Thorpe's Company, upon its commercial merits, had not been considered at all by the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, at the time of its flotation. Men vaguely and with difficulty recalled the fact of its prospectus, when the "corner" in its shares was first talked about.
They looked it up in their lists and files, later on, but its terms said nothing to them. Nobody discussed the value of the assets owned by this Company, or the probability of its paying a dividend--even when the price bid for its shares was making the most sensational upward leaps. How Thorpe stood with his shareholders, or whether he had any genuine shareholders behind him at all, was seen by the keen eyes of Capel Court to be beside the question. Very likely it was a queer affair, if the truth were known--but at least it had substance enough in it to be giving the "wreckers" a lively time.
By the end of July it was understood that the fight was better worth watching than anything that had been seen in a long time. The only trouble was that there was so little to see. The papers said nothing.
The sufferers were the reverse of garrulous. The little red Scotchman, Semple, who was the visible avenging sword of the "corner," was more imperturbably silent than anybody else. His fellow-members in the "House" watched him now, however, with a new respect. They discovered unsuspected elements of power in his thin, tight mouth, in the direct, cold glances of his brown-grey eyes, in the very way he carried his head and wore his hat.
He came to be pointed out, and nodded about behind his back, more than anyone else in the "House," and important men sought his acquaintance, with an awkward show of civility, who were notorious for their rude exclusiveness.
It might be, of course, that his "corner" would break under him at any fortnightly settlement, but already he had carried it much further than such things often went, and the planning of the coup had been beyond doubt Napoleonic.
Had this small sandy Scot planned it, or was he merely the weapon in Thorpe's hand? Both views had their supporters on the Exchange, but after the wrench of August 1st, when with an abrupt eighty-shilling rise the price of Rubber Consols stood at 15 pounds, and it was to be computed that Semple had received on that single day nearly 75,000 pounds in differences and "backwardation," a story was set afloat which gave Thorpe the undivided credit of the invention.
It was related as coming from his own lips that he had schemed it all out to be revenged upon a group of Jewish operators, against whom he had a grievance.
In confirmation of this tale, it was pointed out that, of the seven men still held pinned in the fatal "corner," six were Jews--and this did, upon first glance, look significant.
But then it was objected, upon reflection, that Blaustein and Ascher had both been permitted to make their escape, and this hardly justified the theory of an implacable anti-Semitic vendetta. The objection seemed reasonable, but it was met in turn by the point that Blaustein and Ascher had been bled white, as Bismarck's phrase went, before they were released, whereas the five Christians had been liberated with relatively moderate fines.
Upon the whole, a certain odour of the Judenhetze clung thereafter about the "corner" in Rubber Consols.
On an afternoon of the following week, Mr. Stormont Thorpe was alone in the Board Room of the offices in Austin Friars.
He had risen from the great roller-topped desk over between the windows, and walked now with a lethargic, tired step to and fro before the empty fireplace, yawning more than once, and stretching out his arms in the supreme gesture of fatigue. After a dozen listless rounds, something occurred to him. He moved with a certain directness of purpose to the cabinet in the corner, unlocked it, and poured out for himself a tumbler of brandy and soda.
He drank it without a pause, then turned again, and began pacing up and down as before, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent in thought.
The intervening six months had effected visible changes in the outer man. One noted most readily that the face had grown fuller in its lower parts, and was far less browned than formerly. The large, heavy countenance, with its square jaws masked now under increased flesh, its beginnings of a double-chin, and its slightly flabby effect of pallor, was no longer lacking in individual distinction.
It was palpably the visage of a dictator. The moustache had been cut down to military brevity, and the line of mouth below it was eloquent of rough power. The steady grey eyes, seemingly smaller yet more conspicuous than before, revealed in their glance new elements of secretiveness, of strategy supported by abundant and confident personal force.
The man himself seemed scarcely to have grown stouter.
He held himself more compactly, as it were; seemed more the master of all his physical expressions. He was dressed like a magnate who was also a person of taste.
There was a flower in the lapel of his well-shaped frock-coat, and the rustle of his starched and spotless white waistcoat murmured pleasantly of refined toilets.
"The Marquis of Chaldon--and a gentleman, with him."The announcement, from a clerk who had noiselessly opened the door, imposed itself with decorum upon Thorpe's reverie.
"Who is the gentleman with him?" Thorpe began austerely to ask, after an instant's hesitation. But this briefest of delays had brought the callers into plain view behind the clerk, and with a slight gesture the master assented to their entrance.
This large apartment was no longer called the Board Room by anybody. By tacit processes, it had become Mr. Thorpe's room. Not even the titular Chairman of the Company, the renowned and eminent Lord Chaldon, ex-Ambassador and ex-Viceroy, entered this chamber now with any assumption of proprietorship in it.
