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SWIRLING WATERS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE MIND-READER, BEING SOME PAGES FROM THE LIFE OF DR XAVIER WYCHERLEY,
PSYCHOLOGIST AND MENTAL HEALER.
THE COCKATOO.
SWIRLING WATERS
BY
MAX RITTENBERG
AUTHOR OF
"THE MIND-READER," "THE COCKATOO," ETC.
SECOND EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published July 3rd 1913
Second Edition August 1913
TO
MY DEAR MOTHER
WHOSE ADVICE AND CRITICISM HAVE HELPED SO
GREATLY IN MY WORK, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE
MAKING OF THIS BOOK; WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP
HAS BEEN A CONSTANT INSPIRATION TO ME
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Whirlpool 1
II. A £5,000,000 Deal 7
III. Shadowed 17
IV. On the Scent of a Mystery 19
V. The First Move in the Game 29
VI. The Beginning of a New Life 42
VII. A Seat by the Arena 50
VIII. Who and where is Rivière? 61
IX. At Monte Carlo 69
X. Larssen turns another Corner 73
XI. A Letter From Rivière 83
XII. The Second Meeting 87
XIII. At the Maison Carrée 100
XIV. By the Druids' Tower 107
XV. Waiting the Verdict 111
XVI. Only Pity! 123
XVII. Rivière is Called Back 127
XVIII. Not Wanted! 138
XIX. A Throne-Room 148
XX. Beaten to Earth 153
XXI. The Bolted Door 171
XXII. The Chameleon Mind 184
XXIII. Larssen's Man Once Again 197
XXIV. Confession 205
XXV. White Lilac 216
XXVI. A Challenge 221
XXVII. Women's Weapons 225
XXVIII. The Counter-Move 235
XXIX. The Parting 247
XXX. Heir to a Throne 254
XXXI. The Reins had Slipped 264
XXXII. The New Scheme 273
XXXIII. Larssen's Appeal 278
XXXIV. On Board the "Starlight" 285
XXXV. Intervention 297
XXXVI. Finality 304
Epilogue 311
SWIRLING WATERS
CHAPTER I
THE WHIRLPOOL
On the crucial night of his career, 14 March, 191-, Clifford Matheson,
financier, was speeding in a taxi-cab to the Gare de Lyon.
He was a clean-limbed man of thirty-seven. There was usually a look of
masterfulness in the firm lines of his face, the straight, direct
glance, the stiff, close-cut moustache. But to-night his eyes were
tired, very tired. He leant back in a corner of the cab with drooping
shoulders as though utterly world-weary.
At the station his wife and father-in-law were looking impatiently for
his arrival. They stood at the door of their _wagon-lit_ in the Côte
d'Azur Rapide, searching the crowded platform for him. It was now ten to
eight, and the express was timed to pull out of the Gare de Lyon at
eight o'clock sharp.
"Late again!" growled Sir Francis Letchmere. "Clifford makes a deuced
casual sort of husband. Bad form, you know!"
Good form and bad form were the foot-rules by which he measured mankind.
Olive bit her lip. It galled her pride that Clifford should not be
early on the platform to see to her comforts. The attentions of her
father and maid did not satisfy her; she wanted Clifford to be there to
fetch and carry for her.
Pride was the keynote of her character. It was pride and not love that
had decided her, five years before, to marry the financier. She had
admired the way in which he had slashed out for himself his place in the
world of London and Paris finance, from his humble beginning as a clerk
in a Montreal broker's office. It ministered to her pride to be the wife
of a man who had plucked success from the whirlpool of life. As to the
methods by which he had amassed his money, with these she was not
concerned. She knew, of course, that there were many who had bitter
things to say about his methods.
"Probably it's his brother who's delayed him," said Olive, looking for
an explanation which would salve her _amour propre_. "They both seem to
be crazy over their rubbishy scientific experiments."
"Who's this brother?"
