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Updated: May 17, 2025
'We charge you, sir, with obtaining money under false pretences, which is a crime that has landed more than one distinguished financier in prison. Spenser Hale shook his fat forefinger at me, and said, 'Tut, tut, Valmont; we mustn't threaten, we mustn't threaten, you know; but I went on without heeding him. 'Take for instance, Lord Semptam.
'And collected a pound from him? 'Yes, sir. 'In October, 1893, you sold Lord Semptam a carved antique table for fifty pounds? 'Quite right, sir. 'When you were here last week you gave me Ralph Summertrees as the name of a gentleman living in Park Lane. You knew at the time that this man was your employer? Macpherson was now looking fixedly at me, and on this occasion made no reply.
The six sheets were loose in a thin portfolio, but standing on a shelf above the desk were a number of fat volumes, one of which I took down, and saw that it contained similar lists running back several years. I noticed on Mr. Macpherson's current list the name of Lord Semptam, an eccentric old nobleman whom I knew slightly.
You will find in faint figures under a certain date, 102. If you turn to page 102 of the encyclopaedia for that year, you will then see a list of what Lord Semptam has bought, and the prices he was charged for them. It is really a very simple matter.
You have jumped to the conclusion that we sold nothing to Lord Semptam except that carved table three years ago. I have pleasure in pointing out to you that his lordship is a frequent customer of ours, and has had many things from us at one time or another. Sometimes he is in our debt; sometimes we are in his. We keep a sort of running contract with him by which he pays us a pound a week.
Then turning to the list immediately before the current one the name was still there; I traced it back through list after list until I found the first entry, which was no less than three years previous, and there Lord Semptam was down for a piece of furniture costing fifty pounds, and on that account he had paid a pound a week for more than three years, totalling a hundred and seventy pounds at the least, and instantly the glorious simplicity of the scheme dawned upon me, and I became so interested in the swindle that I lit the gas, fearing my little lamp would be exhausted before my investigation ended, for it promised to be a long one.
'Haw-haw, brayed Spenser Hale, and at once reduced the emotional atmosphere to a fog of commonplace. However, what is a man to do? He must handle the tools with which it pleases Providence to provide him. I ignored Hale's untimely laughter. 'Sit down, sir, I said to Macpherson, and he obeyed. 'You have called on Lord Semptam this week, I continued sternly. 'Yes, sir.
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