The outer
ring of their friends and supporters and dependents knew
still less, though their rage and fears were perhaps greater.
The "press" seemed to know nothing at all. This unnatural
silence of the City's mouthpieces, usually so resoundingly
clamorous upon the one side and the other when a duel
is in progress, gave a sinister aspect to the thing.
The papers had been gagged and blindfolded for the occasion.
This in itself was of baleful significance. It was
not a duel which they had been bribed to ignore.
It was an assassination.
Outwardly there was nothing to see, save the unofficial,
bald statement that on August 1st, the latest of twelve
fortnightly settlements in this stock, Rubber Consols had been
bid for, and carried over, at 15 pounds for one-pound shares.
The information concerned the public at large not at all.
Nobody knew of any friend or neighbour who was fortunate enough
to possess some of these shares. Readers here and there,
noting the figures, must have said to themselves that
certain lucky people were coining money, but very little
happened to be printed as to the identity of these people.
Stray notes were beginning to appear in the personal
columns of the afternoon papers about a "Rubber King"
of the name of Thorpe, but the modern exploitation of the
world's four corners makes so many "kings" that the name
had not, as yet, familiarized itself to the popular eye.
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