His Game

by Edgar Wallace

HIS GAME.

By EDGAR WALLACE,

Author of "Four Just Men," "The Council of Justice,'" etc.

 

THE Ninth Guards were at dinner.

Lord Callington had edged the soap-box on which he sat farther and farther from the fire which roared in the centre of the circle of men, but Tubbetts, very red of face, sat on a camp-stool staring at the flames.

He was a heavy-looking young man, broad of face and broad of shoulder. He had a fair moustache, grotesquely small.

One by one, as the heat from the fire increased, the other officers had drawn back, till only Tubbetts remained, deep in troubled thought, his big hands nervously fidgeting.

Suddenly, above the babble of talk and light laughter, Callington's voice rose harshly.

"Tubs, draw back from that fire! What the devil are you doing?"

Tubbetts jumped up as if he had been shot, then shuffled awkwardly back, muttering an apology.

Carsley watched him with a quiet smile on his handsome face. George Brackett, seventh baronet of that name, turned to the officer at his side, and said under his breath—

"Cally is very cross."

"Don't wonder. Tubs made an awful mess of it again to-day. Seems to lose his head the moment a burgher's rifle goes 'pop.' Rum bird, Tubs!"

Tubbetts was standing now, quietly savage, and glowering disrespectfully in the direction of his Colonel. Big and awkward and gauche as he was in most things, he was sensitive to disapproval, and Lord Callington's disapproval was the most evident thing in the world.

He stood for a moment, then, taking the steaming tin cup that a servant banded him, he slouched over to where George Brackett sat.

"I've a jolly good mind——" he muttered, then stopped.

"Steady your leaders, Tubs!" George frowned warningly.

The Ninth Guards were a very happy family, to which Major Sir George Brackett stood, by general acceptation, in loco parentis.

"You sit down and take your soup, and please don't be an ass! The old man will put you under arrest on the slightest provocation."

"This isn't my game," said Lieutenant Tubbetts sulkily.

The Major chuckled softly, and the ghost of a smile hovered about the corners of Carsley's mouth.

"You're an unfortunate soul, Tubs," said Sir George drily. "You're the victim of circumstances. If your father wasn't a banker, and if you hadn't so much money in your family that you positively reek of honest wealth, you would not have been in the Guards, you would not have come to South Africa, nor found yourself on a bit of wet veld, being ragged by Callington."

Tubbetts sipped at his bouillon and said nothing, and the buzz of conversation, arrested for the moment by the little incident of Tubbetts at the fire, resumed.

"The fact is, Tubs"—Carsley leant over and laid his hand on the other's knee—"you didn't start fair with the Ninth. There was that business of the drag——"

"I don't believe in wasting money," said the other doggedly. "Because a fellow has thirty thousand a year, it doesn't follow that he must chuck his money about."

"You hardly go as far as that," said the other.

"You think I'm mean when I won't subscribe to things," Tubs went on; "but I've been taught that there are two hundred and forty pennies in every pound——"

Carsley turned away with frank rudeness.

Thereafter Tubbetts sat in the circle, but not of it. He brooded through his dinner, listening resentfully to the light chatter of the men about the fire. He envied their ease, these clean-limbed patricians who could joke of danger and speak lightly of death. He envied Brackett, for whom no man had a wry word; he envied Claud Carsley, with his splendid face and flippant drawl. There was Mainward, most daring of amateur riders, holding the company breathless with the story of an Aintree steeplechase. "… 'Kink' Mason went ahead, but Verry's horse refused … Over Valentine's Brook Kink's horse jumped sideways and fell, and I came over nearly on the top of him …"

A spot of rain fell, and another, and another.

The men about the fire seemed to be oblivious of the shower, but Tubs shifted uneasily, for he had the civilised being's horror of catching cold.

As the downpour increased, he waited irresolutely, then stalked away from the fire and stumbled over the uneven ground in the direction of his little shelter tent.

"Thank Heavens!"

