A Secret Society (Spy Thriller). Talbot Mundy

so bull-angry at having to know of your existence that they’ll grease the cables and suspend all other business until you’re cashiered in disgrace. You’ll be kicked through your headstall, they’ll be in such a hurry! It’ll be: ‘Out o’ the country quick! No recommendation. No pension. Your back pay held up for a year in case of possible claims against you. Watch your step on the way out, and don’t ever let us see your face again!’ The U.S. consul will refuse to ship you to the States because you aren’t a distressed seaman. The British won’t ship you anywhere because you’re not British. And in the end you’ll have to do exactly what you might do now, if you’d listen to sense!”

      “Sing on, Cassandra!” Grim laughed.

      “Who the Hell’s Cassandra?” demanded Jeremy.

      “A lady in ancient Troy, who got out the Evening News.”

      “Well, I’m no lady. Jim, you fire the British Empire before it fires you! Write out your resignation and file it, with compliments, before the French Ambassador has time to ring the front-door bell at Windsor Castle! If they ask you what for, tell ‘em the War’s over; maybe they don’t know it!”

      “I’d still be out of a job,” Grim suggested.

      “Join Ramsden and me. Grim, Ramsden, and Ross. Thirty-three and a third per cent. apiece of kicks as well as ha’pence. We’ll take along Narayan Singh as office murderer. What do you say?”

      Grim cocked one bushy eyebrow.

      “I’ve got no money, so I can’t buy into your firm, old scout. That’s all about it.”

      Jeremy thrust out his jaw, and drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ve a draft for two thousand pounds in my pocket, and I don’t know how much in the bank in Sydney. Haven’t been home for five years and the bank may have busted, but I guess not. Rammy here’s been saving two thirds of his income ever since pa died. Never mind what Rammy says at the moment, he’ll put in two pounds to my one; take my word for it. We’ll make you senior partner, Jim, ‘cause you’re the one who’ll get the worst of it if we lose out, so you’ll be cautious. Rammy can do the hard work; I’ll think up ideas. I know millions of ways of making money.”

      That was the first I had heard of any such partnership, but I made no comment, for a man had come up the front steps whom I hadn’t seen for years, but whom I have crossed two oceans more than once to have a talk with—a man of about my own size but twenty years older, upstanding and hale, without a gray hair on his head, although carrying rather more stomach than I would care to tote around. He saw me, smiled, and nodded, but turned to the left, choosing a table at the other end of the veranda, where he buried himself at once behind a newspaper.

      “Wake up, Rammy!” said Jeremy, kicking my shin under the table. “Tell him you’ll kill him if he don’t come in with us! Tell him it’s true that you’ve got capital. Go on!”

      “It’s true that I’ve saved something,” I answered. “But a man’s a fool who risks his savings. I’d like a partnership with you and Grim, if you’ve a prospect; but we ought to be able to work it without staking both capital and energy. There are lots of men with capital.”

      “Not in Egypt,” said Jeremy. “All they’ll buy here is manicure sets and big expensive cars. We’re selling guts and gumption. We’d find ten Gyppies in five minutes to stake money for a crooked deal, but—”

      “Suppose you argue a while with Grim,” I answered. “I’ll go talk with Meldrum Strange.”

      “Who the Hell’s Meldrum?”

      “One of the nine richest men in the world. I made a million for him once. Wherever Meldrum Strange is, something’s doing. He’s on the level, but a durned hard nut.”

      “Go crack him!” answered Jeremy. “I’ll stay here and comb Jim out of the army like a louse out of a dog’s hair. So long.”

      CHAPTER II

       “We three now haven’t a parasite between us.”

       Table of Contents

      I sat down beside Meldrum Strange without saying anything and it wasn’t until the chair creaked under my weight that he laid the newspaper down.

      “Oh, hello,” he said then.

      “Hello yourself,” said I. “How’s business?”

      “I’ve gone out of business.”

      I looked hard at him and he at me. He was good to look at, with a face carved out of granite and a neat black beard. There was a suggestion of Ulysses Grant, with the same look of good humor balancing an iron will.

      “I’ve come all the way from the States to see you,” he said.

      “Nothing else?”

      “Just that,” he answered, biting the end of a dark cigar.

      “I don’t believe you,” I answered, “but I’ll smoke while you elaborate the fiction.”

      “You’re going out of business too,” he said, passing me his leather case.

      “I did that during the first year of the War,” I answered. “Cleaned up in Abyssinia and quit for keeps.”

      “Uh. Who was behind that Abyssinian thing? You put it up to me. Cohn and Campbell fell, didn’t they? Make anything?”

      “Three times what they put in.”

      “Uh. What did you get?”

      “Enough,” I answered.

      He nodded and began chewing his cigar.

      “Well,” he said presently, “I heard you were wandering in these parts. Tried to reach you by cable, but you’d left no address.”

      “Any banker out here would have delivered a message sooner or later,” I answered, puzzled. I’m not used to being in such demand.

      “I daresay. Nothing to keep me in Chicago. Came to look for you—P & O from Marseilles. Saw your name on the hotel register.”

      “Did you ask for me?”

      “No. No hurry. Met some people. Up at Government House. Seems you’ve been trying your hand at international politics?”

      “I’ve a friend who was interested. Helped him,” I said.

      “Did you like it?” he asked suddenly, looking sharply at me.

      “You bet! We spiked a crooked game and pulled a good man out of a tight place.”

      “I’m in that game nowadays,” he said.

      He took hold of his chin in his left hand and eyed me steadily.

      “Can you afford to be independent?”

      I nodded.

      “Got enough, eh? Good. Couldn’t use a man who thought he needed money badly.”

      “What’s eating you?” I asked. “The only time I handled your dollars you had me bonded.”

      “Couldn’t get a bond to cover this. Need a man used to acting on his own responsibility, not given to talking—be depended on to keep important secrets—act coolly in emergency—knows the world in the widest sense—willing to have no other ambition than to unknot the international snarls. You’ll fill the bill.”

      “You’re wrong,” I said. “My gifts are mechanical. You need a man with brains for a job like that. James Schuyler Grim is the man for you.”

      “Ah. Now let me see; they mentioned Grim—Major Grim, isn’t he? American? Um-m-m. What do you know of him?”

      “How d’you rate my opinion?”