A £5,000,000 DEAL
When Matheson reached his office, he was told by a clerk that Mr Lars
Larssen was already waiting to see him. He threw off his gloves and
fur-lined coat and adjusted the lights before he answered that his
visitor could be shown in. He added that the clerk could lock up his own
rooms and leave, as he would not be wanted any longer that evening.
There was a quiet simplicity in Matheson's office that one would
scarcely associate with the operations of high finance. One might have
looked for costly furnishings and an atmosphere redolent of big money.
Yet here was a simple rosewood desk with a bowl of mimosa on it, and
around the walls were a few simple landscapes from recent _salons_.
If Lars Larssen were a magic name to Sir Francis Letchmere, it was a
magic name also to many other men of affairs. From cabin-boy to
millionaire shipowner was his story in brief. But that does not tell one
quarter. The son of Scandinavian immigrants to the States,
factory-workers, he had run away to sea at the age of fourteen, with the
call of the ocean ringing in his ears from the Viking inheritance that
was his. But on this was superposed the fierce desire for success that
formed the psychical atmosphere of the new American environment. As a
boy in the smoke-blackened factory town, he had breathed in the longing
to make money--big money--to use men to his own ends, to be a master of
masters.
With precocious insight he quickly learnt that money is made not by
those who go out upon the waters, but by those who stay on land and send
them hither and thither. He soon gave up the seafaring life and entered
a shipbroker's office. He starved himself in order to save money to
speculate in shipping reinsurance. An uncanny insight had guided him to
rush in when shrewdly prudent business men held aloof.
He had emphatically "made good." Each fresh success had given him new
confidence in himself and his judgment and his powers. He would allow
nothing to stand in his path. Scruples were to him the burden of fools.
A fair-haired giant in build, with inscrutable eyes and mouth set grim
and straight--such was Lars Larssen.
Though Matheson was in no way a small man, yet he seemed somehow dwarfed
when Larssen entered the room. The financier was a self-made master, but
the shipowner was a _born_ master of men--perhaps one's instinctive
contrast lay there. The one had the strength of finished steel, but the
other was rugged granite.
Lars Larssen said quietly: "Your letter brought me over to Paris. I
don't usually waste time in railway trains myself when I have men I can
pay to do it for me. So you can judge that I consider your letter
mighty important."
"I'm sorry if you have given yourself an unnecessary journey," returned
Matheson. "I had intended my letter to make my attitude clear to you."
"Then you missed fire."
"My attitude is simply this: I want to call the deal off."
"Not enough in it for you?" cut in Larssen.
"Not enough in it for the public."
The shipowner surveyed the other man through half-closed lids, weighing
up how far this declaration might be a genuine expression of opinion and
how far a mere excuse to cover some hidden motive.
"Talk it longer," he said.
For reply Matheson drew out a large-scale map of Canada from a drawer
and unfolded it with a decisive deliberation. He laid a finger on the
south-western corner of Hudson Bay. "Here is Fanning trading station,
the terminus of your five-hundred-mile railway. The land you run it over
is mostly lakes, rivers, and frozen swamps for three-quarters of the
year. The line is useless except for your own purpose--to carry wheat
for the Hudson Bay steamship route to England. You agree?"
"Agreed." Larssen was not the man to waste argument over minor points
when a vital matter was under discussion.
"Then the scheme centres on the practicability of making the arctic
Hudson Bay passage a commercial highway. It means the creating of a
modern port at Fanning. It means the lighting of a whole
coast-line"--his finger travelled to the north of Hudson Bay and the
northern coast of Labrador--"before a cargo of wheat leaves Port
Fanning."
"I'll build lighthouses myself by the dozen if the Canadian Government
won't. I'll equip every one with long-range wireless."
"The cost will be tremendous."
"There will be a differential of sixpence a bushel on wheat over my
route. That talks down fifty lighthouses."
"But it makes no allowance for rate-cutting by the big men on the
present routes. Further, if the Canadian Government are not with you on
this scheme, they'll be against you. There are a dozen ways in which you
might be frozen out. In that case the Hudson Bay Route will be the
biggest fiasco that ever happened."
"Nothing I've yet touched has been a fiasco," answered Lars Larssen with
a grim tightening of jaw. "Leave that end to me.... Now your end is to
get the money."
"From the English and Canadian public."
"Naturally."
"You came to me because the English and Canadian public are prejudiced
against 'Yankee propositions.' You yourself couldn't float it in
England. On the other hand, I'm Canadian-born, and my name carries
weight both in England and in Canada."
"With the public," added Larssen, and there was a subtle emphasis on the
word "public," which carried a world of hidden meaning. Matheson had
been associated with other schemes which had a bad odour in the nostrils
of City men.
"With the public who provide the capital," answered the financier, and
his emphasis was on the word "capital." He continued. "With myself and
Sir Francis Letchmere and a few titled dummies on the Board--which is
what you want from me--the public will tumble over one another to take
up stock."
"Agreed."
"The capitalization you propose is £5,000,000 in Ordinary £1 Shares,
which the public will mostly take up. Also £200,000 in Deferred Shares
of the nominal value of one shilling each, which are to be allotted to
yourself as vendor. That gives you four million votes out of a total of
nine million, and for practical purposes means control."
"The Deferred Shares are not to get a cent of dividend until a fifteen
per cent. dividend is paid on the Ordinary Shares. That's the squarest
deal for the public that ever was," retorted Larssen.
"But _you_ hold _control_."
Both men knew the tremendous import of that word. The fortunes of the
world's financial giants have all been built up on "control." Dwarfing
"capital" and "credit" it stands--that word "control." If the wild
gamble of the Hudson Bay scheme were to rush through to commercial
success--if the limitless wheat-lands of Canada were to pour their
mighty torrent of life into Europe through the channel of Hudson Bay--it
would be Lars Larssen who would hold the key of the sluice-gate.