The ejaculation was the Colonel's, and his relief was shared by the others.

"Poor old Tubs!" smiled Brackett.

"Poor!" Callington snapped the word, and his white moustache bristled. "Poor! If he were poor, we shouldn't have seen the beggar. George, he's impossible! He's bad enough in London—he's absolutely useless here!"

"Was it bad, sir?"

"Bad! Weren't you there? No, you were on the other side of the kopje. He had a half company on the right flank. When the first shot was fired, he would have bolted, only Providence put his foot in a meerkat hole, and there he sprawled, yelling to his men to take cover."

"I wouldn't mind that so much," said the second in command. "Any man is liable to lose his head, but old Tubs is such a—a careful beggar. He checks the mess steward's accounts twice over, and gets perfectly frantic if he discovers that two and two have been exaggerated into five!"

Tubbetts, lying in his shelter tent, listening to the pattering of rain on the taut canvas, saw the end.

Unless he was jolly careful, he told himself, there would be courts martial and scandals, and a line in The Army List—

 

"Retirement: Ninth Guards.—Lieutenant Algernon James Tubbetts, the King having no further use for his services."

 

That would mean being thrown out of one's club and getting one's name in the paper, and injuring Tubbetts's Bank, which was essentially an Army bank.

"I wish to Heaven," reflected the young man, as he turned over, preparatory to sleeping, "that De Wet was at the bottom of the sea, and the whole business of war wiped out! If there is any fighting to-morrow, I'm pretty sure to make a mess of it. Soldiering is not my game."

He fell asleep.

II.

Lord Callington swung into a creaking saddle, and his horse spun round. He pulled it straight till his face was turned to the blue line of kopje that quivered through the heat haze.

A little knot of officers stood close at hand, their glasses fixed on the highest of the squat hills.

George Brackett put down his glasses and turned to his chief.

"There's a laager there, and it looks as if they'll stand."

The little column had halted.

To the right the Victorian Mounted Rifles stood by their horses; in the centre three guns of the R.H.A. waited in readiness; in the rear, the Ninth Guards were drawn up in quarter column—a solid slab of men in discoloured khaki.

"Send the Victorians on," said Callington.

An officer went galloping to the right.

There was an order, the quaver of a trumpet, and men rose jerkily to their saddles, a hushed rattle of hoofs, and in two long lines the Victorians moved over the veld.

Way back with the infantry. Tubs paced nervously up and down before his half company.

It was hot, but there was no justification for the streams of perspiration that streaked his red face.

Carsley, watching him furtively, saw the tell-tale signs, and made a little impatient noise with his lips. But he was sympathetic, for there was much of the woman in the composition of this handsome man.

He strolled casually towards his junior.

"Hot, Tubs?" he asked carelessly.

Tubbetts nodded.

He did not remove his eyes from the distant blue line of hills.

"Hot, Tubs?"

Carsley's voice was sharper, and the younger man turned.

"Yes, sir," he said stiffly.

Carsley's eyes searched his face with frank curiosity.

"Look here, young Tubs," he said, and, taking the other's arm affectionately, led him out of hearing of the men, "this is going to be a tiny little fight not worth troubling about, and you must not get jumpy."

"I——"

"We all get jumpy," Carsley interrupted. "I was as scared as you yesterday, but I had the luck to escape notice."

Tubbetts looked suspiciously at the other.

"You're tryin' to buck me up, Carsley; you know jolly well this is going to be one of those rotten frontal affairs." He licked his dry lips, and looked again toward the hills.

"I—I don't believe Callington knows his job." He was fretful and agitated, and the trickling streams of perspiration became veritable rivers, until his red face shone wetly. "I don't believe he knows anything about it! He's colonel and all that, but what can he know of war? He never saw a shot fired in anger till this war. He——"

"S-s-sh, Tubs—Tubs!" warned his Captain with a troubled frown. "You really mustn't, Tubs. Look at the men; they've confidence enough in us—in you."

