The Man Who Bought London | Page 9

coffee, at the same time wondering how his new-found pal would get him out of the scrape.
Five minutes later a detective and the gaoler strolled down to his cell.
"I will have a talk with him," said the detective, and the gaoler, without troubling to look through the grating, inserted the key and pulled the door open.
The detective uttered an exclamation and sprang into the cell. Baggin lay in a huddled heap amongst a litter of broken china and spilt coffee. The detective lifted him up bodily and turned him over.
"My God!" he said, "he's dead! He has been poisoned! There is the scent of cyanide of potassium in this cell."
"Poisoned?" asked the startled gaoler. "Who did it? How did he get it?"
"It was in the coffee," replied the detective slowly, "and the man that sent it in was the man who employed Baggin to do his dirty work."
CHAPTER V
Before the lunch hour arrived at Tack and Brighton's, there came to Elsie Marion, through the medium of the senior shopwalker, an invitation to attend upon Mr. Tack. It was couched in such elegant language, and delivered with grace that no doubt could exist in the mind of any intelligent being that message and messenger had been most carefully rehearsed.
At five minutes to one Elsie presented herself at the partners' office. Mr. Tack was not alone; his partner sat bunched up in a chair, biting his knuckles and scowling furiously.
The firm of Tack and Brighten was not distinguished by the fact that one member of the firm whose name appeared upon the facade had no incorporate existence. There may have been a Brighten in the old days, but nobody had ever seen him or met him. He was a business legend. The dominant partner of the firm was James Leete.
He was a stout man, stouter than the fiery Mr. Tack. He walked with a waddle, and his face was not pleasant. It was creased and puffed into a score of unhealthy rolls and crevices; his nose was red and bulbous and to accentuate and emphasize his unloveliness, he wore a black-rimmed monocle. Immensely rich, he fawned a way through life, for he sought inclusion in ducal house parties and was happiest in the society of rank.
"This is the girl?" he asked.
He had a thick, husky voice, naturally coarse, through which ran with grotesque insistence a tone of mock culture which he had acquired by conscientious imitation of his models.
"This is Miss Marion," said Tack gloomily.
Leete leered up at him.
"Pretty girl! I suppose you know it, Miss What's-your-name?"
Elsie made no reply, though the colour came to her cheek at the undisguised insolence of the man.
"Now, look here!"--Leete swung his gross shape round on the revolving chair till he faced her and wagged a fat finger in her direction--"you've got to be very careful what you say to my friend King Kerry: everything you tell him he'll repeat to me, and if you tell one solitary, single lie about this business I can have you clapped into gaol for criminal libel."
The girl smiled in spite of herself.
"You can grin!" growled Leete; "but I mean it--see? Not that you know anything that we mind you saying. You're not exactly in the confidence of the firm--and if you were," he added quickly, "you'd know no more to our detriment than you do."
"Don't worry!" answered the girl coolly. "I shall tell him nothing except that you have said you are a friend of his."
"It's not necessary to tell him that," said Leete hastily.
"I think it is only fair to him to know what awful things people are saying about him," said Elsie sweetly. She was in her "sheep and lamb" mood, and she was very hungry. Later she was to marvel at her courage and her impertinence, but just at the moment she was conscious of nothing so much as a terrible sense of absence in the region of her little diaphragm.
"My girl," said Leete slowly, "I don't inquire as to how you got to know my friend Kerry, and I won't inquire, and I won't hint--"
"You'd jolly well better not!" flared the girl, her eyes shining angrily; "because as I'm feeling just now I'd throw this inkstand at your head for two pins!"
Mr. Leete pushed his chair back in alarm as the girl lifted the inkwell from the table and gripped it suggestively.
"Don't misunderstand me!" he begged with a warding arm raised. "I'm only talking to you for your good. I want to see you get on. I'll tell you what I've suggested, Miss Marion: we keep you on, we double your salary, and we put you in charge of the checking department."
For one moment only the magnificence of the offer overcame her. A larger room--the little luxuries which on her old salary were impossible--
"And," added