The Man Who Bought London Page 4

  That was roughly the idea, and to this was added the knowledge that vast as was the importance of the metropolis, it had only reached the fringe of its possibilities. London would one day be twice its present size, and ground value would be enormously increased. Its unique situation, the security which came from the geographic insularity of England and the strength of its navy, the feeding quality of its colonies, all combined to mark London as a world capital.

  ‘I see London extended to St. Albans on the north, Newbury on the west, and Brighten on the south,’ wrote King Kerry in his diary. ‘It may even extend to Colchester on the east; but the east side of any township is always an unknown quantity in a scheme of development.’

  There were difficulties to overcome, almost insuperable difficulties, but that was part of the game and made the players keener. Patience would do much: judicious pressure tactfully applied would do more.

  King Kerry wanted to buy the big block of buildings comprising Goulding’s Universal Stores. Goulding’s stood out, so Kerry bought the next block, which was Tack and Brighten’s.

  Elsie Marion presented herself at ten o’clock punctually at the modest suite of offices which the ‘L Trust’ occupied in Glasshouse Street. It was unusual that a great financial corporation should be habited so far west, but a peculiarity of the Trust and its operations was the fact that never once did it attempt to handle property in the area between Temple Bar and Aldgate Pump. It was not in the scheme of King Kerry to disturb conditions in the City of London itself.

  The office in Glasshouse Street occupied the ground floor of a modern block. The floors above were let out to an insurance company, a firm of solicitors, and an estate agent – all firms of undoubted integrity, and all, moreover, largely associated with the working of the Trust.

  The girl had read something of this office in the newspapers. A flippant evening journal had christened it ‘The Jewel House’, because it bore some resemblance to the famous store of Britain’s treasures in the Tower of London. In her desire to be punctual she had arrived a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, and she had leisure to inspect the remarkable facade. A small brass plate against the entrance gave the seeker after information the news that this was the registered office of the ‘L Financial Corporation, Limited’, for a small company with a ridiculous capital had been registered as a matter of expediency. The company owned the building in which it was situated and little more, but it served as a cover for everyday purposes. It supplied an office and a repository for the documents of larger concerns, and, by the very publicity it afforded, effectively veiled the private transactions of its select shareholders.

  The windows of the office reached to the ground. They were made of three huge sheets of plate-glass set roughly bow-shaped between solid brass pillars. Before them were three screens of large-meshed steel netting, held in their place by pillars of gun-metal.

  It was this which inspired the reference to ‘The Jewel House’, for here the resemblance ended. Yet the interior of the front office was remarkable. It was bare of furnishing. A blood-red carpet covered the floor, and in the centre, supported by a square pedestal of granite which ran up from the basement, was a big safe. Apparently, it rested on the floor, but no ordinary floor could support the weight of metal, and the central pedestal had been put in whilst the building was in course of erection.

  Nor was this the only remarkable feature of the room.

  The walls were completely covered by lengths of mirror, two of which were set at an angle in the far corners of the room. Add six arc lamps depending upon independent supplies, and hung so that their rays fell upon the safe at every aspect and burning day and night, and you have some idea of this unique department which attracted all London and became one of the sights of the metropolis.

  Day or night, the passer-by had a full view of the safe, and no man entered that room save King Kerry and the armed guard which watched the cleaners at their work every morning.

  Even in the clear light of day it was an impressive sight, and Elsie entered the building a little awe-stricken. She was taken to the back office by a uniformed commissionaire and found the grey-haired young man alone in his office, writing. He jumped up as she came in and pulled forward a luxurious chair.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Marion,’ he said. ‘I shall be calling you Elsie soon, because’ – he smiled at the little flush that came to her cheek – ‘in America, why, I guess we’re more friendly to our business associates than you are in this country.’

  He pushed a button and the commissionaire came in.

  ‘Are your two comrades outside?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the man.

  ‘Tell them to come in.’

  A few seconds later the man returned, bringing two other commissionaires. They stood stiffly by the door.

  ‘This is Miss Marion,’ said King Kerry, and the girl rose.

  The men scrutinized her seriously.

  ‘Do you mind standing over by the wall?’ asked Kerry.

  She obediently walked across the room as Kerry switched on all the lights.

  ‘You will know Miss Marion now,’ said Kerry, ‘in whatever light she appears. She is to have access to this office day or night. That is all.’

  The men saluted and withdrew as Kerry extinguished the electric bulbs.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he said; ‘but since you are the only other person in the world who will have this privilege, it is necessary that I should be very thorough. These men are in charge of the guards, and one of them is on duty day and night.’

  She seated herself again with a pleasurable sense of importance.

  ‘May I ask you one question?’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘Why have you chosen me? I am not a proficient secretary, and you know nothing whatever about me. I may be an associate of the worst characters.’

  He leant back in a padded chair, surveying her quizzically.

  ‘All that I know about you,’ he said, ‘is that you are the daughter of the Rev. George Marion, a widower, who died seven years ago and left you little more than would carry you to your aunt in London. That you have an uncle in America, who is raising a large family and innumerable mortgages in the middle west; that you had a brother who died in childhood; and that you have been engaged by three firms – Meddlesohn, of Eastcheap – you left them because you refused to be party to a gross fraud; Highlaw and Sons, of Moorgate Street – which you left because the firm failed; and Tack and Brighten – which you would have left, anyway.’

  She stared at him in amazement.

  ‘How did you find this out?’

  ‘My dear child,’ he said, rising and laying a fatherly hand upon her shoulder, ‘how does one find things out? By asking the people who know. I take few risks; I came down to Southwark to see you, and if possible to speak to you before I engaged you or you knew that I wanted to engage you. Now!’

  He returned to his desk briskly.

  ‘This is business. You receive fifteen pounds weekly from me and a bonus at the end of every year. Your duty is to act as my confidante, to write letters – not as I shall dictate them, for I hate dictating – but in the sense of my instructions.’

  She nodded.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ he said, and lowered his voice as he leant across the desk. ‘I want you to remember three words.’

  She waited, expecting a conventional little motto which pointed out the way of efficiency.

  ‘Those three words,’ he went on in the same tone, ‘must never be uttered to a living soul whilst I am alive; must be repeated to nobody but myself.’

  Elsie felt incapable of being further amazed than she was. The last twenty-four hours had held, so it seemed to her, the very limit of surprises.

  ‘To my partners, to my friends, or to my enemies – and especially to my enemies,’ he continued with a fleeting smile, ‘you must never employ them – until I am dead. Then, in the presence of the gentlemen who are connected w
ith this corporation you shall say’ – he dropped his voice to a whisper – ‘you shall say, “Kingsway needs Paving.”’

  ‘“Kingsway needs Paving,”’ she repeated in a whisper.

  ‘Whatever happens do not forget those words,’ he said gravely. ‘Repeat them to yourself till you know them as you know your own name.’

  She nodded again. Bewildered as she was, half inclined to laugh, with the old suspicion as to his sanity recurring, she knew that immense issues hung upon those meaningless words – ‘Kingsway needs Paving’.

  CHAPTER VII

  At the moment when Elsie was being initiated into the mysteries of King Kerry’s office, two men sat at breakfast in the sumptuous dining room of Mr Leete’s flat in Charles Street.

  One of these was the redoubtable Leete himself, in a dressing-gown of flowered silk, and the other the young-looking Mr Hermann Zeberlieff. He was a man of thirty-eight, but had one of those faces which defy the ravages of time and the consequence of excess.

  Leete and he were friends. They had met in Paris in the days when Millionaire Zeberlieff’s name was in every paper as the man who had cornered wheat.

