The Profiteers - E. Phillips Oppenheim
She sighed with content, almost with happiness. The strained look had
gone from her face. She took off her hat and he laid it upon the table.
"You are very good, very kind indeed," she murmured. "And yet not so
kind as I would like to be."
He came and stood by her side. She was eating one of the sandwiches and
had already tasted the wine. Somehow, he knew quite well that she had had
no dinner.
"I want you to understand," he began, "that you are free to tell me what
has happened to-night or not--just as you please. Don't feel obliged to
explain, I'll be quite frank, I am a curious person as regards you. I
want to know--everything. I should like to know how it was that you were
unable to come to dinner or join us at the theatre to-night. I should
like to know what has brought you out of your house to an hotel at
midnight--but don't tell me unless you want to."
"I do want to," she assured him. "I want to tell you everything. I
think--somehow I almost feel that you have the right to know."
"Cultivate that feeling," he begged her. "I like it."
She smiled, a wan little smile that passed very soon. Her face grew sad
again. She was thinking.
"I dare say you can guess," she began presently, "something of what my
daily life is like when my husband is in town. It is little less than
torture, especially since he became mixed up with Mr. Phipps, that
horrible person Martin, and their friends."
"Abominable!" Wingate muttered.
"He is all the while trying to induce me to receive their women friends,"
she continued. "I need not tell you that I have refused, as I always
should refuse."
"Naturally!"
"To-night, however," she went on, "he has surpassed himself. First of all
he telephoned to say that he was bringing home friends for dinner, and if
I had any other engagement he requested me to cancel it. As you know, I
did so. Notwithstanding his message, he did not arrive at the house until
eleven o'clock, barely an hour ago."
"And kept you waiting all that time?"
"That is nothing. Let me explain something before I conclude. Before the
war I had an Austrian maid, a woman whom I turned out of the house, and
whom my husband at that time did not dare to ask me to reinstate. He had
not then spent quite the whole of my fortune. Besides an undoubted
intrigue with my husband, I heard afterwards that she only escaped
imprisonment as a spy by leaving the country hurriedly just before war
was declared. Tonight, my husband, having kept me waiting three hours
while he dined with her in Soho, brought her back to the house,
announcing that he had engaged her as his secretary."
"Damn the fellow!" Wingate muttered.
"Naturally," she continued, "I declined to sleep under the same roof. The
woman remained--and here am I."
"You are here," he repeated. "Thank God for that!"
"It was perhaps imprudent of me," she sighed, "to choose this hotel, but
I had a curious feeling of weakness. I felt that I must see some one to
whom I could tell what had happened--some friend--before I slept. Perhaps
my nerves are going. So I came to you. Did I do wrong?"
"The wrong would be if ever you left me," he declared passionately.
She patted his hand. "Dear friend!"
"The room I will arrange for in a minute or two," he promised. "That is
quite easy. But to-morrow--what then?"
"I shall telephone home," she replied. "If that woman is still in the
house, I shall go down into the country, and from there I shall write my
lawyers and apply for a separation."
"So those are your plans," he remarked calmly.
"Yes. Can you suggest anything better?"
"I can suggest something a thousand times better."
She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she was conscious of a certain
alteration in his deportment, the ring of his last words, the slight but
unusual air of emotional fervour with which he seemed somehow to have
become endowed. A woman of curiously strong virginal instincts, she
realised, perhaps for the first time, the approach of a great change in
Wingate's attitude towards her. Yet she could not keep from her lips the
words which must bring his avowal.
"What do you mean?" she faltered.
"That you end it all," he advised firmly, "that you take your courage in
both hands, that you do not return to your husband at all."
"Not return," she repeated, her eyes held by his.
"That you come to me," he went on, bending over the side of her chair.
"Needless, wonderful words, but I love you. You were the first woman in
my life. You will be the last. I have been silent, as you know. I have
waited for something like this, and I think the time has come."
"The time can never come," she cried despairingly.
"The time has come at least for me to tell you that I love you more than
any woman on earth," he declared, "that I want to take care of you, to
take you into my life, to build a wall of passionate devotion around you,
to keep you free from every trouble and every harm."
"Ah, dear friend, if it were but possible!" she murmured, holding his
hands tightly.
"But it is possible," he insisted. "All that we need is courage. You owe
nothing to your husband. You can leave him without remorse or a moment's
shame. Your life just now is wasted,--a precious human life. I want you,
Josephine. God knows how I want you!"
