The Profiteers Part 10

He turned away, with an enigmatic smile at his wife and a ceremonious bow to Wingate, and closed the door behind him carefully. They heard his retreating footsteps on the stairs; then Wingate resumed his seat by Josephine's side.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"Not a sc.r.a.p," she replied. "Besides, it has given Henry such immense pleasure. I am quite sure that he never believed it possible that I should be found holding another man's hand. Or," she went on, with a little grimace, "that any other man would want to hold it."

"It is possible," Wingate said deliberately, "that your husband may have further surprises of that nature in store for him."

She laughed. "Is that a threat?"

"If you like to regard it as such. You will find out before long that I am a terribly persistent person."

"I wonder," she remarked thoughtfully, "what could have made him so extraordinarily agreeable to you."

"To tell you the truth, I was surprised," Wingate replied. "And Peter Phipps, too! What can they want with me down at Throgmorton Street? They can't imagine that they can hustle me into the market?"

"Henry was very much in earnest," she told him.

Wingate's face darkened for a moment.

"They couldn't suspect--No, that wouldn't be possible!"

"Suspect what?"

"That my enmity to the B. & I.," he went on, in a low tone, "is beginning to take definite shape."

"Just what do you mean by that?" she asked.

"I have just the glimmerings of a scheme," he told her. "It will be something entirely unexpected, and it will mean a certain amount of risk."

"Don't forget that you have promised to let me help," she reminded him.

"If I strike," he said, "it will be at the directors. Your husband will suffer with the rest."

"That would not affect my att.i.tude in the least," she a.s.sured him. "As I think you must have gathered, there is no manner of sympathy between my husband and myself."

"I am glad to hear you say so," he declared bluntly. "If there had been, I should have felt it my duty to advise you to use all your influence to get him to resign from the Board."

"As bad as that?"

"As bad as that," he answered.

"You can't tell me anything about your scheme yet?"

"Not yet."

"How is it," she asked, "that they have been allowed to operate in wheat to this enormous extent?"

"Well, for one thing," he told her, "the company has been planned and worked out with simply diabolical cleverness. They are inside the law all the time, and they manage to keep there. Their agents are so camouflaged that you can't tell for whom they are buying. Then they command an immense capital."

"The others must have found it, then," she observed. "My husband is almost without means."

"Phipps has supporters," Wingate said thoughtfully. "They'll carry on this combine until the last moment, until a Government commission, or something of the sort, looks like intervening. Then they'll probably let a dozen of their subsidiary companies go smash, and Peter Phipps, Skinflint Martin and Rees will be multimillionaires. Incidentally, the whole of their enormous profits will have come from the working cla.s.ses."

"However visionary it is, I want to know about your scheme," she persisted.

"I cannot make up my mind to bring you into it," he declared doubtfully.

"It is practically a one-man show, and it is--well, a little primitive."

"Do you think I mind that?" she asked eagerly. "The only point worth considering is, could I help? You know in your heart that you could not make me afraid."

"I shall take you into my confidence, at any rate," he promised, "and you shall decide afterwards. I warn you, you will think that I have drunk deep of the Bowery melodrama."

"I shall mind nothing," she laughed as she a.s.sured him. "When do we begin?"

Wingate was thoughtful for a moment or two. They both heard the opening of a heavy door down below, the hailing of a taxi by the butler, and Dredlinton's voice in the street.

"Is that your husband going?" he enquired.

She nodded.

"Then I am going to make a most singular request," he said. "I am going to ask you whether you would show me over the portion of the house which you used as a hospital."

CHAPTER VIII

Wingate returned to his rooms at the Milan about eleven o'clock that evening, to find Roger Kendrick, Maurice White and the Honourable Jimmy Wilshaw stretched out in his most comfortable chairs, drinking whiskies and sodas and smoking cigarettes.

"Welcome!" he exclaimed, smiling upon them from the threshold. "Are you all here? Is there any one I forgot to invite?"

"The man's tone is inhospitable," the Honourable Jimmy murmured, showing no inclination to rise.

"I decline to apologise," Kendrick said. "The fact of it is, we're here for your good, Wingate. We are here to see that you do not die of ennui and loneliness in this stony-hearted city."

"In other words," Maurice White chimed in, "we are here to take you to the great supper-party."

"Well, I'm glad to hear about it," Wingate declared, giving his coat and hat to the valet who had followed him in. "Why don't you fellows sit down and have a drink?"

"My dear fellow," Kendrick sighed, "sarcasm does not become you. We are all drinking--your whisky. Also, I believe, smoking your cigarettes. Your servant--admirable fellow, that--absolutely forced them upon us--wouldn't take 'no.' And indeed, why should we refuse? We have come to offer you rivers of champagne, cigars of abnormal length, and the lips of the fairest houris in London. In other words, Sir Frederick Houstley, steel magnate of Sheffield, is giving a supper party to the world, and our instructions are to convey you there by force or persuasion, drunk or sober, sleepy or wide awake."

"I accept your cordial invitation," Wingate said, mixing himself a whisky and soda. "At what time does the fight commence?"

"Forthwith," Kendrick announced. "We sally forth from here to the Arcadian Rooms, situated in this building. Afterwards we make merry.

John, my boy," he went on, "you have the air of a man who has drunk deep already to-night of the waters of happiness. Exactly where did you dine?"

"In Utopia," Wingate answered. "According to you, I am to sup in fairyland."