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Fred M. White
Hard Pressed
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066238162
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
CHAPTER VI A TRIAL SPIN ON THE DOWNS
CHAPTER VII A LEAF FROM THE PAST
CHAPTER VIII ROGUES IN COUNCIL
CHAPTER XII A LION IN THE PATH
CHAPTER XIII "AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN"
CHAPTER XVII A FAIR DAY'S SPORT
CHAPTER XVIII AN EVENING VISIT
CHAPTER XXII A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
CHAPTER XXIV A STRANGE VISITOR
CHAPTER XXIX ACTING THE FRIEND
CHAPTER XXXI A POINT-BLANK REFUSAL
CHAPTER XXXIII THE FIVE BASKETS
CHAPTER XXXV A POISONOUS ATMOSPHERE
CHAPTER XXXVI FIELDEN INTERVENES
CHAPTER XXXVII BETWEEN TWO FIRES
CHAPTER XXXVIII LOOSENING THE GRIP
CHAPTER XLII FIRST PAST THE POST
CHAPTER I
A MODERN SPORTSMAN
IT was a gala night at the National Opera House, and the theatre was crammed from floor to roof, for Melba was sustaining a new part, and all London had gathered to listen. It was rarely indeed that so fashionable an audience assembled in February. The boxes were ablaze with diamonds. On the grand tier, however, there was one box which was not filled with gaily garbed women and which attracted attention by the fact that its sole occupants were a girl and two men. Though she was quietly dressed and wore no ornaments except flowers, nevertheless a good many women envied May Haredale; for the box belonged to Raymond Copley, who was quite the last thing in the way of South African millionaires. He was a youngish, smart-looking Englishman of the florid type, was becoming known as a sportsman and, according to all accounts, was fabulously rich. He was supposed to have discovered diamonds in Rhodesia, a stroke of fortune which put him in a position, it was alleged, practically, to dictate terms to the De Beers Company, and those "in the know" in the City declared he had come out of a negotiation for amalgamation with two millions of money in his pocket.
Be that as it may, he had purchased a fine old estate within twenty miles of London, and lavished large