THE ENORMOUS SUCCESS that Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) enjoyed in the 1920s and ’30s extended beyond the United Kingdom to the United States, but Elegant Edward (1928) was suffused with a kind of humor that evidently did not appeal to Americans, as the collection of short stories was never published on the other side of the Atlantic.
Unlike most of the many criminal characters created by Wallace, Edward Farthindale, known to one and all as Elegant Edward, was not a brilliant mastermind who arrogantly laughed at the police who tried to capture him. He is described thus by the editor:
He is a droll character. His crimes are not conceived in a spirit of overwhelming and deadly seriousness. There is a light touch in all his performances. Nor is his skill always of such a high order that he outwits the police. His encounters with them are almost in the nature of a friendly game in which the better man, whoever he may happen at the time to be, wins, with no lasting ill-feeling on the part of his opponent.
As the most popular writer in the world in the 1920s and ’30s, Wallace earned a fortune—reportedly more than a quarter of a million dollars a year during the last decade of his life, but his extravagant lifestyle left his estate deeply in debt when he died.
“A Fortune in Tin” was originally published in Elegant Edward (London, Readers Library, 1928).
ELEGANT EDWARD dealt in a stable line of goods, and, in the true sense of the word, he was no thief. He was admittedly a chiseller, a macer, a twister, and a get-a-bit. His stock-in-trade consisted either of shares in derelict companies purchased for a song, or options on remote properties, or genuine gold claims, indubitable mineral rights, and oil propositions. Because of his elegance and refinement, he was able to specialize in this high-class trade and make a living where another man would have starved.
Mr. Farthindale had emerged from a welter of trouble with almost all the capital which had been his a week before. He had tracked down certain disloyal partners who had sold property of his, and had forced them to disgorge their ill-gotten gains, and from the fence who had illegally purchased his property, he had obtained the rest.
The police were seeking a certain Scotty Ferguson, the partner in question, and because Edward had no desire to give evidence against his some-time confederate, he had changed his lodgings, and was considering the next move in his adventurous game.
It came as a result of a chance meeting with an itinerant vendor of novelties, who stood on the kerb of a London street selling 100,000 mark notes for twopence. Insensibly Edward’s mind went to the business he understood best. In the city of London was a snide bucket-shop keeper with whom he was acquainted. This gentleman operated from a very small office in a very large building. A picture of the building was on his note-paper, and country clients were under the impression that the Anglo-Imperial Stock Trust occupied every floor and overflowed to the roof. To him, Edward repaired, and found him playing patience, for business was bad.
“How do, Mr. Farthindale. Come in and sit down.”
“How’s it going?” asked Edward conventionally.
The Anglo-Imperial Stock Trust made a painful face.
“Rotten,” he said. “I sent out three thousand circulars last week, offering the finest oil ground in Texas at a hundred pounds an acre. I got one reply—from an old lady who wanted to know if I’d met her son who lives in Texas City. The suckers are dying, Mr. Farthindale.”
Edward scratched his chin.
“Oil’s no good to me,” he said. “I’ve worked oil in Scotland. What about mines?”
“Gold or silver?” asked the Anglo-Imperial, rising with alacrity. “I’ve got a peach of a silver mine——”
“I’ve worked silver mines,” said the patient Edward, “in Wales. Silver never goes as well as gold.”
“What about tin?” asked The Trust anxiously. “The Trevenay Tin Mine Corporation? The mine’s been working since the days of the Pernicions, or Phinocians…prehistoric dagoes…you know?”
Elegant Edward had a dim idea that the Phœnicians were pretty old, and was mildly impressed.
“I’ve got a hundred and twenty thousand shares out of a hundred and fifty thousand. It’s a real mine, too—about forty years ago a thousand people used to work on it!” The Trust continued. “The other thirty thousand are owned by an old Scotsman—a professor or something—and he won’t part. I offered him twenty pounds for ’em, too. Not that they’re worth it, or rather at the time they weren’t,” added The Trust hastily, realizing that Edward stood in the light of a possible purchaser.
“But the land and machinery are worth money?” suggested Edward.
The Trust shook his head.
“The company only holds mining rights, and the royalty owner has got first claim on the buildings—such as they are. But the company looks good, and the new share certificates I had printed look better. You couldn’t have a finer proposition, Mr. Farthindale.”
There were hagglings and bargainings, scornful refusings and sardonic comments generally before Elegant Edward was able to take the trail again, the owner of a hundred and twenty thousand shares in a tin company, which was genuine in all respects, except that it contained no tin.
“If you’re going to Scotland, see that professor,” said The Trust at parting. “You ought to get the rest of the stock for a tenner.”
It was to Scotland, as a needle to a magnet, that Elegant Edward was attracted. A desire to get “his own back,” to recoup himself for his losses, in fact to “show ’em” brought him to a country he loathed.
