Part 1. The Sealed Rooms - Chapter 3. Hugo Explains Himself

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_ PART I. THE SEALED ROOMS
CHAPTER III. HUGO EXPLAINS HIMSELF

'And what,' asked Hugo, smiling faintly at Mr. Senior Polycarp--'what is your client's idea of price?'

For half an hour they had been talking in the luxurious calm of Hugo's central office, which was like an island refuge in the middle of that tossing ocean of business. It overlooked the court of fountains from the second story, and the highest jet of water threw a few jewelled drops to the level of its windows.

Mr. Polycarp stroked his beautiful white moustache.

'We would give,' he said in his mincing, passionless voice, 'the cost price of premises, stock, and fixtures, and for goodwill seven times your net annual profits. In addition, we should be anxious to secure your services as managing director for ten years at five thousand a year, plus a percentage of profits.'

'Hum!'

'And, of course, if you wished part of the purchase-money in shares--'

'Have you formed any sort of estimate of my annual profits?' Hugo demanded.

'Yes--a sort of estimate.'

'You have looked carefully round, eh?'

'My clients have. I myself, too, a little. This morning, for example. Very healthy, Mr. Hugo.'

'What departments did you visit this morning? Each has its busy days.'

'Grocery, electrical, and--let me see--yes, furniture.'

'Not a good day for that--too hot! Anything else?'

'No,' said Mr. Polycarp.

'Ah!... Well, and what is your clients' estimate?'

'Naturally, I cannot pretend--'

'Listen, Mr. Polycarp,' said Hugo, interrupting: 'I will be open with you.'

The lawyer nodded, appreciatively benign. As usual, he kept his thoughts to himself, but he had the air of adding Hugo to the vast collection of human curiosities which he had made during a prolonged professional career.

'My net trading profits last year were L106,000. You are surprised?'

'Somewhat.'

'You expected a higher figure?'

'We did.'

'I knew it. And the figure might be higher if I chose. Only I do things in rather a royal way, you see. I pay my staff five hundred a week more than I need. And I allow myself to be cheated.' He laughed suddenly. 'Costume department, for instance. I send charming costumes out on approval, and fetch them back in two days. And the pretty girls who have taken off the tickets, and worn the garments, and carefully restored the tickets, and lied to my carmen--the pretty girls imagine they have deceived me. They have merely amused me. My detective reports are excellent reading. And, moreover, I like to think that I have helped a pretty girl to make the best of herself.'

'Immoral and unbusinesslike, Mr. Hugo.'

'Admitted. I have no doubt that if I put the screw on all round I could quite justifiably increase my profits by fifty per cent.'

'That shows what a splendid prospect a limited company would have.'

'Yes, doesn't it?' said Hugo joyously.

'But why are your clients so anxious to turn me into a limited company?'

'They see in your undertaking,' replied Polycarp, folding his thin hands, 'a legitimate opening for that joint-stock enterprise which has had such a beneficial effect on England's prosperity.'

'They would make a profit?'

'A reasonable profit. A small syndicate would be formed to buy from you, and that syndicate would sell to a public company. The usual thing.'

'And where do I come in?'

'Where do you come in, my dear Mr. Hugo? Everywhere! You would receive over a million in cash. You would have your salary and your percentage, and you would be relieved of all your present risks.'

'All my present risks?'

'You have risks, Mr. Hugo, because your business has increased so rapidly that your income is out of all proportion to your capital, which consists almost solely of buildings which you could not sell at anything like their cost price in open market, and of goodwill. Now, I ask you, what is goodwill? What _is_ it? Under our scheme you would at once become a millionaire in actual fact.'

'Decidedly an inviting prospect,' said Hugo.

He walked about the room.

'Then I may take it that you are at any rate prepared to negotiate?' the lawyer ventured, staring at the fountain.

'Mr. Polycarp,' answered Hugo, 'I must first give you a little information and ask you a few questions.'

'Certainly.'

