‘Going well,’ said Mr Marble.
He had to pick his words, for Henderson was within earshot, and it would never do for him to know that he was acting in collusion with one of the Bank’s customers.
‘They’ve begun to rise,’ said Mr Marble. ‘Look at your tape machine.’
Mr Saunders was unable to retain an exclamation of surprised unbelief.
‘You can get out now with a bit of profit,’ said Mr Marble. His tone was cold and sincere, as he was striving to make it, and carried conviction.
‘Sorry, I can’t hear what you’re saying,’ said Mr Marble.
‘Doodle – oodle – oodle,’ said the receiver, as Mr Saunders realized that this was his cue, and all his old gambling spirit came back to him.
‘Right. I think you’re wise,’ said Mr Marble, replacing the receiver.
‘That Mr Saunders,’ said Marble to Henderson. ‘Bought some francs yesterday – lucky devil – wants to sell and reinvest.’
In the outer office the usual nerve-racking bustle was at its usual height. Mr Marble sat at his desk, where the letters had by now been put, and rallied himself. For nearly five minutes he fought with himself before he could turn to the telephone at his elbow and give the necessary orders to increase Saunders’ holding – and the risk as well.
There was apparently no need to worry. Mr Marble sold at 95; he bought again at 93. Half an hour later the franc stood at 87, and the risk was past. It is an old story now, how the French Government had quietly appropriated other people’s credits the night before, how the franc rose all day long, while puzzled exchange-brokers racked their brains to explain the mystery, and cursed their gods that they had not foreseen this action and bought all the francs that their credit would stand. And all day the franc rose, as men who had been caught hurried in to cover their losses, as the German speculators who had been hammering away so joyfully gave up the struggle in despair, as the small investors who follow the movements of the market far to the rear came panting in to steal a slice of profit as well. The men in the office who only a few days before had been confidently predicting that the franc would go the way of the mark had already changed their minds completely and were now saying that it would climb to its pre-war value of twenty-five and a quarter. But Mr Marble kept his head, just as he had kept it that fatal night when he knew that a single mistake meant ruin and violent death. The cold fear that had succeeded to the initial feeling of elated success vanished completely, and he was left calm, deadly calm. He watched the market with a fierce intensity. Once or twice it wavered, as the faint hearts took their profits, but each time it recovered, as it was bound to do with a genuine demand behind it. At 75 he resold and reinvested again, sitting lunchless in the office all day, so as to keep the business under his own hand, and when the franc touched 65 he sold out for good. It might well go a little higher, as indeed it did, reaching 60 for a brief space, but he had done all that was necessary and a good deal more.
There was no need to work out the profit. He knew that already, counting with painful eagerness every penny that every point meant to him. He called to the department stenographer, and began the official Bank letter to Saunders reporting the progress made:
Dear Sir,
In accordance with your instructions received to-day by telephone at 9.45 a.m. and 4.51 p.m. we have –
and all the rest of the business. It was cold and dry and formal enough, heaven knew. Bank letters are usually cold and dry and formal, even when they embody a paean of praise. This one told, with an air of supreme detachment, how Mr Saunders had originally bought rather more than forty-five thousand francs with the four thousand pounds represented by his margin of four hundred; how they had been sold at 95, and then represented nearly five thousand pounds (a thousand pounds’ profit); how this thousand pounds, and the original four hundred, had purchased francs at 93, and thus, thanks to the fact that each pound did the work of ten, controlled nearly a million and a quarter of francs; this million odd had been sold at 75, bringing in sixteen thousand pounds and more. Mr Saunders’ profit now stood at over four thousand pounds, and it and the good old original four hundred had gone back once more into francs, purchased at 75 still, thanks to Mr Marble having taken advantage of an eddy in the market. Forty-five thousand pounds’ worth of francs did that sum control – three millions of francs and a few thousand odd ones.
