CHAPTER IV

LAMBAIRE NEEDS A CHART

Lambaire had an office in the city, where he conducted a business. No man knew what the business was. There was a brass plate on the door which offered no solution other than that--

J. LAMBAIRE (and at Paris)

might be found within. He had callers, wrote and received letters, and disappeared at odd intervals, whither none knew, though “and at Paris” might be a plausible explanation.

Some said he was an agent, a vague description which might mean anything; others, a financier, though optimistic folk, with airy projects, requiring a substantial flotation, were considerably disappointed to find he had no money to spare for freakish and adventurous promotions.

So many strange people had offices in the city, with no apparent object, that Lambaire’s business did not form the subject of too close an inquiry.

It was announced that once upon a time he had financed an expedition to Central Africa, and if this were true, there was every reason for his presence at No. 1, Flair Lane, E.C. Other men had financed similar expeditions, had established themselves in similar offices, and, through the years, had waited for some return for the money they had spent. Such was a matter of history.

Yet Lambaire had a business, and a very profitable business. He was known by his bankers to be a silver broker, by yet another banker to possess an interest in the firm of Flithenstein & Borris, a firm of printers; he had shares in a line of tramp steamers which had gained an unenviable reputation in shipping circles; he was interested, if truth be told, in a hundred and one affairs, small and large, legitimate or shady.

He owned a horse or two; obliging horses that won when he backed them, and were at the wrong end of the course when he did not.

Two days following the hasty departure of Amber, he was in his office. It was the luncheon hour, and he pulled on his gloves slowly. A smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, and there was a satisfied twinkle in his eye.

His secretary stood expectantly by the desk, mechanically sorting a sheaf of notes.

Mr. Lambaire walked slowly to the heavy door of his private room, then paused, with a show of irresolution.

“Perhaps it would be better to write to-night,” he said dubiously. The secretary nodded, and depositing his papers on the desk, opened a note-book.

“Perhaps it would,” said Lambaire, as though questioning himself. “Yes, it might as well be done to-night.”

“Dear Sir” (he began, and the secretary scribbled furiously),--“Dear Sir, I have to acknowledge your letter _re_ Great Forest Diamond Mine. Full stop. I understand your--er--annoyance----”

“Impatience?” suggested the secretary.

“Impatience,” accepted the dictator, “but the work is going forward. Full stop. Regarding your offer to take up further shares, comma, I have to inform you that my Board are--are----”

“Is,” corrected the secretary.

“Is,” continued Mr. Lambaire, “prepared to allow you the privilege, subject to the approval of our----”

“Its,” said the secretary.

“Its brokers. Yours faithfully.”

Lambaire lit a cigar.

“How’s that?” he asked jovially.

“Very good, sir,” said the secretary, rubbing his hands, “a good thing for the Board----”

“For me,” said Mr. Lambaire, without embarrassment.

“I said the _Board_,” said the pale-faced secretary, and chuckled at the subtlety of the humour.

Something was pleasing Lambaire to-day, and the secretary took advantage of the spell of good humour.

“About this letter; there have been all sorts of people here to-day,” he said suggestively, and Lambaire, once more on his way to the door, looked round sharply.

“What the devil do you mean, Grene?” he demanded, all the joviality wiped from his face.

His subordinate shifted uneasily; he was on a delicate topic. Lambaire trusted him to a point; it was safe that he should confess his knowledge of Lambaire’s affairs--up to that point.

“It is this African affair,” said the clerk.

Lambaire stood by the door, his head sunk in thought.

“I suppose you told them----?”

“I told them the usual yarn--that our surveyor was visiting the property, and that we expected to hear from him soon. One chap--Buxteds’ clerk--got a bit cheeky, and I----” he hesitated.

“Yes, and----?”

“He said he didn’t believe we knew where the mine was ourselves.”

Lambaire’s smile was a trifle forced.

“Ridiculous,” he said, without any great heartiness. “As if one could float a diamond mining company without knowing where the property is--absurd, isn’t it, Grene?”

“Very, sir,” said the secretary politely.

Lambaire still stood by the door.

“The map was in the prospectus, the mine is just on the edge--Etruri Forest--isn’t that the name?”

The secretary nodded, watching him.

“Buxteds’ man, eh?” Lambaire was perturbed, for Buxteds are the shadiest and the sharpest solicitors in London, and they did not love him.

