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The Profiteers, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 17 |
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_ CHAPTER XVII Wingate, after several strenuous hours spent in Slate's office, returned to his rooms late that night, to find Peter Phipps awaiting him. There was something vaguely threatening about the bulky figure of the man standing gloomily upon the hearth rug, all the spurious good nature gone from his face, his brows knitted, his cheeks hanging a little and unusually pale. Wingate paused on the threshold of the room and his hand crept into his pocket. Phipps seemed to notice the gesture and shook his head. "Nothing quite so crude, Wingate," he said. "I know an enemy when I see one, but I wasn't thinking of getting rid of you that way." "I have found it necessary," Wingate remarked slowly, "to be prepared for all sorts of tricks when I am up against anybody as conscienceless as you. I don't want you here, Phipps. I didn't ask you to come and see me. I've nothing to discuss with you." "There are times," Phipps replied, "when the issue which cannot be fought out to the end with arms can be joined in the council chamber. I have come to know your terms." Wingate shook his head. "I don't understand. It is too soon for this sort of thing. You are not beaten yet." "I am tired," his visitor muttered. "May I sit down?" "You are an unwelcome guest," Wingate replied coldly, "but sit if you will. Then say what you have to say and go." Phipps sank into an easy-chair. It was obvious that he was telling the truth so far as regarded his fatigue. He seemed to have aged ten years. "I have been down below in Stanley's rooms," he explained, "been through his papers. It's true what the inspector fellow reports. There isn't a scrap of evidence of any complication in his life. There isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind as to the cause of his disappearance." "Indeed!" Wingate murmured. "It's a villainous plot, engineered by you!" Phipps continued, his voice shaking. "I'm fond of the boy. That's why I've come to you. Name your terms." Wingate indulged in a curious bout of silence. He took a pipe from a rack, filled it leisurely with tobacco, lit it and smoked for several moments. Then he turned towards his unwelcome companion. "I am debarred by a promise made to myself," he said coldly, "from offering you any form of hospitality. If you wish to smoke, I shall not interfere." Phipps shook his head. "I have not smoked all the evening," he confessed, "I cannot. You are right when you say that we are not beaten, but I like to look ahead. I want to know your terms." "You are anxious about your nephew?" "Yes!" "And why do you connect me with his disappearance?" Phipps gave a little weary gesture. "I am so sick of words," he said. "We will argue the matter, then," conceded Wingate, "from your point of view. Supposing that your nephew has been abducted and is held at the present moment as a hostage. It would be, without doubt, by some person or persons who resented the brutality, the dishonesty, the foul commercial methods of the company with which he was connected. An amendment of those methods might produce his release." "And that amendment?" Wingate picked up a newspaper and glanced at it, pulled a heavy gold pencil from his chain and made a few calculations. "Your operations in wheat," he said, "have brought the loaf which should cost the working man a matter of sevenpence up to two shillings. You seem to have dabbled in a good many other products, too, the price of which you have forced up into the clouds,--just those products which are necessary to the working man. But we will leave those alone, if you were to sell wheat at forty-five per cent less than to-day's price, I should think it extremely likely that Stanley Rees would be able to dine with you to-morrow night." "You are talking like a madman," Phipps declared. "It would mean ruin." "How sad!" Wingate murmured. "All the same, I do not think that you will see your nephew again until you have sold wheat." "You admit that you are responsible, then?" Phipps growled. "I admit nothing of the sort. I am simply speculating as to the possible cause of his disappearance. If I had anything to do with it, those would be my terms. To-morrow they might be the same; perhaps the next day. But," he went on, with a sudden almost fierce break in his voice, "the day after would probably be too late. There are a great many hungry people in the north. There are a great many who are starving. There is one in London who is beginning to feel the pangs." "You are ill-treating him!" Phipps cried passionately. "I shall go to Scotland Yard myself! I shall tell them what you have said. I shall denounce you!" "My dear fellow," Wingate scoffed, "you have done that