I
The kite wheeling invisible in the blue heavens, the vulture appearing
mysteriously from nowhere in the track of the staggering buck, possess
qualities which are shared by certain favoured human beings. No
newspaper announced the fact that there had arrived in the City of
London a young man tremendously wealthy and as tremendously
inexperienced.
There were no meetings of organized robber gangs, where masked men laid
nefarious plans and plots, but the instinct which called the kite to
his quarry and the carrion to the kill brought many strangers--who were
equally strange to Bones and to one another--to the beautiful office
which he had fitted for himself for the better furtherance of his
business.
One day a respectable man brought to Mr. Tibbetts a plan of a
warehouse. He came like a gale of wind, almost before Bones had
digested the name on the card which announced his existence and
identity.
His visitor was red-faced and big, and had need to use a handkerchief
to mop his brow and neck at intervals of every few minutes. His
geniality was overpowering.
Before the startled Bones could ask his business, he had put his hat
upon one chair, hooked his umbrella on another, and was unrolling, with
that professional tremblement of hand peculiar to all who unroll large
stiff sheets of paper, a large coloured plan, a greater portion of
which was taken up by the River Thames, as Bones saw at a glance.
He knew that blue stood for water, and, twisting his neck, he read
"Thames." He therefore gathered that this was the plan of a property
adjacent to the London river.
"You're a busy man; and I'm a busy man," said the stentorian man
breathlessly. "I've just bought this property, and if it doesn't
interest you I'll eat my hat! My motto is small profits and quick
returns. Keep your money at work, and you won't have to. Do you see
what I mean?"
"Dear old hurricane," said Bones feebly, "this is awfully interesting,
and all that sort of thing, but would you be so kind as to explain why
and where--why you came in in this perfectly informal manner? Against
all the rules of my office, dear old thing, if you don't mind me
snubbing you a bit. You are sure you aren't hurt?" he asked.
"Not a bit, not a bit!" bellowed the intruder. "Honest John, I
am--John Staines. You have heard of me?"
"I have," said Bones, and the visitor was so surprised that he showed
it.
"You have?" he said, not without a hint of incredulity.