The Man Who Bought London | Page 3

a snarl.
At his elbow stood Hermann Zeberlieff, King Kerry's shadower, who
had been an interested spectator of all that had happened.

"You mind your own business!" growled the beggar, and would have
slouched on his way.
"Wait a moment!" The young man stepped in his path. His hand went
into his pocket, and when he withdrew it he had a little handful of gold
and silver. He shook it; it jingled musically.
"What would you do for a tenner?" he asked.
The man's wolf eyes were glued to the money.
"Anything," he whispered, "anything, bar murder."
"What would you do for fifty?" asked the young man.
"I'd--I'd do most anything," croaked the tramp hoarsely.
"For five hundred and a free passage to Australia?" suggested the
young man, and his piercing eyes were fixed on the beggar.
"Anything--anything!" almost howled the man.
The young man nodded.
"Follow me," he said, "on the other side of the road."
They had not been gone more than ten minutes when two men came
briskly from the direction of Westminster. They stopped every now and
again to flash the light of an electric lamp upon the human wreckage
which lolled in every conceivable attitude of slumber upon the seats of
the Embankment. Nor were they content with this, for they scrutinized
every passer-by--very few at this hour in the morning.
They met a leisurely gentleman strolling toward them, and put a
question to him.
"Yes," said he, "curiously enough I have just spoken with him---a man
of medium height, who spoke with a queer accent. I guess you think I
speak with a queer accent too," he smiled, "but this was a provincial, I

reckon."
"That's the man, inspector," said one of the two turning to the other.
"Did he have a trick when speaking of putting his head on one side?"
The gentleman nodded.
"Might I ask if he is wanted--I gather that you are police officers?"
The man addressed hesitated and looked to his superior.
"Yes, sir," said the inspector. "There's no harm in telling you that his
name is Horace Baggin, and he's wanted for murder--killed a warder of
Devizes Gaol and escaped whilst serving the first portion of a lifer for
manslaughter. We had word that he's been seen about here."
They passed on with a salute, and King Kerry, for it was he, continued
his stroll thoughtfully.
"What a man for Hermann Zeberlieff to find?" he thought, and it was a
coincidence that at that precise moment the effeminate-looking
Zeberlieff was entertaining an unsavoury tramp in his Park Lane study,
plying him with a particularly villainous kind of vodka; and the tramp,
with his bearded head on one side as he listened, was learning more
about the pernicious ways of American millionaires than he had ever
dreamt.
"Off the earth fellers like that ought to be," he said thickly. "Give me a
chance--hit me on the jaw, he did, the swine--I'll millionaire him!"
"Have another drink," said Zeberlieff.
CHAPTER II
The "tube" lift was crowded, and Elsie Marion, with an apprehensive
glance at the clock, rapidly weighed in her mind whether it would be
best to wait for the next lift and risk the censure of Mr. Tack or whether
she should squeeze in before the great sliding doors clanged together.

She hated lifts, and most of all she hated crowded lifts. Whilst she
hesitated the doors rolled together with a "Next lift, please!"
She stared at the door blankly, annoyed at her own folly. This was the
morning of all mornings when she wished to be punctual.
Tack had been mildly grieved by her innumerable failings, and had
nagged her persistently for the greater part of the week. She was
unpunctual, she was untidy, she was slack to a criminal extent for a
lady cashier whose efficiency is reckoned by the qualities which, as
Tack insisted, she did not possess.
The night before he had assembled the cash girls and had solemnly
warned them that he wished to see them in their places at nine o'clock
sharp. Not, he was at trouble to explain, at nine-ten, or at nine-five, not
even at nine-one--but as the clock in the tower above Tack and
Brighton's magnificent establishment chimed the preliminary quarters
before booming out the precise information that nine o'clock had
indeed arrived, he wished every lady to be in her place.
There had been stirring times at Tack and Brighton's during the past
three months. An unaccountable spirit of generosity had been evinced
by the proprietors--but it had been exercised towards the public rather
than in favour of the unfortunate employees. The most extraordinary
reductions in the sale price of their goods and the most cheeseparing
curtailments of selling cost had resulted--so traitorous members of the
counting-house staff said secretly--in a vastly