Hugo halted in front of Polycarp, close to him, and, lighting a cigar, gazed down at the frigid lawyer.

'Till the age of twenty-eight,' he began, 'I had no object in life. I was educated at Oxford. I narrowly escaped the legal profession. I had a near shave of the Church. I wasted years in aimless travel, waiting for destiny to turn up. I was conscious of no gift except a power for organizing. That gift I felt I had, and gradually I perceived that I would like to be the head of some large and complicated undertaking. I examined the latest developments of modern existence, and came to the conclusion that the direction of a thoroughly up-to-date stores would amuse me as well as anything. So I bought this concern--a flourishing little drapery and furnishing business it was then. I had exactly fifty thousand pounds--not a cent more. I paid twenty-five thousand for the business. It was too much, but when an idea takes me it takes me. I required a fine-sounding name, and I chose Hugo. It was an inspiration.'

'Then Hugo is not your--'

'It is not. My real name is Owen. But think of "Owen" on a flag, and then think of "Hugo" on a flag.'

'Exactly.'

'I began. And because I had everything to learn I lost money at first. I took lessons in my own shop, and the course cost me a hundred a week for some months. But in two years I had proved that my theory of myself was correct. In ten I had made nearly a quarter of a million. Everyone knows the history of my growth.'

Polycarp nodded.

'In the eleventh year I determined to emerge from the chrysalis. I dreamed a dream of my second incarnation as universal tradesman. And the fabric of my dream, Mr. Polycarp, you behold around you.' He waved the cigar. 'It is the most colossal thing of its kind ever known.'

Polycarp nodded again.

'Some people regard it as extravagant. It is. It is meant to be. Hugo's store is only my fun, my device for amusing myself. We have glorious times here, I and my ten managers--my Council of Ten. They know me; I know them. They are well paid; they are artists. A trade spirit must, of course, actuate a trade concern; but above that, controlling that, is another spirit--the spirit which has made this undoubtedly the greatest shop in the world. I cannot describe it, but it exists. All my managers, and even many of the rank and file, feel it.'

'Very interesting,' said the lawyer.

'Mr. Polycarp,' Hugo announced solemnly, 'the direction of this establishment is my life. In the midst of this lovely and interesting organism I enjoy every hour of the day. What else can I want?'

Polycarp raised his eyebrows.

'Do you suppose it would add to my fun to have a million in the bank--I, with an income of two thousand a week? Do you suppose I should find it diverting to be at the beck and call of a board of directors--I, the supreme fount of authority? Do you suppose it would be my delight to consider eternally the interests of a pack of shareholders--I, who consider nothing but my fancy? And, finally, do you suppose it would amuse me, Hugo, to have "limited" put after my name? Me, limited!'

'Then,' said the lawyer slowly, 'I am to understand you are not willing--'

'My friend,' Hugo replied, dropping into his chair, 'I would sooner see the whole blessed place fall like the Bastille than see it "limited."'

Polycarp rose in his turn.

'My clients,' he remarked in a peculiar tone, 'had set their minds on this affair.'

'For once in a way your clients will be disappointed,' said Hugo.

'What do you mean--"for once in a way"?'

'Who are your clients, Mr. Polycarp?'

'Since the offer is rejected, it would be useless to divulge their names.'

'I will tell you, then,' said Hugo. 'Your client--for there is only one--is Louis Ravengar. I saw it stated in a paper the other day that Louis Ravengar had successfully floated thirty-nine companies with a total capitalization of thirty millions. But my scalp will not be added to his collection.'

'I shall not disclose the identity of my clients,' Mr. Polycarp minced. 'But, speaking of Mr. Ravengar, I have noticed that what he wants he gets. The manner in which the United Coal Company, Limited, was brought to flotation by him in the teeth of the opposition of the proprietors was really most interesting.'

'You mean to warn me that there are ways of compelling a private concern to become public and joint-stock?'

'Not at all, Mr. Hugo. I am incapable of such a hint. I am sure that nothing and nobody could force you against your will. I was only mentioning the case of the Coal Company. I could mention others.'

