The Man Who Bought London | Page 7

youth bluntly, "and I am a representative of The Monitor--er--I want to see this young lady for two minutes.
"Go to the devil!" said Mr. Tack defiantly.
The young man bowed.
"After I have interviewed this young lady," he said.
"I forbid you to give this man information about my business," exploded the enraged partner.
The reporter closed his eyes wearily.
"My poor fellow," he said, shaking his head, "it isn't about your business I want to see this lady, it's about King Kerry."
Mr. Tack opened his mouth in astonishment.
"Mr. King Kerry?" he said. "Why, that's the gentleman who is buying this business!"
He blurted it out--a secret which he had so jealously guarded. He explained in one sentence the reason for the economies, the sales at less than cost, the whole disastrous and nefarious history of the past months.
"Buying this business, is he?" said Gillett, unimpressed. "Why, that's nothing! He was nearly murdered at Oxford Circus Tube Station half an hour ago, and he's bought Portland Place Mansions since then."
He turned to the alarmed girl.
"Told me to come along and find you," he said. "Described you so that I couldn't make any mistake."
"What does he want?" she asked, shaking.
"Wants you to come to lunch at the Savoy," said Mr. Gillett, "and tell him whether Tack and Brighton's is worth buying at the price."
Mr. Tack did not swoon, he was too well trained. But as he walked to his private office he swayed unsteadily, and the shop-walker in the Ribbon Department, who was a member of the Anti-Profanity League, heard what Mr. Tack was saying to himself, and put his fingers in his ears.
CHAPTER IV
A bewildered man sat in a cell at Vine Street, his aching head between his large, grimy hands. He was trying, in his dull brutish way, to piece together the events of the previous night and of that morning. He remembered that he had met a man on the Thames Embankment. A gentleman who had spoken coldly, whose words had cut like a steel knife, and yet who had all the outward evidence of benevolence. And then that this man had struck him, and there had come another, a smooth-faced, young-looking man, who had taken him to a house and given him a drink.
The stranger had led him to a place, and told him to watch, and they had followed this grey-haired man through streets in a taxi-cab.
Horace Baggin had never ridden in a motor car of any description before, and he remembered this. He remembered all that had happened through a thin alcoholic haze. They had gone to South London and then they had come back, and the man had left him at a tube station with a pistol. Presently the grey-haired man had made his appearance, and Baggin, mad with artificial rage, unthinking, unreasoning, had stepped forward and shot wildly, and then the police had come. That was all.
Suddenly a thought struck him, and he started up with an oath. He was wanted for that other affair in Wiltshire. Would they recognize him? He pressed a little electric bell, which was placed in the wall of the cell, and the turnkey came and surveyed him gravely through the grating.
"What is the charge?" Baggin asked eagerly.
"You know what the charge is," said the other; "it was read over to you in the charge-room."
"But I have forgotten," said the man sullenly. "It won't hurt you to tell me what I am charged with, will it?"
The officer hesitated. Then--
"You are charged with attempted murder and with manslaughter."
"What manslaughter?" asked Baggin quickly.
"Oh, an old affair, you know, Baggin!"
"Baggin!"
So they knew his name.
Well, there was one gleam of hope, one chance for him. This rich stranger who had lured him out to shoot the grey-haired man, he could help. He was a toff, he was; he lived in a grand house.
What was his name?
Baggin paced his cell for some quarter of an hour, racking his aching brain for the name which eluded him. Yes, curiously enough, he had seen the name, though the other might not have suspected the fact. In the hallway of the house to which the stranger took him was a tiny stand with glass and silver things, fragile and dainty, on which, as they had entered, Baggin had seen some letters addressed to the man, and he, naturally curious, and gifted moreover with the ability to read handwriting, had deciphered the name as--as--Zeberlieff!
That was the name, "Zeberlieff," and Park Lane, too--the house was in Park Lane. He remembered it now. He was elated at the result of his thought, a little exhausted too.
He called the gaoler again, and the weary official obeyed, not without resentment.
"What do you want now?" he asked bitterly.
"Can you let me have a sheet of paper, an envelope and a pencil?"
"I can," said the gaoler. "Who do you