He had come to sell to the simple people of Scotia, at ten shillings per share, stock which he had bought at a little less than a farthing. And, since cupidity and stupidity run side by side in the mental equipment of humanity, he succeeded.
It was in the quietude of an Edinburgh lodging that Edward ran to earth Professor Folloman.
The professor was usually very drunk and invariably very learned—a wisp of a man, with long, dirty-white hair and an expression of woe. Five minutes after the two boarders met in the dismal lodging-house “drawing-room,” the professor, a man without reticence, was retailing his troubles.
“The world,” said Professor Folloman, “neglects its geniuses. It allows men of my talent to starve, whilst it gives fortunes to the charlatan, the faker, and the crook. O mores, o tempores!”
“Oui, oui,” said Elegant Edward misguidedly.
The professor came naturally to his favourite subject, which was the hollowness and chicanery of patent medicines. It was his illusion that his life had been ruined, his career annihilated, and the future darkened by the popularity of certain patent drugs which are household words to the average Briton. That his misfortune might be traced to an early-acquired habit of making his breakfast on neat whisky—a practice which on one occasion had almost a tragical result—never occurred to him.
“Here am I, sir, one of the best physicians of the city of Edinburgh, a man holding degrees which I can only describe as unique, and moreover, the possessor of shares in one of the richest tin mines in Cornwall, obliged to borrow the price of a drink from a comparative stranger.”
Elegant Edward, recognizing this description of himself, made an heroic attempt to nail down the conversation to the question of tin mines, but the professor was a skilful man.
“What has ruined me?” he demanded, fixing his bright eyes on Edward with a hypnotic glare. “I’ll tell you, my man! Biggins’ Pills have ruined me, and Walkers’ Wee Wafers and Lambo’s Lightning Lung-tonic! Because of this pernicious invasion of the healing realm, I, John Walker Folloman, am compelled to live on the charity of relations—let us have a drink.”
Such a direct invitation, Elegant Edward could not refuse. They adjourned to a near-by bar, and here the professor took up the threads of the conversation.
“You, like myself, are a gentleman. The moment I saw you, my man, I said: ‘Here is a professional.’ None but a professional would have his trousers creased, and wear a tail-coat. None but a professional would pay the scrupulous attention to his attire and the glossiness of his hat—don’t drown it, my lass! whisky deserves a better fate—you’re a doctor, sir?”
Edward coughed. He had never before been mistaken for a doctor. It was not an unpleasing experience.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“Ah! A lawyer!”
“I’ve had a lot to do with the law,” said Elegant Edward truthfully, “but I’m not exactly a lawyer.”
“Something that makes money, I have no doubt,” said the old man gloomily. “I could have been a millionaire, had I descended to the manufacture of noxious quack medicines instead of following my profession. I should have been a millionaire had somebody with my unique knowledge of metallurgy been in control of the Trevenay Mines——”
“Tin mines?” asked Elegant Edward. “There’s no money in tin. I always tell my friends—I’m in the stock-broking business—‘If you’ve got tin shares, sell ’em.’ ”
“I’ll no’ sell mine,” said the old man grimly. “No, sir! I’ll hold my shares. A dear friend of mine, Professor Macginnis, is in Cornwall and has promised to give me a report—Macginnis is the greatest authority on tin in this world, Sir. I have his letter,” he fumbled in his pocket unsuccessfully, “no, I have left it in my other jacket. But it doesn’t matter. He is taking a holiday in the south, and has promised to thoroughly examine the ground.”
“His—his report won’t be published in the papers, will it?” asked Edward anxiously.
“It will not,” said the professor, and pushed his glass across the counter. “Repeat the potion, Maggie, and let your hand be as generous as your heart, my lass!”
A few days later, and on a raw December morning, with leaden clouds overhead and the air thick with driving sleet, Elegant Edward came out of the station and gazed disconsolately upon so much of the town as was visible through the veil of the blizzard.
“So this is Dundee!” said Elegant Edward, unconsciously paraphrasing a better-known slogan. He had chosen Dundee for the scene of his operations, mainly because it was not Glasgow. Gathering up his rug and his bag, he beckoned the one cab in sight and gave his instructions.
At the little hotel where he was set down, he found a letter awaiting him. It was addressed to Angus Mackenzie (he had signed the register in that name) and its contents were satisfactory. The small furnished office which he had engaged by letter was waiting his pleasure, the key was enclosed, together with a receipt for the rent he had paid in advance.
To trace the progress of Mr. Farthindale through the months that followed his arrival on the Tay would be more or less profitless; to tell the story of his limited advertising campaign, his clever circularization and the pleasing volume of business which came his way, and divers other incidentals, would be to elongate the narrative to unpardonable length.
