‘I will tell you,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘You would lose something between two and a half and three millions of money. What you ask is that I should make you a present of this trifling sum.’ ‘In return I will give you Featherstone’s document.’ ‘Nothing else? Nothing in solid cash?’ Simon Lock reflected. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will give you a hundred thousand in cash.’ ‘Make it a quarter of a million,’ Raphael Craig affected to plead. ‘I will make it a quarter of a million,’ said Simon Lock, ‘though I am condoning a felony. I will give you the document and a quarter of a million in exchange for a cancellation of all the La Princesse contracts. That is a clear and business-like offer.’ ‘It is,’ said Craig. ‘And I refuse it.’ ‘You want more? I decline to give it.’ ‘I don’t want more. If you offered me ten millions I wouldn’t accept it.’ ‘You prefer to go to prison? You prefer that I should give the document to the police?’ ‘I care not,’ said Craig. ‘I shall be perfectly content to end my days in prison. I have ruined you, Simon Lock.’ He jumped up, and almost shouted, ‘I have ruined you, Simon Lock, and I can die happy--whether in prison or out of it makes no matter. In four days hence the contracts must be fulfilled--you must deliver the shares, or you are a ruined man. And you cannot deliver the shares. I have seen to that. Let happen what may, the contracts are in safe hands. You will have noticed that my name does not appear on them, and you are ruined. You are ruined, Simon, you are ruined--unless I choose to be merciful.’ He spoke the last words in low, deliberate tones, quite different from the rest of the speech, and this change evidently puzzled Simon Lock, who was now undecided whether still to maintain a peaceful attitude or to threaten and bluster. Raphael Craig went on, looking at Richard: ‘These great financiers, Redgrave--you see they are not so great after all. The genius of Simon Lock in juggling with other people’s money is supposed to be transcendent, yet how easily I have juggled with his! It is not more than three months ago that I first saw my opportunity of working on a big scale. I obtained information about the probable tactics of the people in charge of Princesse shares, and I took my measures accordingly. By the way, it is surprising the number of people in the City who were delighted to assist me in ruining Simon Lock. The most staid persons seemed to take a fiendish glee in it.’ Simon Lock smiled rather grimly, and Raphael Craig pursued his way: ‘I knew that the great Lock group were selling Princesse shares for the fall. It was very silly of them, though, to sell more than they could deliver, especially as there doesn’t happen to have been a fall.’ ‘I am sure,’ said Simon Lock, ‘that you won’t mind telling me who disclosed the nature of our operations in the matter of the Princesse shares.’