The Man Who Bought London (6 page)

It was a nine days’ wonder, this murder of a drunken slut, and many were the theories which were advanced. The inquest proved that the woman had suffered from rough treatment at the hands of her assailants. She owed her death to strangulation.

No arrests were made, and the crime was added to the list of London’s unravelled mysteries.

Four days after the sensational discovery, Elsie Marion sat behind her desk – an article of furniture which in itself was a pleasure to her – sorting over King Kerry’s correspondence. Like many other great men, he was possessed of amiable weaknesses, and one of these was a disinclination to answer letters save those which were vital to his schemes. He recognized his own shortcomings in this respect and the growing pile of letters, opened and unopened, produced a wince every time he had seen it.

Elsie had reduced the heap to something like a minimum. With the majority she found no occasion to consult her chief. They were begging letters, or the letters of cranks who offered wonderful inventions which would make their, and the exploiters’, fortunes at small cost of time or money. There was a sprinkling of religious letters, too – texts heavily underlined admonishing or commending. Every post brought appeals from benevolent institutions.

In the drawer of her desk she had a chequebook which enabled her to draw money on an account which had been opened in her name. It was King Kerry’s charity account, and she used her discretion as to the amount she should send, and the worthiness of the object. At first the responsibility had frightened her, but she had tackled her task courageously.

‘It needs as much courage to sign a cheque as it does to starve,’ was one of King Kerry’s curious epigrams.

She worked splendidly through the pile of letters before her. Some went into the waste-paper basket; on some, after a knitting of brows and a biting of penholder, she scribbled a figure. She knew the people she was dealing with; she had lived amongst them, had eaten her frugal lunch at a marble-topped table across which professional begging-letter writers had compared notes unashamed.

She looked up as the commissionaire on duty came in with a card. She made a little grimace as she read the name.

‘Does he know that Mr Kerry is out of town?’ she asked.

‘I told him, miss, but he particularly asked to see you,’ said the man. She looked at the card again dubiously. It had its humorous side, this situation. A week ago, the perky Mr Tack never dreamt that he would be sending in his card to ‘our Miss Marion’ asking for an interview.

‘Show him in, please – and, Carter –’ as the man was at the door.

‘Yes, miss?’

‘I want you to stay in the room, please, whilst Mr Tack is here.’

The man touched his cap and went out, returning to usher in the late junior partner of Messrs Tack and Brighten.

He was all smiles and smirks, and offered his gloved hand with immense affability. ‘Well, well!’ he said in genial surprise, ‘who’d have thought to see you in a comfortable situation like this!’

‘Who, indeed!’ she replied.

Uninvited he drew a chair up to the desk. ‘You must admit that the training you had under me, and what I might term the corrective discipline – never harsh and always justified – has fitted you for this; now don’t deny it!’ He shook a finger playfully at her.

‘It has certainly helped me to appreciate the change,’ she said.

Mr Tack looked round at the waiting commissionaire, and then back to the girl with a meaning look.

‘I’d like a few private words with you,’ he said mysteriously.

‘This is as private an interview as I can give you, Mr Tack,’ said the girl with a smile. ‘You see, I am not exactly a principal in the business, and I have neither the authority nor the desire to engage in any undertaking which is not also my employer’s business.’

Mr Tack swallowed something in his throat, but inclined his head graciously.

‘Very proper! very proper, indeed!’ he agreed, with hollow cordiality. ‘The more so since I hear rumours of a certain little trouble –’ He looked at her archly.

The colour rose to her cheeks.

‘There is no need to refer to that, Mr Tack,’ she said coldly. ‘Mr Kerry had me arrested because he knew that my life was in danger – he has given me fullest permission to tell why. When you go out you will see a steel safe in the front office – it has a combination lock which opened to the word ‘Kingsway’. Mr Kerry gave me three words, the first of which would be the word which would open the safe. He told me this because he dare not write the word down. Then he realized that by doing so he had placed me in great danger. Men were sent to Smith Street, by somebody who guessed I knew the word, to force it from me, and Mr Kerry, guessing the plot, had me arrested, knowing that I should be safe in a police station. He came to London by special train to release me.’

She might have added that Kerry had spent three hours in London searching for the Home Secretary before he could
secure an order of release, for it is easier to lock up than to unlock.

‘Moreover,’ she added, ‘Mr Kerry generously offered me any sum I cared to mention to compensate me for the indignity.’

‘What did you ask?’ demanded Mr Tack eagerly, a contemptuous smile playing about his lips.

‘Nothing,’ she replied curtly, and waited for him to state his business.

Again he looked round at the solid commissionaire, but received no encouragement from the girl.

‘Miss Marion,’ he said, dropping his voice, ‘you and I have always been good friends – I want you to help me now.’

