Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips Oppenheim

thing,” he remarked, “but I sold half an acre, a month or two ago, to a man who came very much as you come to-day. Might have been a foreigner. Said he was going to put up a factory to make boots and shoes. He is not going to start to build until next year, but he wanted a very solid floor to stand heavy machinery. Look here.”

      The agent climbed upon a pile of bricks, and Norgate followed his example. There was a boarded space before them, with scaffolding poles all around, but no other signs of building, and the interior consisted merely of a perfectly smooth concrete floor.

      “That’s the queerest way of setting about building a factory I ever saw,” the man pointed out.

      Norgate, who was not greatly interested, assented. The agent escorted him back to his taxicab.

      “Of course, it’s not my business,” he admitted, “and you needn’t say anything about this to your principals, but I hope they don’t stop with laying down concrete floors. Of course, money for the property is the chief thing we want, but we do want factories and the employment of labour, and the sooner the better. This fellow—Reynolds, he said his name was—pays up for the property all right, has that concrete floor prepared, and clears off.”

      “Raising the money to build, perhaps,” Norgate remarked. “I don’t think there’s any secret about my people’s intentions. They are going to build factories for the manufacture of crockery.”

      The agent brightened up.

      “Well, that’s a new industry, anyway. Crockery, eh?”

      “It’s a big German firm in Cannon Street,” Norgate explained. “They are going to make the stuff here. That ought to be better for our people.”

      The young man nodded.

      “I expect they’re afraid of tariff reform,” he suggested. “Those Germans see a long way ahead sometimes.”

      “I am beginning to believe that they do,” Norgate assented, as he stepped into the taxi.

      CHAPTER XXXIII

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      Norgate walked into the club rather late that afternoon. Selingman and Prince Lenemaur were talking together in the little drawing-room. They called him in, and a few minutes later the Prince took his leave.

      “Well, that’s all arranged,” Norgate reported. “I have bought the three sites. There was only one thing the fellow down at Golder’s Hill was anxious about.”

      “And that?”

      “He hoped you weren’t just going to put down a concrete floor and then shut the place up.”

      Mr. Selingman’s amiable imperturbability was for once disturbed.

      “What did the fellow mean?” he enquired.

      “Haven’t an idea,” Norgate replied, “but he made me stand on a pile of bricks and look at a strip of land which some one else had bought upon a hill close by. I suppose they want the factories built as quickly as possible, and work-people around the place.”

      “I shall have two hundred men at work to-morrow morning,” Selingman remarked. “If that agent had not been a very ignorant person, he would have known that a concrete floor is a necessity to any factory where heavy machinery is used.”

      “Is it?” Norgate asked simply.

      “Any other question?” Selingman demanded.

      “None at all.”

      “Then we will go and play bridge.”

      They cut into the same rubber. Selingman, however, was not at first entirely himself. He played his cards in silence, and he once very nearly revoked. Mrs. Benedek took him to task.

      “Dear man,” she said, “we rely upon you so much, and to-day you fail to amuse us. What is there upon your mind? Let us console you, if we can.”

      “Dear lady, it is nothing,” Selingman assured her. “My company is planning big developments in connection with our business. The details afford me much food for thought. My attention, I fear, sometimes wanders. Forgive me, I will make amends. When the day comes that my new factories start work, I will give such a party as was never seen. I will invite you all. We will have a celebration that every one shall talk of. And meanwhile, behold! I will wander no longer. I declare no trumps.”

      Selingman for a time was himself again. When he cut out, however, he fidgeted a little restlessly around the room and watched Norgate share the same fate with an air of relief. He laid his hand upon the latter’s arm.

      “Come into the other room, Norgate,” he invited. “I have something to say to you.”

      Norgate obeyed at once, but the room was already occupied. A little blond lady was entertaining a soldier friend at tea. She withdrew her head from somewhat suspicious proximity to her companion’s at their entrance and greeted Selingman with innocent surprise.

      “How queer that you should come in just then, Mr. Selingman!” she exclaimed. “We were talking about Germany, Captain Fielder and I.”

      Selingman beamed upon them both. He was entirely himself again. He looked as though the one thing in life he had desired was to find Mrs. Barlow and her military companion in possession of the little drawing-room.

      “My country is flattered,” he declared, “especially,” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, “as the subject seemed to be proving so interesting.”

      She made a little grimace at him.

      “Seriously, Mr. Selingman,” she continued, “Captain Fielder and I have been almost quarrelling. He insists upon it that some day or other Germany means to declare war upon us. I have been trying to point out that before many years have passed England and France will have drifted apart. Germany is the nearest to us of the continental nations, isn’t she, by relationship and race?”

      “Mrs. Barlow,” Selingman pronounced, “yours is the most sensible allusion to international politics which I have heard for many years. You are right. If I may be permitted to say so,” he added, “Captain Fielder is wrong. Germany has no wish to fight with any one. The last country in the world with whom she would care to cross swords is England.”

      “If Germany does not wish for war,” Captain Fielder persisted, “why does she keep such an extraordinary army? Why does she continually add to her navy? Why does she infest our country with spies and keep all her preparations as secret as possible?”

      “Of these things I know little,” Selingman confessed, “I am a manufacturer, and I have few friends among the military party. But this we all believe, and that is that the German army and navy are our insurance against trouble from the east. They are there so that in case of political controversy we shall have strength at our back when we seek to make favourable terms. As to using that strength, God forbid!”

      The little lady threw a triumphant glance across at her companion.

      “There, Captain Fielder,” she declared, “you have heard what a typical, well-informed, cultivated German gentleman has to say. I rely much more upon Mr. Selingman than upon any of the German reviews or official statements of policy.”

      Captain Fielder was bluntly unconvinced.

      “Mr. Selingman, without doubt,” he agreed, “may represent popular and cultivated German opinion. The only thing is whether the policy of the country is dictated by that class. Do you happen to have seen the afternoon papers?”

      “Not yet,” Mr. Selingman admitted. “Is there any news?”

      “There is the full text,” Captain Fielder continued, “of Austria’s demands upon Servia. I may be wrong, but I say confidently that those demands, which