designs – but naturally I cannot give the work to a man without enthusiasm.’

  ‘Of course there might be something I haven’t understood about your –’

  Kerry shook his head.

  ‘I think you understand all that I wish anybody to understand,’ he said, and saw the discomfited Mr Holden to the door.

  Gordon Bray stood at the broad draughtsman’s table employing his compasses and his rulers to the front elevation of a particularly hideous building which Mr Holden was calling into being.

  He was in a state of depression. The goal was very far distant to him. He could never marry now until he had secured a position in the world. His self-respect would not allow him to share the fortune of the woman he loved. So far he was ignorant of the provisions of her father’s will, but enlightenment on that question would not have changed the outlook. A man loves a woman best when he can bring gifts in his hands: it is unnatural to come not only empty-handed but with hands to be filled. He had all the pride and sensitiveness of youth. The whisper of the phrase ‘fortune hunter’ was sufficient to turn him hot and cold, though it might bear no relationship to him and had never been intended to apply. Though, possibly, only three persons in London knew of his love, he thought his secret was common property, and it was a maddening thought that perhaps there were people who spoke disparagingly or sneeringly of his beautiful lady for her graciousness to a penniless draughtsman. He had had wild thoughts of ending the situation. It was unfair to her. He would write a letter and go away to Canada, and perhaps come back some day a wealthy man to find her heart still free.

  Many young men have the same heroic thought and lack the ready cash necessary to make the change. He at any rate was in this position, and had grown savage in the realization when Holden’s bell summoned him.

  Holden was very red in the face, and very angry. His fat cheeks were puffed out and his round eyes stared comically – but he had no desire to amuse anybody.

  His stare was almost terrifying as Gordon entered.

  ‘I’ve just seen that damned Yankee!’ he said.

  ‘Which damned Yankee?’ demanded the young man. In his own distress of mind he forgot to be impressed by his employer.

  ‘There’s only one,’ growled Mr Holden. ‘He’s full of sillyass ideas about building … sent for me to insult me … thinks he knows … here, take this letter to him!’

  He handed a sealed envelope across the table with a malicious grin.

  ‘You seem to have friends in that office,’ he went on, and fished in the drawer of his desk for a cheque book. ‘I’m beginning to understand now how Kerry came to buy that Borough property that my client wanted!’

  He referred to a transaction which was a month old, but the memory of which still rankled.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked the young man, raising his voice.

  ‘Never mind what I mean,’ said Mr Holden darkly; ‘and don’t shout at me, Gordon!’ he snorted the last word. ‘Here’s your cheque for a month’s salary. Deliver the letter and you needn’t come back: perhaps Mr Kerry will engage you as his architect – you’ve passed all the examinations, I understand.’

  Gordon picked up the cheque slowly. ‘Do you mean that I am dismiss
ed?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Mr Holden, ‘that you’re too clever for this office.’

  It was with a heavy heart that the young man entered Kerry’s office. Elsie was not there, and Kerry received him alone, read the letter in silence, then tore up a letter he was writing himself.

  ‘Do you know the contents of this?’ Mr Kerry held up Holden’s epistle.

  ‘No, Mr Kerry.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t,’ said the big man with a smile, ‘otherwise you mightn’t have brought it. I’ll read it to you –’

  DEAR SIR, – Since you do not require expert advice and may need assistance to rebuild London! (‘He’s put a note of exclamation there,’ said Kerry with a twinkle in his eye), I send you along my draughtsman, who makes up in enthusiasm all he lacks in experience. I have no further use for him.

  Yours faithfully,

  BIGLOW HOLDEN.

  Gordon’s face was crimson.

  ‘How dare he!’ he cried.

  ‘Dare he?’ Kerry’s eyebrows rose. ‘Goodness gracious! – as you English say – he’s given you the finest testimonial I have ever had with a young man. I gather you’re sacked?’

  Gordon nodded.