“If Buxteds get to know,” he stopped--“what I mean is that if Buxteds thought they could blackmail me----”

He went out, thinking deeply.

There is nothing quite as foolish as floating a company, and by specious advertising to attract the money of the speculating public, when the very _raison d’être_ of the company is non-existent. If there is one thing in the world that is necessary for the prosperity of a diamond mining company it is a diamond mine, and there were reasons why that couldn’t be included in the assets of the company. The first reason was that Lambaire did not know within a hundred leagues where the property was situated; the second--and one not without importance--he possessed no certain knowledge that he had the right to dispose of the property, even if he knew where it was.

Yet Lambaire was not the type of enthusiast who floats diamond mines on no more solid basis than his optimism. To be perfectly candid, the Great Forest Diamond Mining Company had come into existence at a period when his cash balance was extremely low; for all the multiplicity of his interests, such periods of depression came to him. It may be said of him, as it was said, that he did not go to allotment until he realized that there was some doubt about the possibility of ever discovering this mine of his.

That it was a dream mine, the merest rumour of an Eldorado, unconfirmed save by the ravings of a dying man, and a chart which he did not possess, and by no means could secure, he did not admit in the florid little prospectus which was distributed privately, but thoroughly, to the easy investors of Britain. Rather he suggested that the mine was located and its rights acquired. The prospectus had dealt vaguely with “certain difficulties of transport which the company would overcome,” and at the end came a learned and technical report from the “resident engineer” (no name), who spoke of garnets, and “pipes,” and contained all the conversational terminology of such reports.

No attempt need be made to disguise the fact that Lambaire was without scruple. Few men are wholly bad, but, reading his record, one is inclined to the judgment that such good seed as humanity had implanted within him never germinated.

He had descended to the little vestibule of the building, and was stepping into the street without, when a taxi-cab drove up and deposited the dapper Whitey.

“I want you,” he piped.

Lambaire frowned.

“I haven’t any time----” he began.

“Come back,” urged Whitey, catching his arm, “come back into the office; I’ve got something important to say to you.”

Reluctantly the big man retraced his steps.

Mr. Secretary Grene had a narrow shave, for he was examining a private drawer of his employers when the footsteps of the men sounded in the stone-flagged corridor without.

With an agility and deftness that would have delighted Lambaire, had these qualities been exercised on his behalf, instead of being to his detriment, the secretary closed and locked the drawer with one motion, slipped the key into his pocket, and was busily engaged in reading his notes when the two entered.

“You can go, Grene,” said Lambaire. “I’ve got a little business to transact with Mr. White--have your lunch and come back in half an hour.”

When the door had closed on the secretary, Lambaire turned to the other.

“Well?” he demanded.

Whitey had taken the most comfortable chair in the room, and had crossed his elegantly cased legs. He had the pleasant air of one who by reason of superior knowledge was master of the situation.

“When you have finished looking like a smirking jackass, perhaps you will tell me why you have made me postpone my lunch,” said Lambaire unpleasantly.

Whitey’s legs uncurled, and he sat up.

“This is news, Lambaire,” his impressive hand upraised emphasized the importance of the communication he had to convey.

“It’s an idea and news together,” he said. “I’ve seen the Suttons.”

Lambaire nodded. The audacity of Whitey was a constant surprise to him, but it was the big man’s practice never to betray that surprise.

Whitey was obviously disappointed that his great tidings had fallen so flat.

“You take a dashed lot for granted,” he grumbled. “I’ve seen the Suttons, Lambaire--seen ’em after the affair at the Whistlers; it wanted a bit of doing.”

“You’re a good chap, Whitey,” soothed Lambaire, “a wonderful chap; well?”

“Well,” said the ruffled man in the chair, “I had a talk with the boy--very sulky, very sulky, Lambaire; huffy, didn’t want to have any truck with me; and his sister--phew!”

He raised his two hands, palms outwards, as he recalled the trying interview.

“She gave me the Ice,” he said earnestly, “she was Cold--she was Zezo; talking to her, Lambaire, was like sitting in a draught! Br-r!”

He shivered.

“Well, what about the boy?”

Whitey smiled slyly.

