Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Kitty, streaking across the park, turned and looked back at the fringe of the outer tree-belt, just as the moon slid from behind the banked clouds and bathed the manor in pale light. There was somebody standing at a window in the left wing — the window of a room she knew. The somebody was Jim Lansdale.

Sight of him made Kitty run.

The following morning Lord Bordington did two things, both of considerable importance. The first was to send for Jim Lansdale and talk to him about Che Fiangs. The second was to drive over to Bordington in his car and see his solicitor.

When Jim came into the room, Bordington said: “We had a burglar last night, Lansdale. Came in through the hall window — cut the burglar alarm in the right place, and made the cleanest entry imaginable. Must have been disturbed, however, because nothing has been touched.”

He looked hard at Jim as he spoke, and told himself that Jim looked a little pale and hard, keener than usual. Jim received the information with appropriate astonishment, and expressed himself as being glad that the break-in had proved abortive.

Bordington said no more on the subject. He could realize a change in Jim, and, for the moment, its significance eluded him; but he wondered whether Jim would be able to tell how it came about that the particularly pretty burglar of the previous night had had so complete a knowledge of the interior lay-out of the manor.

“About Che Fiangs, Lansdale. I’m still in the same mind regarding a purchase. The country’s in an unsettled state just now, and hardly looks like pulling round; but there’s always a chance, and I’d like to take it. Is eighteen pence a decent price to you?”

Jim hesitated. It was more than a decent price. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of a shilling above the stock exchange quotation. Had the offer come from anybody else but Bordington, he would have suspected an ulterior motive behind its munificence; but Bordington had always been more than kind to him, and he saw in the figures named only another evidence of his employer’s generosity.

In fact, it was this generosity which largely persuaded Jim to accept the offer. It seemed that he must hurt Bordington if he turned down so advantageous a proposal, made, as it apparently was, in the friendliest possible spirit.

“It’s a tall price,” he said. “Above the market quotation. And of course it will suit me, if it suits you.”

“Right,” smiled Bordington. “Then we’ll call it a deal. I’m going to London again to-day, and I’ll see my brokers and get it put through.”

As a matter of fact, he telephoned his brokers from the offices of his solicitor, instructing the stock exchange man to buy all the Che Fiang shares on offer that day. By four o’clock that afternoon, when the stock exchange closed, Che Fiangs had risen a few pence, there were some dealings on the curb outside, and cleverly distributed purchasing by his brokers had placed Lord Bordington well on the road to obtaining a commanding position in the company’s control.

Chapter VI After the Transaction

William Smith waited in the luxurious sitting room of his suite in the Hotel Magnificent. It was a warm night, oppressive, and there was a hint of thunder in the atmosphere. The trams on the Embankment sounded unusually loud. London seemed tense, expectant, breathless. All noises were magnified.

Smith looked at his watch. Bordington would come. That was a certainty. A man like Bordington could not afford to risk his name and standing for the sake of such a betrayal as Smith proposed. Smith was a sound judge of character. He knew that Bordington, weak, and unstable though he was, would never have made a great surrender.

Anything of vital importance to his country would have been zealously preserved as secret. But this information about the treaty was of little moment — on the face of it. It was, in effect, an inspired “tip” to a man who wished to make money swiftly on the Stock Exchange.

Smith had spoken the truth when he said he had no interest in international affairs. He did not wish to sell the terms of the treaty to any foreign power.

Smith, thinking of the treaty and Lord Bordington, tried to tell himself that Bordington was not guilty of any great breach of confidence; but he knew all the time that he was.

He picked up the Evening Standard, and, for the first time, glanced down its column of Stock Exchange notes. There had been “some activity” in Che Fiang shares. Smith’s brow wrinkled. Apparently purchasing had been going on not only in London, but in Manchester, Glasgow, and at other places. The purchasing had been done through various brokers, and while it had given rise to much wordy speculation, it had not induced a deal of financial speculation on the part of the House.