The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 63
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"Ralph, you can't go in there." "Oh, come now, Jordie," Ralph smiled, and took his arm again. "It's me, your brother Ralph. You don't have to put on a show. A salty young bachelor like you, by God, I'll bet there is a plaque on the wall above every bed in there with your name on it-" He stopped, as he recognized Jordan's real consternation. "What is it, Jordie?" For once Ralph was uncertain of himself. "Don't tell me you have never had your cuff turned back for you by one of Lil's seamstresses?" "I have never set foot in that place." Jordan shook his head vehemently. He had gone pale and his lips trembled. "And nor should you, Ralph. You are a married man!" "Oh Lord, Jordie, don't be daft, lad. Even a solid diet of caviar and champagne can pall after a while. A hunk of country ham and a jug of rough cider makes a nice change." "That's your business," Jordan flashed at him. "And I don't propose to stand in the street in front of this this institution, discussing it." He turned on his heel and strode away down the sidewalk a half-dozen paces before looking back over his shoulder. "You would do better to consult your lawyer about your damned coal than-" Jordan broke off with a stricken expression, clearly horrified by his indiscretion, then he hurried away towards Market Square.
Ralph's jaw hardened, his eyes went cold and hard as polished emeralds. He had got his hint from Jordan, and it hadn't cost him the price of one of Diamond Lil's fancy girls either. The lace curtain in the front window of Rose Cottage lifted, and a pretty dark-eyed lass with a creamy oval face and soft red mouth smiled out at him, shaking her ringlets in invitation to enter.
"Sit on it, dearie," Ralph told her grimly. "And keep it warm for me. I'll be back later." He ground out the half-smoked Romeo y Julieta under his heel, and strode away towards Aaron Fagan's office building. aran Fagan called them the "wolf pack."
"Mr. Rhodes keeps them chained in specially Aconstructed kennels, but lets them run every now and then, just to get a little taste of human flesh." They did not look particularly lupine. There were four of them, soberly dressed men whose ages ranged from late thirties to mid-fifties.
Aaron introduced each of them individually, and then collectively.
"These gentlemen are the De Beers Company permanent legal advisers. I think I am correct in saying that they also act on behalf of the British South Africa Company?" "That is correct, Mr. Fagan," said the senior counsellor, and his colleagues arranged themselves down the opposite side of the long table. Each of them placed his pigskin folder of papers neatly in front of him, and then, like a rehearsed vaudeville team, they looked up in unison. It was only then that Ralph recognized the wolflike glitter in their eyes.
"In what way can we be of assistance?" "My client is seeking clarification of the mining laws promulgated by the BSA Company," Aaron replied, and two hours later Ralph was groping desperately through a maze of jargon and convoluted legal-side-roads as he tried to follow the discussion, and his irritation was becoming increasingly obvious.
Aaron made a silent plea for patience, and with an effort Ralph stopped the angry words reaching his lips, instead he hunched further down in his chair, and in a deliberately boorish gesture of defiance, he placed one boot on the polished table top amongst the scattered legal papers and crossed his other ankle on top of it.
For another hour he listened, sinking lower and still lower in his chair and scowling at the lawyers opposite him, until Aaron Fagan asked humbly. "Does that mean in your opinion my client has not fulfilled the requirements of Section 27 B Clause Five read in conjunction with Section 7 Bis?" "Well, Mr. Fagan, we would first have to examine the question of due performance as set out in Section 31," replied the pack leader carefully, smoothing his moustache and glancing at his assistants who nodded brightly again in concert. "In terms of that section--2
Abruptly Ralph reached the far frontier of his patience. He brought his boots down off the table onto the floor with a crash that startled the four grey-suited men across the table. One of them knocked his folder onto the floor, and papers flew like the feathers when a red caracal cat gets into the henhouse.
"I may not know the difference between "due performance" and the aperture between your buttocks," announced Ralph in a voice that made the leader pale and shrink in size. Like all men of words, he had a horror Of violence, and that was what he sensed in the gaze with which Ralph fixed him. "However, I do know a wagonload of horse manure when I see one. And this, gentlemen, is grade-one horse manure you are giving me." "Mr. Ballantyne." One of the younger assistants was bolder than his chief. "I must protest your use of language! Your insinuation-" "It is not an insinuation," Ralph rounded on him. "I am telling you outright that you are a bunch of bandits, is that still not clear enough? How about robbers then, or pirates?" "Sir-" The assitant sprang to his feet, flushed with indignation, and Ralph reached across the table and caught him by the front of his stock. He twisted it sharply, cutting off the man's protest before it emerged.
"Pray be silent, my good fellow, I am speaking," Ralph admonished him, and then went on, "I am sick of dealing with little thieves. I want to speak to the head bandit. Where is Mr. Rhodes?" At that moment a locomotive down in the shunting yards whistled. The sound only just carried even in the silence which followed Ralph's question, and Ralph remembered Jordan's excuse for ending lunch the previous day. He released the struggling lawyer so abruptly that the man collapsed back into his chair, fighting for breath.
"Aaron," Ralph demanded. "What time is it?" "Eight minutes of noon." "He was fobbing me off the cunning bastard was fobbing me off!" Ralph whirled and ran from the boardroom.
There were half a dozen horses at the hitching rack outside the front of the De Beers building. Without checking his speed, Ralph decided on a big strong looking bay and ran to it. He clinched the girth, unhitched the reins, and turned its head out into the road.
"Hey, you," shouted the janitor. "That's Sir Randolph's mound" "Tell Sir Randolph he can have his suite back," Ralph called, and vaulted to the saddle. It had been a good choice, the bay drove strongly between his knees. They galloped past the mine st agings through the gap between the hillocks formed by the high tailing dumps and Ralph saw Mr. Rhodes" private train.
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