“Huffish, haughty, go to--you know where--but reasonable. He’s got the hang of the Whistler. It was like catching a kicked cat to get him back. He put on his dam’ Oxford and Eton dressing--haw--haw!--_you_ know the voice. Awfully sorry, but the acquaintance had better drop--he’d made a mistake; no thank you, let the matter drop; good morning, mind the step.”

Whitey was an indifferent mimic, but he conveyed the sense of the interview. “But he couldn’t shake me--I was a sticker, I was the boy on the burning deck; he opened the door for me to go out, and I admired his geraniums; he rang the bell for a servant, and I said I didn’t mind if I did; he fumed and fretted, walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets; he told me what he thought of me and what he thought of you.”

“What does he think of me?” said Lambaire quickly.

“I’d rather not say,” said Whitey, “you’d be flattered--I don’t think. He thinks you are a gentleman--no! Don’t mind about a trifle like that. I sat down and argued with him. He said you were evidently the worst kind of waster.”

“What did you say to that?” demanded Lambaire with a frown.

“I denied that,” said Whitey virtuously; “not the worst kind, I said; anyway, the interview ended by his promising to come up here this afternoon.”

Lambaire paced the room in thought.

“What good will that do?” he asked.

Whitey raised imploring eyes to heaven.

“Hear me,” he said, addressing an invisible deity. “Hark to him. I spend all the morning working for him, and he wants to know what is the good.” He got up slowly and polished his hat with his sleeve.

“Here, don’t go,” said Lambaire. “I want to know a lot more. Now, what is he prepared to do?”

“Look here, Lambaire.” Whitey dropped all pretence at deference and geniality, and turned on the other with a snarl. “This kid can get at the chart. This diamond mine of ours has got to be more tangible than it is at present or there is going to be trouble; things are going rotten, and you know it.”

“And suppose he won’t part with it?”

“It is not a question of his parting with it,” said Whitey; “he hasn’t got it; it is his sister who has it. He’s his father’s son, you’ve got to remember that. You can bet that somewhere, tucked away out of sight inside him, he’s got the old adventure blood; these sort of things don’t die out. Look at me; my father was a----”

“Don’t get off the subject,” said Lambaire impatiently. “What are you driving at, Whitey? What does it matter to me whether he’s got adventure blood, or lunatic blood, or any other kind of blood--he’s got the chart that his father made, that was found on him when he died and was sent to the daughter by some fool of a Commissioner--eh? _That’s_ what we want!”

He rose jerkily, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and peeked his head forward, a mannerism of his when he was excited.

Though nominally Whitey was Lambaire’s jackal, runner, general man of affairs and dependant, it was easy to see that the big man stood in some fear of his servant, and that there were moments when Whitey took charge and was not to be lightly ignored. Now it was that he was the bully, and overbearing, masterful director of things. With his high thin voice, his vehemence as he hissed and spluttered, he was a little uncanny, terrifying. He possessed a curious vocabulary, and strangely unfamiliar figures of speech. To illustrate his meaning he brought vivid if incongruous picture words to his aid. Sometimes they were undisguised slang words, culled from other lands--Whitey was something of a traveller and had cosmopolitan tastes.

“You’re a Shining Red Light, Lambaire,” he went on in furious flow of words. “People are getting out of your road; the Diamond business has got to be settled _at once_. Let people get busy, and they won’t be content with finding out that the mine is minus; they’ll want to know about the silver business and the printing business, and they’ll put two and two together--d’ye see that? You was a fool ever to tackle the diamond game. It was the only straight deal you was ever in, but you didn’t work it straight. If you had, you’d have got Sutton back alive; but no, you must have a funny compass, so that he could find the mine and make a chart of the road and only you could find it! Oh, you’re a Hog of Cleverness, but you’ve overdone it!”

He grew a little calmer.

“Now look here,” he went on, “young Sutton’s coming to-day, and you’ve got to be Amiable; you’ve got to be Honest; you’ve got to be Engaging; you’ve got to Up and say--‘Look here, old man, let’s put all our cards on the table----’”

“I’ll be cursed if I do,” snapped Lambaire; “you’re mad, Whitey. What do you think I’m----”

“All the cards on the table,” repeated Whitey slowly, and rapped the desk with his bony knuckles to point each word, “your own pack, Lambaire; you’ve got to say, ‘Look here, old son, let’s understand one another; the fact of the matter is, etc., etc.’”

