“Suppose it were the truth,” interrupted John Minute, “what price would you ask for that record and such documents as you say you have to prove its truth?”
The other leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands meditatively.
“How much do you think you are worth, Mr. Minute?”
“You ought to know,” said the other with a sneer.
Saul Arthur Mann inclined his head.
“At the present price of securities, I should say about one million two hundred and seventy thousand pounds,” he said, and John Minute opened his eyes in astonishment.
“Near enough,” he reluctantly admitted.
“Well,” the little man continued, “if you multiply that by fifty and you bring all that money into my office and place it on that table in ten-thousand-pound notes, you could not buy that little book or the records which support it.”
He jumped up.
“I am afraid I am keeping you, Mr. Minute.”
“You are not keeping me,” said the other roughly. “Before I go I want to know what use you are going to make of your knowledge.”
The little man spread out his hands in deprecation.
“What use? You have seen the use to which I have put it. I have told you what no other living soul will know.”
“How do you know I am John Minute?” asked the visitor quickly.
“Some twenty-seven photographs of you are included in the folder which contains your record, Mr. Minute,” said the little investigator calmly. “You see, you are quite a prominent personage—one of the two hundred and four really rich men in England. I am not likely to mistake you for anybody else, and, more than this, your history is so interesting a one that naturally I know much more about you than I should if you had lived the dull and placid life of a city merchant.”
“Tell me one thing before I go,” asked Minute. “Where is the person you refer to as ‘X’?”
Saul Arthur Mann smiled and inclined his head never so slightly.
“That is a question which you have no right to ask,” he said. “It is information which is available to the police or to any authorized person who wishes to get into touch with ‘X.’ I might add,” he went on, “that there is much more I could tell you, if it were not that it would involve persons with whom you are acquainted.”
John Minute left the bureau looking a little older, a little paler than when he had entered. He drove to his club with one thought in his mind, and that thought revolved about the identity and the whereabouts of the person referred to in the little man’s record as “X.”
VII
Introducing Mr. Rex Holland
Mr. Rex Holland stepped out of his new car, and, standing back a pace, surveyed his recent acquisition with a dispassionate eye.
“I think she will do, Feltham,” he said.
The chauffeur touched his cap and grinned broadly.
“She did it in thirty-eight minutes, sir; not bad for a twenty-mile run—half of it through London.”
“Not bad,” agreed Mr. Holland, slowly stripping his gloves.
The car was drawn up at the entrance to the country cottage which a lavish expenditure of money had converted into a bijou palace.
He still lingered, and the chauffeur, feeling that some encouragement to conversation was called for, ventured the view that a car ought to be a good one if one spent eight hundred pounds on it.
“Everything that is good costs money,” said Mr. Rex Holland sententiously, and then continued: “Correct me if I am mistaken, but as we came through Putney did I not see you nod to the driver of another car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When I engaged you,” Mr. Holland went on in his even voice, “you told me that you had just arrived from Australia and knew nobody in England; I think my advertisement made it clear that I wanted a man who fulfilled these conditions?”
“Quite right, sir. I was as much surprised as you; the driver of that car was a fellow who traveled over to the old country on the same boat as me. It’s rather rum that he should have got the same kind of job.”
Mr. Holland smiled quietly.
“I hope his employer is not as eccentric as I and that he pays his servant on my scale.”
With this shot he unlocked and passed through the door of the cottage.
Feltham drove his car to the garage which had been built at the back of the house, and, once free from observation, lit his pipe, and, seating himself on a box, drew from his pocket a little card which he perused with unusual care.
He read:
One: To act as chauffeur and valet. Two: To receive ten pounds a week and expenses. Three: To make no friends or acquaintances. Four: Never under any circumstances to discuss my employer, his habits, or his business. Five: Never under any circumstances to go farther eastward into London than is represented by a line drawn from the Marble Arch to Victoria Station. Six: Never to recognize my employer if I see him in the street in company with any other person.
The chauffeur folded the card and scratched his chin reflectively.
“Eccentricity,” he said.
It was a nice five-syllable word, and its employment was a comfort to this perturbed Australian. He cleaned his face and hands, and went into the tiny kitchen to prepare his master’s dinner.
Mr. Holland’s house was a remarkable one. It was filled with every form of laborsaving device which the ingenuity of man could devise. The furniture, if luxurious, was not in any great quantity. Vacuum tubes were to be found in every room, and by the attachment of hose and nozzle and the pressure of a switch each room could be dusted in a few minutes. From the kitchen, at the back of the cottage, to the dining room ran two endless belts electrically controlled, which presently carried to the table the very simple meal which his cook-chauffeur had prepared.
The remnants of dinner were cleared away, the chauffeur dismissed to his quarters,