Margaret Elton came to him on the third day after his arrival. She was tall, good-looking and, moreover, she believed in miracles. But although she was, by the admission of one who loved her best, masterful, she could not master the cruel fate which had hitherto denied her sufficient money to support an ailing mother without having recourse to the limited income of a young man who found every day a new reason for marrying at once.
“It is no use, John,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to let you marry the family. When I can make mother independent I’ll marry.”
“Margaret,” he said, “that means waiting another fifty years—but I’ll wait. What is your new boss like?”
“He’s English and inoffensive,” she said tersely.
Which in a sense was true, though Elegant Edward had his own doubts about his inoffensiveness.
Edward would have fired her the day she came, only he couldn’t summon sufficient courage. Thereafter, he was lost. She took control of the office, the business, and Elegant Edward. It was she who had the idea for appointing the travellers to carry the joyous news about the Trevenay Tin Mine to the remotest parts of Scotland; she who discharged them when their expense accounts came in; she who saw the printers and corrected the proofs of the circular describing the history of the Trevenay Mine; she who bought the typewriter, and insisted upon Edward coming to the office at ten o’clock every morning. She liked Edward; she told him so. Usually such a declaration, coming from so charming a female, would have set Edward’s head wagging. But she had so many qualifications to her admiration that he was almost terrified at her praise.
“I don’t like that moustache. Why do you wax it, Mr. Mackenzie?” she demanded. “It looks so ridiculous! I wonder how you would look clean-shaven?”
Now Edward’s moustache was the pride of his life, and he made one great effort to preserve it intact.
“My personal appearance——” he began with tremulous hauteur.
“Take it off; I’d like to see you without it,” she said, “unless you’ve got a bad mouth. Most men wear moustaches because their mouths won’t stand inspection.”
The next morning Edward came clean-shaven, and she looked at him dubiously.
“I think you had better grow it again,” she said. It was her only comment.
Money was coming in in handsome quantities—Mr. Farthindale’s new profession was paying handsome dividends.
One day there floated into his office an acquaintance of other days, Lew Bennyfold—an adventurer at large. Happily the dominant Margaret was out at lunch.
“Thought it was you,” said Lew, seating himself uninvited. “I spotted you coming into the building yesterday; it took me all the morning to locate you. What’s the graft?”
Edward gazed upon the apparition in dismay. He had some slight acquaintance with this confidence man—he did not wish to improve upon it.
“This is no graft, Mr. Bennyfold,” he said gently, “but honest toil and labour—I’m running a mine.”
“Go on?” said the other incredulously. “You’re not the What-is-it Tin Mine, are you?”
Edward nodded.
“That explains everything,” said Mr. Lew Bennyfold gravely, and rose to his feet. “Well, I won’t stay—I don’t want to be in this.”
“What do you mean?” asked Edward.
Mr. Bennyfold smiled pityingly.
“From what I’ve heard of you, you’re a fly mug,” he said; “in fact, you’ve got a name for being clever but easy. But how any grafter could sit here in an office, working with a ‘nose’ and not be wise to it, beats me.”
“A nose!” said the startled Edward.
Mr. Bennyfold nodded again.
“I’ve been working Dundee, and ‘work’s’ a good word. It has been perishing hard work. And I’ve been here long enough to see things. How do you think I came to be watching this office?”
Edward had wondered that too.
“I’ve been tailing up Sergeant Walker and his girl,” said Lew. “I happen to lodge opposite the sergeant—he’s the smartest ‘busy’ in Dundee. And I’ve noticed that he’s always with a girl. Meets her after dark and they go long walks. So I got on the track of the girl. And she led me here.”
“Here?” gasped Edward turning pale. “You don’t mean to tell me——?”
“She’s Miss Margaret Elton,” said Bennyfold, “and if you’ve let her know anything about your business, you’re as good as jugged.”
Elegant Edward wiped his warm forehead.
His business was an honest one—only an insider who knew the office secrets could prove otherwise. Usually, Elegant Edward did not allow an insider to know much, but this bossy girl had taken the office workings into her own hands.
“He’s sweet on her—there’s no doubt about that,” said Bennyfold. “My landlady told me they’re going to be married. But that’s worse for you, because she’ll do anything for him and swear anything. Mr. Farthindale, I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a million!”
He left with this, and his anxiety to avoid complications added to Edward’s distress.
When the girl came back from lunch he regarded her with a new and a fearful interest. There was something very remorseless about her mouth; her eyes, he thought, were pitiless, her profile made him shudder.
“Our agent in Ayr isn’t doing much business,” she said brusquely. “I think we had better fire him and get another man.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Now he understood her bossiness. She had behind her the power and authority of the law.
