“You’re safe enough in my hands. Leave it to me, and don’t worry your head over whys and wherefores. Your interests are mine, and I’ll steer the ship into calm waters, you’ll see; but it won’t be Baldwin Briggs who’ll be master when it gets there.”
He always laughed as he ended, and Nancy sometimes smiled. His strong self-confidence struck a chord in her nature that responded readily. She did not love him; she did not even respect him; sometimes when she happened to touch him as they lay side by side in bed she would shiver and draw back as if he had been some loathsome animal; but he was the only protector she had, and he saved her the trouble of thinking for herself at a time when she found it difficult to think. That is why she acquiesced without question, and with a dull glow of satisfaction at her heart and the beginnings of a sense of triumph, when Inman told her what he had planned regarding the purchase of Baldwin’s property.
“It’ll tide him over for a bit,” he said, “but it’s a plank and not a jolly-boat, and he’s bound to go under.”
His eyes smiled into Nancy’s as he said it; but the rest of his face was passive.
“He doesn’t seem to think so,” said Nancy.
“No,” remarked her husband grimly; “he feels safe because my arm’s round him; but the time will come when——”
He opened his hands and flung his arms wide—a significant completion of the sentence; and seeing his wife’s eyes soften he added with a laugh:
“Then, maybe, we’ll save him and make him galley-slave, the foul-mouthed devil.”
When the report spread round the neighbourhood that Inman was the purchaser that astute individual only stared. Once, when he was directly challenged, he replied that he didn’t discuss business matters except with principals, and added:
“Lies are as thick on the ground as weeds. He’s a fool who wastes his time stubbing ’em up!”
“Doesn’t Baldwin guess?” Nancy asked, when he was relating this encounter.
“All Baldwin does is to curse to all eternity those who’ve bought at half value,” laughed her husband. “There’s no wonder you look worn and withered, Nancy!—he’s blasted you! Let him guess! Let ’em all guess! Priestley’s a safe lawyer, and’ll give naught away.”
This was only one move in the game and a legitimate one; there were others, more devilish, that required a clear head, infinite patience and the unscrupulous use of means which Inman judged it prudent to conceal from Nancy’s eyes. Every evening when the men had gone Baldwin and Inman would return to the office and discuss the situation out of earshot of the women. On one of the earliest of these occasions Inman had produced from a cupboard of which he had been given the key a bottle of whisky and a single tumbler.