“The Official Receiver said it was a swindle and ’e reckoned as ’ow the Police ought to take it up. The Police said it was a swindle, but they fancied it was more in the Public Prosecutor’s line than theirs.
“And the Public Prosecutor quite agreed with ’em, but ’e didn’t see ’ow ’e could do nothing. So, between ’em, I ’as to go back to work again and if anything ’appens to me, my missus goes to the work ’us.”
Daphne sat silent for some minutes drawing abstractedly on her blotting pad.
“And I suppose you want us to get your money back for you,” she said presently.
“Well, you said in your advertisement that if the police couldn’t help, you could — so I reckoned you’d ’ave some way o’ handling this bloke — some way of your own.”
Daphne frowned. It was not often that she was at a loss how to answer, but she was now. She wanted to tell this old man that his case was an impossible one, that the whole affair had been wiped out by bankruptcy, and Merryweather himself had received an official whitewash.
Yet she found it at the moment a little difficult. She could see that he had the sublimest, most touching faith in herself and the Adjusters. And she was sorry for him.
“Will you give us a month, Captain?” she queried, frowning a little.
He got up from his chair, a broad, delighted smile on his face.
“I knew it,” he said, “I told my missus you wasn’t frauds!”
“We’re not frauds,” smiled Daphne, still drawing on her pad. “Yet we don’t always succeed, you know.”
But this he seemed to take merely as an excess of modesty.
“I’m quite content, Miss,” he said. “I’ll come up as soon as you’re ready for me!”
Long after he had gone out Daphne sat drumming on the table with her fingers.
“As soon as you’re ready for me,” she murmured for the twentieth time. “Why didn’t I have the pluck to tell him straight out that it’s hopeless. And yet—”
II
In a small, plainly furnished room in the heart of the city, four men and a girl sat round an official-looking table in official-looking chairs. At first sight you might have imagined that this was merely an ordinary office, and that the North Western Trading Syndicate — for such was its name on the outside door — was one of those many small companies with which the metropolis abounds. Certainly it looked like the board room of an ordinary office.
There were the usual pens and ink and white blotting pads on the table, and the usual almanacs on the walls, the usual directories on the marble mantelpiece with the usual solid marble clock in the middle of them.
Yet a second glance would have suggested that perhaps after all this was no ordinary office. For the girl who sat at the head of the table, though simply dressed, just as hundreds of other city girls dress, had an air of distinction about her.
As she leaned forward on the mahogany table talking rapidly, you saw at once that though every one of these men was almost twice her age, yet one and all listened to her not only with interest but with deference.
And they, too, impressed you. You saw at a glance that these were no ordinary city men. The big, loose-limbed giant in the gray flannel suit who sat next to the girl, with his clean-shaven face and merry blue eyes, struck you as an open-air man — public-school, ’varsity, athlete all the time. Debrett would have summed him up prosaically thus:
James Plantagenet Fiolliot Trewitter b. 1890. Heir to Earl of Winstonworth.
“Who’s Who” would have been a little more flattering, while Arsden would have spread itself upon young Lord Trewitter’s athletic record.
Now he took his well-worn brier from between his teeth, and shook his head as he gazed at it.
“I’m afraid we’ve hit a snag, Daph,” he said, “and, what’s more, that we’ll have to own it. Bound to come sooner or later, dear,” as he saw a frown gather on the girl’s face.
“It’s no use trying to kid ourselves and the public that we’re infallible. We’re not, and there’s an end to it. You said yourself that you didn’t see how it was to be done. I’ll go further and say that it can’t be done — at least not in accordance with our Rules.”
Daphne gave a laugh that was half smiling, half angry.
“Oh, bother our Rules!” she exclaimed.
“Ah, but that is what we mustn’t do, my dear,” chimed in the thin, bronzed-faced, gold-monocled man who was leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets. Any pressman in London would have identified him in a moment as Sir Hugh Williamson, world-famous explorer.
“Personally I wouldn’t care a row of tusks about goin’ and robbin’ Merryweather of that thousand quid. And if I did time for it, I wouldn’t reckon it a slur on my character. But we decided long ago that we wouldn’t do this sort of thing. And I can see, same as Jimmy, that there’s little hope of findin’ another way.
“Ask Martin, here, for the whole bag of tricks in a legal nutshell. He’ll give it to you.”
Martin Everest, the famous K. C., sitting at the other end of the table, nodded sympathetically at Daphne.
“I’m afraid they’re both right, Daph,” he said. “It’s one of those cases that will only get us into trouble.” He sat forward now, hands clasped, his handsome, clean-cut face definitely serious.
“You’re confusing the man you believe to be a criminal with the man who is actually one. A great difference in law, my dear!”
“But the whole world knows Merryweather to be a scoundrel, Martin,” urged the girl.
“And is unable to prove it,” he answered. “I can tell you, as a lawyer, that no indictment can be found that will touch him over the Lightning Returns Company. That’s why I’m going to urge you to drop this case. The men we’ve handled hitherto have been criminals, or engaged in the commission of a crime.
“By a knowledge of both facts we have been able to trick them out of their ill-got gains — our security being that they couldn’t lift a linger against us without disclosing their own crimes.”
“Here, unfortunately, we have no such security. We call the Lightning Returns Company a swindle, and the authorities will agree with us. But bankruptcy has closed it and the public prosecutor has tacitly whitewashed its founder. Touch one penny of Merryweather’s and he’ll appeal to the law — and the law will uphold him!”
He lighted a cigarette in the silence that followed. All eyes were on Daphne. It was obvious that she, as much as the others, realized the truth of what he had said — but she, at any rate, seemed half reluctant to admit it.
“Oh, bother your legal mind, Martin,” she said with a little half vexed laugh. “To have to acknowledge on a simple, straightforward case like this, that we’re beaten at the start—”
“That’s the trouble,” put in Alan Sylvester, the actor-manager, stroking his cheery, rubicund face, “Daphne hates having to own that we’re beaten and—”
“What I say is, Alan,” interrupted the girl, “that we’ve got no business to sit down and admit it without an effort. You’re all probably right in what you say, but until a month’s passed and no solution’s forthcoming, I won’t believe it’s helpless, so there!
“And even if there is no solution,” she went on, as if an afterthought had suddenly struck her, “I don’t really see why—”
She stopped suddenly. She saw they were all smiling at her.
“Well, why shouldn’t we?” with a little impatient gesture. “We can afford it!”