She ignored the wilful misstatement of fact, and he went on. ‘You know Mr Kerry’s mind – you’re the sort of young lady any gentleman would confide in: now tell me, as friend to friend, what is the highest Mr Kerry will give for Goulding’s?’

‘Are you in it, too?’ she asked in surprise. She somehow never regarded him as sufficiently ingenious to be connected with the plot, but he nodded.

‘The highest,’ he repeated persuasively.

‘Half a million,’ said the girl. It was marvellous how easily the fat sum tripped from her lips.

‘But, seriously?’

‘Half a million, and the offer is open till Saturday,’ she said. ‘I have just written Goulding’s a letter to that effect.’

‘Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!’ said Mr Tack rapidly, but wearily. ‘Why don’t you persuade the old gentleman to be reasonable?’

A steely gleam came into her eyes. He remembered the episode of the inkpot and grew apprehensive.

‘Which “old gentleman” are you referring to?’ she asked icily.

Tack made haste to repair his error, and blundered still further. ‘Of course,’ he apologized, ‘I oughtn’t to speak like that about Mr Kerry.’

‘Oh, Mr Kerry!’ She smiled pityingly at the other. ‘Mr Kerry is not, I should imagine, as old as you by ten years,’ she said brutally. ‘A strenuous life often brings grey hairs to a young man just as a sedentary life brings grossness to a middle-aged man.’

Mr Tack showed his teeth in a smile from which genuine merriment was noticeably absent.

‘Ah, well,’ he said, offering his hand, ‘we mustn’t quarrel – use your influence with Mr Kerry for good.’

‘I hope I shall,’ she said, ‘though I cannot see how that is going to help you.’

He was in the street before he thought of a suitable response.

Oxford Street, and especially the drapery and soft goods section of Oxford Street, was frankly puzzled by the situation as it stood between Goulding’s Universal Store and Tack and Brighten. It was recognized that Tack’s – as it was called in drapery circles – could not fight against the rush and hustle of its powerful neighbour. Apparently King Kerry was doing nothing wonderful in the shape of resuscitating the business. He had discharged some of the old overseers, and had appointed a new manager, but there was nothing to show that he was going to put up a fight against his rival, who surrounded him literally and figuratively.

Goulding’s offer had leaked out, and experts’ view placed it as being exactly thirty-three per cent more than the business was worth; but what was Kerry to do?

Kerry was content apparently to flit from one department of trade to another. He bought in one week Tabards, the famous
confectioner, the Regent Treweller Company’s business, and Transome’s, the famous Transome, whose art fabrics were the wonder and the joy of the world.

‘What’s his game?’ asked the West End, and finding no game comprehensible to its own views, or measurable by its own standard, the West End decided that King Kerry was riding for a fall. Some say that the ground landlords had been taken into the Big Buyers’ confidence; but this is very doubtful. The Duke of Pallan, in his recently published autobiography, certainly does make a passing reference to the matter which might be so construed; but it is not very definite. His Grace says –

‘The question of selling my land in the neighbourhood of Regency, Colemarker, and Tollorton Streets was satisfactorily settled by arrangement with my friend Mr King Kerry. I felt it a duty in these days of predatory and pernicious electioneering …’

The remainder is purely political, but it does point to the fact that whether King Kerry bought the land, or came to a working arrangement with the ground landlords, he was certainly at one time in negotiation for their purchase. No effort was spared by those interested to discover exactly the extent of the ‘L Trust’s’ aspirations.

Elsie, returning to her Chelsea flat one night, was met by a well-dressed stranger who, without any preliminary, offered her £5,000 for information as to the Trust’s intended purchases. Her first impulse was to walk on, her second to be very angry. Her third and final resolution was to answer.

‘You must tell your employer that it is useless to offer me money, because I have no knowledge whatever concerning Mr King Kerry’s intentions.’

She went on, very annoyed, thereby obeying all her impulses together.

She told the millionaire of the attempt the next morning, and he nodded cheerily. ‘The man’s name was Gelber; he is a private detective in the employ of a Hermann Zeberlieff, and he will not bother you again,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’ she asked in surprise.

He was always surprising her with odd pieces of information. It was a stock joke of his that he knew what his enemies had for dinner, but could never remember where he put his gloves.

‘You never go home without an escort,’ he said. ‘One of my men was watching you.’

She was silent for a moment, then she asked, ‘Does Zeberlieff dislike you?’

He nodded slowly. Into his face crept a look of infinite weariness.

‘He hates me,’ he said softly, ‘and I hate him like the devil.’

She looked across at him and met his eyes. Was it over a question of business that their quarrel arose? As clear as though she had put the question in so many words, he read the unspoken query and shook his head. ‘I hate him’ – he hesitated – ‘because he behaved badly to – a woman.’