"You have my friendship--even my love. There, I have said it!" she
repeated, with a little sob, "my love."
His arms were suddenly around her. She shrank back in her chair. Her
terrified eyes invited and yet reproached him.
"Remember--oh, please remember!" she cried.
"What can I remember except one thing?" he whispered.
She held him away from her.
"You talk as though everything were possible between us. How can that be?
I have no joy in my husband, nor he in me--but I am married. We are not
in America."
He rose to his feet, a strong man trembling in every limb. He stood
before her, trying to talk reasonably, trying to plead his cause behind
the shelter of reasonable words.
"Let me tell you," he began, "why our divorce laws are so different
from yours. We believe that the worst breach of the Seventh Commandment
is the sin of an unloving kiss, the unwillingly given arms of a
shuddering wife, striving to keep the canons of the prayer book and
besmirching thereby her life with evil. We believe, on the other hand,
that there is no sin in love."
"If you and I were alone in the world!"
"If you are thinking of your friends," he pleaded, "they are more likely
to be proud of the woman who had the courage to break away from a
debasing union. Every one realises--what your husband is. He has been
unfaithful not only to you but to every friend he has ever had."
"Do I not know it!" she moaned. "Isn't the pain of it there in my heart,
hour by hour!"
His reasonableness was deserting him. Again he was the lover, begging for
his rights.
"Wipe him out of your mind, sweetheart," he begged. "I'll buy you from
him, if you like, or fight him for you, or steal you--I don't care which.
Anything sooner than let you go."
"I don't want to go," she confessed, afraid of her own words, shivering
with the meaning of them.
"You never shall," he continued, his voice gaining strength with his
rising hopes. "You've opened my lips and you must hear what is in my
heart. You are the one love of my life. My hours and days are empty, I
want you always by my side."
The love of him swept her away. Her head had fallen back, she saw his
face through the mist.
"Go on, go on," she begged.
"I want you as I have wanted nothing else in life--not only for my own
sake, for yours. I want to chase all those lines of sorrow away from
your face."
"My poor, tired face," she faltered.
"Tired?" he repeated. "It's the most beautiful face on earth."
The smile which suddenly transformed her quivering mouth made it
indeed seem so.
"You are so foolish, dear, but go on," she pleaded.
"I want to see you grow younger and lighter-hearted. I want you to
realise day by day that something beautiful is stealing into your life. I
want you to feel what real love is--tender, passionate, lover's love."
"My dear, my dear!" she cried. "I do not dare to think of these things,
yet they sound so wonderful."
"Leave the daring to me, sweetheart," he answered. "You shall have
nothing to do but rest after these horrible days, rest and care for me
a little."
"Oh, I do care!" she exclaimed, with sudden passion. "That is what makes
it all so wonderful."
"You love me? Tell me so once more?" he begged.
"Dear, I love you. You must have known it or you couldn't have said these
things. And I thought I was going to die without knowing what love was."
"Never fear that again," he cried joyfully. "You shall know what it is
every hour of the day. You shall know what it is to feel yourself
surrounded by it, to feel it encompass you on every side. You shall know
what it is to have some one think for you, live for you, make sweet
places for your footsteps in life."
Her eyes shone. The years had fallen away. She rose tremblingly to her
feet, her arms stole around his neck.
"John, you dear, wonderful lover," she whispered, "why, it has come
already! I am forgetting everything. I am happy!"
The clock on Wingate's mantelpiece struck one. He drew himself gently
away from the marvel of those soft entwining arms, stooped and kissed
Josephine's fingers reverently.
"Dear," he said, "let me begin to take up my new responsibilities. We
must arrange for your stay here."
She laughed happily, rose, and with a woman's instinct stood before the
mirror, patting her hair.
"I don't recognise myself," she murmured. "Is this what love
brings, John?"
He stood for a moment by her side.
"Love?" he repeated. "Why, you haven't begun yet to realise what it
means--what it will bring to you."
Once more she set her hands upon his shoulders. Her eyes, which a moment
before had looked so longingly into his, drooped for a moment.
"Dear," she begged, "you won't ever be sorry, will you, and--does this
sound selfish, I wonder?--you won't mind waiting?"
He smiled down at her.