"But they haven't," said Tubbetts fretfully, "and they'd be fools if they had! They know this is not my game."

"Right half battalion will advance by the left!"

George Brackett came cantering over the veld. An officer ran out to meet him, and they exchanged a word.

The Major beckoned Carsley.

"We are going to work round the right of that hill; there's a sort of nek in the middle of the range which isn't held. Your men ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hullo, Tubs!"

Sir George reined in his fidgeting horse and bent over.

"You'll have a chance to-day—a chance of showing the Colonel he was wrong. Don't get flurried, there's a good boy."

His gloved hand rested on Tubs's shoulder, his kindly grey eyes searched the young man's face.

"I'm not going to talk a lot of melodrama about the honour of the regiment," he went on quickly, "but you owe us something, Tubs. Remember all the good chaps who died, and how proud we are of them—Nevill at Albuhera, the brothers Manton at Nive, the fellows at the Alma. For Heaven's sake. Tubs, play the game!"

"I won't run, if that's what you mean," muttered the officer, his head sunk on his breast. "I'm not afraid to die, but I'm horribly afraid of making myself ridiculous."

The men were on the move now. Extending as they marched, they made a long skeleton front that stretched across the plain.

"Join your company," said Sir George, and his hand tightened on Lieutenant Tubbetts's shoulder for a fraction of a second, and then relaxed.

Tubs ran ahead. He passed between two men, and heard one of them laugh. He could have turned back and struck him, although the man's laugh had no connection with the running officer.

He passed Mainward trudging a few paces ahead of his company, and the gentleman rider shouted a cheery greeting.

"Hot, Tubs? We'd be riding at nine stone for the Grand Military if we had a week of this!"

He nodded with a forced smile, and heard Mainward's chuckle at his own harmless joke.

Tubs joined his company, and fell in by the side of Carsley.

"Hello! Thought you weren't coming!"

There was no sarcasm in Carsley's quick smile, but Tubbetts felt uncomfortable.

They marched for half an hour, and nothing happened. Tubs's spirits rose.

"Perhaps the beggars have cleared," he said; but the company officer shook his head.

"We've got a long way to go yet," he said, and Tubs felt annoyed.

"Where are the guns?" he demanded resentfully. "One doesn't do this sort of thing unless one is supported. The whole affair seems to be mismanaged. I don't think——"

"Turn your head, and you'll see 'em," said the officer. "We're supported all right; you needn't worry about that. The question is——"

The hills were not so far away as they thought Distantly they saw a wisp of white smoke drift lazily from the hillside, then—

O-omm!

A sound that was like the soughing of a wind came to them; it rose in shrill intensity.

Wo-o-o-o-o!

Instinctively Tubs ducked his head. "They're shelling us!" he spluttered wrathfully.

The other officer said nothing.

A second burst of slow-moving smoke from the hillside, and again the hideous shriek of flying shell.

A whistle sounded, and the advancing line of men came to a halt. They were in the shelter of a ridge that extended across the veld like a huge green wave.

Carsley turned and looked back, and from the right of the line rode George Brackett at a gallop.

"Claud," he shouted, "can you read that?" "That" was a splash of dazzling light that twinked and trembled on the edge of the veld behind them.

Carsley shaded his eyes and read.

"V—I—C. R—E-P," he spelt, as the light of the heliograph danced and died. "‘Victorians report kloof strongly held—make your own arrangements,’" he read.

"‘Suggest——' Look out!"

Bang!

Unheralded by the boom of the gun, or the whine that told of its passage, a shell burst over them, and there was a patter as of rain.

"Shrapnel," said the Major. "Go on, Claud."

"‘Suggest' was the last word," said the other coolly. "Signaller!"

A man had unstrapped a thin steel tripod he had been carrying on his shoulder, produced a mirror from a leather case at his belt, and deftly adjusted it.

"Ask them to repeat everything after 'suggest.’"

Click, clicketty click!

The man tapped the controlling key rapidly, and the splash on the horizon answered.

"‘Suggest,’" read the man, "‘you work farther to the right and occupy kopje’"—he pronounced it "koppygee"—"that commands kloof."

"Here, I say!"

Tubs, an impatient audience, obviously ill at ease, broke in.

"All that ought to be in cipher. These chaps"—he waved a despairing hand towards the kopje—"these chaps can read English as well as you! It's not right sending messages like that!" he fumed. "It shows the whole mismanagement——’"

"Silence, sir!"

Brackett's face, gone fierce and pinched of a sudden, glowered down at him.

"Fall in with your company," he ordered shortly, and Tubs's hand rose to his helmet in salute.

Whew-w! Whew-w! Whew-e-e-w!

They were on the crest of the rise now, and from the ground rose little fountains of earth. They jumped up at your feet unaccountably, and the air was full of hissings and wailings.

"Cover—cover!" yelled Tubs; but the men could not obey, for the ground was innocent of cover. The line moved on, steadily, doggedly.

"Here, hold up!"

A man marching on Tubbetts's right sighed and leant heavily against him. Then he slipped to the ground, and the officer stared at him.

"Tubbetts!"

Claud was shouting to him angrily, and he realised he was standing still whilst the rest of the line was advancing.

He ran again, and found himself curiously short of breath.

With a quick jerk of his head, Claud called him to his side.

"We're in an ambush," he said briefly. "The Boers are on this randje ahead; there are some on that rising ground to the left. Keep your men together."

"Ambush?" stammered Tubs. "Where?"

He could picture an ambush in a narrow lane between high banks, but this was open country. To the right he saw Sir George Brackett. He was a little ahead of the men, and he had a revolver in his hand.

The whistling sound was terrible now—terrible, terrible, terrible! So Tubs told himself as he went forward mechanically, fumbling at his belt for the Mauser pistol he carried.

"Ambush? Where?"

He must have asked the question a dozen times—asked it at great personal inconvenience, for his lips were dry and his throat sore.

He looked round. The companies were closing in on the centre. There was a horrible whining in the air, and every few seconds something exploded with a harsh crash. Away to the rear there was a haze of blue smoke. Evidently "our guns" were in action, too. Suppose they made a mistake and shelled us! Such things had occurred. Tubs's lips twitched. Curse war! Curse all men who made wars!

And these little jets of earth that kept springing up all around! One half of his mind told him that, if he could only dodge them, he would be safe. The other half said with pitiless logic that no evasion was possible, because the fountains of dust were made by bullets striking the ground.

Something impelled his eyes to Brackett. The Major had stopped, and the line of men behind him had stopped, too. He saw Sir George wave them on again, and go down on to his knees.

"Go to the Major, Tubs!"

Caisley's voice was strained and unfamiliar.

Sir George was flat on his back, staring up at the blue sky. There was blood on his tunic, and a trickle of blood on his lips.

"Tell Mainward—take command," he mumbled like an old man, and made a little grimace.

"He's dead—he's dead! Mainward must take command!"

Tubs charged back, bellowing the news, and Carsley nodded coolly.

"Tell Mainward," was all he said. But even as Tubs turned reluctant feet to the left rear, he saw Mainward fall, shot through the heart.

Men were going down, too; little yellow patches lay on the green amongst the bushes.

Firing! Somebody was firing close at hand! The Ninth Guards, of course! His own men were firing at something ahead—firing at the blue sky and the yellow line of the randje.

Bang—b-rang—b-r-r-rang!

Tubbetts, hands on hip, stood up, a mark for every rifleman, glaring at the invisible enemy, piecing together the monstrous situation. Those people ahead were firing at the Ninth Guards, and the Ninth Guards were firing at them. That seemed fair. Poor Brackett was killed, lying somewhere in the rear, staring at the blue sky with unseeing eyes. Mainward was dead, and young Ferguson-Pollett … and that decent colour-sergeant of No. 4 Company … Yes, and other men.

"Ah!"