It seemed that an icy hand closed over Elsie’s heart, and for a few seconds she could hardly breathe. She felt the colour leave her face, and the room appeared blurred and indistinct.

She lowered her face, and fingered the letters on the desk before her. ‘Indeed?’ she said politely. ‘That was – that was horrid of him!’

She heard the telephone bell ring, and he took up the receiver.

He exchanged a few words, then – ‘I shall be back shortly,’ he said. ‘Mr Grant wants to see me.’

She nodded. Presently the door closed behind him with a click, and she dropped her head in her arms upon the table and
burst into a passion of weeping. Love had indeed come into the life of Elsie Marion. It had all come upon her unawares, and with its light had brought its shadow of sorrow.

‘Where are you going tonight, Vera?’

Hermann Zeberlieff addressed the girl who stood by the window with a touch of asperity. The girl was standing by the window looking out across Park Lane to the Park itself. A cigarette glowed between her lips, and the soft, grey eyes were fixed far beyond the limit of human vision. She turned with a start to her half-brother and raised her dainty eyebrows as he repeated the question.

A simple gown of black velvet showed this slim, beautiful girl to the best advantage. The delicate pallor of the face contrasted oddly with the full, red lips. The shapely throat was uncovered in the fashion of the moment, and the neck of the bodice cut down to a blunt V, showed the patch of pure white bosom.

‘Where am I going tonight?’ she repeated; ‘why, that’s a strange question, Hermann – you aren’t usually interested in my comings and goings.’

‘I’m expecting some men tonight,’ he said carelessly. ‘You know some of them – Leete is one.’

She gave a little shudder.

‘A most unwholesome person,’ she said. ‘Really, Hermann, you have the most wonderful collection of bric-a-brac in the shape of friends I have ever known. They are positively futurist.’

He scowled up at her. In many ways he was afraid of this girl, with her rich, drawling, southern voice. She had a trick of piercing the armour of his indifference, touching the raw places of his self-esteem. They had never been good friends, and only the provision of his father’s will had kept them together so long. Old Frederick Zeberlieff had left his fortune in two portions.
The first half was to be divided equally between his son – the child of his dead wife – and the girl, whose mother had only survived her arrival in the world by a few hours.

The second portion was to be again divided equally between the two, ‘providing they shall live together for a period of five years following my death, neither of them to marry during that period. For,’ the will concluded, ‘it is my desire that they shall know each other better, and that the bad feeling which has existed between them shall be dissipated by a mutual understanding of each other’s qualities.’ There were also other provisions.

The girl was thinking of the will as she walked across to the fireplace, and flicked the ash off her cigarette upon the marble hearth. ‘Our menage as it is constituted ends next month,’ she said, and he nodded.

‘I shall be glad to get the money,’ he confessed, ‘and not particularly sorry to –’

‘To see the end of me,’ she finished the sentence. ‘In that, at least, we find a subject upon which we are mutually agreed.’

He did not speak. He always came out worst in these encounters, and she puffed away in thoughtful silence.

‘I am going to the Technical College to a distribution of prizes,’ she said, and waited for the inevitable sarcasm.

‘The Southwood Institute?’ She nodded. ‘You are getting to be quite a person in the charitable world,’ he said, with a sneer. ‘I shall never be surprised to learn that you have become a nun.’

‘I know somebody who will!’ she said.

‘Who?’ he asked quickly.

‘Me,’ said the girl coolly.

He sank back again in his chair with a growl.

‘It is hard lines on you – my not getting married,’ she went on. ‘You get the whole of the inheritance if I do – during the period of probation.’

‘I don’t want you to marry,’ he snarled.

She smiled behind the hand that held the cigarette to her lips. ‘Poor soul!’ she mocked; then, more seriously: ‘Hermann, people are saying rather horrid things about you just now.’

He stared up at her coldly. ‘What things, and what people?’ he asked.

‘Oh, paper people and the sort of bounder person one meets. They say you were in some way associated with –’

She stopped and looked at him, and he met her gaze unflinchingly.

‘Well?’

‘With a rather ghastly murder in Southwark,’ she said slowly.

‘Rubbish!’ he laughed. ‘They would suspect the Archbishop of Canterbury – it is too preposterous.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said the girl. ‘I’m positively afraid of you sometimes; you’d just do anything for money and power.’

‘Like what?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, murder and things like that,’ she said vaguely. ‘There is a lot of good Czech in our blood, Hermann; why, sometimes you exasperate me so that I could cheerfully kill you.’

He grinned a little uncomfortably. ‘Keep your door locked,’ he said, and his lips tightened as at an unpleasant thought.

‘I do,’ she replied promptly, ‘and I always sleep with a little revolver under my pillow.’

He muttered something about childishness, and continued his study of the evening paper.