When they were finally sold at 65 Mr Saunders’ credit balance stood at a paltry fifty-one thousand pounds. He probably was unable to do the simplest sum in foreign exchange; at the moment he did not have the least idea of what profit he had made; Marble’s forethought had earned it for him; most of the money would come eventually out of the pockets of less fortunate speculators, which only served them right, but some would come from the myriad firms which had to have francs at any price. Above all, if the Bank had had anything to say in the matter they would probably have cut short the speculation at the earliest opportunity, but they had never been consulted after the first interview. Mr Marble had a specious plea of justification for having done all this on his own responsibility, in that Henderson had acquiesced in the first expansion of the deal, but he did not think he would have to use it. No bank really objects to having its clients enriched by the enthusiasm of its staff.
When the letter was finished Mr Marble slipped out of the office. He had done no work that day, and he would not have been able to even if he had tried. He was too exhausted by the emotional strain under which he had been labouring all these hours. Instead, he walked quietly round to Saunders’ office. The hurrying crowds round him, hastening to catch the 5.10 at Fenchurch Street, or the 5.25 at London Bridge, did not pay him the tribute of a glance. They did not realize that this shabby man in blue was a capitalist – a man possessed of over ten thousand pounds, if he could be sure of making Saunders pay up. They paid no heed to him, save to shoulder their homeward progress. He was rich almost to the full extent of his wildest dreams, and yet they pushed him into the gutter. Mr Marble did not resent it. They had likewise paid no heed to him when he was only a murderer.
Saunders in his office, the last race of the day over, was glancing through some trial totals of the day’s figures when one of his two clerks showed in Mr Marble.
‘Hallo,’ he said, glancing up, ‘so you’ve made a bit?’
Mr Marble sank wearily into the chair indicated and took the cigarette that Saunders offered.
‘What did you get? Six to one?’ asked Saunders. He was half joking, half serious. He had determined that Mr Marble’s final bait of yesterday of three thousand per cent was a mere piece of bluff. Obviously Marble had taken a chance and it had come off, and he, glad to see his money back, let alone with profit attached, would not press him too hard for the fulfilment of all his promises.
‘Don’t know,’ said Marble. ‘Haven’t worked it out like that. But the total comes to something like fifty thousand.’
‘What?’ gasped Saunders. ‘Fifty thousand? Or it’s francs, I suppose you mean?’
‘No,’ said Marble expressionlessly, ‘pounds.’
‘D’you mean it?’
‘Oh, of course I do. You’ll get the official notification from the Bank to-morrow.’
Saunders said nothing. Nothing in his limited vocabulary was equal to the situation.
‘Fifty thousand pounds,’ said Mr Marble, still expressionless, but bracing himself unobtrusively for the final effort. ‘Let’s work out what my share of it is.’
It was astonishing to him to find that Saunders agreed without any difficulty at all. He would not have been surprised to find him refusing to render any account whatever; he could have retained the whole and nothing could have been proved against him. But Marble, when he feared this, allowed his fear to overbalance his estimation of several important items in Saunders’ make-up. In the first place, Saunders was an honest man. In the second place, he was so dazzled by the magnit
ude of the profit that he did not grudge the fair share of the man who had earned it for him. In the third place, he was a bookmaker, and he was accustomed to handing over large sums on account of transactions of which no law in the United Kingdom took the slightest notice.
‘Rightio,’ said Saunders. ‘How much is it exactly?’
‘Fifty thousand, three twenty-nine, and a few shillings.’
Saunders hastily figured it out. Marble had done it in his head long ago.
‘I make your little packet come to £27,681. Oh, and the sixty you gave me. I get twenty-two thousand odd for myself. Not bad going for three phone calls.’
Saunders was trying to be offhand in the presence of this magician who could make thousands sprout in the course of a night. Actually, he was bursting with astonishment and curiosity.
‘When’s settling day?’ he demanded.