"I know scarcely anything about him. His name's Rivière--he's a
half-brother. He turns up unexpectedly from the wilds of Canada, and
lives like a hermit, so Clifford tells me, in some tumbledown villa
outside Paris."
"What's he like?"
"I've never seen him."
"What's the scientific experiment?"
"Clifford told me something about it, but I forgot. I wasn't interested
in the slightest. No money in it, I could see at once. I told Clifford
so."
Sir Francis tugged at his watch impatiently. "He'll miss this train for
certain!"
"No; there he is!"
Matheson was striding rapidly through the press of people on the
platform. He quickly caught sight of his wife and father-in-law, and
came up with a gesture of apology.
"Sorry I'm so late. Very sorry, too, I shan't be able to travel with you
to-night."
"Experiment to finish?" queried Olive, with an unconcealed note of
contempt in her voice.
"A very important business engagement for this evening. Will you excuse
me? I can follow to-morrow."
"Can't it wait?"
"It's highly important."
"There's the 'phone to speak over."
"I have to come face to face with my man. Surely, Olive, you can spare
me for a day? Have you everything you want for the journey?"
"Who is the man?"
"Lars Larssen," answered Matheson. He lowered his voice slightly, though
on the bustling railway platform there was no likelihood of anyone
listening to the conversation.
Sir Francis nodded his head. He was heavily interested in
company-promoting himself, as a means of swelling an inadequate property
income, and Lars Larssen was a magic name.
"Hudson Bay scheme?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Well, business before pleasure," he remarked sententiously.
Olive cut in with a question. "Have you finished your experiments with
your brother?"
"No," answered Matheson evenly.
"When will they be finished?"
"I can't say. There's a great deal to be discussed and planned."
"Then bring him with you to-morrow. You can plan together whatever it is
you have to plan at Monte. Besides, I want to see him."
"John is a busy man," protested Matheson. "I don't think he can leave
his laboratory."
"Give him my invitation, and make it a pressing one," pursued Olive,
careless of anything but her own whim. "Tell him--tell him I
particularly want him to explain his experiments to me himself."
At this moment the little horn of departure sounded its quaint note from
the end of the platform, and a porter hurried to lock the door of the
_wagon-lit_.
"Have you everything you want for the journey?" asked Matheson.
"I have everything I want," replied his wife coldly. "My father has seen
to that.... Good-bye."
She did not offer to kiss him, and he for his part drew back into a
shell of reserve. Many thoughts were buzzing through his mind as they
exchanged the commonplaces of a railway station good-bye from either
side of a compartment window.
Olive's last words were: "Remember, I'm expecting you to bring your
brother with you to-morrow."
A very tired look was in Matheson's eyes, and a weary droop on his
shoulders, as the train pulled out and he was left alone on the
platform.
Two Frenchmen whispered to one another about him. "The milord Matheson,
see you! The very rich milord Matheson."
"Ah, if I were only a rich man too!"
"What would you do?"
"I should _spend_. How I should spend!" He licked his lips at the
thought of the pleasures of body that money could buy him.
"I should _save_," said the other. "I should make myself the richest man
in the world. That would be glorious!"
These last words reached the ears of Matheson, and set up a curious
train of thought as he drove in his cab to his office in the Rue
Laffitte. The words carried him back to a forest-clearing in the
backwoods of Ontario, where he and his half-brother had made holiday
camp some eighteen years before. They were comparing ambitions--two
young men unusually alike in features but very different in temperament
and will-power. John Rivière, the elder of the two, was dreaming of fame
in the paths of science--he had worked his way through M'Gill University
and was hoping for a demonstratorship to keep him in living expenses.
Clifford Matheson, a clerk in a broker's office, planned his life in
terms of cities and money. "To make big money--that's what I call
success."
In the rapids of the stream by their feet was a swirl of waters covering
a sunken rock, and Rivière had thrown on to it a chip of wood. The chip
was whirled round and round, nearer and nearer to the centre, until
finally it was sucked under with a sudden extinguishment.
"There's the life you plan," he had said to Clifford....