The Profiteers Part 28

"I don't think we need be," he replied cheerfully, "unless we have bad luck. Of course, I have had professional advice as to all the details.

The thing has been thought out step by step, almost scientifically. Slate is a marvellous fellow, and I think he has gathered up every loose end.

Makes one realise how easy crime would be if one went into it unflurried and with a clear conscience.--Tell me, by the by, was it by accident that you opened that cable this morning?"

"Not entirely," she confessed. "I was in the library this morning talking to Grant, my new butler."

"Satisfactory, I trust?" Wingate murmured.

"A paragon," she replied, with a little gleam in her eyes. "Well, on Henry's desk was the rough draft of a cable, torn into pieces, and on one of them, larger than the rest, I couldn't help seeing your name. It looked as though Henry had been sending a cable in which you were somehow concerned. While I was there, the reply came, so I decided to open and decode it. Directly I realised what it was about, I brought it straight to the office, hoping to catch you there."

"You are a most amazing woman," he declared.

She leaned a little towards him.

"And you are a most likable man," she murmured.

Wingate's luncheon party had been arranged for some days, and was being given, in fact, at the suggestion of Lady Amesbury herself.

"I am a perfectly shameless person," she declared, as she took her seat by Wingate's side at the round table in the middle of the restaurant. "I invited myself to this party. I always do. The last three times our dear host has been over to England, as soon as I have enquired after his health and his business, and whether the right woman has turned up yet, I ask him when he's going to take me to lunch at the Milan. I do love lunching in a restaurant," she confided to Kendrick, who sat at her other side, "and nearly all my friends prefer their stodgy dining rooms."

"Have you heard the news, aunt?" Sarah asked across the table.

"About that silly little Mrs. Liddiard Green, do you mean, and Jack Fulton? I hear they were seen in Paris together last week."

"Pooh! Who cares about Mrs. Liddiard Green!" Sarah scoffed. "I mean the news about Jimmy. The dear boy's gone into the City."

"G.o.d bless my soul!" Lady Amesbury exclaimed. "How much has he got to lose?"

"He isn't going to lose anything," Sarah replied. "Mr. Maurice White has taken him into his office, and he's going to have a commission on the business he does. This is his first morning. He must be busy or he'd have been here before now. Jimmy's never late for meals."

"Hm!" Lady Amesbury grunted. "I expect he has to stay and mind the office while Mr. White gets his lunch."

"Considering," Sarah rejoined with dignity, "that there are seventeen other clerks, besides office boys and typists, and Jimmy has a room to himself, that doesn't seem likely. I expect he's doing a big deal for somebody or other."

"Thank G.o.d it isn't me!" her aunt declared. "I love Jimmy--every one does--but he wasn't born for business."

"We shall see," Sarah observed. "My own opinion of Jimmy is that his mental gifts are generally underrated."

"You're not prejudiced, by any chance, are you?" Kendrick asked, smiling.

"That is my dispa.s.sionate opinion," Sarah p.r.o.nounced, "and I don't want any peevish remarks from you, Roger Kendrick. You're jealous because you let Mr. White get in ahead of you and secure Jimmy. It was only three days ago that we agreed he should go into the City. He was perfectly sweet about it, too. He was playing for the M.C.C. to-morrow, and polo at Ranelagh on Sat.u.r.day."

"Is he giving them both up?" Kendrick enquired.

"He's giving up the cricket, of course, unless he finds that it happens to be a slack day in the City," Sarah replied. "As for the polo, well, no one works on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, do they?"

"How is my friend, Mr. Peter Phipps?" Lady Amesbury demanded. "The big man who looked like a professional millionaire? Is he making a man of that bad husband of yours, Josephine?"

"They spend a good deal of time together," Josephine replied. "I don't think he'll ever succeed in making a business man out of Henry, though, any more than Mr. White will out of Jimmy."

A familiar form approached the table. Sarah welcomed him with a wave of her hand. The Honourable Jimmy greeted Lady Amesbury and his host, nodded to every one else, and took the vacant place which had been left for him. He seemed fatigued.

"Can I have a c.o.c.ktail, Mr. Wingate?" he begged, summoning a waiter. "A double Martini, please. Big things doing in the City," he confided.

"Have you had to work very hard, dear?" Sarah asked sympathetically.

"Absolutely feverish rush ever since I got there," he declared. "Don't know how long my nerves will stand it. Telephones ringing, men rus.h.i.+ng out of the office without their hats, and b.u.mping into you without saying 'by your leave' or 'beg your pardon,' or any little civility of that sort, and good old Maurice, with his hair standing up on end, shouting into two telephones at the same time, and dictating a letter to one of the peachiest little bits of fluff I've seen outside the front rows for I don't know how long."

"Jimmy," Sarah said sternly, "I'm not sure that the City is going to suit you. You don't have to dictate letters to her, do you?"

"No such luck," Jimmy sighed. "She is the Chief's own particular property. Does a thousand words a minute and knits a jumper at the same time."

"Whom do you dictate your letters to?" Sarah demanded.

"To tell you the truth," Jimmy answered, falling on his c.o.c.ktail, "I haven't had any to write yet."

"What has your work been?" Lady Amesbury asked.

"Kind of superintending," the young man explained, "looking on at everything--getting the hang of it, you know."

"Are the other men there nice?" Sarah enquired.

"Well, we don't seem to have had much time for conversation yet," Jimmy replied, attacking his caviar like a man anxious to make up for lost time. "I heard one chap tell another that I'd come to give tone to the establishment, which seemed to me a pleasant and friendly way of looking at it."

"You didn't have any commissions yourself?" Sarah went on.

"Well, not exactly," Jimmy confessed. "About half an hour before I left, a lunatic with perspiration streaming down his face, and no hat, threw himself into my room. 'I'll buy B. & I.'s,' he shouted. 'I'll buy B. & I.'s!'"

"What did you do?" Wingate enquired with interest.

"I told him I hadn't got any," was the injured reply. "He went cut like a streak of damp lightning. I heard him kicking up an awful hullaballoo in the next office."

"Jimmy," Sarah said reproachfully, "that might have been your first client. You ought to have made a business of finding him some B. & I.'s."

"There might have been some in a drawer or somewhere," Lady Amesbury suggested.

"Distinct lack of enterprise," Kendrick put in. "You should have thrown yourself on the telephone and asked me if I'd got a few."

"Never thought of it," Jimmy confessed. "Live and learn. First day and all that sort of thing, you know. I tell you what," he went on, "all the excitement and that gives you an appet.i.te for your food."

The manager of the restaurant, on his way through the room, recognised Wingate and came to pay his respects.

"Did you hear about the little trouble over in the Court, Mr. Wingate?"

he enquired.

"No, I haven't heard anything," Wingate replied.

They all leaned a little forward. The manager included them in his confidence.