He frowned at the intruder, but the other pulled up a chair and sat down. “Look here, Black,” he said, “I want to say something to you.”
“Say it quickly.”
Fanks took a cigar from his pocket and lit it.
“You’ve had a marvellous career,” he said. “I remember when you started with a little bucket-shop—well, we won’t call it a bucket-shop,” he said hastily as he saw the anger rising in the other’s face, “outside broker’s. You had a mug—I mean an inexperienced partner who found the money.”
“Yes.”
“Not the mysterious Gram, I think?”
“His successor—there was nothing mysterious about Gram.”
“A successor named Flint?”
“Yes.”
“He died unexpectedly, didn’t he?”
“I believe he did,” said Black abruptly.
“Providence again,” said Fanks slowly; “then you got the whole of the business. You took over the notation and a rubber company, and it panned out. Well, after that you floated a tin mine or something—there was a death there, wasn’t there?”
“I believe there was—one of the directors; I forget his name.”
Fanks nodded.
“He could have stopped the flotation—he was threatening to resign and expose some methods of yours.”
“He was a very headstrong man.”
“And he died.”
“Yes,”—a pause—“he died.”
Fanks looked at the man who sat opposite to him.
“Dr. Essley attended him.”
“I believe he did.”
“And he died.”
Black leant over the desk. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What are you suggesting about my friend, Dr. Essley?”
“Nothing, except that Providence has been of some assistance to you,” said Fanks. “The record of your success is a record of death—you sent Essley to see me once.”
“You were ill.”
“I was,” said Fanks grimly, “and I was also troubling you a little.” He flicked the ash from his cigar to the carpet. “Black, I’m going to resign all my directorships on your companies.”
The other man laughed unpleasantly.
“You can laugh, but it isn’t healthy, Black. I’ve no use for money that is bought at too heavy a price.”
“My dear man, you can resign,” said Colonel Black, “but might I ask if your extraordinary suspicions are shared by anybody else?”
Fanks shook his head.
“Not at present,” he said.
They looked at one another for the space of half a minute, which was a very long time.
“I want to clear right out,” Fanks continued. “I reckon my holdings are worth £150,000—you can buy them.”
“You amaze me,” said Black harshly.
He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a little green bottle and a feather. “Poor Essley,” he smiled, “wandering about Spain seeking the secrets of Moorish perfumery—he would go off his head if he knew what you thought of him.”
“I’d sooner he went off his head than that I should go off the earth,” said Fanks stolidly. “What have you got there?”
Black unstoppered the bottle and dipped in the feather. He withdrew it and held it close to his nose.
“What is it?” asked Fanks curiously.
For answer, Black held up the feather for the man to smell.
“I can smell nothing,” said Fanks. Tilting the end quickly downwards. Black drew it across the lips of the other.
“Here …” cried Fanks, and went limply to the ground.
“Constable Fellowe!”
Frank Fellowe was leaving the charge-room when he heard the snappy tones of the desk-sergeant calling him.
“Yes, sergeant?” he said, with a note of inquiry in his voice. He knew that there was something unpleasant coming.
Sergeant Gurden seldom took any opportunity of speaking to him, except in admonishment. The sergeant was a wizen-faced man, with an ugly trick of showing his teeth when he was annoyed, and no greater contrast could be imagined than that which was afforded by the tall, straight-backed young man in the constable’s uniform, standing before the desk, and the shrunken figure that sat on the stool behind.
Sergeant Gurden had a dead-white face, which a scrubby black moustache went to emphasize. In spite of the fact that he was a man of good physical development, his clothing hung upon him awkwardly, and indeed the station-sergeant was awkward in more ways than one.
Now he looked at Fellowe, showing his teeth.
“I have had another complaint about you,” he said, “and if this is repeated it will be a matter for the Commissioner.”
The constable nodded his head respectfully. “I am very sorry, sergeant,” he said, “but what is the complaint?”
“You know as well as I do,” snarled the other; “you have been annoying Colonel Black again.”
A faint smile passed across Fellowe’s lips. He knew something of the solicitude in which the sergeant held the colonel.
“What the devil are you smiling at?” snapped the sergeant. “I warn you,” he went on, “that you are getting very impertinent, and this may be a matter for the Commissioner.”
“I had no intention of being disrespectful, sergeant,” said the young man. “I am as tired of these complaints as you are, but I have told you, as I will tell the Commissioner, that Colonel Black lives in a house in Serrington Gardens and is a source of some interest to me—that is my excuse.”
“He complains that you are always watching the house,” said the sergeant, and Constable Fellowe smiled.
“That is his conscience working,” he said. “Seriously, sergeant, I happen to know that the colonel is not too friendly disposed—”
He stopped himself.
“Well?” demanded the sergeant.
“Well,” repeated Constable Fellowe, “it might be as well perhaps if I kept my thoughts to myself.”
The sergeant nodded grimly.
“If you get into trouble you will only have yourself to blame,” he warned. “Colonel Black is an influential man. He is a ratepayer. Don’t forget that, constable. The ratepayers pay your salary, find the coat for your back, feed you—you owe everything to the ratepayers.”
“On the other hand,” said the young man, “Colonel Black is a ratepayer who owes me something.”
Hitching his cape over his arm, he passed from the charge-room down the stone steps into the street without.
The man on duty at the door bade him a cheery farewell.
Fellowe was an annoying young man, more annoying by reason of the important fact that his antecedents were quite unknown to his most intimate friends.