"I shall never be sorry," he declared firmly. "I shall always bless
this night and the impulse that brought you here. And as to waiting,"
he went on, "well, I have had four years of waiting without any
particular hope, even of seeing you again. I think that with hope I can
hold out a little longer."
He went over to the telephone and spoke for a few moments. Then he laid
down the receiver and returned.
"A boy is bringing up the key of your room at once," he announced. "You
will be in the south block, a long way off, but the rooms there are
comfortable."
"Thank you, John dear," she said, smiling.
"Just one thing more," he continued. "I want you to remember that this
miserable, tangled skein of unhappiness which you have called life is
finished and done with. From to-night you belong to me. I must see you
to-morrow--if possible at Dredlinton House--and we can work out some
plans then. But you are to worry about nothing. Remember that I am here,
and I love you.--Good night!"
Once more she rested for a moment in his arms. The seconds sped by.
Then he took a quick step backwards, and they both stared at the door.
It was closed now, but the slam of it a moment before had sounded like
a pistol shot.
"Who was that?" she asked in a terrified whisper.
"That idiot of a boy with the key, I expect," he replied. "Wait, dear."
He hurried outside, through the little hall and into the corridor. There
was no one in sight, not even the sound of footsteps to be heard. He
listened for a moment and then returned.
"Who was it?" she repeated.
"Nobody!"
"But some one must have looked in--have seen us!"
"It may have been the outside door," he suggested.
She shook her head.
"The door was closed. I closed it behind me."
"You mustn't worry, dear," he insisted. "In all probability some one did
look into the room by mistake, but it is very doubtful whether they would
know who we were. It may have been Sparks, my man, or the night valet,
seeing a light here. Remember what I told you a few minutes ago--there is
no trouble now which shall come near you."
She smiled, already reassured.
"Of course, I am rather absurd," she said, "but then look at me! It
is past one o'clock, and here am I in your rooms, with that terrible
dressing case on the table, and without a hat, and still looking, I
am afraid," she concluded, with a final glance into the glass, "a
little tumbled."
"You look," he told her fondly, "like a girl who has just realised for
the first time in her life that she is loved."
"How strange," she laughed happily,--"because that is exactly how I
feel!"
There was a knock at the door. A page entered, swinging a key in his
hand.
"Key of 440 for the lady, sir," he announced.
"Quite right, my boy. Listen. Did you meet any one in the corridor?"
"No one, sir."
"You haven't been in here before without knocking, have you?"
"No, sir," was the prompt reply. "I came straight up in the lift."
Wingate turned to Josephine with a little shrug of the shoulders.
"The mystery, then, is insoluble," he declared cheerfully, "but
remember this, sweetheart," he added, as the boy stepped discreetly
outside, "in small things as well as large, the troubles of this world
for you are ended."
"You don't know how wonderful it sounds to hear words like that," she
sighed, as they stood hand in hand. "I shan't seem very selfish, John,
shall I, if I ask for a little time to realise all this? I feel that
everything I have and am ought to be yours at this moment, because you
have made me so happy, because my heart is so full of gratitude. But,
alas, I have my weaknesses! I am a very proud woman. Sometimes I am
afraid I have been a little censorious--as regards others!"
He stooped and kissed her fingers.
"If you knew what it felt like," he whispered, as he held open the door
for her, "to have something to wait for! And whether you realise it or
not, you are with me--from now on--always--my inspiration--my daily
happiness."
CHAPTER XIII
Peter Phipps, sitting in his private office, might have served as the
very prototype of a genial, shrewd and successful business man. The
apartment was plainly and handsomely furnished. Although, only a few
yards away, was a private exchange and an operator who controlled many
private wires, a single telephone only stood upon his desk. The documents
which cumbered it were arranged in methodical little heaps. His manager
stood by his side, with a long slip of paper in his hand. The two men had
been studying it together.
"A very excellently prepared document, Harrison," his employer declared
graciously, as he leaned back in his chair with the tips of his fingers
pressed together. "Capitally prepared and very lucid. A good many million
bushels, that. We are creeping up, Harrison--creeping up."
Mr. Harrison bowed in recognition of his master's words of
commendation. He was a worn-looking, negative person, with a waxlike
complexion, a furtive manner, and a marvellous head for the figures
with which he juggled.
"The totals are enormous, sir," he admitted, "and you may take it that
they are absolutely correct. They represent our holdings as revised after
the receipt of this morning's mail. I should like to point out, too, sir,
that they have increased out of all proportion to outside shipments,
during the last four days."