Carsley spun round like a dancer, his arms wide-stretched, pitiable surprise on his face. Tubs knew he was dead before he pitched sideways to the ground.

Whew—smack!

A ricochetting bullet struck his helmet and knocked it backward. The shock jerked his chin-strap and made him bite his tongue.

He looked round for inspiration, swearing helplessly. He saw no officer, only men huddled in little groups, and seeking what cover the flat earth offered. He was alone—in an ambush—men were lying dead all round him. He saw the face of Toms, his servant, pinched and grey, mouth and eyes open, astonishment frozen on the dead face.

••••••

Halliker's Column came up at a trot, and four guns opened on the Boers' position.

"I'm glad you've come," said Lord Callington.

"I heard your guns going. What is happening?"

Lord Callington shook his head.

"I don't know," he said simply. "It looks as if one-half of the Ninth Guards are wiped out."

Nearly one-half, for of the men who went into action on the right, ninety rank and file and one officer came out, and that officer was Tubbetts, unharmed.

They met—the grey old man and the young officer—and for a moment neither spoke.

"Brackett dead—Carsley dead—Mainward dead"—Lord Callington spoke slowly, thoughtfully—"and you—alive!"

He looked long and earnestly at the young man, and Tubbetts hung his head.

"Why?" The old man's sudden fury was appalling, and Tubbetts shrank back.

"Why? Tell me that! Why should the best be taken—the dear, good fellows"—his voice broke, and his eyes were full of hot tears—"and you to come unscathed? Where is the wisdom of Heaven in this?"

Tubbetts offered no solution.

III.

Tubbetts's Bank was by common acceptation one of the soundest institutions in the City, "despite the fact," as cynical City folk were in the habit of saying, "that its directors are Army men."

When Tubs took his father's place in the bank at the end of the war—the old man had died suddenly whilst Tubs was homeward bound—he set himself the task of discovering exactly why the bank was great, and how it could be made greater.

In the books of the bank he found names that gave him little twinges of sorrow—Carsley, Brackett. He gave up that side of his investigation. The Army was "not his game."

This he explained to such of his intimates as came close enough to his life to extract confidence from him. Yet in Tubbetts's Bank one could not get away from the Army, or clear oneself from unhappy associations. There was a managing clerk, one Vicars, a slim, tall man with a quiet voice and a trek of avoiding your eye. Tubs had tried for exactly five minutes to like his subordinate, at the end of which time he was frankly antagonistic. Vicars had a mysterious little smile which meant anything you chose to read into it. Tubs read an uncomplimentary and unflattering opinion of himself into that smile, and his attitude toward Mr. Vicars was one of continuous resentment.

Vicars was respectful and polite.

"A jolly sight too suave!" was Tubs's verdict, and in secret had the managing clerk's books examined, but without making any other discovery than that he was an orderly and a methodical person.

Three years after the war the military associations of Tubbetts's Bank were strengthened in an embarrassing manner. Lord Callington joined the board of directors.

You may picture the scene.

A big oak -panelled room with a long table, on which blotting-pads were placed at regular intervals—at one end of the table, seated under the large oil painting of his father, Tubbetts, very business-like, and immaculately dressed in a dark grey frock-coat and white slip.

"You know Lord Callington?" One of the directors was introducing the newly appointed member of the board.

Tubs, flushing a little, rose awkwardly and held out his hand, and the elder man smiled under his moustache.

The awkwardness had worn off a little in three months, though Tubs always deferred to the other's opinion, always addressed him as "sir," and never offered opposition to any suggested scheme that Callington put forward.

When Tubs, in his capacity of managing director, summarily dismissed the managing clerk of the bank, it was Callington who secured that gentleman's reinstatement.

Tubs shifted uneasily in his seat when the matter was brought up at a board meeting.

"… After fifteen years of service—loyal and honourable service—to the bank!" said Callington reproachfully.

"That's all right, sir," said Tubs a little peevishly, "but Vicars has been taking a jolly sight too much on himself. He practically pledged the bank to the support of that wild-cat scheme of Vessey's—the Soudanese irrigation scheme—which I wouldn't touch with a pole!"

