Part 29 (1/2)
”Did you catch her in the act?”
”Catch her! We've never been able to prove it against her yet, but the presumption's as strong as Hercules. She went to Brown's, and made him swear by all his G.o.ds that he knew nothing about it; then she made him open his safe, and went through all his private papers.”
”Brown must be a fine sort of a man.”
”She's a fine sort of a woman. She drugged me in my own house.”
”No?”
”I say yes! She came here one night. I offered her a little something to drink--I was having something to drink, and I couldn't see her sitting dry. I've no doubt that when my back was turned she put something into my gla.s.s which took away my senses in a flash. When I came to it was early morning; the daylight was streaming through the blinds; she was gone; the whole place was upside down.”
”You're a lawyer: didn't you give her a taste of the law?”
”What was the use? She'd pose as an injured woman--her grievance is real enough. We'd get no good; it might do us harm. The mischief is that she's got what she chooses to regard as some sort of groundwork for her suspicions. It's this way. She met the secretary of the Hardwood Company. The Hardwood Company's paid dividends averaging thirty per cent, ever since it started.
The fellow got friendly with her--as plenty of men do get within five minutes of their meeting her. He told her that only one original shareholder remained on their lists, and, since the shares rushed to a premium directly the issue was made, that therefore he was the only person who received the full benefit of the thirty per cent. He added that the shareholder's name was Grahame--Cuthbert Grahame (you may see her p.r.i.c.king her ears at that!)--and (she always leading him by the nose!) that the dividends had not been paid to him direct, but to his solicitors, Messrs. McTavish & Brown, of Southampton Row. He was a talkable body, that secretary man--men are apt to be talkative when she gets them alone with her in a corner. He told her something else: that the queerest part of the business was that while the shares still stood in Grahame's name, the dividends had remained unclaimed for quite a while, so that a considerable sum was waiting for some one to take it. The next morning she came to us running over with the story. Now I remembered those shares--an investment which returns thirty per cent, these hard times one has to remember. He had ten thousand of them; they were in our charge; we did collect the dividends. But one day he wrote asking us to send them to him, which we did do. My lady of course wanted proof. Do you know we couldn't give it her.”
”I don't see why.”
”Under ordinary circ.u.mstances nothing could have been simpler.
Such a thing has never before happened in the whole course of my experience, but by some infernal accident we couldn't lay our hands on either his letter of instructions, or his acknowledgment of receipt.”
”There was still the letter advising their despatch.”
”David, ever since that woman appeared on the scene we have been persecuted by a malignant fate.”
”Big words, Andrew, big words.”
”She moves me to them. On the day Grahame's letter came I happened to be going abroad. Brown sent a clerk here with his letter and the shares, so that I might check them and see that they were right. I packed the clerk back, and sent the shares myself; but in my haste--I was running the boat train pretty close!--I was idiot enough not to take a copy of my own letter, and what I did with Grahame's I have not the dimmest recollection.”
”Very unbusiness-like.”
”Don't I know it, man! Of course she declined to credit a word of the story; said that she believed it was a fabrication from beginning to end; and that she was more than ever convinced that she was dealing with a set of rogues. The climax is to come! The day after she had drugged me she came to my office, and produced a Hardwood Company's share, which she had the a.s.surance to a.s.sert that she had taken out of my own safe when I was in a state of unconsciousness!--think of it! She had taken it round to the Company's offices, and it had there been identified as one of the shares which were standing in Cuthbert Grahame's name.”
”Was it one of his shares?”
”It was, beyond a doubt.”
”And had she taken it out of your safe?”
”David, I can only tell you that she swore she had; and I'm bound to admit that if she hadn't, I don't know where she got it from. On the other hand, if she did I have not the vaguest notion how it got there. Plague take the thing!”
Mr. McTavish, emptying his liqueur gla.s.s, immediately refilled it.
”Don't you know what's in your own safe?”
”Do you take me for a feather-brain? I knew every trifle it contained, or thought I did. She says that she took up a bundle of papers, and that the share dropped out of one of them. If it did, no one knows less than I do who put it there. The only conclusion at which I can arrive is that, in returning the shares to Grahame, I overlooked one of them, and that, in my hurry, it got mixed up with some of the papers which I keep in my safe, and which were lying on my table at the time. Of all the evil chances that ever befel a man!”