Joan's Enemies/Chapter 4

N leaving Elm House, shortly after ten o'clock, Mr. Lismore made for the city. He and Stormont had already taken an office, though the prospects of their being able to establish a business, however modest, on the lines of their late employer's, were doubtful. The trade in the rare metals is in few—and strong—hands, and the good will of Rufus Cran's concern had been promptly acquired by one of his oldest rivals. Moreover they had been losing steadily for weeks on a copper speculation, and were now near to living by their wits.

Stormont, seated at his roll-top desk, with the draft of a circular letter shortly to be issued by the new firm before him, looked up with what an ill-natured acquaintance had once called his “dentifrice grin'—the smile that Lismore hated, possibly because he feared it.

“Well?”

Lismore let his large body drop into a huge easy-chair.

“No luck,” he said. “Not a bit of good.”

“I'm afraid you aren't,” returned Stormont, the smile vanishing as though he had switched it off. “Do you mean to tell me you have found out nothing at all?”

“Not a thing. I never imagined she'd know anything about the platinum; and now I'm satisfied she doesn't.”

“Well, perhaps that's something, after all. What about Douglas Grant? Had Cran mentioned him to her just before he died?”

“I didn't refer to Grant.”

“Why not?”

“Stormont, you are well aware of my feelings regarding—”

“Hang your feelings! Sooner or later, you'll have to face him in the flesh. May as well get used to mentioning his name. Did she speak of him?”

“Not a word.”

“Then I shouldn't wonder if she learned something from the old man,” said Stormont, looking thoughtful. “In the ordinary course of things, Elm House would have gone to Grant. She must be wondering about him. But let that pass. Has she accepted your wife's kind invitation to spend a week or so at Cromer?”

“I'm sorry to say she refused—quite pleasantly, of course. Said she intended to follow out the old man's wishes to the letter.”

Stormont gave a shrug of impatience. “You observed no signs of suspicion on her part?”

“Suspicion!” Lismore was startled. “What should she suspect?”

“Everything—if you were half as nervous then as you are now!”

“I did my best,” said Lismore wearily.

Ignoring the remark, Stormont continued: “Lottie might find out, if properly directed, a good many things for us.”

“She was at Elm House this afternoon.”

“And you never—oh, well, never mind! But you had better have a chat with Lottie first thing in the morning. Only you must bear in mind that she is Miss March's friend—sincerely devoted, no doubt. Again, she was—and still may be—more or less attached to young Grant. So you will have to go warily.”

OR the first time during the interview Lismore's eyes rested on his partner. Until that unhappy last interview with Rufus Cran, Stormont had been paying apparent attentions to Lottie. Were these attentions at an end?

“I will do what I can,” said Lismore. “Lottie will certainly never betray Joan March.”

“Not willingly,” was Stormont's cool qualification. “Well,” he went on briskly, “we must get a move on, Lismore, in one direction or another. Nearly three weeks out of the six months gone, and nothing done. We can't last beyond six months unless we find a pot of money—can we?”

Lismore shuddered. “If we could only lay hands on that middle strip of paper!” he sighed.

“My dear fellow, don't babble! You may be sure the precious strip is in safe hands, and with it the instructions for its destruction on a certain date, failing Grant's return. And the more I think of it, the more I feel that our only hope lies in that event taking place. In fact, I'll begin to move in the matter to-morrow.”

“No, no!”

“Look here, Lismore, you have a good enough reason for desiring the continued absence of Grant, but you have a still better for bringing him home. You are afraid of his going back on you—which I don't for one instant believe he would. On the other hand, without your share of the platinum you are bound for bankruptcy—and a particularly unpleasant sort of bankruptcy it will be! However, if you can suggest how we may get at the platinum without the presence of Grant or that precious middle strip, I'm ready to follow your lead.”

Lismore was mute.

“And we don't even know,” Stormont went on, “that the hoard is within the walls of Elm House. We naturally think of it as there, because our late friend, since first we knew him, lived there and, so far as we are aware, owned no other place of residence. But how are we going to satisfy ourselves on the point? Since Miss March has refused the invitation to Atlantic City, the thing looks pretty hopeless. I have not the impudence, and you have certainly not the nerve, to ransack the place while she is in residence..... Now what have you to say?”

“If—if the house were to become uninhabitable,” mumbled Lismore.

“Uninhabitable! How?”

“F-fire.”

Stormont laughed. 'Oh, Lord, man, don't be so crude!”

“I'm desperate, Stormont!”

“So am I. Only I draw the line at being idiotic. No, my friend, unless you can evolve a more brilliant scheme, you must let me be leader. It may not be such a difficult thing, after all, to trace young Grant. He must have at least one correspondent in New York—the person who forwarded the inexplicable fifteen hundred to Rufus. There is such a thing as discreet advertising, and there are private detectives who do really wonderful jobs, if, well paid. However, I will give you three days more to produce another plan; but do try to invent something a little more subtle than arson!”

ISMORE winced at the mockery. And a moment later he said: “There's another thing—something that happened at Elm House to-night.”

“What?”

“Oh, it concerns no one but myself,” Lismore's manner became awkward. “Only I want to put you on your guard should you be asked questions about me.”

“Do come to the point!”

“Well, it turns out that the aunt whom Joan has chosen for her companion is a Miss Griselda Gosling.”

“What a sublime name! An old flame, I presume!”

Lismore wriggled. “I knew her—slightly—a good many years ago. As a matter of fact, we have some distant kinship. I knew her mother better..... On one occasion Mrs. Gosling asked me to invest a sum of money for her.”

“How much?”

“About thirty-five thousand, I—I think.”

“Don't be too precise, Lismore!”

“Well—thirty-seven thousand..... The investment turned out a most unfortunate one, to my deep regret. The money was lost. A year later Mrs. Gosling died.”

“And to-night you meet her presumably penurious daughter! Happy man!”

“It was a hideous encounter until I gathered that she knew nothing about the wretched business.”

“But how on earth could she help knowing?”

“I presume her mother never told her, and—and there were no documents. At the same time, should you meet Miss Gosling—”

“All right!” said Stormont curtly. Then he closed his desk with a crash, saying: “Aren't you going?”

“I think I'll wait and write a letter or two,” Lismore replied.

RESENTLY, with a curt “Good night,” Stormont left the office. Even his crooked spirit was in revolt at his partner's.

Lismore got up and opened his private safe. From a drawer he brought a sheet of paper. It was a copy of the two strips handed to himself and Stormont by Rufus Cran and was already shabby from frequent handling, while the blanks showed traces of pencil which had escaped the eraser. He opened his desk, seated himself not without eagerness, and once more fell to studying the maddening thing.

Dawn came before he desisted, haggard, shaky and as ignorant as ever.

This was the document: