Meet The Baron

“Toby,” said Mannering, “you misunderstand me. You and Jimmy acted with the best of intentions, and anything but gratitude would be out of the question. And that’s by the way; it’s past now.”

“It’s a pity,” said Plender, “that you’ve struck a good patch. One or two heavy losses just now might have made you see sense. As it is, I’m afraid you’re hopeless.”

Mannering grinned, and lit a cigarette.

“I always have been,” he said. “Now — what’s on your mind?”

Plender sat back in his chair, looking more like Punch than ever.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s no business of mine, but — is it the thing, John, this new — new . . .”

“Let me say it for you,” suggested Mannering sympathetically. “What’s my game with Lorna Fauntley ? Right?”

“Right.”

“What idea is biting you? Do you think I’m going to try blackmail ?”

Plender grinned. “You were a born fool, J.M. No. I don’t suppose there’s anything you could use against her, anyhow. But her father’s a rich man. You might — I say might — be thinking of . . .”

“Let me help you again,” suggested Mannering. “Cashing in. Marrying for money. Right?”

“Right.”

“You’re a bigger mutt than I, Toby,” said Mannering. “I don’t really know why I don’t collar you two and bang your silly heads together. For the love of Mike stop doing the Victorian father on me, and watch me knock the bottom out of the betting market. Another thing. Use your legal training a little more, and realise the inconsistency of god-damning me when I ride with the Mimi Rayford bunch and when I run blamelessly with the daughter of a peer of the realm. Another thing. I’m going to buy five thousand Klobber Diamond Mines shares, and if you want a good thing, get in on that. And, Toby . . .”

“H’m-h’m?” muttered Toby Plender.

“I’m not such a fool as I look.”

Mannering took his leave soon afterwards, smiling to himself. It had been an ordeal, but it was over. Several times he had felt as though Plender knew, he chuckled at the fear now, and wondered what Plender would have said if he had known of the raid on the Fauntley strong-room.

Well, he was in it now for better or worse.

A few minutes later Toby Plender rubbed the end of his nose and looked thoughtfully out of the window of his flat after the retreating figure of his friend as he walked up the street.

Twenty years was a long stretch; in twenty years he had known J.M. play the ass to the limit, but he had never known him play the rogue. A smile curved Toby Plender’s square lips.

“He’s leading us by the nose,” he muttered to himself. “All of us. Klobber Diamond Mines . . .”

The Klobber Mines, Plender discovered twenty minutes later, were as nearly defunct as horse-drawn cabs. His informant was Gus Teevens, one of the biggest and most picturesque brokers on the Exchange. Gus was a giant of a man, fat, smooth-faced, innocent to look at, and possessing a deep, rich, unctuous voice that could have swayed a multitude if its owner had so chosen, either in the political arena or in the Church. He had chosen finance as his medium, however, and he used his voice for the benefit of those few friends who sought his advice.

“Plender,” he said solemnly, “don’t buy Klobbers. Klobber himself was a rogue. He died. His mines were a frost. They died. His shares are drawn in pretty colours and look good. Have you ever seen an embalmed body ?”

“So you don’t like the sound of them?” said Plender.

Teevens shook his massive head and wriggled his massive body in the swivel-chair in front of his desk. His office was a large one, furnished barely on the modern principle, but he seemed to fill it.

“Plender,” he said, “you have a fair portion of this world’s goods. Cling to it. Whoever was the misguided oaf who in-troduced you to Klobber Diamonds, shun him as you would the plague. Must you go?”

“I must,” said Toby Plender, grinning. “What are Klobbers standing at?”

“Shares one pound at par, two-and-threepence on the market.”

Plender hesitated. He smiled inwardly as he realised that after trying to dissuade Mannering from gambling he was being tempted to take a chance on Mannering’s opinion. He decided to take it, and smiled.

“Then buy me a block of a thousand,” he said.

Gus Teevens shook his head sadly, as a man looking on a ruined world.

“Plender,” he said, “I have warned you.”

“And sell them,” said Plender, “when they’ve reached par.”

He left the office of the stockbroker, smiling to himself a little crookedly. No one could have been more definite than Teevens; no one could be more unreliable than Mannering.

In his office Gus Teevens lifted the receiver off one of five telephones and put in a call, later conducting a conversation which might, for all its intelligibility to the layman, have been in a foreign language. Massive and deliberate as ever, Teevens finished his call, then made others on the five telephones. For twenty minutes he was talking, and as the minutes went by his face grew redder, and little bands of sweat gathered on his smooth forehead. In different ways to different people he said, “Buy Klobbers.”

Lord Fauntley was in a bad temper one morning shortly after Plender’s talk with Gus Teevens. His lordship told himself he had good reason to be annoyed, but his staff sighed when they realised that the chances of another bad day in the office were strong. He sorted through the post quickly, and then rang for his secretary, Gregory. It was a