MR. ALFRED CARTWRIGHT had the enviable faculty of placing outside of his mind all subjects and persons which were unpleasant to think upon. Possessing this power, he could as lightly dismiss the memory of responsibilities, pleasant or unpleasant. He had scarcely left London before he had waived Master T. A. C. Anderson into oblivion. To do him justice, he had certainly speculated vaguely upon assuring his cousin’s future; but his mind was so completely occupied with his own that there was really not room for both—and Take A Chance Anderson had to go. He reached Paris by the evening train, and drove straight to the apartment he had taken for his new protégé. He found her installed in a very comfortable flat on the unfashionable side of the Seine, and was welcomed with relief.
Miss Sadie O’Grady had not entirely overcome her suspicions of the bona fides of her newfound acquaintance. Yet, since he had not made love to her, but, on the contrary, had made it very clear that the part he expected her to play in his schemes involved no loss of self-respect, she was becoming reconciled to a relationship which, to say the least, was a strange one. She had established herself in a third-floor office on one of the boulevards, an uncomfortable and unaccustomed figure in an environment which was wholly foreign to her experience, though there was no need for her embarrassment, since she constituted the whole of the staff, and the callers were confined to the postman and the concierge who acted as office-cleaner.
She was to learn, however, that a daily attendance at her “bureau” did not constitute the whole of her duties, or fulfil all Cartwright’s requirements.
It was not until after dinner that night that Cartwright revealed himself.
“Sadie, my young friend,” he said, between puffs of his cigar, “I am going to tell you just what I want you to do.”
“I thought I knew,” she said, on her guard, and he laughed softly.
“You’ll never quite know what I want you to do,” he said frankly, “until I tell you. Now, I’m putting it to you very straight. I want nothing from you except service. And the service I require is of a kind which you need not hesitate to give me. You’re an actress, and I can speak to you more plainly than I could to some unsophisticated girl.”
She wondered what was coming, but had not long to wait.
“I will tell you something,” he said, “which is really more important than my name, about which you showed so much curiosity. There is a man in this city whom I want to get at.”
“How do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“He is a man who has it in his power to ruin me—a drunken sot of a fellow, without brain or imagination.”
He went on to explain briefly that he himself was a company promoter, and that he had an interest in a mine, as yet unproved, in Morocco.
“That is why you were there?” she nodded.
“That is exactly why,” replied Cartwright. “Unfortunately, right in the midst of the ground which I have either bought or secured mineral rights over, is a block of land which is the property of this man. He is a Spaniard—do you speak Spanish?”
“A little,” she admitted, “but it is precious little!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cartwright shook his head. “He speaks English very well. Now, this land is absolutely valueless to the man, but every attempt I have made to buy it has been unsuccessful, and it is vitally necessary at this moment, when I am floating a company to develop the property, that his claims should be included in my properties.”
“What is his name?” asked the girl.
“Brigot,” replied Cartwright.
“Brigot?” repeated Sadie O’Grady thoughtfully. “I seem to have heard that name before.”
“It is pretty common in France, but not so common in Spain,” said Mr. Cartwright.
“And what am I to do?” asked the girl again.
“I will get you an introduction to him,” said Cartwright; “he’s a man with a fine eye for beauty, and in the hands of a clever girl could be wound round her little finger.”
The girl nodded.
“I see what you mean,” she said, “but nothing doing!”
“Wait!” said Cartwright. “I have told you that it is necessary for me to acquire this property. I am taking you into my confidence, and I know that you will respect that confidence. I am willing to pay any reasonable sum, and I neither want you to steal it nor make any personal sacrifice to serve my ends. I am willing to pay, and pay heavily.”
“What do you call heavily?” asked the girl coolly.
“For the property twenty thousand—for you ten thousand pounds,” suggested Cartwright, and the girl nodded.
“That’s got me,” she said. “Tell me what your plan is.”