"Lord Vessey is a personal friend of mine," said Callington coldly; "and so far from his great project being a 'wild-cat scheme,' it has all the elements of a great Imperial undertaking."

"Hear, hear!" murmured the board.

"Sorry, of course—friend of yours," muttered Tubs uncomfortably, "but you know, sir, we can't have a managing clerk giving undertakings—promises."

"That I can appreciate," admitted Callington graciously; "but zeal in the bank's interest——"

Vicars was reinstated, and the board turned to the discussion of a dividend declaration. At the end of the business—

"I would like to return to the matter of Vessey's scheme," said Callington.

Tubs, twisting the ends of his little moustache, frowned. He knew that he was out of sympathy with the board on this matter. He knew, too, that he was at some disadvantage facing these men; he had been trained to obey them. Callington had no authority over him—for Tubs was no longer a soldier—but he could not shake off the sense of service. General Brabington, too—he was in awe of that shaggy-browed veteran. Yet he hated Vessey's Soudanese scheme like the devil. He had an irritating sense of his impotence, and the irritation was not allayed by the knowledge that he was, if he wished, master of the situation, for he held by far the largest number of shares in the bank.

"You know, gentlemen," continued Callington, addressing the board rather than Tubs, "that it has been the custom of the bank, in your late father's time"—he turned to the scowling young chairman—"to distribute from time to time, to its shareholders, the result of any extraordinary profits which came to the bank. Those extraordinary profits came from extraordinary enterprises, and were very welcome to such of us who had invested our moneys in the bank. In the last four years"—he looked at Tubs absently—"in the last four years—indeed, ever since the death of the bank's founder—the bank would seem to have been singularly lacking in initiative"—Hear, hear!—"and at a period when, from the point of view of our shareholders, some form of initiative in increasing the earning power of the bank was most necessary."

"Steady dividends," interrupted Tubs loudly. He was nervous, and showed it in the aggressive quality of his voice. "We've paid steady dividends, and taken no risks—that is the job of a bank."

"Whether it is the 'job of a bank' or not," said Callington, emphasising the words, "it is an indisputable fact that Tubbetts's bonus, which was at one time regarded as inevitable as a consolidated dividend, has almost ceased to be. I would remind the chairman that the war left many relatives of dear and, I hope, mutual friends badly provided for."

Tubs wriggled again. Callington was going to mention names—names of men he had seen lying in little pools of blood, men who spun round like tops and made strange noises when they fell.

"Poor Brackett has a daughter who is an invalid. Her only income is from the bank. A bonus would be a godsend to her. Carsley left a young widow—you would remember Carsley, Mr. Tubbetts?—to whom a hundred pounds or so would make all the difference. I could mention others."

All the time Callington was speaking, the chairman was showing signs of increasing agitation. He was scribbling aimlessly with his pen on the blotting-pad, now sitting forward hunched up over the table, now leaning back in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

As Callington paused, Tubs threw his pen down violently.

"I don't care what you say, sir!" he cried. When he was flustered, his voice rose almost to a squeak. "I know it's disrespectful and all that sort of thing—I know that I'm an ass—but I won't have this Vessey scheme! I won't—I won't!"

He thumped the table with his clenched fist.

"I want to help people as much as anybody—I want to do a turn for the wives of—of people—but Vessey's syndicate is rotten—rotten! Suppose we finance it——"

"Financing has not been suggested," interrupted Callington; "it is a question of guarantees."

"It's the same thing." Tubs heard the dissatisfied murmur of his directors, and went on rapidly, incoherently. "They want us to take an uncommercial risk; they want to trade on our credit. I know Vessey. He had something to do with a Peruvian railway. I saw it in The Times the other day. He's a wrong 'un!"

Lord Callington rose.

"I cannot listen to this hysterical abuse of a man I have known for years—a gallant officer and an honourable gentleman," he said stiffly.