Phipps touched the _Times_ with his forefinger.
"Did you notice, Harrison," he asked, "that our shares touched a hundred
and eighty last night on the street?"
"I was advised of it, sir," was the quiet reply.
"My fellow directors and I," Phipps continued, "are highly gratified with
the services of our staff during this period of stress. You might let
them know that in the counting house. We shall shortly take some
opportunity of showing our appreciation."
"You are very kind indeed, sir," the manager acknowledged, without change
of countenance. "I am sorry to have to report that Mr. Roberts wishes to
leave us."
"Roberts? One of our best buyers!" Phipps exclaimed. "Dear me, how's
that? Can't we meet him, Harrison? Is it a matter of salary?"
"I am afraid not, sir."
"What then?"
"Mr. Roberts has leanings towards socialism, sir. He seems to think that
the energies of our company tend to increase the distress which exists in
the north."
The great man leaned back in his chair.
"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "What on earth has that to do with
Roberts? He isn't the conscience of the firm. He draws a matter of a
thousand a year for doing as he is told."
"I tried to argue with him on those lines, sir," Harrison replied. "I am
sorry to say I found him obdurate."
"He can be replaced, I suppose?" Phipps shrugged his shoulders.
"With some difficulty, sir," Harrison felt compelled to admit. "There
is, as I dare say you are aware, sir, a certain feeling against us in
the various Exchanges. The best men are warned against accepting
employment with us."
"We pay higher salaries than any one else in the trade."
"The business methods of the company towards its employees," the manager
acknowledged, "have always been excellent. Still, there is a feeling."
The chairman of the B. & I. sighed.
"We will pursue the subject later, Harrison," he said. "In the meantime,
promote some one else on the staff, if necessary. Do your best to fill
Roberts' place adequately."
"Very good, sir."
Dredlinton lounged into the office a few minutes later. Phipps welcomed
him without any particular enthusiasm, but promptly dismissed the typist
to whom he had been dictating.
"It happens that you are just the man I want to see," he declared.
"Sit down."
Dredlinton sank a little wearily into an easy-chair, after a glance of
disappointment at the retreating figure.
"Can't think why you always have such damned ugly girls about you,
Phipps," he yawned. "Gives me the creeps to look at them."
Peter Phipps smiled as he drew a box of cigars from his desk.
"Then I will tell you the reason, my friend," he said. "For pleasure
there is no one who appreciates beauty more than I do. For business
I have a similar passion for efficiency. The two are never confused
in my mind."
"Regular paragon, aren't you!" Dredlinton murmured. "Why did you want to
see me, by the by?"
"What happened last night?" Phipps asked a little abruptly.
"I obeyed orders," Dredlinton told him. "I told her ladyship that I
should be home to dinner and probably bring some friends. I was a little
late but she waited."
Phipps smiled maliciously.
"She didn't dine with Wingate, then, or go to the theatre?"
"She did not," Dredlinton replied. "I put the kibosh on it, according
to orders."
Peter Phipps pushed the cigars across the desk towards his companion.
"Try one of these before you enter upon the labours of the day," he
invited, "and just see what you think of these figures."
Dredlinton glanced at the papers carelessly at first and then with
genuine interest. They were certainly sufficiently surprising to rouse
him for a moment from his apathy.
"Marvellous!" he exclaimed.
"Marvellous indeed," his Chief assented. "Now listen to me, Dredlinton.
Why are you sitting there, looking like a whipped dog? Why can't you wear
a more cheerful face? If it's Farnham's cheque you are worrying about,
here it is," he added, drawing an oblong slip of paper from the
pigeonhole of his desk, tearing it in two, and throwing it into the
waste-paper basket. "A year ago, you told me that the one thing in the
world you needed was money. Well, aren't you getting it? You have only to
run straight with us here, and to work in my interests in another quarter
that you know of, and your fortune is made. Cheer up and look as though
you realised it."
Dredlinton crossed and uncrossed his legs nervously. His eyes were
bloodshot and his eyelids puffy. Notwithstanding careful grooming, he had
the air of a man running fast to seed.
"I am nervous this morning, Phipps," he confided. "Had a bad night. Every
one I've come across, too, lately, seems to be cursing the B. & I."