What the etc. was Whitey explained in the course of a heated, caustic and noisy five minutes.

At the end of that time Grene appeared on the scene, and the conversation came to an abrupt finish.

“Three o’clock,” said Whitey, at the bottom of the stairs, “you play your cards well, and you get yourself out of a nasty mess.”

Lambaire grunted an ungracious rejoinder and they parted.

It was a different Whitey who made an appearance at the appointed hour. An urbane, deferential, unruffled man, who piloted a youth to the office of J. Lambaire.

Francis Sutton was a good-looking boy, though the scowl that he thought it necessary to wear for the occasion disfigured him.

Yet he had a grievance, or the shreds of one, for he had the uncomfortable feeling that he had been tricked and made a fool of, and generally ill-treated.

It had been made clear to him that when that man of the world, Lambaire, had showed a preference for his society, had invited him to dinner, and had introduced him more than once to the Whistlers, it was not because the “financier” had taken a sudden fancy to him--not even because Lambaire had known his father in some far-off time--but because Lambaire wanted to get something out of him.

By what means of realization this had come to him it is no province of mine to say. The sweetest, the dearest, the most tender of woman being human, for all her fragrant qualities, may, in some private moment, be sufficiently human to administer a rebuke in language sufficiently convincing to bring a foolish young man to his senses.

The scowl was on his face when he came into Lambaire’s private office. Lambaire was sitting at his big desk, which was littered with the mechanism of commerce to an unusual extent. There was a fat account-book open on the table before him, letters lay stacked in piles on either hand, and his secretary sat, with open note-book, by his side.

An imposing cheque-book was displayed before him, and he was very busy indeed when Whitey ushered his charge into this hive of industry.

“Ah, Mr. Sutton!” he said, answering with a genial smile the curt nod of the other, “glad to see you. Make Mr. Sutton comfortable, White--I’ve one or two things to finish off.”

“Perhaps,” said the young man, relaxing a little, “if I came a little later----?”

“Not at all, not at all.”

Lambaire dismissed the supposition that he was too deeply employed to see him at once with a wave of the hand.

“Sit down,” he pleaded, “only for one moment. Are you ready, Grene?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dear sir,” dictated Lambaire, leaning back in his padded chair, “we have pleasure in enclosing a cheque for four thousand six hundred and twenty-five pounds seven and fourpence, in payment of half-yearly dividends. Full stop. We regret that we were not able to allot you any shares in our new issue; the flotation was twenty times over subscribed. Yours, etc. Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” said the unmoved Grene.

Could this be the adventurer his sister had pictured? thought the young man. Would a man of this type stoop to lure him to a gaming-house for the gain of his few hundreds!

“Send a cheque to Cautts--how much is it?” said Lambaire.

“About six thousand,” said Grene at random.

“And pay that little account of mine at Fells--it’s about four hundred--these wretched little wine bills mount up.”

The latter portion of the sentence was addressed to Sutton, who found himself smiling sympathetically. As for Whitey, he was one benign grin.

“Now I think that is all,” and Lambaire fluttered a few papers. “Oh, here is a letter from S----” He handed what was in reality a peremptory demand for the payment of the very wine bill to which he referred to Grene.

“Tell him I am sorry I cannot go to Cowes with him--I hate strange yachts, and unfortunately,” this to the young man and with a smile of protest, “I cannot afford to keep my yacht as I did a few years ago. Now.” He swung round in his seat as the door closed behind Grene.

“Now, Mr. Sutton, I want a straight talk with you; you don’t mind White being here, do you? He’s my confidant in most matters.”

“I don’t mind anybody,” said the youth, though he was obviously ill at ease, not knowing exactly what was the object of the interview.

Lambaire toyed with a celluloid ruler before he began.

“Mr. Sutton,” he said slowly, “you were at school, I think, when your father went to West Africa?”

“I was going up to Oxford,” said the boy quickly.

Lambaire nodded.

“You know I equipped the expedition that had such an unfortunate ending?”

“I understood you had something to do with it.”

“I had,” said Lambaire; “it cost me--however, that has nothing to do with the matter. Now, Mr. Sutton, I am going to be frank with you. You are under the impression that I sought your acquaintance with some ulterior motive. You need not deny it; I had a--a----”

“Hunch,” said the silent Whitey suddenly.

