first a cut-glass flask of whisky, with a patent stopper, and then a spacious box of cigarettes.
"I always travel with the right sort," he remarked, holding the golden liquid up to the light. "It's safer, and it saves any trouble with orders after closing-time. These English hotels, you know-!"
So saying, he dispensed whisky and cigarettes, there being a siphon and glasses, and three matches in a match-stand, on the table.
"Here's looking!" he said, with raised glass.
And Edward Henry responded, in conformity with the changeless ritual of the Five Towns:
"I looks!"
And they sipped.
Whereupon Mr. Bryany next drew from the despatch-box a piece of transparent paper.
"I want you to look at this plan of Piccadilly Circus and environs," said he.
Now there is a Piccadilly in Hanbridge; also a Pall Mall, and a Chancery Lane. The adjective "metropolitan," applied to Hanbridge is just.
"London?" questioned Edward Henry. "I understood London when we were chatting over there." With his elbow he indicated the music-hall, somewhere vaguely outside the room.
"London," said Mr. Bryany.
And Edward Henry thought:
"What on earth am I meddling with London for? What use should I be in London?"
"You see the plot marked in red?" Mr. Bryany proceeded. "Well, that's the site. There's an old chapel on it now."
"What do all these straight lines mean?" Edward Henry inquired, examining the plan. Lines radiated from the red plot in various directions.
"Those are the lines of vision," said Mr. Bryany. "They show just where an electric sign at the corner of the front of the proposed theatre could be seen from. You notice the site is not in the Circus itself-a shade to the north." Mr. Bryany's finger approached Edward Henry's on the plan and the clouds from their cigarettes fraternally mingled. "Now you see by those lines that the electric sign of the proposed theatre would be visible from nearly the whole of Piccadilly Circus, parts of Lower Regent Street, Coventry Street, and even Shaftesbury Avenue. You see what a site it is-absolutely unique."
Edward Henry asked coldly:
"Have you bought it?"
"No," Mr. Bryany seemed to apologise, "I haven't exactly bought it; but I've got an option on it."
The magic word "option" wakened the drowsy speculator in Edward Henry. And the mere act of looking at the plan endowed the plot of land with reality. There it was. It existed.
"An option to buy it?"
"You can't buy land in the West End of London," said Mr. Bryany sagely. "You can only lease it."
"Well, of course," Edward Henry concurred.
"The freehold belongs to Lord Woldo, now aged six months."
"Really!" murmured Edward Henry.
"I've got an option to take up the remainder of the lease, with sixty-four years to run, on the condition I put up a theatre. And the option expires in exactly a fortnight's time."
Edward Henry frowned, and then asked:
"What are the figures?"
"That is to say," Mr. Bryany corrected himself, smiling courteously, "I've got half the option."
"And who's got the other half?"
"Rose Euclid's got the other half."
At the mention of the name of one of the most renowned star actresses in England, Edward Henry excusably started.
"Not the-?" he exclaimed.
Mr. Bryany nodded proudly, blowing out much smoke.
"Tell me," asked Edward Henry, confidentially, leaning forward, "where do those ladies get their names from?"
"It happens in this case to be her real name," said Mr. Bryany. "Her father kept a tobacconists' shop in Cheapside. The sign was kept up for many years, until Rose paid to have it changed."
"Well, well!" breathed Edward Henry, secretly thrilled by these extraordinary revelations. "And so you and she have got it between you?"
Mr. Bryany said:
"I bought half of it from her some time ago. She was badly hard up for a hundred pounds, and I let her have the money." He threw away his cigarette half-smoked, with a free gesture that seemed to imply that he was capable of parting with a hundred pounds just as easily.
"How did she get the option?" Edward Henry inquired, putting into the query all the innuendo of a man accustomed to look at great worldly affairs from the inside.
"How did she get it? She got it from the late Lord Woldo. She was always very friendly with the late Lord Woldo, you know." Edward Henry nodded. "Why, she and the Countess of Chell are as thick as thieves! You know something about the countess down here, I reckon?"
The Countess of Chell was the wife of the supreme local magnate.
Edward Henry answered calmly, "We do."
He was tempted to relate a unique adventure of his youth, when he had driven the countess to a public meeting in his mule-carriage; but sheer pride kept him silent.
"I asked you for the figures," he added in a manner which requested Mr. Bryany to remember that he was the founder, chairman, and proprietor of the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, one of the most successful business organisations in the Midlands.
"Here they are," said Mr. Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of paper.
And as Edward Henry studied them he could hear Mr. Bryany faintly cooing into his ear: "Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced. And when I tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far exceeds the supply, and that theatre rents are always going up; when I tell you that a theatre costing £25,000 to build can be let for £11,000 a year, and often £300 a week on a short term-" And he could hear the gas singing over his head; and also, unhappily, he could hear Dr. Stirling talking to his wife and saying to her that the bite was far more serious than it looked, and Nellie hoping very audibly that nothing had "happened" to him, her still absent husband. And then he could hear Mr. Bryany again:
"When I tell you-"
"When you tell me all this, Mr. Bryany," he interrupted with the ferocity which in the Five Towns is regarded as mere directness, "I wonder why the devil you want to sell your half of the option if you do want to sell it. Do you want to sell it?"
"To tell you the truth," said Mr. Bryany as if up to that moment he had told naught but lies, "I do."
"Why?"
"Oh, I'm always travelling about, you see. England one day, America the next." Apparently he had quickly abandoned the strictness of veracity. "All depends on the governor's movements. I couldn't keep a proper eye on an affair of that kind."
Edward Henry laughed:
"And could I?"
"Chance for you to go a bit oftener to London," said Mr. Bryany, laughing too. Then, with extreme and convincing seriousness, "You're the very man for a thing of that kind. And you know it."
Edward Henry was not displeased by this flattery.
"How much?"
"How much? Well, I told you frankly what I paid. I made no concealment of that, did I now? Well, I want what I paid. It's worth it!"
"Got a copy of the option, I hope!"
Mr. Bryany produced a copy of the option.
"I am nothing but an infernal ass to mix myself up in a mad scheme like this," said Edward Henry to his soul, perusing the documents. "It's right off my line, right bang off it. But what a lark!" But even to his soul he did not utter the remainder of the truth about himself, namely, "I should like to cut a dash before this insufferable patroniser of England and the Five Towns."
Suddenly something snapped within him, and he said to Mr. Bryany:
"I'm on!"
Those