by Grant Allen
“Certainly,” Mr. Lionel assented with promptitude. “Something that can be called in and realized at any moment. Something one can turn into ready cash on the open Stock Exchange whenever it’s needed. Whereas, with most of your money-lending transactions, you see, you never know where you are — like that beastly Gascoyne business for example. Money sunk in a hole, that’s what I call it,”
“What’s that?” Mr. Solomons interposed sharply, looking round over his shoulder, alarmed at the sound of those ominous words, “realized at any moment.”
“Money sunk in a hole! Nothing of the sort, I give you my word, Leo. Here’s the papers all as straight and businesslike as possible; and he’s paying interest monthly; he’s paying interest at the rate of twenty per cent, per annum with the greatest regularity. Sir Paul Gascoyne, Bart.’s an honorable party.” Mr. Lionel continued to turn over the bonds, and noted carefully where each was pigeon-holed. “You haven’t had these out,” he said with a casual air, observing the dust upon them, “since I was down here last. I see they’re just as I put them back myself last time.”
“Well, I don’t go to the safe, not twice in a twelvemonth, except when coupons fall due,” his uncle answered unconcerned, as he fingered once more the Gascoyne notes-of-hand with that loving, lingering touch of his. “It’s best not to meddle with these things too often. They might get lying about loose, and be mislaid or stolen.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Lionel answered dryly, retreating to a seat, and running his fat hand easily through his oily locks while he regarded the safe from afar on his chair in the corner with profound interest. It suited his game, in fact, that Mr. Solomons should visit it as seldom as possible. Suppose by any chance certain securities should happen to be mislaid in the course of the next week or so, now, for example, it might be Christmas or thereabouts before Mr. Solomons so much as even missed them.
As they loitered about and talked over the question of the Central Southern Debentures, Mr. Solomons’ boy from the office below poked his head into the room and announced briefly, “Mr. Barr to see you, sir.”
“I must run down, Leo,” Mr. Solomons said, glancing about him with a hasty eye at the bonds and debentures.
“Barr & Wilkie again! If ever there was a troublesome set of men on earth it’s country attorneys. Just put these things back into the safe, there’s a good fellow, and turn the key on them. The combination’s ‘Lionel.’ It’s all yours, you see, all yours, my boy, so I open and shut the lock with your name for a key, Leo.” And he gave an affectionate glance at the oleaginous young man (who sat tilting his chair) as he retreated hurriedly toward the door and the staircase.
Thus providentially left to himself in full possession, Mr. Lionel Solomons could hardly refrain from bursting out at once into a hearty laugh. It was too funny! Did there ever live on earth such a precious old fool as his Uncle Judah?— “It’s all yours, you see!” Ha, ha, the humor of it! He should just think it was, more literally now than Uncle Judah intended. And he opened the safe to the word “Lionel”! Such innocence deserved to be severely fleeced. It positively deserved. A man who had reached his Uncle Judah’s years ought surely to know better than leave anybody whatsoever — friend or foe — face to face alone with those convertible securities.
When Mr. Lionel Solomons came down to Hillborough, it had been his intention to spend the whole of that night under the avuncular roof; to possess himself of the avuncular keys and combination; and to rifle that safe, in fear and trembling, in the small hours of the morning, when he meant to rise on the plea of catching the first train to London. But fate and that old fool had combined to put things far more easily into his power for a moment. All he had to do was to place such bonds and securities as were most easily negotiable in his own pocketbook, to stick the worthless Gascoyne notes-of-hand, as too cheap for robbing, in their accustomed pigeon-hole, to lock the safe to a different combination (which would render immediate detection somewhat less probable), and return the keys with the smiling face of innocence to his respected relation. And as Mr. Lionel was not without a touch of grim humor in his composition, he chose for the combination by which alone the safe could next be opened the one significant word “Idiot.”
“If he finds that out,” the dutiful nephew chuckled to himself merrily, “why, all I can say is, he’ll be a great deal less of one than ever I take him to be.”