“I had what Mr. White calls a ‘hunch’ that this was so. I know human nature very well, Mr. Sutton; and when a man thinks badly of me, I know the fact instinctively.”

To be exact, the intuition of Mr. Lambaire had less to do with his prescience than the information Whitey had been able to supply.

“Mr. Sutton, I’m not going to deny that I did have an ulterior motive in seeking your society.” Lambaire leant forward, his hands on his knees, and was very earnest. “When your father----”

“Poor father,” murmured Whitey.

“When your poor father died, a chart of his wanderings, showing the route he took, was sent to you, or rather to your sister, she being the elder. It was only by accident, during the past year, that I heard of the existence of that chart and I wrote to your sister for it.”

“As I understand it, Mr. Lambaire,” said Sutton, “you made no attempt to seek us out after my father’s death; though you were in no sense responsible for his fate, my sister felt that you might have troubled yourself to discover what was happening to those who were suddenly orphaned through the expedition.”

This tall youth, with his clear-cut effeminate face, had a mouth that drooped a little weakly. He was speaking now with the assurance of one who had known all the facts on which he spoke for years, yet it was the fact that until that morning, when his sister had given him some insight into the character of the man she distrusted, he had known nothing of the circumstances attending his father’s death.

All the time he spoke Lambaire was shaking his head slowly, in melancholy protest at the injustice.

“No, no, no,” he said, when the other had finished, “you’re wrong, Mr. Sutton--I was ill at the time; I knew that you were all well off----”

“Ahem!” coughed Whitey, and Lambaire realized that he had made a mistake.

“So far from being well off--however, that is unimportant; it was only last year that, by the death of an uncle, we inherited--but rich or poor, that is beside the question.”

“It is indeed,” said Lambaire heartily. He was anxious to get away from ground that was palpably dangerous. “I want to finish what I had to say. Your sister refused us the chart; well and good, we do not quarrel with her, we do not wish to take the matter to law; we say ‘very good--we will leave the matter,’ although”--he wagged his finger at the boy solemnly--“although it is a very serious matter for me, having floated----”

“Owing to your wishing to float,” said Whitey softly.

“I should say wishing to float a company on the strength of the chart; still, I say, ‘if the young lady feels that way, I’m sorry--I won’t bother her’; then an idea struck me!” He paused dramatically. “An idea struck me--the mine which your father went to seek is still undiscovered; even with your chart, to which, by the way, I do not attach a great deal of importance----”

“It is practically of no value except to the owner,” interrupted Whitey.

“No value whatever,” agreed Lambaire; “even with the chart, any man who started out to hunt for my mine would miss it--what is required is--is----”

“The exploring spirit,” Whitey put in.

“The exploring spirit, born and bred in the bones of the man who goes out to find it. Mr. Sutton,” Lambaire rose awkwardly, for he was heavily built, “when I said I sought you from ulterior motives, I spoke the truth. I was trying to discover whether you were the man to carry on your father’s work--Mr. Sutton, you are!”

He said this impressively, dramatically, and the boy flushed with pleasure.

He would have been less than human if the prospect of such an expedition as Lambaire’s words suggested did not appeal to him. Physically and mentally he bore no resemblance to Sutton the explorer, the man of many expeditions, but there was something of his father’s intense curiosity in his composition, a curiosity which lies at the root of all enterprise.

In that moment all the warnings of his sister were unheeded, forgotten. The picture of the man she had drawn faded from his mind, and all he saw in Lambaire was a benefactor, a patron, and a large-minded man of business. He saw things more clearly (so he told himself) without prejudice (so he could tell his sister); these things had to be looked at evenly, calmly. The past, with the privations, which, thanks to his sister’s almost motherly care and self-sacrifice, he had not known or felt, was dead.

“I--I hardly know what to say,” he stammered; “of course I should like to carry on my father’s work most awfully--I’ve always been very keen on that sort of thing, exploring and all that....”

He was breathless at the prospect which had unexpectedly been opened up to him. When Lambaire extended a large white hand, he grasped and shook it gratefully--he, who had come firm in the resolve to finally end the acquaintance.

“He’s butter,” said Whitey afterwards; “keep him away from the Ice and he’s Dead Easy ... it’s the Ice that’s the difficulty.”

He shook his head doubtfully.