He saw her hesitation, and with uncanny shrewdness leapt straight at the truth.
“He didn’t want to buy a founders’ share of the YNC, did he?”
And, when she went red, he slapped his knee and laughed long and riotously.
“Poor old Machiavelli!” he said at last drying his eyes. “I never dreamt he would be satisfied with his tenth!”
“His tenth?”
He nodded.
“Yes; Fing-Su owns a tenth of our property. That is news to you? Joe Bray held another tenth.”
“But who has the remainder?” she asked in amazement.
“Your future lord, but I doubt master,” he said. “Our Chinese friend is more than a millionaire, but isn’t satisfied. In a moment of temporary aberration Joe parted with a block of founders’ shares to Fing-Su’s father, and on top of that he handed most of the remainder to Fing-Su himself! Honestly, I don’t believe Joe was ever sane; and the maddest thing he ever did–-” Here he checked himself. “Maybe he didn’t do that …but I have my suspicions, and I shall know for certain tonight.”
She did not ask him what those suspicions were and he went on:
“There was no real company until I joined forces with Joe. He’d just scraped a little coal out of the land for which Fing-Su’s sainted parent got the concession. But the silly old gentleman had made an agreement that his Chinese helper should have a tenth share of the profits. I didn’t know this until I’d added a large tract of coal land to the property, and after that the legal difficulties of kicking out Fing-Su’s papa were such that it wasn’t worth while fighting. What I did, however, was to refloat the company with a larger capital—does this bore you?”
She shook her head.
“I only dimly understand,” she said, “but I want to, badly!”
Again his quick, half-suspicious scrutiny.
“It was then that I put in the clause about the founders’ shares to prevent dear old Joe from doing anything more altruistic. Your revered relative was not the most intelligent of men, though the truest heart that ever beat, and founders’ shares meant nothing to him when he discovered there was no profit attached to them. Of the forty-nine shares issued, Fing-Su’s father took nine (Joe was stout on this point), and Joe and I took twenty each.”
“What do the reserves mean?” she asked.
For a second he looked at her, suspicion in his eyes.
“We have a large reserve,” he said at last, “but a great deal of it really doesn’t belong to us. You see, we had a very big business in Manchuria—we were bankers there amongst other things, and when the revolution came along, enormous sums were deposited with us and transferred to Shanghai. Many of the depositors, poor souls, are dead, and these include some of the biggest. In the present state of chaos it is impossible to trace their relatives. Their money is known as Reserve B: that is the reserve which Fing-Su is after!”
He saw that she was puzzled, and went on:
“It was not until a few months ago that I learnt that Joe had given away more than half his founders’ shares to this sleek young scoundrel Fing-Su. He would have given him the lot, only five of the certificates—each share is separated—he couldn’t find. Thank God I got them and had them transferred to me. Whilst I have the predominant holding, Fing-Su can do nothing with the reserves. Once he has that share, not all the courts of China can stop his playing the devil with other people’s money. Oh, Joe! You’ve got a lot to answer for!”
This time she reproached him.
“Mr Lynne—Clifford, you want me to call you?—how can you say such unpleasant things about a man who was your friend and is now dead?”
He did not reply immediately, and when he did it was to ignore the question.
“This world is a pretty good place to live in,” he said, “and I hate the thought of leaving it—but one of these days I’m going to kill Fing-Su!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Joan Bray had a large attic which had come to be the most comfortable room in the house. It was not intended to be such when this retreat was given to her; but Joan was popular with the servants at Sunni Lodge, and in some mysterious way odd and cosy pieces of furniture had found their way to the room under the roof with its big windows and outlook. It had a special value to her now, for from this vantage she could see the square chimney of the Slaters’ Cottage, and this gave her an indefinable sense of communion with the strange man who had come over her horizon.
The girls were out when she arrived, and she went up to her attic apartment, locked the door and sat down on the ancient sofa and, with her head between her hands, tried to straighten out the confusion in her mind. That Clifford Lynne had been no salaried servant of her relative, she had suspected from the first. He was a rich man, richer even than Joe Bray—what effect would that have had upon Stephen Narth’s attitude had he known from the first? Suppose, instead of the apparition with the wild beard and the untidy clothes, there had appeared at Sunni Lodge that fateful afternoon this good-looking, well-dressed man, not in his role of manager, but as co-partner of Joe Bray? She had no doubt at all as to what would have been the result.
Somehow—she could not exactly tell why—the knowledge of Clifford’s wealth depressed her. For what appeared now to be a very inadequate reason, she had steeled her soul to an appalling marriage with an unknown man, and had grown used to the prospect of her sacrifice. She shook her head. She was cheating herself: it had never really seemed a sacrifice. The stranger had interested her from the first; was an individuality so far outside the range of her experience that his very novelty had overcome all her natural qualms.
Joan was beginning to see life from a new angle, to realize the tremendous difference this marriage would make, and Letty (or was it Mabel?) had been right. What did a girl know about the lover into whose hands she placed her future? Already she knew, and was more akin to, the nature of Clifford Lynne than had been half a dozen brides she could recall to the real character of the men they had wed.
Walking to the window, she stood looking at that visible portion of the Slaters’ Cottage which showed through the trees. Smoke was coming from the chimney now, and she remembered the cab full of provisions and wondered if Clifford Lynne was as efficient as a cook as he seemed in other directions.
Woodmen were engaged in felling the trees about the cottage. Even as she looked she saw a high fir topple over slowly and heard the crash of its branches as it struck the ground. By tomorrow the cottage would be almost completely visible, she thought, and turned at that moment as a tap came upon the door.
“It’s Letty,” said a shrill voice, and, when she hastened to turn the key: “Why on earth do you lock yourself in, Joan?”
Letty had only made two visits to the room, and now she looked around with an air of surprise.
“Why, you’re very comfortable here!” she said, and, had Joan been uncharitable, she would have read into the surprise a note of disappointment. “Father has been on the telephone; he won’t be home tonight. He wants us to go up to dinner with him—you don’t mind being left alone?”
It was an unusual question, considering that it was addressed to one who had spent many an evening alone and was glad of the privilege.
“We may be late because we’re going on to a dance at the Savoy after the theatre.”
She was turning to go, with another glance round the room,-when she remembered something.
“I’ve seen that man Lynne, Joan. He’s awfully good looking! Why on earth did he come here in that ridiculous get-up?”
Here was the inevitable grievance which Joan had anticipated. Minds were evidently working along parallel lines at Sunni Lodge.