  They had something in common, these two men, and when a Wall Street syndicate had smashed the corner, ruining hundreds of small speculators, but leaving Hermann Zeberlieff ten times over a dollar millionaire, Leete had accompanied the young man on the yachting cruise which the execration of the American public and the virulence of the Press had made advisable, and the friendship ripened.

  Later Millionaire Zeberlieff was to court publicity more disastrously to himself, and the operations of the ‘L Trust’ were to rob him of half his fortune. They were talking of money now. It was a subject which absorbed both men.

  ‘You’re a pretty rich man yourself, aren’t you, Leete?’

  Zeberlieff put the question in a tone that suggested that he was not particular whether he was answered or not.

  ‘Fairly,’ admitted the unprepossessing Mr Leete.

  ‘A millionaire?’

  Leete nodded.

  ‘Then why the devil did you sell Kerry your store?’ asked the other in astonishment.

  Mr Leete’s face puckered into a grin.

  ‘There was a bigger store next door,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Goulding’s were doing twice the trade – taking all our customers, and prospering. They’ve got the best position – street corner and a double show of shop fronts. That’s why!’

  ‘But why hasn’t he bought Goulding’s?’

  The smile on Mr Leete’s face was expressive.

  ‘Goulding’s won’t sell. He bought the land and is ground landlord, but he can’t disturb Goulding’s because they’ve eighty years’ lease to run.’

  Zeberlieff whistled.

  ‘That will upset him,’ he said with satisfaction.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Tack and Brighten’s is a dying concern,’ Mr Leete went on frankly. ‘Unless he can buy Goulding’s he’s as good as lost his money. Goulding’s will sell – at a price.’

  He winked.

  ‘By the way,’ he said suddenly, ‘did you hear that Kerry had been attacked in the public street – shot at?’ The other nodded. ‘Well, the man that shot at him is dead!’

  Zeberlieff raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Indeed!’

  Mr Leete nodded.

  ‘Apparently he was mad drunk when he got to the station, and when one of his pals sent him in a mug of coffee the police let him have it – thought it would sober him.’

  ‘And did it?’ asked the other without any great show of interest.

  Mr Leete nodded again.

  ‘It killed him – cyanide of potassium in the coffee. My doctor,’ he paused and raised his voice ever so little, ‘my doctor, Sir John Burcheston, who happened to be passing, was called in, and he told me all about it.’

  ‘Extraordinary!’ said Mr Zeberlieff, obviously bored. ‘How did it get to him?’

  ‘I don’t know – they found the boy who brought the coffee, but he says he was sent by a stranger who can’t be found.’

  ‘Sounds thrilling,’ said Zeberlieff coolly.

  ‘Thought you’d be interested,’ said the other.

  ‘I’m more interested in your deal with Kerry. Didn’t he know that Goulding’s wouldn’t sell?’ asked Zeberlieff incredulously; ‘it doesn’t seem possible!’

  ‘He thinks he has got a bargain,’ chuckled the other. ‘We knocked the prices down and put the profits up – your Trust folk aren’t as clever as they pretend.’

  But Zeberlieff shook his head. ‘If you underrate the ability of the “Big L”,’ he said seriously, ‘you’re going to nose trouble – that’s all. King Kerry smells the value of property just as crows scent carrion: he doesn’t make mistakes.’

  Leete looked up at the other, showing his yellow teeth in a sneer.

  ‘If I’m speaking disparagingly of a friend of yours –’ he began.

  The plump baby-face of Zeberlieff went a dull red and his eyes glittered ominously.

  ‘A friend of mine?’ he cried savagely. ‘A friend of mine – Leete, I hate that man so much that I’m afraid of myself! I hate the look of him and the sound of his voice: I hate him, and yet he fascinates me.’

  He strode rapidly up and down the long room.

  ‘Do you know,’ he asked, stopping suddenly in his walk, ‘that I often follow him for hours on end – dog his footsteps literally, for no other reason than because I hate him so much that I cannot let him out of my sight?’ His face was pale now; his hands, moist with perspiration, were clenched till the knuckles showed whitely. ‘You think I’m mad – but you don’t know the fascination of hate. I hate him, my God, how I hate him!’