When Mr. Solomons once more reappeared upon the scene, flushed again with contention with his natural enemies, the attorneys, Mr. Lionel handed him back his bunch of keys with perfect sangfroid, and merely observed with a gentle smile of superior compassion, “I wouldn’t get rid of those Central Southerns yet a while if I were you. The tightness won’t last. I don’t believe in these bearing operations. They’re bound to rise later, with the half-yearly dividend.” And as Mr. Lionel went back to town that same afternoon in high good-humor, cigarette in mouth and flower in buttonhole, he carried with him a considerable sum in stocks and shares of the most marketable character, every one of which could be readily turned into gold or notes before the sailing of the Dom Pedro on Tuesday morning.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ON THE TRACK OF THE ROBBER.
FIVE “days later Paul Gascoyne was sitting at his desk in the lodgings on Gower Street, working away with all his might at a clever middle for an evening newspaper. Paul was distinctly successful in what the trade technically knows as middles; he had conquered the peculiarities of style and matter that go to make up that singular literary product, and he had now invented a genre of his own which was greatly appreciated by novelty loving editors. He had just finished an amusing little diatribe against the ladylike gentlemen who go in for fads in the House of Commons, and was polishing up his manuscript by strengthening his verbs and crisping his adjectives, when a loud knock at the door disturbed the even flow of his rounded periods; and before he had even time to say, “Come in,” the door opened of itself, and Mr. Solomons in person stood looming large before him, utterly breathless.
At first Paul was fairly taken aback by Mr. Solomons’ deep and peculiar color. To be sure, the young man was accustomed to seeing his old friend and creditor red enough in the face, or even blue; but he had never before seen him of such a bright cerulean tint as at that moment; the blueness and the breathlessness both equally frightened him. “Take a chair, Mr. Solomons,” he broke out, starting up in surprise, but almost before the words were well out of his mouth, Mr. Solomons had sunk exhausted of his own accord on the sofa. He tried to speak, but words clearly failed him. Only an inarticulate gurgle gave vent to his emotions. It was plain some terrible event had disturbed his equanimity. Paul bustled about, hardly knowing what to do, but with a vague idea that brandy and water, administered cold, might, perhaps, best meet the exigencies of the situation.
After a minute or two a very strong dose of brandy seemed to restore Mr. Solomons to comparative tranquillity, though he was still undeniably very much agitated. As soon as he could gasp out a few broken words, however, he seized his young friend’s hand in his own, and ejaculated in an almost inaudible voice: “It’s not for myself, Sir Paul, it’s not for myself I mind so much — though even that’s terrible — but how can I ever have the courage to break it to Leo!”
“To break what, Mr. Solomons?” Paul asked, bewildered. “What’s the matter? What’s happened? Sit quiet a while, and then tell me shortly.”
“I can’t sit quiet,” Mr. Solomons answered, rising and pacing the room with a wavering step and panting lungs; “I can’t sit quiet, when, perhaps, the thief’s this very minute getting rid of my valuable securities. Leo always told me I should be robbed; he always told me so; but I never listened to him. And now, poor boy, he’s beggared! beggared!”
“Has something been stolen, then?” Paul ventured to suggest tentatively.
“Something?” Mr. Solomons echoed, laying stress with profound emotion on that most inadequate dissyllable. “Something? Everything! Every penny on earth I’ve got to bless m
yself with almost — except what’s out; and Leo, poor Leo, he’s left without anything.”
“You don’t mean to say so!” Paul exclaimed, surprised, and not knowing exactly how else to express his sympathy.
“Yes,” Mr. Solomons continued, seizing the young man’s hand once more, and wringing it in his despair; “Paul, Paul — I beg pardon, Sir Paul, I mean — but this loss has taken me back at once to old times — my poor boy’s ruined, irretrievably ruined. Unless we can catch the thief, that is to say. And I ought to be after him this minute — I ought to be at Scotland Yard, giving notice to the police, and down in Capel Court to warn the brokers. But, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I hadn’t strength or breath left to do it. I had to come here first to tell you the truth, and to get you to go with me to interview these people. If Leo’d been in town I’d have gone straight off, of course, to Leo. But he started for his holiday to Switzerland on Saturday, and I don’t know where to telegraph to him, even, for he hadn’t decided what route he would take when I last saw him.”