The board adjourned, and Tubbetts left the room, leaving behind him very much the same atmosphere as signalised his exit, one historic night, in South Africa.

"He's a fool—a useless, boorish fool," said Callington bitterly, as he walked home through the City that evening, "but he shall have his responsibilities brought home to him!"

That afternoon a curious thing happened. Tubs had an appointment with the directors of the British Industrial Bank of Yorkshire, and, in a very bad temper, went to keep it. He had received an offer to purchase the business of the bank, and for an hour he haggled and argued with two Scotchmen and a Lancashire spinner who controlled the shares of the bank.

He was leaving the directors' room, having definitely decided not to purchase, when he saw something which interested him. The directors' room opened on to a balcony which ran on three sides of the "shop." Standing at one of the paying-in counters was Vicars. He watched the managing clerk as he gathered up his paying-in book and disappeared through the swing doors. Then Tubs walked back into the room he had left, and renewed bis negotiations.

In the meantime there came whispers to the City that Vessey's irrigation scheme was going through, and that Tubbetts's Bank was behind it.

Mrs. Carsley called upon the managing director the next morning—a pathetic figure of a girl widow—and Tubs saw her. It may have been a coincidence that she called so soon after the board meeting, but Tubs thought otherwise. He was by nature suspicious.

He listened gravely to all she had to say.

"I'm sorry," he said, when she had finished, "but I see no immediate prospect of a dividend. If you need the money badly, I will let you have an overdraft on my own responsibility."

"I do not want to borrow money," she said with quiet dignity, "but I understood—— There used to be bonuses, you know, Mr. Tubbetts, and people were saying at dinner last night that the bank was going to do something very wonderful that would make all our fortunes."

Tubs grinned responsive to the girl's weary smile.

"There is no likelihood of anything wonderful happening whilst I am chairman," he said, and when she smiled again, Tubs went red.

She was very beautiful, thought Tubs, when he summoned courage to look at her. Women were not "his game," either, and there was a little aching pain in his heart when she began telling him why the "bonus" was needed. Such pitiably little requirements she had—a new carpet for her drawing-room was one of the things. Carsley went down to death, spinning like a top, and trying to say something … and died with a little smile … and his widow wanted a few pounds to buy a carpet! Tubs could have cried.

"And, of course," she concluded, "if there were a bonus, it would mean so much."

"I know—I know!" He leant over the desk, his big hands clasped on the pad, "And I'm simply aching to do something for you. I want to, and I—I can't see a way."

She was disappointed; he saw that when she rose to go. He cursed himself that he was no genius, who could devise, at a second's notice, some plan for her relief.

"You—you knew my husband?" she said, as she stood with one hand on his desk.

Tubs nodded.

"Yes," he said huskily, "I knew him. Good chap—brave chap!" He gulped something down.

Could he not see Carsley—a prince of men, who took his arm, and spoke so gently to him? And here was the one being in the world whom, above all others, Carsley loved. He would give her an open cheque for ten—twenty—fifty thousand pounds if she asked him. But she would not take that. She wanted a hundred pounds to buy a carpet for the drawing-room, and clothes, perhaps, and he could not give it to her in the way she wanted.

He opened the door for her, and then an idea struck him.

"I say, Mrs. Carsley"—he was breathless with the splendour of his scheme, vague, too, as to its working out, untidy of speech—"I've got a scheme—interested in something—cabbage factory—no, not that, furniture business—huge profits, enormous! Let me invest some of your money in that. Big profits, cent, percent., and that sort of thing. Look here, you could have your profits in advance!"

He committed an error there, for she saw through the threadbare cloak that hid his philanthropy, and smiled kindly.

"No, no, no, Mr. Tubbetts! I understand, and thank you, but no." She was gone before he could lie his way to plausibility.

Letters came to him, pleading, bullying letters. When would the bank pay a bonus? He suspected Lord Callington and his directors, but he did them an injustice. There were other agencies at work.

