For this remorseless and ruthless man destroyed more than fortunes; he trafficked in human lives. There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been investigated by Scotland Yard, and found directly traceable to letters received in the morning, and burnt by the despairing victim before his untimely and violent departure from life.
The office of the paper was situated at the top of a building in Fleet Street; one back room comprised the whole of its editorial space, and one dour man its entire staff. It was his duty to receive the correspondence as it came and to convey it to the cloakroom of a London station. An hour later it would be called for by a messenger and transferred to another cloakroom. Eventually it would arrive in the possession of the man who was responsible for the contents of the paper. Many of these letters contained contributions in the ordinary way of business, a story or two contributed by a more or less well-known writer. Fallock, or Farrington, needed these outside contributions, not only to give the newspaper a verisimilitude of genuineness, but also to fill the columns of the journal.
He himself devoted his energies to two pages of shrewdly edited titbits of information about the great. They were carefully written, often devoid of any reference to the person whom they affected, and were more or less innocuous. But in every batch of letters there were always one or two which gave the master blackmailer an opportunity for extracting money from people, who had been betrayed by servants or friends. There was a standing offer in the Gossip of five guineas for any paragraph which might be useful to the editor, and it is a commentary upon the morality of human nature that there were times when Farrington paid out nearly a thousand pounds a week for the information which his unscrupulous contributors gave him.
There was work here for Poltavo; he was an accomplished scholar, and a shrewd man of affairs. If Farrington had been forced to accept his service, having accepted them, he could do no less than admit the wisdom of his choice. In his big study, with the door locked, Poltavo carefully sorted the correspondence, thinking the while.
If he played his cards well he knew his future was assured. The consequence of his present employment, the misery it might bring to the innocent and to the foolishly guilty alike, did not greatly trouble him; he was perfectly satisfied with his own position in the matter. He had found a means of livelihood, which offered enormous rewards and the minimum of risk. In his brief stay at the Secret House, Farrington had impressed upon him the necessity for respecting trifles.
“If you can make five shillings out of a working man,” was his dictum, “make it. We cannot afford to despise the smallest amount,” and in consequence Poltavo was paying as much attention to the ill-written and illiterate scrawls which came from the East End of London, as he was to the equally illiterate efforts of the under-butler, describing an error of his master’s in a northern ducal seat. Poltavo went through the letters systematically, putting this epistle to the right, and that to the left; this to make food for the newspaper; that, as a subject for further operations. Presently he stopped and looked up at the ceiling.
“So she must marry Frank Doughton within a week,” he said to himself in wonder.
Yes, Farrington had insisted upon carrying out his plans, knowing the power he held, and he, Poltavo, had accepted the ultimatum in all meekness of spirit.
“I must be losing my nerve,” he muttered. “Married in a week! Am I to give her up, this gracious, beautiful girl—with her future, or without her fortune?”
He smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see. “No, my friend, I think you have gone a little too far. You depended too much upon my acquiescence. Ernesto, mon ami, you have to do some quick thinking between now and next Monday.”
A telephone buzzed at his elbow, and he took it off and listened.
“Yes?” he asked, and then he recognized the speaker’s voice, and his voice went soft and caressing, for it was the voice of Doris Gray that he heard.
“Can you see me tomorrow?” she asked.
“I can see you today, my lady, at once, if you wish it,” he said, lightly.
There was a little hesitation at the other end of the wire.
“If you could, I should feel glad,” she said. “I am rather troubled.”
“Not seriously, I hope?” he asked, anxiously.
“I have had a letter from someone,” she said, meaningly.
“I think I understand,” he replied; “someone wishes you to do a thing which is a repugnant to you.”
“I cannot say that,” she said, and there was despair in her voice; “all I know is that I am bewildered by the turn events have taken. Do you know the contents of the letter?”
“I know,” he said, gently; “it was my misfortune to be the bearer of the communication.”
“What do you think?” she asked, after a while.
“You know what I think,” he said, passionately. “Can you expect me to agree to this?”
The intensity of his voice frightened her, and she rapidly strove to bring him down to a condition of normality.
“Come tomorrow,” she said, hastily. “I would like to talk it over with you.”
“I will come at once,” he said.
“Perhaps you had better not,” she hesitated.
“I am coming at once,” he said, firmly, and hung up the receiver.
In that moment of resentment against the tyranny of his employer, he forgot all the dangers which the Secret House threatened; all its swift and wicked vengeance. He only knew, with the instinct of a beast of prey who saw its quarry stolen under its very eyes, the loss which this man was inflicting upon him. Five minutes later he was in Brakely Square with the girl. She was pale and worried; there