‘The money’ll come in soon. You’ll have it in less than a week. Might be to-morrow, but I doubt it. The Bank will let you know.’
‘Right. I’ll send you a cheque then. Your working agree with mine?’ Saunders was trying his best to be the complete business man, although the largest cheque he had written in his life was for no more than five hundred pounds, and that occasion still haunted him in his worst nightmares.
‘Very well, then.’ Mr Marble rose from his chair.
Mr Saunders could restrain himself no longer.
‘Oh, sit down, man, and tell me how it was done. No, we must go and have a drink to celebrate this. Let’s make a night of it, up West somewhere. Let’s –’
But none of these things appealed to Mr Marble, although the very mention of a drink set him yearning.
‘No,’ said Mr Marble. ‘I have to push off home.’
And he went home, too. Although Mr Marble was possessed of twenty-seven thousand pounds he spent his evening, as long as he was sober, sitting in a dreary little suburban drawing-room gazing out over a desolate suburban backyard, for fear lest some trespasser or some stray dog should find something out.
6
Mr Marble arrived home one evening lighter of step and of heart than he had been for some time previously. Even when the shadow of the gallows lies across one’s path one cannot help feeling a little elated when one had just received, and paid into a new account at a new bank, receiving the homage of a bank manager, the sum of twenty-seven thousand pounds odd.
Mr Marble was done with speculation. The money, as he had decided in a serious conference with the bank manager, was all going into gilt-edged investments – save for a thousand pounds which was destined for the purchase of 53 Malcolm Road. Even with this deduction Mr Marble would be in the possession of the comfortable income of twelve hundred pounds a year, although – as the bank manager said deprecatingly – the income-tax collect-or would have a fat slice out of it.
So Mr Marble hung up his hat in the hall with a freedom of gesture unusual to him, and marched briskly into the dining-room to find his family assembled still over the tail end of their tea.
‘You’re early, Will,’ said Mrs Marble, rising uncomplainingly to hurry the preparation of her husband’s evening meal.
‘So I am, so I am,’ said Mr Marble, and threw himself down in the armchair beside the empty grate.
It is a strange fact, but true, that Annie Marble’s habit of saying the obvious did not get on his nerves. In that lukewarm wooing, seventeen years ago, one of the things that appealed most strongly to Mr Marble was the fact that Annie did not say unexpected things, and that he never had to bother about entertaining her. Yet at the moment he had a little scene in his mind’s eye that would startle her and interest her enormously, and he had been looking forward to it for days.
‘What about school, John?’ he said.
John leisurely drank tea before replying. It was his way.
‘All right,’ said John. He did not use three words where two would do.
Mr Marble had guessed already that John would have little to say, and the idea pleased him, for he knew that his next words would force him into saying something more than usual.
‘You’ll be leaving at the end of this term, John,’ he said.
John put down his cup with a slight clatter and stared at his father.
‘Really?’ he said.
Only one word this time. Somehow it irritated Mr Marble.
‘Yes. I shall be entering you for the College next term.’
Mr Marble was doomed to disappointment. John said nothing for a while. He was too stunned to speak. Nearly four years at his secondary school had endeared the place to him, and he had begun to look forward to the alluring prospect of prefectship and ‘colours’. This cup had been rudely snatched from his lips. And he was to be sent to the College. Sydenham College was a public school, one of the second rank only, though this subtle distinction did not matter to John at that age, and there was no love lost between the secondary foundation and this lordly place, whose boys rode on motor-bicyles, and turned up their noses at the rest of humanity.
It was this that made the sharpest appeal to John’s dumb but sensitive little soul. At Sydenham College he would be torn apart from the friends he had made during four long summers. He, too, would have to turn up his nose at Manton and Price and good old Jones, whose glasses were always bent the wrong way. He wouldn’t, of course, but – he realized this with a flash of prophetic insight – they would expect him to and that would be just as bad. For the moment John saw things very clearly. At the College he would be received and treated like a secondary boy, and at the School there would be instinctive hostility towards him. He would not be fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor good red herring.