‘You see,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘it would make an awful big difference to you, Hermann, if I died suddenly from ptomaine poisoning – or whatever weird diseases people die from – or if I walked in my sleep and fell out of a window.’

‘Don’t say such beastly things!’ he snapped.

‘It would make you richer by seven million dollars – recoup all your losses, and place you in a position where you could go on fighting that nice grey man – King Kerry.’

He got up from his chair; there was a ghost of a smile on his face.

‘If you’re going to talk nonsense, I’m going,’ he said. ‘You ought to get married; you’re getting vixenish.’

She laughed, throwing her head back in an ecstasy of enjoyment.

‘Why don’t you pick up one of your tame students?’ he sneered. ‘Marry him – you’ll be able to do it in a month – and make him happy. You could teach him to sound his h’s with a little trouble.’

She had stopped laughing, and was eyeing him as he stood with the edge of the open door in his hand.

‘You’ve a merry wit,’ she said. ‘Poor Daddy never realized it as well as I. There’s a coarse fibre in the maternal ancestry of your line, Hermann.’

‘You leave my mother’s relations alone!’ he said in a burst of anger.

‘God knows I do,’ she said piously. ‘If various United States marshals and diverse grand juries had also left them alone, many of them would have died natural deaths.’

He slammed the door behind him before she had concluded her sentence. The mocking smile passed from her face as the door closed, and in its place came a troubled frown. She threw
away the end of her cigarette and crossed the room to a small writing-table between the two big windows.

She sat for some time, a pen in her hand and a sheet of paper before her, undecided. If she wrote she would be acting disloyally to her half-brother – yet she owed him no loyalty. Behind her drawling contempt was an ever-present fear, a fear which sometimes amounted to a terror. Not once, but many times in the last year, she had intercepted a glance of his, a look so cold and speculative, and having in it a design so baleful that it had frozen her soul with horror. She thought of the insidious attempts he had made to get her married. The men he had thrown in her way, the almost compromising situations he had forced upon her with every variety of man from college youth to middle-aged man about town.

If she were married she were dead so far as the inheritance went – if she were not married by the thirtieth of the month, would she still be alive?

There was, as she knew, a streak of madness on Hermann’s side of the family. His mother had died in an insane asylum. Two of her blood relations had died violently at the hands of the law, and a cousin had horrified San Francisco with a scene of murder of a peculiarly brutal character.

She had reason to believe that Hermann himself had been mixed up in some particularly disgraceful episode in New York, and that only on the payment of huge sums amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars the victim and her relations had staved off an exposure. Then there was the case of Sadie Mars, the beautiful young daughter of a Boston banker. No money could have hushed that up – but here family pride and the position of the girl’s parents saved Hermann. He went abroad, and the girl had taken an overdose of chloral with fatal results.
Wherever he went, disaster followed; whatever he touched, he made rotten and bad; he lifted the wine of life to the lips of the innocent, and it was vinegar and gall. She thought all this, and then she began to write rapidly, covering sheet after sheet with her fine calligraphy. She finished at last, enclosed her letter in an envelope, and addressed it. She heard his footstep in the hall without, and hastily thrust the letter into her bosom.

He looked across at the writing-table as he entered.

‘Writing?’ he asked.

‘Doing a few polite chores,’ she answered.

‘Shall I post them for you?’

He made a show of politeness.

‘No, thank you!’ said the girl. ‘They can be posted in the ordinary way – Martin can take them.’

‘Martin is out,’ he said.

She walked quickly to the bell and pushed it. Hermann looked at her strangely.

‘There’s no use ringing,’ he said. ‘I have sent Martin and Dennis out with messages.’

She checked the inclination to panic which arose in her bosom. Her heart was beating wildly. Instinct told her that she stood in deadly peril of this man with the sinister glint in his eyes.

‘Give me that letter!’ he said suddenly.

‘Which letter?’

‘The letter you have been writing so industriously for the last ten minutes,’ he said.

A scornful smile curved her lips. ‘Not the keyhole, Hermann!’ she protested with mock pain. ‘Surely not the keyhole – the servants’ entrance to domestic secrets!’

‘Give me that letter!’ he said roughly.

She had edged away and backward till she stood near one of the big French windows. It was ajar, for the evening had been close. With a sudden movement she turned, flung open the long glass door, and stepped out on to the tiny balcony.

He went livid with rage, and took two quick steps towards her, then stopped. She was addressing somebody.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr Bray; have you been ringing long?’ An indistinct voice answered her. ‘My brother will let you in; thank you so much for calling for me.’

She turned to Hermann Zeberlieff.

‘Would you mind opening the door to one of my “tame students”? You will find he sounds his h’s quite nicely!’ she said sweetly.

‘Damn you!’ snarled the man, but obeyed.