Black sat at one end of the long table and the last arrival at the other. He was a florid young man of twenty-six, with a weak chin and a slight yellow moustache. His face would be familiar to all racing men, for this was the sporting baronet, Sir Isaac Tramber.
There was something about Sir Isaac which kept him on the outside fringe of good society, in spite of the fact that he came of a stock which was indelibly associated with England’s story: the baronetcy had been created as far back as the seventeenth century.
It was a proud name, and many of his ancestors had borne it proudly. None the less, his name was taboo, his invitations politely refused, and never reciprocated.
There had been some unfathomable scandal associated with his name. Society is very lenient to its children. There are crimes and sins which it readily, or if not readily, at any rate eventually, forgives and condones, but there are some which are unpardonable, unforgivable. Once let a man commit those crimes, or sin those sins, and the doors of Mayfair are closed forever against him.
Around his head was a cloud of minor scandal, but that which brought down the bar of good society was the fact that he had ridden his own horse at one of the Midland meetings. It had started a hot favourite—five to two on.
The circumstances of that race are inscribed in the annals of the Jockey Club. How an infuriated mob broke down the barriers and attempted to reach this amateur jockey was ably visualized by the sporting journalists who witnessed the extraordinary affair. Sir Isaac was brought before the local stewards and the case submitted to the stewards of the Jockey Club. The next issue of the Racing Calendar contained the ominous announcement that Sir Isaac Tramber had been “warned off” Newmarket Heath.
Under this ban he sat for four years, till the withdrawal of the notice.
He might again attend race-meetings and own horses, and he did both, but the ban of society, that unwritten “warning off” notice, had not been withdrawn.
The doors of every decent house were closed to him.
Only one friend he had in the fashionable world, and there were people who said that the Earl of Verlond, that old and crabbed and envenomed man, merely championed his unpromising protégé out of sheer perversity, and there was ample justification for this contention of a man who was known to have the bitterest tongue in Europe.
The descent to hell is proverbially easy, and Sir Isaac Tramber’s descent was facilitated by that streak of decadence which had made itself apparent even in his early youth.
As he sat at one end of the board-table, both hands stuffed into his trousers pockets, his head on one side like a perky bird, he proved no mean man of business, as Black had discovered earlier in their acquaintanceship.
“We are all here now, I think,” said Black, looking humorously at his companion. They had left Sparks and his friend in a room below.
“I have asked you to come tonight,” he said, “to hear a report of this business. I am happy to tell you that we have made a bigger profit this year than we have ever made in the course of our existence.”
He went on to give details of the work for which he had been responsible, and he did so with the air and in the manner of one who was addressing a crowded boardroom.
“People would say,” said the colonel oracularly, “that the business of outside broker is inconsistent with my acknowledged position in the world of finance; therefore I deem it expedient to dissociate myself from our little firm. But the outside broker is a useful person—especially the outside broker who has a hundred thousand clients. There are stocks of mine which he can recommend with every evidence of disinterestedness, and just now I am particularly desirous that these stocks should be recommended.”
“Do we lose anything by Fanks’ death?” asked the baronet carelessly. “Hard luck on him, wasn’t it? But he was awfully fat.”
The colonel regarded the questioner with a calm stare.
“Do not let us refer to Fanks,” he said evenly. “The death of Fanks has very much upset me—I do not wish to speak about it.”
The baronet nodded. “I never trusted him, poor chap,” he said, “any more than I trusted the other chap who made such an awful scene here a year ago—February, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the colonel briefly.
“It’s lucky for us he died too,” said the tactless aristocrat, “because—”
“We’ll get on with the business.”
Colonel Black almost snarled the words.
But the baronet had something to say. He was troubled about his own security. It was when Black showed some sign of ending the business that Sir Isaac leant forward impatiently.
“There is one thing we haven’t discussed, Black,” he said.
Black knew what the thing was, and had carefully avoided mention of the subject.
“What is it?” he asked innocently.
“These fellows who are threatening us, or rather threatening you; they haven’t any idea who it is who is running the show, have they?” he asked, with some apprehension.
Black shook his head smilingly. “I think not,” he said.
“You are speaking, of course, of the ‘Four Just Men.’ ”
Sir Isaac gave a short nod.
“Yes,” Black went on, with an assumption of indifference, “I have had an anonymous letter from these gentlemen. As a matter of fact, my dear Sir Isaac, I haven’t the slightest doubt that the whole thing is a bluff.”
“What do you mean by ‘a bluff’?” demanded the other.
Black shrugged his shoulders.
“I mean that there is no such organization as the ‘Four Just Men.’ They are a myth. They have no existence. It is too melodramatic for words. Imagine four people gathered together to correct the laws of England. It savours more of the sensational novel than of real life.”
He laughed with