“My plan is this,” said Cartwright. “You will appear to Se?or Brigot—I will arrange that—as a wealthy young American lady who has been spending the winter in Morocco. His property follows a little wooded hill, one of the prettiest formations of its kind in the Angera country. You must rave about that hill, never cease speaking of its beauty and its attractiveness; and you must tell him that you would give anything in the world if you could build a house amidst that beautiful scenery—do you understand me?”
The girl nodded again.
“Brigot is a man somewhat susceptible to feminine charms,” Cartwright went on, “and, unless I am greatly mistaken, he will in one of his obliging moods, offer you the land at a nominal figure, particularly as he has been bitterly disappointed in his attempt to find gold.”
“I don’t like it,” said the girl after consideration. “You promised me that if I came to Paris you would get me a job in one of the theatres. That is what I am after, and the only thing I am fit for. The other business doesn’t seem decent——”
“Ten thousand pounds!” murmured Cartwright.
“It is a lot,” agreed the girl, “but how am I coming out of this business? I come out hopelessly compromised.”
Cartwright shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
“My dear girl——” he began.
“Wait a moment,” she said quietly; “let’s have a clear understanding. You don’t expect me to walk up to Se?or Brigot the first time I meet him, or even the second, and say: ‘You’ve a very nice property. What will you sell it for?’ That is not the kind of transaction you expect me to conduct, is it?”
“Not exactly,” admitted Cartwright.
“It means just a little more than you say,” said the girl; “it means dinners and suppers and hand-holdings and stringing him along. And after it is all over, where am I? I’ve got as much respect for my character as you have for yours, Mr. Mysterious. I want to come out well in this business as you do, and I don’t want to leave my name behind, or be known in Paris—which is the world—as a decoy duck. I’d do an awful lot to please you, because I like you and because you’ve been decent to me. But ‘an awful lot’ does not mean making me so cheap that I am left in the slightly-soiled basket. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Perfectly,” said Cartwright, amazed at the girl’s cool reasoning. He had not given her credit for any of these fine sentiments she now enunciated, and he was piqued, and at the same time a little pleased.
“When you said you’d give me ten thousand pounds,” said the girl, “that sounded good. But it is not good enough. I’ve an idea in the back of my mind that the matter is a much bigger one for you than you’ve told me.”
“How big do you imagine?” bantered Cartwright.
“I think it is big enough to ruin you,” said the girl calmly, “and that you’d be willing to pay any price to get this property. Otherwise, you’d go to the man or send your lawyer in the ordinary way. Now, I don’t want your ten thousand pounds, but I’m going to make a proposition to you. I’ve said I like you and that’s no more than the truth. You told me you were a bachelor and I’ve told you that I’m man-free and heart-free. I don’t say I love you, and I don’t flatter myself that you love me. But if you want this thing to go through, and if you want me to go down in the mud to get it, you’ve got to pay the price——”
“And the price is——?” asked Cartwright curiously.
“You’ve got to marry me,” said the girl.
“Well, I’m——” Cartwright could only gasp his admiration; and then he began to laugh, at first quietly, and then, as the humour of the situation gained upon him, so loudly that the other patrons of the Café Scribe turned to look at him.
“It is a rum idea,” he said, “but——”
“But?” she repeated, keeping her eyes on his.
He nodded to her.
“It’s a bargain!” he said.
She looked at him as she put out her hand and took his, and slowly shook her head.
“My!” she said. “You want that fellow’s land pretty badly, I know!” and Cartwright began to laugh again.
Se?or Brigot lived in some style for a man who was on the verge of ruin. He had a small house at Maisons Lafitte and a flat on the Boulevard Webber. He was a heavy, tired-looking man, with a dark moustache, obviously dyed, and a short beard, bearing evidence of the same attention. M. Brigot, like Mr. Cartwright, had many interests; but his chief interests were his own tastes and predilections. It was Se?or Brigot’s boast that, although he had lived for twenty years in Paris, he had never seen Paris between the hours of six in the morning and one in the afternoon. His breakfast hour was two o’clock. By six o’clock in the evening he was becoming interested in life; and at the hour when most people retire to rest, he was in the prime of his day.