"Let them curse," was the equable reply. "We can afford to hear a few
harsh words when we are making money on such a scale."
"Yes, but how long is it going to last?" Dredlinton asked fretfully. "Did
you see the questions that were asked in the House yesterday?"
Phipps leaned back in his chair and laughed quietly.
"Questions? Yes! Who cares about them? Believe me, Dredlinton, our
Government has one golden rule. It never interferes with private
enterprise. I don't know whether you realise it, but since the war there
is more elasticity about trading methods than there was before. The worst
that could happen to us might be that they appointed a commission to
investigate our business methods. Well, they'd find it uncommonly hard to
get at the bottom of them, and by the time they were in a position to
make a report, the whole thing would be over."
"It's making us damned unpopular," Dredlinton grumbled.
"For the moment," the other agreed, "but remember this. There was never
such a thing as an unpopular millionaire known in history, so long as he
chose to spend his money."
Dredlinton drew a letter from his pocket and handed it across the table.
"Read that," he invited. "It's the fifth I've had within the last
two days."
Phipps glanced at the beginning and the end, and threw it
carelessly back.
"Pooh! A threatening letter!" he exclaimed. "Why, I had a dozen of those
this morning. My secretary is making a scrapbook of them."
"That one of mine seems pretty definite, doesn't it?" Dredlinton remarked
nervously.
"Some of mine were uncommonly plain-spoken," Phipps acknowledged, "but
what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither
is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley. Chuck letters like that on the fire, as
they have, and keep cheerful. The streets of London are the safest place
in the world. No cable from your friend in New York yet?"
"Not a word," Dredlinton answered. "I expected it last night. You haven't
forgotten that Wingate's due here this morning--that is, if he keeps his
appointment?"
"Forgotten it? Not likely!" Phipps replied. "I was going to talk to you
about that. We must have those shares. The fact of it is the Universal
Line has played us false, the only shipping company which has. They
promised to advise us of all proposed wheat cargoes, and they haven't
kept their word. If my information is correct, and I expect confirmation
of it at any moment in the cable I arranged to have sent to you, they
have eleven steamers being loaded this very week. It's a last effort on
the part of the Liverpool ring to break us."
"What'll happen if Wingate won't sell?" Dredlinton enquired.
"I never face disagreeable possibilities before the necessity arrives,"
was the calm reply. "Wingate is certain to sell. He won't have an idea
why we want to buy, and I shall give him twenty thousand pounds profit."
"You'll find him a difficult customer," Dredlinton declared. "As you
know, he hates us like poison."
"He may do that," Phipps acknowledged. "I've given him cause to in my
life, and hope to again. But after all, he's a shrewd fellow. He's made
money on the Stock Exchange this last week, and he's had the sense not to
run up against us. He's not likely to refuse a clear twenty thousand
pounds' profit on some shares he's not particularly interested in."
Dredlinton knocked the ash from his cigar. He leaned over towards his
companion.
"Look here, Phipps," he said, "you can never reckon exactly on what a
fellow like Wingate will do or what he won't do. It is just possible I
may be able to help in this matter."
"Good man!" the other exclaimed. "How?"
Dredlinton hesitated for a moment. There was a particularly ugly smile
upon his lips.
"Let us put it in this way," he said. "Supposing you fail altogether
with Wingate?"
"Well?"
"Supposing you then pass him on to me and I succeed in getting him to
sell the shares? What about it?"
"It will be worth a thousand pounds to you," Phipps declared.
"Two!"
Phipps shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't bargain," he said, "but two let it be--that is, of course, on
condition that I have previously failed."
Dredlinton's dull eyes glittered. The slight contraction of his lips did
nothing to improve his appearance.
"I shall do my best," he promised.
There was a knock at the door. A clerk from outside presented himself. As
he held the door for a moment ajar, a wave of tangled sounds swept into
the room,--the metallic clash of a score of typewriters, the shouting and
bargaining of eager customers, the tinkle of telephones in the long
series of cubicles.
"Mr. Wingate is here to see you, sir," the young man announced.
"You can show him in," Peter Phipps directed.
CHAPTER XIV
Phipps received his visitor with a genial smile and outstretched hand.
"Delighted to see you, Mr. Wingate," he said heartily. "Take a chair,
please. I do not know whether you smoke in the mornings, but these
Cabanas," he added, opening the box, "are extraordinarily mild and I
think quite pleasant."