but the silk hat which overtopped the client’s thin, long face was most correct.
“Permit me,” said Moss with all the grace he could summon at a moment’s notice, “to introduce you to a friend of mine — name of Smith — in the Government.”
The stranger bowed and offered a gloved hand.
“Er—” said T.B., hesitant. “I did not quite catch your name.”
“Count Poltavo,” said Mr. Moss defiantly; “a friend of mine an’ a client.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Count. I have met you somewhere.”
The Count bowed.
“It is ver’ likely. I have been in England before.”
T.B. Smith with his head on one side, so ridiculously reminiscent of an inquisitive bird, surveyed the imperturbable foreigner with interest.
“But for the integrity of Mr. Moss,” he said, “I should believe that I had been introduced to quite an old friend of mine — Gregory Silinski, to wit.”
The foreigner smiled, showing two regular rows of white teeth.
“You think of my cousin, of whom there is some resemblance — a bad lot.” He shook his head sternly and reprovingly.
“A bad lot, indeed,” agreed T.B. Smith, and offered his hand to Moss.
“Good-day to you, Mr. Moss,” he said; “keep out of mischief; goodbye, Mr. Silinski.” He looked at his watch. “It wants four minutes to twelve; and if by five minutes to twelve tomorrow you are still in England, I shall arrest you. Comprenez?”
“Parfaitement,” said Silinski, who prided himself upon his ability to accept a situation.
T.B. Smith resumed his walk. At the corner of Threadneedle Street an able-bodied hawker offered him his choice of a box of matches or a pair of bootlaces.
“Neither in mine,” said T.B. Smith. “Have you got a hawker’s license, my man?”
“Yes, sir.”
The hawker produced from the inside pocket of his frowsy jacket a folded paper, and T.B. Smith examined it carefully. He must have read every word of it twice. After a while, he handed it back and what he said was not about hawkers, or licenses.
“I know they are here,” he said as though referring to people whose names were inscribed on the paper he had been reading, “but they don’t count, they are too small. Silinski, do you know him?”
“I’ve seen him,” said the hawker; “wasn’t he deported over the Griffon Street affair?”
T.B. Smith nodded.
“He’s way along,” he said, with a jerk of his head in the direction of Moss and client; “get one of your men to watch and report.”
“Very good, sir.”
T.B. Smith continued in the direction of the Mansion House. A famous banker passing in his motor brougham, waved his hand in salute; a city policeman stolidly ignored him.
Along Cheapside, with the deliberate air of a sightseer, the man in the grey felt hat strolled, turning over in his mind the problem of the boom.
For it was a problem.
If you see on one hand ice forming on a pool, and on the other a thermometer rising slowly to blood-heat, you may be satisfied in your mind that something is wrong somewhere. Nature cannot make mistakes. Thermometers are equally infallible. Look for the human agency at work on the mercury bulb, for the jet of hot air directed to the instrument. In this parable is explained the market position, and T.B. Smith, who dealt with huge, vague problems like markets and wars and national prosperity, was looking for the hot-air current.
The market rises because big people buy big quantities of shares; it falls because these same people sell, and T.B. Smith happened to know that nobody was buying. That is, nobody of account — Eckhardt’s, Tollington’s, or Bronte’s Bank. You can account for the rise of a particular share by some local and favourable circumstance, but when the market as a whole moves up?
“We can trace no transactions,” wrote Mr. Louis Veil, of the firm of Veil, Vallings & Boys, Brokers, “carried out by or on behalf of the leading jobbers. The marked improvement in Industrial Stocks is due, as far as we can gather, to Continental buying — an unusual circumstance.”
Who was the “philanthropist” who was making a market in stagnant stocks? Whoever it was, he or they repented long before T.B. Smith had reached the Central Criminal Court, which was his objective.
He was a witness in the Gildie Bank fraud case, and his cross-examination at the hands of one of the most relentless of counsel occupied three hours. This concluded to everybody’s satisfaction, save counsel, T.B. Smith, who hated the law courts, walked out into Old Baily to find newsboys loudly proclaiming,—” Slump on the Stock Exchange!”
“Thank heaven, that bubble’s burst!” said T.B. piously, and walked back to Scotland Yard, whistling.
He did not doubt that the artificial rise had failed, and that the market had gone back to normal.
At the corner of the Thames Embankment he bought a paper, and the first item of news he read was:
“Consols have fallen to 84.”
Now, Consols that morning had stood at 90, and T.B. Smith stopped whistling.
V. The Anticipators
T.B. Smith strolled into the room of Superintendent Elk.
Elk was a detective officer chiefly remarkable for his memory. A tall, thin, sad man, who affects a low turned-down collar and the merest wisp of a black tie. If he has any other pose than his desire to be taken for a lay preacher, it is his pose of ignorance on most subjects. Elk’s attitude to the world at large is comprehended in the phrase, “I am a child in these things,” which accounts to a very great extent for the rapidity of his promotion in the Criminal Investigation Department.
T.B.’s face wore a frown, and he twirled a paperknife irritably.
“Elk,” he said, without any preliminary, “the market has gone to the devil.”
“Again?” said Elk politely, having knowledge without interest.
“Again,” said T.B. emphatically, “for the fourth time this year. I’ve just seen one of the Stock Exchange Committee, and he’s in a terrible state of mind. Stocks and shares are nothing to me,” the Commissioner went on, seeing the patient boredom on the other’s face, “and I know there is a fairly well-defined law that governs the condition of the Stock Exchange. Prices go seesawing up and down, and that is part of the day’s work, but for the fourth time, and for no apparent reason, the market is broken. Consols are down to 84.”
“I