‘Oh, say something, for goodness’ sake,’ said Mr Marble, pettishly. ‘Don’t sit there staring like a stuffed dummy.’
John addressed his eyes to his plate. ‘Thank you, father,’ he said.
‘Confound it, boy,’ said Mr Marble, ‘anyone would think you didn’t want to go there. The finest public school in England, and you’re going there. And’ – here Mr Marble threw his finest bait – ‘if you get on well there and distinguish yourself, there might be that motor-bike I’ve heard you talking about, some day.’
But the effort was vain. Even a motor-bicycle meant nothing to John if it was conditional upon his going to the College. If Mr Marble had only mentioned it before he had mentioned the other, John’s reception of the suggestions might have been different. As it was, John could only mumble ‘thank you’ again and fidget with the crumbs on his plate. Mr Marble turned from him, exasperated, and addressed his real favourite, Winnie, instead.
‘And you, miss,’ he said, with a jocosity which, unwonted as it was, had precisely the opposite effect to the one he desired, ‘what do you want most?’
It was an unsatisfactory question to put suddenly to an unprepared fourteen-year-old even if she was nearly fifteen. Winnie thought and fumbled with her dress, and looked away as she became conscious of the concentrated gaze of everyone in the room. To her aid came the recollection of what she most envied the biggest girl in her form.
‘Green garters,’ she said.
Mr Marble roared with laughter, only the tiniest bit forced.
‘You’ll have a lot more than that,’ he laughed. ‘We’ll be buying you a new outfit altogether this week, lock, stock, and barrel. What do you say to going away to a nice school, a real young ladies’ school, where as likely as not you’ll ride a horse in the mornings, and have all the things you fancy, and be friends with lords’ daughters?’
‘Ooh, I should like that,’ said Winnie, but it was only modified rapture. Mr Marble had sprung his little surprise too surprisingly to have the effect he desired. But he was satisfied for the moment.
‘But is this all true?’ asked Winnie. ‘Are we really all going to have just what we like?’
‘As true as true. We can have just whatever we like,’ said Mr Marble, overjoyed to find Winni
e, at least, impressed.
‘Well, what’s mummie going to have?’ continued Winnie.
Mr Marble turned to his wife, who had sat behind his shoulder, suddenly, when she heard this surprising conversation begin. Mr Marble looked at his wife, and she began to think, confusedly, as always.
‘Anything I want at all?’ she asked, more to gain time than from any other motive.
‘Anything you want at all,’ repeated Mr Marble.
Mrs Marble let her mind travel free, without hindrance from the strait limits of expense which had hedged it in all her life. And her thoughts flew straight, as they often did, to green fields and the sunlight in the hedgerows. With the clearness of mental vision so often granted to those of stumbling intellect a picture rose before her mind’s eye of a sunny, hyacinth-scented lawn, full of the murmuring of bees, sleepy little hills, half-wooded, in the distance, and Mr Marble beside her, kind and a little attentive and loverlike.
‘Oh, do be quick, mummie,’ said Winnie.
Mrs Marble translated her thoughts to the best of her ability.
‘I want a new house and a nice garden,’ said Mrs Marble.
Mr Marble made no comment. He was so silent that in time they all turned and looked at him. He had shrunk back in his chair, literally shrunk, so that he only seemed to be half the bulk he had been when he came in. His face was blank, and his lips moved without uttering a sound. He rallied in the end.
‘You won’t have that,’ he said. ‘You’ll never have that.’
Then he guessed at the strangeness of his manner from their surprised expressions, and tried to mask it.
‘Houses are hard to get these days,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure I’m fond enough of the old home not to want to leave it. Can’t you think of something else, mother?’
Of course mother could, if Will wanted her to. Discussion began in a more animated form, as they warmed to the subject.