Directly, he would be master of the wheat of Canada. Indirectly, he
could turn his master-position to financial gain in scores of ways. The
£200,000 to be allotted him as vendor was a bagatelle; but to hold four
million votes out of nine million was to control an empire.
He replied evenly: "I keep control on any proposition I touch. That's
creed with me. _Creed._"
"We split on that," answered Matheson.
"You want control for yourself?"
"No."
"Then what is it you do want?"
"I want half the Deferred Shares in the hands of Lord ----." He named a
Canadian statesman and empire-builder whose integrity was beyond all
suspicion. "I want him to hold them as trustee for the ordinary
shareholders. He will consent if I ask him."
"No doubt he will!" commented Larssen ironically. He drew up his chair
closer to the other man. There was a dangerous gleam in his eye as he
said: "Now see here. All the points you've put up were known to you
months ago. What's happened to make you switch at the last moment?"
He had put his finger on the very core of the matter, but Matheson met
his searching gaze without flinching. "What's happened is an entirely
private matter. I've reasons for not wishing to be associated with your
scheme unless you agree to half the Deferred Shares being held by Lord
---- as trustee. These reasons of mine have only arisen during the last
few weeks. Circumstances are different with me from what they were when
you first broached the plan. If you don't care to agree to my
suggestion, I call the deal off. As regards the expenses you've
incurred, I'll go halves."
For comment, the shipowner flicked thumb and forefinger together.
"No, I'll do more," pursued Matheson. "I'll make you a more than fair
offer--shoulder the whole expenses myself."
Larssen ignored the offer. "I went into the preliminaries of the scheme
on the understanding that we were to pull together."
"I know."
"It means big money for you--enough to retire on."
"I know."
"Then what the hell's the reason for this sudden attack of scruples?"
For a moment Matheson's eyes blazed black anger, but the anger died out
of them and the tired look of the platform of the Gare de Lyon took its
place. "You wouldn't understand," he answered. "The whirlpool."
"What's that?"
"It would be useless to explain. I have private reasons.... I've made
you a thoroughly fair offer, and I don't think there's anything more to
be said." Matheson rose and walked to the window, pulling up the blind
and gazing out on the sombre splendour of the big banking houses of the
Rue Laffitte and the Rue Pillet-Will.
Larssen looked at the silhouette of his antagonist with a tense set of
his jaws. Many plans were revolving in his mind. Moralists might have
labelled them "blackmail," but Lars Larssen was utterly free from
scruples where his own interests were concerned. Honesty with him was a
mere matter of policy. To a man with the average sense of honour, such
an attitude of mind is scarcely realisable, but Lars Larssen was no
normal man. In him the Napoleonic madness--or genius--burned fiercely.
He had ambitions colossal in scale--he regarded his present wealth and
power as a mere stepping-stone to the realisation of his Great Idea.
That great ultimate purpose of his life he had never revealed to man or
woman--save only to his dead wife. He aimed to be controlling owner of
the world's carrying trade; to hold decision on peace and war between
nation and nation because of that control of the vital food supply. To
be Emperor of the Seven Seas.
He had one child only--his boy Olaf, now aged twelve, at school in the
States. Olaf was to hold the seat of power after him and perpetuate his
dynasty.
That was Larssen's life-dream.
Any man or woman who stood between him and his great goal was to be
thrust aside or used as a stepping-stone. Matheson, for instance--he was
to be _used_. There must be something underlying Matheson's sudden
access of scruples--what was it? A case of _cherchez la femme_? Or
political ambitions, perhaps? If he could arrive at the motive, it might
open up a new avenue for persuasion.
He searched the silhouette of the man at the window for an answer to the
riddle. But Matheson's face was set, and the answer to the riddle was
such as Lars Larssen could never have guessed. It lay outside the
shipowner's pale of thought--beyond the limitations of his mind.
For Matheson also had his big life-scheme, and it now filled his mind
with a blaze of light as he stood by the window, silent.
Larssen resolved to play for time while he set to work to ferret out his
antagonist's motive for the sudden change of plan. He did not dream for
a moment of relinquishing control on the Hudson Bay scheme. As he had
stated openly, control was _creed_ to him.
He broke the long silence with a conciliatory remark. "Let's think
matters over for a day or two. My scheme might be modified on the
financial side. I'm prepared to make concessions to what you think is
fair to the shareholders. We shall find some common ground of
agreement."
The smooth words did not deceive Matheson. So his answer came with
deliberate finality: "I've said my last word."
"Well, I'll consider it carefully. Meanwhile, doing anything to-night? I
hear that Polaire is on at the Folies Bergères with her opium-den scene.
A thriller, I'm told."
Theatres and music-halls were nothing to the shipowner; his idea was to
keep Matheson under observation if possible, and try to solve the
riddle.
"Thanks, but I've got to get away from Paris," answered Matheson with
his tired droop of the shoulders. "I have to join my wife and
father-in-law at Monte Carlo."
"Very well, then, I'll say good-bye for the present."
When Larssen had left the office, he hurried into a taxi and was whirled
to the Grand Hotel near at hand. Here he found his secretary turning
over the illustrated papers in the hall lounge, and gave a few curt
directions. "Drive round to the Rue Laffitte--a hurry case. On the
second floor of No. 8 is the office of Clifford Matheson. He may be
still there--you'll know by the light in the window. Wait till he comes
out, and follow him. Find out where he goes. If it's to a woman's
house--good. In any case shadow him to-night wherever he goes."