The King of Threadneedle Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

week to be sure.” Then she understood; he was managing his stock market trades the only way he could in secret. So it was no exaggeration that he was a celebrity now. She looked over the clerks who had followed his valet to the country. They were probably hired by banks or competitors to hound Andrew in hopes of discovering his secrets.
    Andrew slipped inside the café with Alysia on his arm and took a table. Marsden sat opposite Andrew, who asked without lowering his voice, “What is the word on the crickets?” The clerks huddled around a neighboring table.
    “From Straw?”
    “No, Dots. Shipped by Jack Spratt’s, I remember.”
    Marsden flipped a page over and compared it with the top page. “Made port at Babylon on Hensday. Ahead of schedule.”
    “But what about Ahab?”
    “A day behind schedule, and avoided the port at Hades.”
    Andrew tapped his chin, and the others watched eagerly. “Yes, but Ahab’s clipper is fast. Remember Jack Spratt will take port at Troy.” Andrew leaned to Alysia’s ear. “Large shipments of brocade silk from China and India are racing to England, carried by competing shipping companies.”
    Several anxious clerks inclined their heads in comical synchronization, straining to hear. “Sherry, the owner of the shipping company returning from China, is ahead, and the market is favoring him. But he also carries contraband and will likely stop in Hampshire to unload it. Ahab is Grondel, sailing from India, and he will ultimately draw the highest shares.”
    The harried men with pinched expressions studied Alysia and fell to fits, realizing she had just been informed. They would probably harass her too now.
    Andrew turned to Marsden. “Wait until Jack Spratt has a two-day lead, then transfer the shares to Ahab. But first—” He paused, the clerks held their breath, then Andrew smiled as he put his lips to Alysia’s ear again. “Lisa, what is something completely absurd to invest in? An unusual or embarrassing product?”
    She answered, “Female sanitation.”
    He blinked once, twice, then burst into laughter. The waiter placed tea and sandwiches on the table, regarding Andrew with a puzzled expression. The other women in the parlor whispered behind opened fans or tilted hat brims.
    “Perfect.” Andrew wore a devilish smile and shook his head, then said to Marsden as he dragged a finger down a list of encoded items and corresponding numbers, “Move heart plus elbow to, ah…” He looked at Alysia again. “I don’t believe I have a code for that,”
    Alysia took his pen and wrote in the margin, Madam Bree’s.
    Laughing and shielding the print from prying eyes, he showed Marsden, who recorded it, pursing his lips and blushing. Andrew didn’t seem embarrassed. “Move double that amount onto hog pen, within the same hour.”
    Marsden’s eyes twinkled at this, as he apparently understood something.
    Andrew paused again to explain with his lips at her ear, “I have just invested twenty-five thousand pounds in Madam Bree’s, then fifty in Hartford’s railway shipping. It will make the others believe I have given up on the silk in favor of a more lucrative deal that hasn’t been announced yet. It will drive up the shares on Madam Bree’s as well as Hartford’s while Sherry and Grondel’s go down. I will sell the first two while they are high, then buy the latter two while they are low.”
    Marsden clucked. “Miles will loathe you, Lord Preston.”
    “Miles!” the clerks echoed. “Stanley Miles of Hartford, or Miles Jones?” asked one clerk, and another groaned, “Or is it the American?” Then they all groaned in complaint.
    “Stanley,” Andrew announced. They went berserk. Andrew breathed to Alysia, “Miles owns Hartford.” Then to Marsden, “Send him a lifetime supply of M.B., with my regards.” He chortled and smiled at his boots, thoroughly pleased with himself.
    “When?”
    Andrew studied his list, compared one page with another, then declared, “Friday,