in excellent taste, while others betray the blatant arrogance of the man who, risen from penury, has suddenly found himself a controller of England’s destinies, a Birthday Knight, and the husband of a woman whom the papers have suddenly commenced to dub “the beautiful Lady So-and-So.” Other houses are quiet and sober in their exterior, small, modest, and unobstructive, the town residences of men of great wealth, who, posing as gentlemen, are hoping for a peerage.
The hopes in Park Lane are many. Almost every household possesses a secret ambition, some to shine in Society, other in politics, and some even in literature. The really wealthy man sneers at a baronetcy, an honour which his tea-merchant received last year, and as for a knighthood, well, he can plank down his money this afternoon and buy one just as he bought a cigar half an hour ago in Bond Street. He must have a title, for his wife wants to be known by the name of his country place, and he has secret ambitions for a seat in the Lords. And so in every house in that long, one-sided row are hopes eternal which rise regularly every year towards the end of June.
Diamond, copper, soap, pork, and railway “kings” who dwell there are a curious assortment, yet the combined wealth of that street alone would be sufficient to pay off our National Debt and also run a respectable-sized kingdom for a year or two.
Almost every man could realise a million sterling, and certainly one of the very wealthiest among them was old Samuel Statham, the man who owned and lived in that house with the red-striped sun-blinds.
While Max Barclay was engaged in his investigations at the deserted house in Cromwell Road, old Sam was standing at the window of his study, a large front room on the ground floor overlooking the Park. It was a quiet, soberly-furnished apartment, the carpet of which was so soft that one’s feet fell noiselessly, while over the mantelshelf was a large life-sized Venus by a modern French artist, the most notable picture in the Salon five years ago.
The leather-covered chairs were all heavy and old-fashioned, the books in uniform bindings of calf and gold, and the big writing-table of the early Victorian period. Upon the table stood a great silver candelabra fitted with electric lamps, while littered about the floor were quantities of folded papers and business documents of various kinds.
There was but little comfort about the room. Artistic taste and luxury are commonly associated with Park Lane, therefore the stranger would have been greatly surprised if he had been allowed a peep within. But there was a curious bet about the house.
No stranger had ever been known to pass beyond the big swing-glass doors half-way down the hall. No outsider had ever set foot within.
Levi, the hook-nosed old butler, in his well-cut clothes and spotless linen, was a zealous janitor. No one, upon any pretext whatsoever, was allowed to pass beyond the glass doors. His master was a little eccentric, it was said, and greatly disliked intruders. He hated the inquisitiveness of the modern Press, and always feared lest his house should be described and photographed as those of his neighbours constantly were. Therefore all strangers were rigorously excluded.
Some gossip had got about concerning this. A year ago the wealthy old financier had been taken suddenly ill, and his doctor was sent for from Cavendish Square. But even he was not allowed to pass the rigidly-guarded frontier. His patient saw him in the hall, and there he diagnosed the ailment and prescribed. The doctor in question, a well-known physician, remarked upon old Sam’s eccentricity over a dinner-table in Mayfair, and very soon half smart London were talking and wondering why nobody was ever invited to the table of Samuel Statham.
In the City, as head of Statham Brothers, foreign bankers, whose offices in Old Broad Street are known to every City man, he was always affable, yet very shrewd. He and his brother could drive hard bargains, but they were always charitable, and the name of the firm constantly figured for a substantial amount in the lists in response to any charitable appeal.
From small beginnings—the early days of both brothers being shrouded in mystery—they had risen to become what they now were, a house second only to the Rothschilds in financial power, a house whose assistance was sought by kings and emperors, and whose interests were world-wide.
That morning old Sam Statham appeared unusually agitated. Rising at five o’clock, as was his habit summer and winter, he had been hard at work for hours when Levi brought him his tiny cup of black Turkish coffee. Then, glancing at the clock upon his desk, he had risen, gone to the window, and gazed out eagerly, as though in search of someone.
It was eight o’clock, and there were plenty of people about. But, though he looked up and down the thoroughfare, he was disappointed. So he snapped his thin fingers impatiently and returned to his writing.
His personal appearance was truly insignificant. When, in the street, he was pointed out to people as the great Samuel Statham, they invariably expressed astonishment. There was nothing of the blatant millionaire about him. On the contrary, he was a thin, grey, sad-looking man, rather short of stature, with a face very broad in the brow and very narrow at the chin, ending with a small, scraggy white beard clipped to a point. His cheeks were hollow, his dark eyes sunken, the skin upon his brow tightly stretched, his lips pale and thin, and about his clean-shaven upper lip a hardness that was in entire opposition with his generous instincts towards his less fortunate fellow men.
One of his peculiarities of dress was that he always wore a piece of greasy black satin ribbon, tied loosely in a bow as a cravat. The same piece did duty both by day and at evening.
His clothes, for the most part, hung upon his lean, shrunken limbs as though they had been made for a much more robust man, and his hats were indescribably greasy and out of date. When he went to the City Levi compelled him to put on his best silk hat and a decent frock coat, but often of an afternoon he might be seen sitting alone in the Park and mistaken for some poor, broken-down old man the sadness of whose face compelled sympathy.
This carelessness of dress appears to be one of the inevitable results of great fortune. A man should never be judged by his coat nowadays. The struggling clerk who lives in busy Brixton or cackling Croydon usually gives himself greater airs, and dresses far better than the head of the firm, while the dainty typewriter wears prettier blouses and neater footgear than his own out-door daughters, with their slang, their “pals,” and their distorted ideas of maiden modesty.
But old Sam Statham had neither kith nor kin. He was a lonely man—how utterly lonely only he himself knew. He had only his perpetual calculations of finance, his profit and loss accounts, and occasional chats with the ever-faithful Levi to occupy his days. He seldom if ever left London. Even the stifling August days, when his clerks went to the mountains or the sea, he still remained in London, because, as he openly declared, he hated to mix with strangers.
Curiously enough, almost the only man he trusted was his private secretary, Charlie Rolfe, the smart young man who came there from ten o’clock till two each day, wrote his private letters, and was paid a very handsome salary.
Usually old Sam was a very quiet-mannered man whom nothing disturbed. But that morning he was distinctly upset. He had scarcely slept a single wink, and his deep-sunken eyes and almost haggard face told of a great anxiety wearing out his heart.
He tried to add up a long column of figures upon a sheet of paper before him, but gave it up with a deep sigh. Again he rose, glanced out of the window, audibly denounced in unmeasured terms a motor-’bus which, tearing past, caused his room to shake, and then returned to his table.
But he was far too impatient to sit there long, for again he rose and paced the room, his grey brows knit in evident displeasure, his thin, bony hands clenched tightly, and from his lips escaping muttered imprecations upon some person whom he did not name.
Once he laughed—a hard little laugh. His lip curled in exultant triumph as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his shabby jacket and again went to look over the brisé-brisé curtains of pale pink silk into the roadway.
For a moment he looked, then, with a start, he stood glaring out. Next instant he sprang back from the window with a look of terror upon his blanched cheeks. He had caught sight of somebody whose presence there was both unwelcome and unexpected, and the encounter had filled him with anxiety