“How did it happen?” Paul asked, trying to press Mr. Solomons into a chair once more. “And how much has been stolen?”
“My safe’s been rifled,” Mr. Solomons went on with exceeding vehemence, going a livid hue in the face once more. “It’s been gutted down, every bond that was in it — all negotiable — bonds payable to bearer — everything but your own notes-of-hand, Sir Paul, and those the thief left only because he couldn’t easily get rid of them in London.”
“And when did all this happen?” Paul inquired, aghast.
“It couldn’t have been earlier than Thursday last,” Mr. Solomons replied, still gasping for breath. “On Thursday Leo came down to see me and tell me about his plans for his holiday, and I wanted to consult him about the Central Southern Debentures, which they’ve been trying to bear so persistently of late; so I went to my safe — I don’t often go to that safe except on special business — and took out all my bonds and securities, and they were all right then. Leo and I both saw them and went over them; and I said to Leo, ‘This is all yours, my boy — all yours in the end, you know’; and now he’s beggared! Oh, how ever shall I have the face to tell him!”
“But when did you find it out?” Paul asked, still as wholly unsuspicious of the true state of affairs as Mr. Solomons himself, and feeling profoundly for the old man’s distress. For it isn’t a small matter, whoever you may be, to lose at one blow the savings of a lifetime.
“This morning,” Mr. Solomons answered, wiping his beaded brow with his big silk pocket-handkerchief. “This very morning. Do you think I’d have let a night pass, Sir Paul, without getting on his track? When once I’d discovered it do you think I’d have let him get all that start for nothing? Oh, no, the rascal! The mean, thieving villain! If I catch him, he shall have the worst the law can give. He shall have fourteen years — I wish it was life! I wish we had the good old hanging days back again, I do! He should swing for it then! I should like to see him swinging! To think he should try to beggar my poor dear Leo!”
And then, by various jerky and inarticulate stages, Mr. Solomons slowly explained to Paul the manner of the discovery — how he had decided after all, in view of suspicious rumors afloat about the safety of a tunnel, to sell the Central Southern Debentures at 87 3/8, in spite of Leo; how he had gone to the safe and tried his familiar combination, “Lionel”; how the key had refused to answer the word; how, in his perplexity, he had called in a smith to force the lock open by fire and arms (which, apparently, was Mr. Solomons’ own perversion of vi et armis; and how, at last, when he succeeded, he found the pigeon holes bare, and nothing left but Paul’s own notes-of-hand for money lent and interest. “So, unless I find him, Sir Paul,” the old man cried piteously, wringing his hands in despair, and growing bluer and bluer in the face than ever, “I shall have nothing left but what little’s out and what you can pay me off; and I don’t want to be a burden to you — I don’t want to be a burden.”
“We must go down to Scotland Yard at once and hunt up the thief,” Paul replied resolutely. “And we must go and stop the bonds before another hour’s over.”
“But he may have sold them already!” Mr. Solomons cried, with a despondent face. “They were there on Thursday, I know; but how soon after that he carried them off I haven’t the very slightest notion. They were all negotiable — every one negotiable; and he may have cleared off with the money or the bonds by this time to Berlin or Vienna.”
“You suspect nobody?” Paul asked, drawing on his boots to go down to Scotland Yard.
“I’ve nobody to suspect,” Mr. Solomons answered, with a profound sigh. “Except Leo and myself, nobody ever had access to or went near that safe. Nobody knew the combination to open it. But whoever did it,” and here Mr. Solomons’ lips grew positively black and his cheek darkened, “he had the impudence to set the combination wrong, and the word he set it to was ‘idiot,’ if you’ll believe it. He not only robbed me, but he insulted me as well. He took the trouble to lock the door of the safe to the deliberately insolent word ‘idiot.’”