  He hissed the last words between his clenched teeth. Mr Leete nodded approvingly. ‘Then I’m going to give you good news,’ he said slowly. ‘Kerry is going to be bled.’

  ‘Bled?’ There was no mistaking the almost brutal joy in the other’s tone.

  ‘Not the way you mean,’ said Mr Leete facetiously; ‘but we’re going to make him pay for Goulding’s.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘We,’ repeated Leete. ‘My dear man, Goulding’s is mine – has always been my business. I built up Goulding’s out of Tack and Brighten. I have sold the failure; I have kept the success.’

  Again Zeberlieff frowned.

  ‘Kerry didn’t know?’ he asked, his incredulity apparent.

  Mr Leete shook his head, and laughed – he laughed a curiously high laugh, almost falsetto. Zeberlieff waited until he had finished.

  ‘I’d like to bet you all the money in the world he did know,’ he said, and the smile vanished from Mr Leete’s homely face.

  ‘He knows now,’ he said, ‘because I’ve told him.’

  ‘He knew all the time,’ said the other. ‘I wonder what dirt he has in store for you.’

  He thought a moment. That active brain which had foreseen the drought of ’04 and banked on the cotton famine of ’08 was very busy.

  ‘What is he going to do?’ he asked suddenly. ‘What is the plan on which he is working? – I don’t know, although I was in the syndicate: none of the others know. He has got the whole thing written out and deposited in the Jewel House. No eye but his has seen it.’

  Leete rose to change into his street clothes.

  ‘We could smash Kerry if we knew,’ continued Zeberlieff thoughtfully. ‘I’d give a million dollars to know what his plans are.’

  Whilst Leete dressed, the other sat with his chin on his clenched fists, frowning at the street below. Now and again he would change his position to make a note.

  When Leete returned, ready for an interview which he had arranged with King Kerry, Zeberlieff was almost cheerful.

  ‘Don’t go till Gleber comes,’ he said. And Mr Leete looked at his watch regretfully. Before he could excuse himself, the servant announced the man for whom Zeberlieff was waiting.

  Gleber proved to be a little colourless man, with a very bald head and a manner w
hich was birdlike and mysterious.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The young lady came at ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘She stood outside the office for ten minutes, then went in.’

  ‘The same girl that lunched at the Savoy?’ asked Zeberlieff, and the man nodded.

  ‘That’s the Marion girl,’ said Leete with a grin. ‘A bit of a shop-girl – is he that sort of fellow?’

  Zeberlieff shook his head with a frown.

  ‘He’s a pretty good judge. How long did she stay?’ he asked the man.

  ‘She hadn’t come out when I left. I think she’s permanent there.’

  ‘Rot!’ snapped Leete. ‘What is he going to keep a girl in his office for – a girl of that class?’

  Still Zeberlieff indicated that he did not accept the other’s view.

  ‘This is the perfect secretary he has always been chasing,’ he said. ‘That girl is going to be a factor, Leete – perhaps she is already.’ He bit his forefinger reflectively. ‘If she knew!’ he said half to himself.

  Leete took a hurried farewell, and reached the office of the Big Trust a few minutes after time.

  King Kerry was there, and Miss Marion was also there, seated at a rosewood desk behind a pile of papers with every indication of permanency.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Leete,’ invited Kerry with a nod, as his visitor was announced. ‘Now, exactly what is your proposition?’

  Mr Leete glanced significantly at Elsie, and the girl half rose. A movement of Kerry’s hand checked her.

  ‘I have no business secrets from Miss Marion,’ he said.

  Mr Leete’s irascible bosom glowed with wrath. That he, a magnate by all standards, should be obliged to speak openly before a shop-girl – even an ex-shop-girl – was galling to his proud spirit.