A Bid for Fortune - Guy Boothby (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

“I went across to the safe, unlocked it, and took out the little stick China Pete had given me. When I turned round I almost dropped it with surprise as I saw the look of eagerness that rose in my visitor’s face. But he pulled himself together and said, as calmly as he had yet addressed me:

“ ‘That is the very thing. If you will allow me to purchase it, it will complete my collection. What value do you place upon it?’

“ ‘I have no sort of notion of its worth,’ I answered, putting it down on the table and looking at it. Then in a flash a thought came into my brain, and I was about to speak when he addressed me again.

“ ‘Of course my reason for wishing to buy it is rather a harebrained one, but if you care to let me have it I will give you fifty pounds for it with pleasure.’

“ ‘Not enough, Dr. Nikola,’ I said with a smile.

“He jumped as if he had been shot, and then clasped his hands tight on the arm of his chair. My random bolt had gone straight to the heart of the bullseye. This man then was Dr. Nikola, the extraordinary individual against whom China Pete had warned me. I was determined now that, come what might, he should not have the stick.

“ ‘Do you not consider the offer I make you a good one then, Mr. Wetherell?’ he asked.

“ ‘I’m sorry to say I don’t think the stick is for sale,’ I answered. ‘It was left to me by a man in return for a queer sort of service I rendered him, and I think I should like to keep it as a souvenir.’

“ ‘I will raise my offer to a hundred pounds in that case,’ said Nikola.

“ ‘I would rather not part with it,’ I said, and as I spoke, as if to clinch the matter, I took it up and returned it to the safe, taking care to lock the door upon it.

“ ‘I will give you five hundred pounds for it,’ cried Nikola, now thoroughly excited. ‘Surely that will tempt you?’

“ ‘I’m afraid an offer of ten times that amount would make no difference,’ I replied, feeling more convinced than ever that I would not part with it.

“He laid himself back in his chair, and for nearly a minute and a half stared me full in the face. You have seen Nikola’s eyes, so I needn’t tell you what a queer effect they are able to produce. I could not withdraw mine from them, and I felt that if I did not make an effort I should soon be mesmerised. So, pulling myself together, I sprang from my chair, and, by doing so, let him see that our interview was at an end. However, he was not going without a last attempt to drive a bargain. When he saw that I was not to be moved his temper gave way, and he bluntly told me that I would have to sell it to him.

“ ‘There is no compulsion in the matter,’ I said warmly. ‘The curio is my own property, and I will do just as I please with it.’

“He thereupon begged my pardon, asked me to attribute his impatience to the collector’s eagerness, and after a few last words bade me ‘good night’, and left the house.

“When his cab had rolled away I went back to my study and sat thinking for awhile. Then something prompted me to take the stick out from the safe. I did so, and sat at my table gazing at it, wondering what the mystery might be to which it was the key. That it was not what Dr. Nikola had described it I felt certain.

“At the end of half an hour I put it in my pocket, intending to take it upstairs to show my wife, locked the safe again and went off to my dressing-room. When I had described the interview and shown the stick to my wife I placed it in the drawer of the looking-glass and went to bed.

“Next morning, about three o’clock, I was awakened by the sound of someone knocking violently at my door. I jumped out of bed and enquired who it might be. To my intense surprise the answer was ‘Police!’ I therefore donned my dressing-gown, and went out to find a sergeant of police on the landing waiting for me.

“ ‘What is the matter?’ I cried.

“ ‘A burglar!’ was his answer. ‘We’ve got him downstairs; caught him in the act.’

“I followed the officer down to the study. What a scene was there! The safe had been forced, and its contents lay scattered in every direction. One drawer of my writing-table was wide open, and in a corner, handcuffed, and guarded by a stalwart constable, stood a Chinaman.

“Well, to make a long story short, the man was tried, and after denying all knowledge of Nikola⁠—who, by the way, could not be found⁠—was convicted, and sentenced to five years’ hard labour. For a month I heard no more about the curio. Then a letter arrived from an English solicitor in Shanghai demanding from me, on behalf of a Chinaman residing in that place, a little wooden stick covered with Chinese characters, which was said to have been stolen by an Englishman, known in Shanghai as China Pete. This was very clearly another attempt on Nikola’s part to obtain possession of it, so I replied to the effect that I could not entertain the request.

“A month or so later⁠—I cannot, however, be particular as to the exact date⁠—I found myself again in communication with Nikola, this time from South America. But there was this difference this time: he used undisguised threats, not only against myself, in the event of my still refusing to give him what he wanted, but also against my wife and daughter. I took no notice, with the result that my residence was again broken into, but still without success. Now I no longer locked the talisman