A Bid for Fortune

Prologue

Dr. Nikola

The manager of the new Imperial Restaurant on the Thames Embankment went into his luxurious private office and shut the door. Having done so, he first scratched his chin reflectively, and then took a letter from the drawer in which it had reposed for more than two months and perused it carefully. Though he was not aware of it, this was the thirtieth time he had read it since breakfast that morning. And yet he was not a whit nearer understanding it than he had been at the beginning. He turned it over and scrutinised the back, where not a sign of writing was to be seen; he held it up to the window, as if he might hope to discover something from the watermark; but there was evidently nothing in either of these places of a nature calculated to set his troubled mind at rest. Then, though he had a clock upon his mantelpiece in good working order, he took a magnificent repeater watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at the dial; the hands stood at half-past seven. He immediately threw the letter on the table, and as he did so his anxiety found relief in words.

“It’s really the most extraordinary affair I ever had to do with,” he remarked to the placid face of the clock above mentioned. “And as I’ve been in the business just three-and-thirty years at eleven a.m. next Monday morning, I ought to know something about it. I only hope I’ve done right, that’s all.”

As he spoke, the chief bookkeeper, who had the treble advantage of being tall, pretty, and just eight-and-twenty years of age, entered the room. She noticed the open letter and the look upon her chief’s face, and her curiosity was proportionately excited.

“You seem worried, Mr. McPherson,” she said tenderly, as she put down the papers she had brought in for his signature.

“You have just hit it, Miss O’Sullivan,” he answered, pushing them farther on to the table. “I am worried about many things, but particularly about this letter.”

He handed the epistle to her, and she, being desirous of impressing him with her business capabilities, read it with ostentatious care. But it was noticeable that when she reached the signature she too turned back to the beginning, and then deliberately read it over again. The manager rose, crossed to the mantelpiece, and rang for the head waiter. Having relieved his feelings in this way, he seated himself again at his writing-table, put on his glasses, and stared at his companion, while waiting for her to speak.

“It’s very funny,” she said at length, seeing that she was expected to say something. “Very funny indeed!”

“It’s the most extraordinary communication I have ever received,” he replied with conviction. “You see it is written from Cuyaba, Brazil. The date is three months ago to a day. Now I have taken the trouble to find out where and what Cuyaba is.”

He made this confession with an air of conscious pride, and having done so, laid himself back in his chair, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and looked at his fair subordinate for approval.

Nor was he destined to be disappointed. He was a bachelor in possession of a snug income, and she, besides being a pretty woman, was a lady with a keen eye to the main chance.

“And where is Cuyaba?” she asked humbly.

“Cuyaba,” he replied, rolling his tongue with considerable relish round his unconscious mispronunciation of the name, “is a town almost on the western or Bolivian border of Brazil. It is of moderate size, is situated on the banks of the river Cuyaba, and is considerably connected with the famous Brazilian Diamond Fields.”

“And does the writer of this letter live there?”

“I cannot say. He writes from there—that is enough for us.”

“And he orders dinner for four—here, in a private room overlooking the river, three months ahead—punctually at eight o’clock, gives you a list of the things he wants, and even arranges the decoration of the table. Says he has never seen either of his three friends before; that one of them hails from (here she consulted the letter again) Hangchow, another from Bloemfontein, while the third resides, at present, in England. Each one is to present an ordinary visiting card with a red dot on it to the porter in the hall, and to be shown to the room at once. I don’t understand it at all.”

The manager paused for a moment, and then said deliberately—

“Hangchow is in China, Bloemfontein is in South Africa.”

“What a wonderful man you are, to be sure, Mr. McPherson! I never can think how you manage to carry so much in your head.”

There spoke the true woman. And it was a move in the right direction, for the manager was susceptible to her gentle influence, as she had occasion to know.

At this juncture the head waiter appeared upon the scene, and took up a position just inside the doorway, as if he were afraid of injuring the carpet by coming further.

“Is No 22 ready, Williams?”

“Quite ready, sir. The wine is on the ice, and cook tells me he’ll be ready to dish punctual to the moment.”

“The letter says, ‘no electric light; candles with red shades.’ Have you put on those shades I got this morning?”

“Just seen it done this very minute, sir.”

“And let me see, there was one other thing.” He took the letter from the chief bookkeeper’s hand and glanced at it.

“Ah, yes, a porcelain saucer, and a small jug of new milk upon the mantelpiece. An extraordinary request, but has it been attended to?”

“I put it there myself, sir.”

“Who wait?”

“Jones, Edmunds, Brooks, and Tomkins.”

“Very good. Then I think that will do. Stay! You had better tell the hall porter to look out for three gentlemen presenting plain visiting cards with a little red spot on them. Let Brooks wait in the hall, and when they arrive tell him to show them straight up to the room.”

“It shall be done, sir.”