"Rum?" repeated the girl hazily. "What is rum?"
"Of all the rummy old coincidences," said Bones, with restrained and hollow enthusiasm--"why, only this morning I was reading in _Twiddly Bits_, a ripping little paper, dear old miss---- There's a column called 'Things You Ought to Know,' which is honestly worth the twopence."
"I know it," said the girl curiously. "But what did you read?"
"It was an article called 'Fortunes Made in Old Iron,'" said Bones. "Now, suppose this naughty old refiner---- By Jove, it's an idea!"
He paced the room energetically, changing the aspect of his face with great rapidity, as wandering thoughts crowded in upon him and vast possibilities shook their alluring banners upon the pleasant scene he conjured. Suddenly he pulled himself together, shot out his cuffs, opened and closed all the drawers of his desk as though seeking something--he found it where he had left it, hanging on a peg behind the door, and put it on--and said with great determination and briskness:
"Stivvins' Wharf, Greenhithe. You will accompany me. Bring your note-book. It is not necessary to bring a typewriter. I will arrange for a taxicab. We can do the journey in two hours."
"But where are you going?" asked the startled girl.
"To Stivvins'. I am going to look at this place. There is a possibility that certain things have been overlooked. Never lose an opportunity, dear old miss. We magnates make our fortune by never ignoring the little things."
But still she demurred, being a very sane, intelligent girl, with an imagination which produced no more alluring mental picture than a cold and draughty drive, a colder and draughtier and even more depressing inspection of a ruined factory, and such small matters as a lost lunch.
But Bones was out of the room, in the street, had flung himself upon a hesitant taxi-driver, had bullied and cajoled him to take a monstrous and undreamt-of journey for a man who, by his own admission, had only sufficient petrol to get his taxi home, and when the girl came down she found Bones, with his arm entwined through the open window of the door, giving explicit instructions as to the point on the river where Stivvins' Wharf was to be found.
II
Bones returned to his office alone. The hour was six-thirty, and he was a very quiet and thoughtful young man. He almost tiptoed into his office, closed and locked the door behind him, and sat at his desk with his head in his hands for the greater part of half an hour.
Then he unrolled the plan of the wharf, hoping that his memory had not played him false. Happily it had not. On the bottom right-hand corner Mr. Staines had written his address! "Stamford Hotel, Blackfriars."
Bones pulled a telegraph form from his stationery rack and indited an urgent wire.
Mr. Staines, at the moment of receiving that telegram, was sitting at a small round table in the bar of The Stamford, listening in silence to certain opinions which were being expressed by his two companions in arms and partners in misfortune, the same opinions relating in a most disparaging manner to the genius, the foresight, and the constructive ability of one who in his exuberant moments described himself as Honest John.
The explosive gentleman had just concluded a fanciful picture of what would happen to Honest John if he came into competition with the average Bermondsey child of tender years.
Honest John took the telegram and opened it. He read it and gasped. He stood up and walked to the light, and read it again, then returned, his eyes shining, his face slightly flushed.
"You're clever, ain't you?" he asked. "You're wise--I don't think! Look at this!"
He handed the telegram to the nearest of his companions, who was the tall, thin, and non-explosive partner, and he in turn passed it without a word to his more choleric companion.
"You don't mean to say he's going to buy it?"
"That's what it says, doesn't it?" said the triumphant Mr. Staines.
"It's a catch," said the explosive man suspiciously.
"Not on your life," replied the scornful Staines. "Where does the catch come in? We've done nothing he could catch us for?"
"Let's have a look at that telegram again," said the thin man, and, having read it in a dazed way, remarked: "He'll wait for you at the office until nine. Well, Jack, nip up and fix that deal. Take the transfers with you. Close it and take his cheque. Take anything he'll give you, and get a special clearance in the morning, and, anyway, the business is straight."
Honest John breathed heavily through his nose and staggered from the bar, and the suspicious glances of the barman were, for once, unjustified, for Mr. Staines was labouring under acute emotions.
He found Bones sitting at his desk, a very silent, taciturn Bones, who greeted him with a nod.
"Sit down," said Bones. "I'll take that property. Here's my cheque."
With trembling fingers Mr. Staines prepared the transfers. It was he who scoured the office corridors to discover two agitated char-ladies who were prepared to witness his signature for a consideration.
He folded the cheque for twenty thousand pounds reverently and put it into his pocket, and was back again at the Stamford Hotel so quickly that his companions could not believe their eyes.
"Well, this is the rummiest go I have ever known," said the explosive man profoundly. "You don't think he expects us to call in the morning and buy it back, do you?"
Staines shook his head.
"I know he doesn't," he said grimly. "In fact, he as good as told me that that business of buying a property back was a fake."
The thin man whistled.
"The devil he did! Then what made him buy it?"
"He's been there. He mentioned he had seen the property," said Staines. And then, as an idea occurred to them all simultaneously, they looked at one another.
The stout Mr. Sole pulled a big watch from his pocket.
"There's a caretaker at Stivvins', isn't there?" he said. "Let's go down and see what has happened."
Stivvins' Wharf was difficult of approach by night. It lay off the main Woolwich Road, at the back of another block of factories, and to reach its dilapidated entrance gates involved an adventurous march through a number of miniature shell craters. Night, however, was merciful in that it hid the desolation which is called Stivvins' from the fastidious eye of man. Mr. Sole, who was not aesthetic and by no means poetical, admitted that Stivvins' gave him the hump.
It was ten o'clock by the time they had reached the wharf, and half-past ten before their hammering on the gate aroused the attention of the night-watchman--who was also the day-watchman--who occupied what had been in former days the weigh-house, which he had converted into a weatherproof lodging.
"Hullo!" he said huskily. "I was asleep."
He recognized Mr. Sole, and led the way to his little bunk-house.
"Look here, Tester," said Sole, who had appointed the man, "did a young swell come down here to-day?"
"He did," said Mr. Tester, "and a young lady. They gave Mr. Staines's name, and asked to be showed round, and," he added, "I showed 'em round."
"Well, what happened?" asked Staines.
"Well," said the man, "I took 'em in the factory, in the big building, and then this young fellow asked to see the place where the metal was kept."
"What metal?" asked three voices at one and the same time.
"That's what I asked," said Mr. Tester,