It happened on a certain evening that M. Brigot, who usually met dinner in an amicable frame of mind, sat down at his favourite table at the Abbaye with a big frown, and answered the polite ma?tre d’h?tel’s cheery “Good evening” with a snarl.
Amongst his many enterprises and few possessions, and this Mr. Cartwright did not know, was the proprietorship and management of a small, ramshackle wooden theatre in the town of Tangier. He was likewise interested in several cabarets throughout Spain. But what pained him most at the moment was not distressing reports from any of these, but a six-page letter received that afternoon from his son, in which the hope of the house of Brigot had explained his reasons for discharging immediately a very necessary servant. Therefore Se?or Brigot swore under his breath and cursed his first-born.
Coincident with the arrival of the letter had come one Jose Ferreira, who had been detained for a week at Madrid. Se?or Brigot’s mind was occupied with Jose Ferreira when that worthy, smirking apologetically, as though conscious of the shabbiness of his dress-clothes, sidled into a seat on the opposite side of the table. Se?or Brigot glared at him a moment, and Jose Ferreira shifted uneasily in his chair.
“If you had telegraphed to me, I would have settled the matter,” said Brigot, as though carrying on a conversation which he had broken off a few minutes before. “Instead, like the fool you are, you come all the way to Paris, wasting your time in Madrid, and the first I hear of the matter is from my son.”
“It was deplorable,” murmured Jose, “but Don Brigot——”
“Don Brigot!” sneered the father of that worthy. “Don Brigot is a monkey! Why did you take notice of him? Have you nothing else to do in Tangier but to look after that flea-ridden theatre? Have you no other duties?”
“The young se?or was emphatic,” murmured the apologetic Jose. “He demanded that I should leave and what could I do?”
Brigot grunted something uncomplimentary. Whether it was intended for his son or for Ferreira, it was difficult to say. Ferreira was content to take it to himself.
Half-way through the dinner Brigot became more human.
“There will always be quarrels about women, my good Jose, and it is your business to be diplomatic,” he said. “My son is a fool; but then, all young men are fools. Why should you neglect my interests because Emanuel is a bigger fool than ever? Only this week I intended travelling to Tangier with the representative of a very rich syndicate who wishes to buy my land.”
“The same se?or as before?” asked the interested Jose, who was not only the manager of Tangier’s theatre, but was also the representative of the rusty little gold-mining company which Brigot had floated.
The other nodded.
“The same cursed Englishman,” he said.
Quite unconscious of the fact that his master was cursing the very man whom Jose had most recently cursed, the little man smiled sympathetically.
“I also have a hatred of the English,” he said. “With what insolence do they treat one!”
For some time M. Brigot sat in silence, but presently he wiped his mouth on his napkin, tossed down a tumbler of red wine, and crooked his finger at his companion, inviting closer attention.
“In a day, or perhaps two, I shall send you back to Tangier,” he said.
“The theatre?” began Jose.
“The theatre—bah!” exclaimed the other scornfully. “A donkey-driver could look after the theatre! It is the mine!”
“The mine?” repeated the other in some astonishment.
So long had it been since a spade had been put to the ground, so long had those hopes of Brigot’s been apparently dead, that the very word “mine” had ceased to be employed when referring to the property.
“My Englishman will buy it,” said Brigot confidently. “I happen to know that he has taken up property in the neighbourhood, and he has already made me an offer. But such an offer! He shall pay my price, Jose,” he said, nodding as he picked his teeth, “and it will be a big price, because it is desirable that I should have money.”
Jose did not ask the price, but his employer saved him the trouble.
“Five million pesetas,” he said confidently; “for such a price the property will be sold, always providing, my friend, that we do not discover gold before the sale.”
Jose smiled weakly, a circumstance which seemed to annoy his companion.
“You are a fool,” said Brigot irritably; “you have no brains! You think that is a preposterous sum? Wait!”
When his subordinate’s dinner was finished, Jose was dismissed peremptorily. Brigot had a round of calls to make, a succession of people to be visited; and whilst he might interview the little man at dinner without losing caste, he had no desire to take him round to his usual haunts.
