ll
you something. You're not asking any questions. That's as it should be.
And I'm not forcing information upon you which you don't need in your
business. That's as it should be, too. But in between these two, there's
a certain margin of facts that there's no harm in your knowing. A scheme
to blackmail me is on foot. It's rather a fool-scheme, if you ask me,
but it might have been a nuisance if it had been sprung on us unawares.
It happened, however, that I twigged this scheme about two hours ago. It
was the damnedest bit of luck you ever heard of----"

"You don't have luck," put in Semple, appreciatively. "Other men have
luck. You have something else--I don't give it a name."

Thorpe smiled upon him, and went on. "I twigged it, anyway. I went out,
and I drove the biggest kind of spike through that fool-scheme--plumb
through its heart. Tomorrow a certain man will come to me--oh, I could
almost tell you the kind of neck-tie he'll wear--and he'll put up his
bluff to me, and I'll hear him out--and then--then I'll let the floor
drop out from under him."

"Aye!" said Semple, with relish.

"Stay and dine with me tonight," Thorpe impulsively suggested, "and
we'll go to some Music Hall afterward. There's a knock-about pantomime
outfit at the Canterbury--Martinetti I think the name is--that's damned
good. You get plenty of laugh, and no tiresome blab to listen to. The
older I get, the more I think of people that keep their mouths shut."

"Aye," observed Semple again.

CHAPTER XX

IN the Board Room, next day, Thorpe awaited the coming of Lord Plowden
with the serene confidence of a prophet who not only knows that he
is inspired, but has had an illicit glimpse into the workings of the
machinery of events.

He sat motionless at his desk, like a big spider for who time has
no meaning. Before him lay two newspapers, folded so as to expose
paragraphs heavily indicated by blue pencil-marks. They were not
financial journals, and for that reason it was improbable that he would
have seen these paragraphs, if the Secretary of the Company had not
marked them, and brought them to him. That official had been vastly more
fluttered by them than he found it possible to be. In slightly-varying
language, these two items embedded in so-called money articles reported
the rumour that a charge of fraud had arisen in connection with the
Rubber Consols corner, and that sensational disclosures were believed to
be impending.

Thorpe lo