“That’s very curious,” Paid said. “He must have had time to waste if he could think of doing that. A midnight thief would have snatched the bonds and left the safe open.”
“No,” Mr. Solomons answered with decision and with prompt business insight. “He wouldn’t have done that; for then I’d have known I’d been robbed at once, and I’d have come up to town by the very next train and prevented his negotiating. The man that took them would want to sell them. It all depends upon whether he’s had time for managing that. They’re securities to bearer that can pass from hand to hand like a fi’pun note. If he took them Friday, he’d Saturday and Monday. If he took them Saturday, he’d Monday, and that’s all. But then we can’t tell where he’s been likely to sell them. Some of ’em he could sell in Paris or in Liverpool as easy as in London. And from Liverpool he could clear out at once to America.” They went down the stairs even as he spoke to Mr. Solomons’ hansom, which was waiting at the door.
“It’s strange you can’t think of any likely person to have done it,” Paul said as they got into it.
“Ah, if Leo were in town!” Mr. Solomons exclaimed, with much dejection. “He’d soon hunt ’em up. Leo’s so smart. He’d spot the thief like one o’clock. But he’s gone on his holiday, and I can’t tell where to find him. Sir Paul, I wouldn’t mind so much if it was only for myself; but how can I ever tell Leo? How can I break it to Leo?”
And Paul, reflecting silently to himself, was forced to admit that the revelation would doubtless put a severe strain upon Mr. Lionel Solomons’ family affection.
At Scotland Yard they met with immediate and respectful attention — an attention due in part, perhaps, to the magnitude of the loss, for bonds to a very considerable amount were in question, but largely also, no doubt, to that unobtrusive visiting-card which announced the younger and more retiring of the two complainants as “Sir Paul Gascoyne, Bart.” The law, to be sure, as we all know, is no respecter of persons; but hardly anyone would find that out in modern England from the way it is administered.
Before the end of the afternoon they had gone with a detective round Capel Court and the stockbroking quarter generally, and had succeeded in discovering in a single unimportant case what disposition had been made of one of the missing securities. By a miracle of skill, the detective had slowly tracked down a small bond for £200 to a dark young man, close-shaven and muffled, with long, lank hair too light for his complexion, who seemed thoroughly well up in the ways of the City, and who gave his name as John Howard Lewis. Mr. Lewis had so evidently understood his business, and had offered his bond for sale with such frankness and openness, that nobody at the broker’s had for a moment dreamt of suspecting or questioning him. He had preferred to be paid by check to bearer — wanting, as he said, the money for an immediate purpose; and this check was duly returned as cashed the same day at the London Joint Stock Bank in Prince’s Street, by Mr. Lewis in person.
It hadn’t passed through anybody’s account, and payment had been taken in Bank of England tens and twenties, the numbers of which were of course duly noted. As a matter of fact, however, this latter precaution was of very little use, for every one of the notes had been changed later in the day (though Mr. Solomons didn’t find that fact out till somewhat after) into Bank of France notes and American greenbacks, which were converted back still more recently into English currency. So that almost all trace of the thief in this way was lost. Mr. Solomons had no clew by which he could find him.
“The oddest part of it all,” Mr. Solomons remarked to the detective as they traveled back by Metropolitan together to Scotland Yard, “is that this bond was offered for sale on Friday morning!”
“It was,” the detective answered with cautious reserve. “Well, then, what of that, sir?”
“Why, then,” Mr. Solomons went on, profoundly puzzled, “the lot must have been stolen on Thursday night: for my nephew and I saw them all quite safe in their place on Thursday.”
“They must,” the detective answered with dry acquiescence. He was forming his conclusions.
Mr. Solomons moaned and clasped his hands hard between his knees.
“If we catch the rogue,” he murmured, “he’ll have fourteen years for it.”
“Undoubtedly,” the detective answered, and ruminated to himself; a clew was working in his professional brain. The bonds had been abstracted between Mr. Lionel’s visit on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. That narrowed the inquiry to very restricted limits, indeed: so Sherrard, the detective, observed to himself inwardly.