Late in the afternoon she interruped his gloomy meditations.
“Will you excuse me for a few minutes? A friend of mine wants to see me.”
“Certainly, Miss Elton,” he said, almost humbly.
When she had left the room, he went to the window and looked out.
A tall, stern-looking young man was pacing the sidewalk on the opposite side, from time to time looking up at the office window. With him was an older man—a typical chief constable in mufti.
Edward saw the girl join them, watched the earnest conversation between them, and once saw the girl look up to the window where he was standing. She saw him and said something and all three looked up.
Edward drew back quickly out of sight.
So Lew was right. He was trapped!
Now Edward was a quick thinker and a man to whom inspiration came very readily. He was inspired now. The scheme came to him in a flash—the greatest wangle that had ever entered his mind. He waited until the girl came back.
“I’m sorry I was so long. That young gentleman you saw me with—I noticed you were looking—is my fiancé, and the other gentleman is a house agent. Willie is buying a house, though I doubt if he’ll ever put it to the use he intends.”
“Indeed,” said Edward politely. “I’ll be going to my lawyers for a few minutes to get my will made. Will you witness it for me?”
She looked at him in surprise.
“Thinking of dying?” she asked suspiciously.
Edward had the feeling that to die without her permission would be regarded by her as an unfriendly act.
The little lawyer who had fixed up his tenancy was in.
“I want a short deed drawn up, transferring my business to a young lady,” said Edward. “I want it done right away so that I can get it signed.”
The lawyer was puzzled.
“A deed? I don’t think it is necessary. A receipt would be sufficient. I’ll draw it up for you. How much is being paid?”
“Half-a-crown,” said Edward. He didn’t think Margaret would part with more without explanation. “But it has got to have her signature.”
“I see—a nominal transfer,” said the lawyer, and drew up the document on the spot.
Edward carried the paper back to his office.
“You sign this here,” he said, as he wrote his name across the stamp, “and to make this document legal you’ve got to put your name under mine and give me half-a-crown.”
“Why? I’ve got no half-crowns to throw away!”
Eventually and on the promise that the money would be returned, she consented, signed the paper, paid, and was repaid the money.
Edward put the document into an envelope, sealed it, and placed it in his little safe.
“Now everything’s all right,” he said and smiled seraphically.
The next morning came fifty inquiries for Trevenay Shares. The afternoon post brought forty more. He went to his bank and drew six hundred pounds. He must be ready to move at a moment’s notice.
Edward had often lived on the edges of volcanoes and thrived in the atmosphere of sulphur, but he was more than usually nervous that day and the next; and on the evening of the second day the blow fell.
He was leaving his office when he saw the tall stern young man come quickly towards him. Elegant Edward stood stock still.
“I want you, Mr. Mackenzie,” said the officer.
“I don’t know what you want me for,” said Edward loudly, and at that moment Margaret Elton came out into the street.
“You may want this young lady, but you certainly don’t want me.”
The officer stared at him.
“I don’t understand you,” he said.
“You don’t? Well, I’ll tell you something—the business belongs to her. If you’ll step inside I’ll show you.”
Edward led the way back to his sanctum, opened the safe, took out and opened the envelope.
“Here you are,” he said, “read this.”
Sergeant Walker read in silent amazement the document that transferred to Margaret Elton, “the business known as the Trevenay Share Syndicate, together with all shares held by that company, exclusive of monies standing to the credit of the syndicate, furniture, leaseholds, and all properties whatsoever.”
“You mean…this is Miss Elton’s business?” gasped Walker.
Edward nodded gravely.
“I gave it to her as—as a wedding present,” he said, “there’s the key of the safe—bless you, my children!”
He was out of the office before they could stop him.
“What does it mean?” asked the amazed girl.
Sergeant Walker shook his head.
“I don’t know—it must be that miracle you’re always talking about,” he said. “I stopped him in the street to ask him if he could give you a fortnight’s holiday and come to the wedding and he sprung this on me. How did he know we were getting married?”
The first person Edward saw on Edinburgh railway station was the professor, and he was sober. The recognition was mutual and the professor waved a cheery greeting.
“Going south, eh? So am I. Yes, sir, thanks to the activities of the quacks, I haven’t seen London for thirty years.”
The old man got into the carriage and deposited his bag on the hat rack, and as the train began to move slowly out of the station on its non-stop run to Newcastle, he explained the object of his journey.
“I’m going to meet my dear friend, Macginnis, who has made me a rich man. The Trevenay Mine, sir, is a gold mine! I am speaking figuratively, of course. A new tin deposit has been discovered, the shares which were not worth the paper they are written on, are now worth a pound—perhaps two pounds. You said you had some? I congratulate you….”
Edward did not hear any more. He had swooned.