As if to reward him, he was received in his place of business with good news. Orders were pouring in; there was a run on some of the back stock, and the figure had gone up. Even the manager appeared elated. As for Morris, who had almost forgotten the meaning of good news, he longed to sob like a little child; he could have caught the manager (a pallid man with startled eyebrows) to his bosom; he could have found it in his generosity to give a cheque (for a small sum) to every clerk in the counting-house. As he sat and opened his letters a chorus of airy vocalists sang in his brain, to most exquisite music, 'This whole concern may be profitable yet, profitable yet, profitable yet.'
To him, in this sunny moment of relief, enter a Mr Rodgerson, a creditor, but not one who was expected to be pressing, for his connection with the firm was old and regular.
'O, Finsbury,' said he, not without embarrassment, 'it's of course only fair to let you know--the fact is, money is a trifle tight--I have some paper out--for that matter, every one's complaining--and in short--'
'It has never been our habit, Rodgerson,' said Morris, turning pale. 'But give me time to turn round, and I'll see what I can do; I daresay we can let you have something to account.'
'Well, that's just where is,' replied Rodgerson. 'I was tempted; I've let the credit out of MY hands.'
'Out of your hands?' repeated Morris. 'That's playing rather fast and loose with us, Mr Rodgerson.'
'Well, I got cent. for cent. for it,' said the other, 'on the nail, in a certified cheque.'
'Cent. for cent.!' cried Morris. 'Why, that's something like thirty per cent. bonus; a singular thing! Who's the party?'
'Don't know the man,' was the reply. 'Name of Moss.'
'A Jew,' Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. And what could a Jew want with a claim of--he verified the amount in the books--a claim of three five eight, nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury? And why should he pay cent. for cent.? The figure proved the loyalty of Rodgerson--even Morris admitted that. But it proved unfortunately something else--the eagerness of Moss. The claim must have been wanted instantly, for that day, for that morning even. Why? The mystery of Moss promised to be a fit pendant to the mystery of Pitman. 'And just when all was looking well too!' cried Morris, smiting his hand upon the desk. And almost at the same moment Mr Moss was announced.
Mr Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome, and offensively polite. He was acting, it appeared, for a third party; he understood nothing of the circumstances; his client desired to have his position regularized; but he would accept an antedated cheque--antedated by two months, if Mr Finsbury chose.
'But I don't understand this,' said Morris. 'What made you pay cent. per cent. for it today?'
Mr Moss had no idea; only his orders.
'The whole thing is thoroughly irregular,' said Morris. 'It is not the custom of the trade to settle at this time of the year. What are your instructions if I refuse?'
'I am to see Mr Joseph Finsbury, the head of the firm,' said Mr Moss. 'I was directed to insist on that; it was implied you had no status here--the expressions are not mine.'
'You cannot see Mr Joseph; he is unwell,' said Morris.
'In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of a lawyer. Let me see,' said Mr Moss, opening a pocket-book with, perhaps, suspicious care, at the right place--'Yes--of Mr Michael Finsbury. A relation, perhaps? In that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly arranged.'
To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for Morris. He struck his colours. A cheque at two months was nothing, after all. In two months he would probably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager give Mr Moss a chair and the paper. 'I'm going over to get a cheque signed by Mr Finsbury,' said he, 'who is lying ill at John Street.'
A cab there and a cab back; here were inroads on his wretched capital! He counted the cost; when he was done with Mr Moss he would be left with twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was even worse, he had now been forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsbury. 'No use for poor Johnny in Hampshire now,' he reflected. 'And how the farce is to be kept up completely passes me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury it seems beyond human ingenuity--though I suppose it's what Michael does. But then he has accomplices--that Scotsman and the whole gang. Ah, if I had accomplices!'
Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate, Morris surprised himself by the neatness and dispatch of his new forgery, and within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr Moss.
'That is very satisfactory,' observed that gentleman, rising. 'I was to tell you it will not be presented, but you had better take care.'
The room swam round Morris. 'What--what's that?' he cried, grasping the table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue and ashen face. 'What do you mean--it will not be presented? Why am I to take care? What is all this mummery?'
'I have no idea, Mr Finsbury,' replied the smiling Hebrew. 'It was a message I was to deliver. The expressions were put into my mouth.'
'What is your client's name?' asked Morris.
'That is a secret for the moment,' answered Mr Moss. Morris bent toward him. 'It's not the bank?' he asked hoarsely.
'I have no authority to say more, Mr Finsbury,' returned Mr Moss. 'I will wish you a good morning, if you please.'
'Wish me a good morning!' thought Morris; and the next moment, seizing his hat, he fled from his place of business like a madman. Three streets away he stopped and groaned. 'Lord! I should have borrowed from the manager!' he cried. 'But it's too late now; it would look dicky to go back; I'm penniless--simply penniless--like the unemployed.'
He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room with his head in his hands. Newton never thought harder than this victim of circumstances, and yet no clearness came. 'It may be a defect in my intelligence,' he cried, rising to his feet, 'but I cannot see that I am fairly used. The bad luck I've had is a thing to write to The Times about; it's enough to breed a revolution. And the plain English of the whole thing is that I must have money at once. I'm done with all morality now; I'm long past that stage; money I must have, and the only chance I see is Bent Pitman. Bent Pitman is a criminal, and therefore his position's weak. He must have some of that eight hundred left; if he has I'll force him to go shares; and even if he hasn't, I'll tell him the tontine affair, and with a desperate man like Pitman at my back, it'll be strange if I don't succeed.'
Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent Pitman, except by advertisement, was not so clear. And even so, in what terms to ask a meeting? on what grounds? and where? Not at John Street, for it would never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address; nor yet at Pitman's house, some dreadful place in Holloway, with a trapdoor in the back kitchen; a house which you might enter in a light summer overcoat and varnished boots, to come forth again piecemeal in a market-basket. That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice, Morris felt, not without a shudder. 'I never dreamed I should come to actually covet such society,' he thought. And then a brilliant idea struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, yet at certain hours of the day a solitary; a place, besides, the very name of which must knock upon the heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the latest of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of paper and sketched his advertisement.
WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE on the far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next.
Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. 'Terse,' he reflected. 'Something to his advantage is not strictly true; but it's taking and original, and a man is not on oath in an advertisement. All that I require now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the advertisement, and--no, I can't lavish money upon John, but I'll give him some more papers. How to raise the wind?'