  ‘Excellent!’ said the other. ‘Now you go along to an office I have just taken in St. James’s Street and furnish it – I give you carte blanche – as a surveyor’s office should be furnished. And if anybody asks who you are, you must say: “I am the architect of the big L Trust,” and,’ he added solemnly, ‘they will probably take their hats off to you.’

  ‘But, seriously, Mr Kerry?’ protested the laughing Gordon.

  ‘Never more serious. Go along and design something.’

  Gordon Bray was transfixed, hypnotized – he couldn’t grasp the meaning of it all.

  ‘Design me,’ said Kerry, wrinkling his brow in thought, ‘a public square set around with buildings, shops, and public offices. Let the square be exactly half the length of Regent Street from side to side.’

  With a curt nod he dismissed the dazed youth.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  ‘That’s a weird contrivance you have, Zeberlieff!’

  Martin Hubbard, immaculately dressed, stood looking over the shoulder of his unconscious friend.

  Hermann swung round with an oath. ‘How did you get in?’ he asked roughly.

  ‘Through the door. I was coming in when your man was going out to the post.’

  Hermann got up from the table at which he had been experimenting.

  ‘Come down into the dining room,’ he said shortly. ‘I hate people sneaking in behind me: it gives me the creeps!’

  ‘But,’ said the other humorously, ‘you don’t mind your future brother-in-law, surely’ – a remark which restored the good humour of the other, for he chuckled as he led the way downstairs.

  ‘Future brother-in-law – yes,’ he said.

  ‘What was that funny old machine?’ persisted Hubbard. ‘Never knew you were a dabbler in science. You’re quite a Louis the Fourteenth with your passion for applied mechanics.’

  ‘It is an invention sent to me by a man,’ said Hermann carelessly; ‘did you notice it very closely?’

  Hubbard shook his head.

  ‘Only what looked like an alarm clock and a bit of wadding and some stuff that looked like a cinematograph film.’

  ‘It’s a new kind of – er – cinema projector,’ explained Zeberlieff readily. ‘It’s automatic – wakes you up with pictures on the ceiling.’

  ‘And what were the matches for?’

  ‘Matches!’ Zeberlieff eyed him narrowly. ‘There were no matches.’

  ‘I must have been mistaken.’ Hubbard was not sufficiently interested to pursue the subject, and went on: ‘I suppose you know I’ve come by appointment?’

  ‘The devil you have?’

  ‘You told me to call,’ said the other a little irritated, ‘with the idea of meeting your sister.’

  ‘Did I?’ Hermann favoured him with a thoughtful stare. ‘So I did – that’s rather awkward for both of us, because she won’t see you.’

  ‘Won’t see me?’

  The chagrin and the wounded pride in the man’s voice was laughable.

  ‘She won’t see you – she won’t see me, that is all; here’s a letter, if it will interest!’

  Mr Hubbard opened the grey note slowly, and read –

  I cannot receive you nor your beautiful friend. If you come anywhere near me I send for the police. – V.

  ‘What do you think of that?’ asked the calm Hermann.

  ‘It’s monstrous!’ gasped Hubbard. ‘How dare she – she –’

  ‘Call you beautiful? Oh, well, there’s every excuse for her,’ soothed Hermann. ‘And really I’m not worrying now.’

  ‘Listen!’ said Mr Hubbard, ‘I want to ask you something. What chance have I of raising a monkey?’

  ‘All depends upon the care you give it,’ replied Hermann, wilfully dense. ‘In this climate –’

  ‘I want to borrow five hundred pounds,’ said Mr Hubbard more explicitly.

  ‘Borrow it, by all means!’ suggested Zeberlieff unmoved.

  ‘Could you let me have it?’

  Hermann considered.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I could not. Of course,’ he went on, ‘if I thought there was any chance of your marrying my sister I would hang little wads of banknotes round your throat: but I fancy your chance is down around the zero mark.’

  ‘In fact,’ said the indignant Hubbard, ‘you think I am no more use to you.’

  ‘What a mind you have!’ admired Hermann. ‘You grasp these things so quickly.’