Callington wrote asking for an extraordinary board meeting, and Tubs consented.

"We have gone into this question of Soudanese irrigation," said Callington, "and unless we step in now, another bank will guarantee the money."

"What bank?" demanded Tubs sceptically.

"The Rand Bank."

"They've got no money." Tubs was contemptuous.

"We feel we are acting in the best interest of our shareholders," said a director.

"I don't," said Tubs.

He was sitting square in his chair, and his under-jaw was thrust out; he was fighting for his faith in his own judgment.

Three directors began talking at once; they were growing angry.

"It has come to this, Tubs." It was like old times to hear Callington snap that word at him. "We know you too well to accept your final word on this matter; we are not going to stand idly by and see you throw away this opportunity. I have seen you throw away things more precious, but you are not going to bungle this. Here"—he smacked the table with his hand—"now"—he thumped it again—"we have got to come to a decision and guarantee this irrigation scheme. It means a hundred thousand pounds for distribution amongst our shareholders. Are you going to agree, or are you not?"

Tubs licked his lips.

"I'm not," he said doggedly. "It's a rotten scheme; it's run by a wrong 'un. If it petered out, as it will do, the bank would be ruined."

"You're a fool!" Callington was white with anger. "I will send you my resignation from the board to-morrow."

Tubs said nothing—not even when, one after another, by growling asides and direct statement, the remaining of the directors of Tubbetts's Bank followed Callington's lead.

IV.

Hard days for Tubs, these. The resignation of the directors was the sensation of the day. There was almost a run on the bank, and every post brought hundreds of letters from anxious depositors.

The day the last of the directors resigned, he sent for Vicars, his managing clerk.

"Vicars," he said, "how much commission were you promised by Vessey for inducing the directors to entertain his wretched scheme?"

"Sir!" said the outraged clerk.

"How much?"

"This is scandalous, sir! I served your late father——"

"How much commission for standing in with the Vessey gang?"

The managing clerk turned on his heel.

"I shall leave the bank at once! You shall hear from my solicitors!"

But Tubs was at the door in a bound.

"Before you leave this room, I want to know," he said; and as Vicars attempted to pass, he seized him by the throat and thrust him back into the centre of the room. "Stand there, you dog! You didn't think I knew where the directors got all their information from—all the fine promises from—did you? They didn't get it from Vessey; he's too wily. I know Vessey; he'd promise nothing."

The man was sick with fear.

"I can run you in for conspiracy," said Tubs, "or I could break every bone in your body, and one or the other I'll do, if you don't tell me the truth."

"There was no commission," said the man sullenly, "but Vessey gave me a thousand for expenses. How did you know?"

"I'll not satisfy your beastly curiosity. Sit down and write."

Nine ex-directors of Tubbetts's Bank received nine certified copies of a managing clerk's confession. Nine directors accepted Tubs's invitation to a meeting, and they came looking rather sheepish.

"Vicars was at the bottom of this from the first," said Tubs. "He was getting big cheques and running another account at the Yorkshire Industrial."

"I hardly know what to say to you, Tubs," said Callington, "except that I am sorry. I thought Vessey was straight. We might have ruined thousands of people! My blood goes cold when I think of it!"

"That brings me to another point," said Tubs hurriedly, for the distress of his Colonel made him uncomfortable. "There will be a bonus. I've made a deal—bought the Yorkshire Industrial Bank for a quarter of a million, and transferred it to the Bank of the Empire at a profit of fifty thousand."

He did not say what had decided him to buy the bank, and they did not guess. They did not know that it was to examine the private account of Mr. Vicars, sometime managing clerk of Tubbetts's, that he had spent a quarter of a million, and that, having satisfied his curiosity, he hastened to sell his purchase—at a profit.

"It's very wonderful to me," said Callington half to himself. "Think of what has happened! If Tubs had been killed, and another man spared! I used to think——"

He shook his head, and Tubs grew very red.

"Bankin' is my game," he said apologetically.