'Don't trouble, my dear sir. Convey my decision to Louis Ravengar, and give him my compliments. We are old acquaintances.'

'You are?' The solicitor seemed astonished in his imperturbable way.

'We are.'

'I will convey your decision to my clients.'

Accepting a cigar, Mr. Polycarp departed.

Without giving himself time to think, Hugo went straight to Department 42, and direct to the artist in hats. She stood pale and deferential to receive him. The heat was worse than ever.

'Your name is Payne, I think?' he began. (He well knew her name was Payne.)

'Yes, sir.'

Other employes in the trying-on room looked furtively round.

'About half-past eleven an old gentleman, with white moustache, came into this room, Miss Payne. You remember?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What did he want?'

'He was inquiring about a hat, sir,' she hurriedly answered.

'For a lady?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Thank you.'

And he hastened back to his central office, and breathed a sigh. 'I have actually spoken to her,' he murmured. 'How charming her voice is!'

But Miss Payne's physical condition desolated him. If she was so obviously exhausted at 12.30, what would she be like at the day's end?'

'I've got it!' he cried.

He seized a pen and wrote: 'Notice.--The public are respectfully informed that this establishment will close to-day at two o'clock.'

He rang a bell, and a messenger appeared.

'Take this to the printing-office instantly, and tell Mr. Waugh it must be posted throughout the place in half an hour.'

Shortly after two o'clock Sloane Street was amazed to witness the exodus of the three thousand odd. The closure was attributed to a whim of Hugo's for celebrating some obscure anniversary in his life. Many hundreds of persons were inconvenienced, and the internal economy of scores of polite homes seriously deranged. The evening papers found a paragraph. And Hugo lost perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds net. But Hugo was happy, and he was expectant.

At ten o'clock that night a youngish man, extremely like Simon Shawn, was brought by Simon into Hugo's presence under the dome. This was Simon's brother, Albert Shawn, a member of Hugo's private detective force.

'Sit down,' said Hugo. 'Well?'

'I reckon you've heard, sir,' Albert Shawn began impassively, 'the yarn that's going all round the stores.'

'I have not.'

'Everyone's whispering,' said Albert Shawn, gazing carefully at his boots, 'that Mr. Hugo has taken a kind of a fancy to Miss Payne.'

Hugo restrained himself.

'Heavens!' he exclaimed, with a clever affectation of lightness, 'what next? I've only spoken to the chit once.'

'Don't I know it, sir!'

'Enough of that! What have you to report?'

'Miss Payne left at 2.15, whipped round to the flats entrance, took the lift to the top-floor, went into Mr. Francis Tudor's flat.'

'What's that you say? Whose flat?' cried Hugo.

'Mr. Francis Tudor's, sir.'

Mr. Tudor was famous as the tenant of the suite rented at two thousand a year; he had a reputation for being artistic, sybaritic, and something in the inner ring of the City.

'Ah!' said Hugo. 'Perhaps she is a friend of one of Mr. Tudor's--'

'Servants,' he was about to say, but the idea of Miss Payne being on terms of equality with a menial was not pleasant to him, and he stopped.

'No, sir,' said Albert Shawn, unmoved. 'She is not, because Mr. Tudor shunted out all his servants soon afterwards. Miss Payne was shown into his study. She had her tea there, and her dinner. The Hugo half-guinea dinner was ordered late by telephone for two persons, and rushed up at eight o'clock.'

'I wonder Mr. Tudor didn't order an orchestra with the dinner,' said Hugo grimly. It was a sublime effort on his part to be his natural self.

'I waited for Miss Payne to leave,' continued Albert Shawn. 'That's why I'm so late.'

'And what time did she leave?'

'She hasn't left,' said Albert Shawn. _

Read next: Part 1. The Sealed Rooms: Chapter 4. Camilla

Read previous: Part 1. The Sealed Rooms: Chapter 2. The Establishment

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