Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [44]
Ali was the body-servant of Augustus Tibbetts, called by his intimates “Bones,” and he was arrayed in the costume which restaurateurs insist is the everyday kit of a true Easterner – especially such Easterners as serve after-dinner coffee.
Hamilton, not in the best of tempers – malaria leaves you that way – and dazzled by this apparition in scarlet and gold, blinked.
“O man,” he said testily in the Arabic of the Coast. “why do you walk-in-the world dressed like a so-and-so?” (You can be very rude in Arabic especially in Coast Arabic garnished with certain Swahili phrases.)
“Sir,” said Ali “these garmentures are expressly designated by Tibbetti. Embellishments of oriferous metal give wealthiness of appearance to subject, but attract juvenile research and investigation.”
Hamilton glared through the window on to the front, where a small but representative gathering of the juvenile research committee waited patiently for the reappearance of one whom in their romantic fashion they had termed “The Rajah of Bong.”
Hamilton took the letter and opened it. It was, of course, from Bones, and was extremely urgent. Thus it went:
“Dear Old Part., – Ham I’ve had an offer of Browns you know the big big Boot shop several boot shop all over London London. Old Browns going out going out of the bisiness Sindicate trying to buy so I niped in for 105,000 pounds got lock stock and barrill baril. Sindicate awfuly sore awfuley sore. All well here except poor young typewrighter cut her finger finger sliceing bread doctor says not dangerus.”
Hamilton breathed quickly. He gathered that Bones had bought a boot-shop – even a collection of boot-shops – and he was conscious of the horrible fact that Bones knew nothing about boots.
He groaned. He was always groaning, he thought, and seldom with good reason.
Bones was in a buying mood. A week before he had bought The Weekly Sunspot, which was “A Satirical Weekly Review of Human Affairs.” The possiblities of that purchase had made Hamilton go hot and moisty. He had gone home one evening, leaving Bones dictating a leading article which was a violent attack on the Government of the day, and had come in the following morning to discover that the paper had been resold at a thousand pounds profit to the owners of a rival journal which described itself as “A Weekly Symposium of Thought and Fancy.”
But Boots…and £105,000…!
This was serious. Yet there was no occasion for groaning or doubt or apprehension; for, even whilst Hamilton was reading the letter, Bones was shaking his head violently at Mr de Vinne, of the Phit-Phine Shoe Syndicate, who had offered him £15,000 profit on the turnover. And at the identical moment that Hamilton was buying his ticket for London, Bones was solemnly shaking hands with the Secretary of the Phit-Phine Shoe Syndicate (Mr de Vinne having violently, even apoplectically, refused to meet Bones) with one hand, and holding in the other a cheque which represented a profit of £17,500. It was one of Bones’ big deals, and reduced Hamilton to a condition of blind confidence in his partner.…Nevertheless…
A week later, Bones, reading his morning paper, reached and passed, without receiving any very violent impression, the information that Mr John Siker, the well-known private detective, had died at his residence at Clapham Park. Bones read the item without interest. He was looking for bargains – an early morning practice of his because the buying fever was still upon him.
Hamilton, sitting at his desk, endeavouring to balance the firm’s accounts from a paying-in book and a cheque book, the counterfoils of which were only occasionally filled in, heard the staccato “Swindle!… Swindle!” and knew that Bones had reached the pages whereon were displayed the prospectuses of new companies.
He had the firm conviction that all new companies were founded on frauds and floated by criminals. The offer of seven per cent debenture