already. You have induced those very excellent upholders of English law and liberty to set a plain-clothes man to following me about. I can assure you that he has had a very pleasant and a very busy evening." Phipps rose to his feet. "Wingate," he exclaimed, "curse you!" "A very natural sentiment. I hope that you may repeat it a good many times before the end comes." "You are a conspirator--a criminal!" Phipps continued, his voice shaking with excitement. "You are breaking the laws of the country. I shall see that you are in gaol before the week is out!" "A good deal of what you say is true," Wingate admitted, "with the possible exception of the latter part. Believe me, Peter Phipps, you are a great deal more likely to see the inside of a prison than I am. You will be a poor man presently and poor men of your type are desperate." Phipps remained perfectly silent for several moments. "Wingate, you are a hard enemy," he said at last. "Will you treat?" "I have named the price." "You are a fool!" Phipps almost shouted. "Do you know," he went on, striking the table with his clenched fist, "that what you suggest would cost five million pounds?" "You and your friends can stand it," was the unruffled reply. "If not, your brokers can share the loss." "That means you make a bankrupt of me?" Phipps demanded hoarsely. "Why not?" Wingate replied. "It's been a long duel between us, Phipps, and I mean this to be the final bout." Phipps moved his position a little uneasily. He was keeping himself under control, but the veins were standing out upon his forehead, his frame seemed tense with passion. "Tell me, Wingate, is it still the girl?" Wingate looked across at him. His face and tone were alike relentless, his eyes shone like points of steel. "You did ill to remind me of that, Phipps," he said. "However, I will answer your question. It is still the girl." "She was nothing to you," Phipps muttered sullenly. "One can't make your class of reptile understand these things," Wingate declared scornfully. "She came to me in New York with a letter from her father, my old tutor, who had died out in the Adirondacks without a shilling in the world. He sent the girl to me and asked me to put her in the way of earning her own living. It was a sacred charge, that, and I accepted it willingly. The only trouble was that I was leaving for Europe the next day. I put a thousand dollars in the bank for her, found her a comfortable home with respectable people, and then considered in what office I could place her during my absence. I had the misfortune to meet you that morning. Time was short. Every one knew that your office was conducted on sound business lines. I told you her story and you took her. I hadn't an idea that a man alive could be such a villain as you turned out to be." "You'd be a fine fellow, Wingate," Phipps said, with a touch of his old cynicism, "if you weren't always sheering off towards the melodramatic. The girl wanted to see life, she attracted me, and I showed it to her. I'd have done the right thing by her if she hadn't behaved like an hysterical idiot." "The girl's death lies at your door, and you know it," Wingate replied. "It has taken me a good many years to pay my debt to the dead. I did my best to kill you, but without a weapon you were a hard man to shake the last spark of life out of.--There, I am tired of this. I have let you talk. I have answered your useless questions. Be so good as to leave me." The shadow of impending disaster seemed to have found its way into Phipps' bones. He seemed to have lost alike his courage and his dignity. "Look here," he said, "the rest of the things which lie between us we can fight out, but I want my nephew. What will his return cost me in hard cash between you and me?" "The cost of bringing wheat down to its normal figure," Wingate answered. "I couldn't do it if I would," Phipps argued. "There's Skinflint Martin--he won't part with a bushel. I'm not alone in this. Come, I have my cheque book in my pocket. You can fight the B. & I. to the death, if you will--commercially, politically, anyhow--but I want my nephew." Wingate threw open the door. "There was a girl once," he reminded him, "my ward, who drowned herself. To hell with your nephew, Phipps!" Passion for a moment made once more a man of Phipps. His eyes blazed. "And to hell with you!--Hypocrite!--Adulterer!" he shouted. Wingate's fist missed the point of his adversary's chin by less than a thought. Phipps went staggering back through the open door into the corridor and stood leaning against the wall, half dazed, his hand to his cheek. Wingate looked at him contemptuously for a moment, every nerve in his body aching for the fight. Then he remembered. "Get home to your kennel, Phipps," he ordered. Then he slammed the door and locked it. _ |
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