The Man Who Bought London by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

secrets from Miss Marion,’ he said.
    Mr Leete’s irascible bosom glowed with wrath. That he, a magnate by all standards, should be obliged to speak openly before a shop-girl – even an ex-shop-girl – was galling to his proud spirit.
    ‘There’s not much to say,’ he said with an assumption of carelessness which he was far from feeling. ‘I’ve told you in my letter, that I am Goulding’s, and I sell at a price.’
    ‘You did not reveal the fact that you were the guiding spirit of Goulding’s before I bought your other business,’ said Kerry with a little smile. ‘You were not even on the board – your solicitor acted for you, I presume?’
    Mr Leete nodded.
    ‘Of course, I knew all about it,’ said King Kerry calmly. ‘That is why I bought the cheaper property. What do you want for your precious store?’
    ‘A million and a quarter,’ replied Leete emphatically; ‘and not a penny less.’
    Kerry shook his head.
    ‘Yours is a hand-to-mouth business,’ he said slowly. ‘You pay medium dividends and you have no reserves.’
    ‘We made a profit of a hundred and fifty thousand last year,’ responded Leete with a quiet smile.
    ‘Exactly – a little over ten per cent of the price you ask – yet I offer you five hundred thousand pounds in cash for your business.’
    Mr Leete got up from his chair very deliberately and pulled on his gloves.
    ‘Your offer is ridiculous,’ he said. And, indeed, he thought it was.
    King Kerry rose with him.
    ‘It is a little under what the property is worth,’ he said; ‘but I am allowing a margin to recoup me for the sum I gave for Tack and Brighten – the sum in excess of its value.’
    He walked with the visitor to the door.
    ‘I would ask you to come to lunch and talk it over,’ he said; ‘but, unfortunately, I have to go to Liverpool this afternoon.’
    ‘All the talking-over in the world wouldn’t alter my offer,’ said Mr Leete grimly. ‘Your proposition is absurd!’
    ‘You’ll be glad to take it before the year’s out,’ said King Kerry, and closed the door behind the inwardly raging Mr Leete.
    He hailed a taxi, and arrived at his flat incoherent with wrath, and Hermann Zeberlieff listened with calm interest to a story calculated to bring tears to the eyes of any speculative financier.
    That afternoon a young and cheerful reporter of The Monitor , prowling about Middlesex Street in search of copy, saw a familiarface disappear into the ‘Am Tag’, a frowsy club frequented by Continental gentlemen who described themselves variously as ‘Social Democrats’ and ‘Anarchists’, but who were undoubtedly expatriated criminals of a very high order of proficiency.
    The enterprising reporter recognized the gentleman in spite of his poor dress, and followed him into the club with all the aplomb peculiar to the journalist who scents a good story.

CHAPTER VIII
    Elsie Marion went back to her lodgings in Smith Street, Southwark, humming a little tune. It was incredible, yet here was the patent fact. She patted her little suede bag tenderly, and the crackle of stationery brought a happy little smile to her lips.
    For in the bag was deposited that most wonderful of possessions – a contract. A contract drawn up in the most lucid phraseology which lawyers permit themselves, typed on a stiff sheet of paper inscribed with the tiny ‘L’ and an address which characterized the stationery of the Big Trust, in which she ‘hereinafter called the employee of the one part’, agreed to serve for the term of five years the president of the London Land Trust, ‘hereinafter called the employers of the other part’, for the sum of £780 per annum, payable weekly.
    Presently, she thought, she would wake up from her dream to the sordid realities of life spent amidst the bricks and mortar of mean streets, to the weary, hungry round of days divided between a high stool and a lumpy flock bed. Yet though her heart sang gaily at the new vistas opening for her, at the