  Martin Hubbard bit at his golden moustache.

  ‘Suppose I went to your sister and told her your proposition,’ he suggested.

  ‘She would be bored to tears,’ replied Hermann with his smile. ‘You see, I’ve already told her. The fact is, Hubbard, she’s in love with a young man, the son of poor but honest parents. It’s working out rather like a story. I’m afraid she’s going to marry him. The only hope for you is that you and she should be cast ashore on some desert island. At the end of five years you might like one another – and anyway, the marriage would be convenient for the sake of the proprieties. If you could arrange for the shipwreck, and could guarantee that only you and she would be saved, I might fix up the passage and the island.’ He was in his most flippant mood, but his good humour touched no responsive chord in the breast of Mr Hubbard.

  ‘It is all very well for you,’ he said miserably; ‘you’re a jolly rich man – but I’m broke to the wide world.’

  ‘As I shall be next week,’ said Hermann cheerfully. ‘Another week’s trading like last week, and Goulding’s goes to the devil.’

  ‘Are you in it?’ asked the interested Mr Hubbard.

  ‘Up to the neck,’ said Hermann shortly. ‘Leete got me in to the extent of two hundred thousand. I’ve lost another two hundred thousand in the slump in American rails. What are you envying me for, you silly ass?’

  ‘When is this cut-throat sale going to stop?’ demanded Hubbard.

  Hermann shook his head.

  ‘He has a warehouse filled with stuff in South London – a year’s supply. Otherwise we could have brought pressure to bear upon the manufacturers. But he bought his stock in advance, and he’s selling exactly six times the amount of goods that any other house in Oxford Street has sold in its biggest sale week – and he’s losing practically nothing. There’s a big margin of profit on soft goods. He can sell at cost price and ruin the other stores. So long as he’s got the goods to sell, he’ll sell ’em, and, as I say, his warehouses in South London are chock-full.’

  ‘What about that five hundred?’ asked Hubbard abruptly.

  ‘Not here, my child,’ said Hermann. ‘When you come down to fifty, I’ll be listening to you – because I think you might be worth fifty – and besides, you’re on the Federated board, and I can stop it from your director’s fees.’

  Five minutes later he was back in
his study, working at his little machine. He took the precaution this time to lock the door.

  It was now a month since the beginning of the Kerry sale, and the queues so far from diminishing had increased. As every week passed and the fame of the Kerry bargain extended, the all-night shopping house attracted even greater numbers than in the day of its novelty. Then Modelson’s fell into the Kerry combination, and promptly changed its name and its methods. Hastily remodelled on the lines of the original store, it ended the rush on Kerry’s.

  ‘The same price, the same system, the same name,’ said a flamboyant advertisement announcing the change. It gave Kerry’s a breathing space; but the queues came back, only now there were two – one to Kerry’s, and the other to what had been Modelson’s. Between the two stores, a howling desert, with customers as scarce as December flies, was Goulding’s – Goulding’s, the once busy hive of industry, now almost deserted.

  In vain were prices reduced, in vain were enticing bargains placed in the window. Customers went after them, it is true, but discovered that they were already sold. ‘The only model of that kind we have in stock, madam!’ and came away wrathful at the trick which had been played upon them, refusing to see ‘something else just as good’.

  Kerry had to undergo the trial of a press campaign. A savage attack on his methods appeared in a weekly journal. Scarcely was the paper in print and on the street, when the ‘King’s’ own journal, the Evening Herald, replied. It was not a polite reply. It was personal and overpoweringly informative. It gave the relationship of the attacking weekly with Leete, printed a list of shareholders and a list of Leete’s directorships. Said unpleasant things about the editor of the weekly, and concluded with a promise of revelations concerning ‘a moving spirit in this conspiracy who hatches in Park Lane the plots which are executed in Whitechapel’.

  ‘Stop it!’ was Hermann Zeberlieff’s order, and the next issue of the Weekly Discovery was notable for its dignified silence on the subject of Kerry and his ways.