It was at the Abbaye at that golden hour when the price of wine soars and all that is smartest in Paris is assembled in the big saloon, that M. Brigot, who had reached a stage of geniality, met an entrancing vision. Brigot saw the girl and her cavalier at one of the tables, and recognised in the latter a well-known man about town. The latter caught his eye and walked across to him.
“Who is your charming companion?” whispered Brigot, whose failing was, as Cartwright accurately surmised, a weakness for pretty faces.
“She is an American lady who has just come from Morocco,” said the other glibly.
Cartwright had chosen Sadie O’Grady’s companion very well. In a few minutes Brigot had crossed to the other table and taken a seat, was introduced, and was in that pleasant glow of mind which comes to the man of his class who is conscious of having made an impression.
This “American widow,” with her queer, broken French, her beautiful eyes, and the charming distinction which goes best with good clothes, was more lovely than any woman he had ever met—so he swore to himself, as he had sworn before. The friendship progressed from day to day, and so great was the impression which the girl had made, that Brigot was seen abroad at most unusual hours.
The patient Jose Ferreira was despatched on a mission to Madrid, partly because Brigot was tired of seeing him hanging about, and partly because there was some genuine business to be done in the capital.
Sadie reported progress to her employer.
“Oh, yes, he’s crazy enough about me,” she said complacently, “and I’m going a little crazy myself. How long is this to go on?”
“Another week?” suggested Cartwright, smiling approvingly at the gloom on the pretty face. “Have you mentioned the fact that you’ve taken a fancy to his land?”
She nodded.
“He wanted to give it to me there and then,” she said, “but you know what these Spaniards are. If I had accepted, there would have been nothing for me but the front door.”
“Quite right,” agreed Cartwright. “He is the kind of fish you must play. Did he say anything about other offers he had received for the property?”
The girl nodded.
“He spoke about you,” she said; “he called you Benson—is that your real name?”
“It is good enough,” said Cartwright.
“It is queer,” mused the girl, looking at him thoughtfully, “that I never meet any of your friends in Paris, and that nobody knows you—by name. I went down to your flat on the Avenue of the Grand Army,” she confessed frankly, “and asked the concierge. You’re Benson there too.”
Cartwright chuckled.
“In my business,” he said, “it is necessary that one should be discreet. The name which goes in London is not good enough for Paris. And vice versa,” he added.
“You’re a strange man. I suppose if you marry me in the name of Benson it will be legal?” she asked dubiously.
“Of course it will be legal. I’m surprised at a girl of your intelligence asking such a question,” said Cartwright. “What is the programme for to-night?”
She pulled a little face.
“The Marigny and supper at Corbets—supper in a private dining-room.”
He nodded.
“So it’s come to that, has it? Well, you ought to make good to-night, Sadie. Remember, I am willing to pay up to fifty thousand pounds. It is going to be a tough job raising that money, and it will break my heart to pay it. But it will not only break my heart, but it will break me everlastingly and confoundedly to pay the man’s own price—and his property must be bought.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the girl, “but you have no doubt in your mind that it is going to be hard.”
He nodded.
At one o’clock the next morning he sat reading in his room, when a knock came to his door and the girl came in. She was half hysterical, but the light of triumph was in her eyes.
“Got it,” she said.
“Got it!” he repeated in wonder. “You don’t mean he sold?”
She nodded.
“For ten thousand pounds—three hundred thousand francs. What do you think of your little Sadie?”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
She nodded, smiling.
“What did he——?” he began.
She hesitated and closed her eyes.
“Don’t talk about it,” she said quickly. “I have to see him to-morrow at his lawyers, and the property will be transferred to me.”
“And after?”
She smiled grimly.
“The after-part will not be as pleasant as M. Brigot imagines,” she said. “I tell you, that fellow’s crazy—stark, staring mad. But I felt an awful beast, and I think he’ll kill me when he discovers I’ve sold him.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” said Cartwright easily.