THE FIRST MOVE IN THE GAME
At the great Leadenhall Street office of the shipowner, an office which
bore outside the simple sign--ostentatious in its simplicity--of "Lars
Larssen--Shipping," Arthur Dean had looked upon his employer from afar
as some demi-god raised above other business men by mysterious gifts
from heaven. A modern Midas with the power of turning what he touched to
gold.
Now he was granted an intimate glimpse into the workings of his
employer's mind that came to him as a positive revelation. Larssen's
were no mysterious powers, but the powers that every man possessed
worked at white heat and with an extraordinary swiftness and exactitude.
The revelation did not sweep away the glamour; on the contrary, it
increased it. Lars Larssen was a craftsman taking up the commonest tools
of his craft and using them to create a work of art of consummate build.
His present work was to keep alive the personality of Clifford Matheson
until the Hudson Bay scheme should be launched. To use Matheson's name
on the prospectus, and to use his influence with Sir Francis Letchmere
and others. Dead, Matheson was to serve him better than alive.
But the shipowner did not build his edifice on the foundation merely of
what Arthur Dean had told him. He had to satisfy himself more
accurately.
A string of rapid, apparently unconnected orders almost bewildered the
young secretary:--
"First, get a list of the big hotels at Monte Carlo. Engage the trunk
telephone and call up each hotel until you find where Sir Francis
Letchmere is staying. Give no name.... Buy a pair of workman's boots to
fit you. Get them in some side street shop. Bring them with you--don't
ask them to send.... Take this typewriting"--he took a letter from his
pocket and carefully clipped off a small portion--"and match it with a
portable travelling machine. Can you recognize the make of machine
off-hand?"
Dean examined the portion of typed matter, and shook his head.
"You must train yourself to observe detail. Looks to me like the type on
a 'Thor' machine. Try the Thor Co. first. If not there, go to every
typewriter firm in Paris until it matches.... Go to the offices of the
Compagnie Transatlantique and get a list of sailings on the
Cherbourg-Quebec route. Give no name.... Meanwhile, 'phone your
journalist friend and have him call on me."
"What reason shall I give him, sir?"
"Anything that will pull him here. Tell him I'm willing to be
interviewed on the proposed international agreement about maritime
contraband in time of war. Quite sure you remember all my orders?"
"I think so, sir."
"Repeat them."
The young man did so.
"Good!"
Dean flushed with pleasure at the commendation.
"Had lunch yet?"
"Not yet."
Lars Larssen smiled as he said: "Well, postpone lunch till to-night, or
eat while you're hustling around in cabs. This is a hurry case. Here's
an advance fifty pounds to keep you in expense money."
As the crisp notes were put into his hand, Arthur Dean felt that he was
indeed on the ladder which led to business status and wealth. His
thoughts went out to a little girl in Streatham who was waiting, he
knew, till he could ask her to be his wife. If Daisy could see how he
was being taken into his employer's confidence!
Lars Larssen startled him with a remark that savoured of
thought-reading. "My three-hundred-a-year men," he said, "don't write
home about business matters."
"I quite understand, sir."
Later in the afternoon, Jimmy Martin of the _Europe Chronicle_ sent in
his card at the Grand Hotel, and Lars Larssen did not keep him waiting
beyond a few moments.
The tubby little journalist was no hero-worshipper. Few journalists can
be--they see too intimately the strings which work the affairs of the
world for the edification of a trustful public. Consequently, Martin's
attitude in the presence of the millionaire shipowner was as free from
constraint or subservience as it would be in the dressing-room of La
Belle Ariola, who danced the bolero at a _café chantant_, or in the ward
of the Malesherbes Hôpital, interviewing an _apache_ with a cracked
skull.
Lars Larssen summed him up with lightning rapidity of thought, and
adjusted his own attitude to a friendly, confidential basis.
Said Martin: "You want to talk about contraband of war? I'd better tell
you the _Chronicle_'s red-hot against the olive-branch merchants, so I
hope you're not one of them. Say you agree with us, and I can spread you
over half a column."
The shipowner smiled. "That's the talk I like. Make a policy and set the
buzzer going. Now see here...."
At the end of half an hour he had established a link of easy friendship,
and had brought the conversation round without difficulty to the matter
which was the real object of the interview.
"Dean was telling me about the help you gave him on his wild-goose chase
to-day. Many thanks. He's a steady young fellow and will get on--but a
little too ready to jump at conclusions. Of course you found nothing at
the hospital?"
On the answer much depended, but no one could have guessed it from the
shipowner's face, which was smilingly confident.
"Nothing doing!" answered Martin. "Our young friend with the cracked
skull met the holy Tartar last night. He's raving sore--wants to
prosecute him for assault, if he can find out who he is."
"Exactly. But there's a disappointment in store for him. I met my friend
to-day going off to Canada. What are you going to do about the coat and
stick at Neuilly?"
"Hunt around for a few more clues before turning it over to the police."
There was a tired disappointment in the journalist's voice that Lars
Larssen noted with keen satisfaction. "I doubt if the police'll do much
unless the relations kick up a shindy. Paris is the finest place in
Europe to get murdered in peacefully and without a lot of silly fuss.
You see, it might be a hoax. Your Parisian hoaxer likes a dash of Grand
Guignol horrors in his jokelet. The police have been had several times,
and they're very much hoax-shy. I could tell you some pretty tales about
mysterious disappearances that never get into the papers."
A little later the journalist took his departure. As the great shipowner
shook hands at the door, he said cordially: "If you want news from me
when I'm in Paris any time, come straight to me. I like your paper; I
like your methods."
Martin left without a suspicion that he had been "pumped" for vital
information.
Now the shipowner had to wait patiently for nightfall before the first
definite move of his game could be played. One of his secrets of success
was that he never allowed his mind to worry him. He shut the matter
completely out of his conscious thoughts; got a trunk telephone call to
his London office; sent off some cables to his New York office; and
generally immersed himself on business matters quite unrelated to the
Matheson case.
It was nearly ten o'clock that night before Arthur Dean returned from an
errand on which he had been sent. In his arms was a bulky brown-paper
parcel.
He opened it in the privacy of his employer's sitting-room, and
remembering the advice given him that morning as to the way to present a
business report, pointed silently to a small slit in the side of the
fur-lined coat, where it would cover a man's ribs. On the inner lining
of the coat there was a dark stain around the slit, though the immersion
in the river had of course washed away any definite blood-clot.
Lars Larssen nodded appreciation of the young fellow's method of going
straight to the heart of the subject. "Good!" said he. "Now for
details."
"I carried out your orders exactly, sir. Took a cab to Neuilly,
dismissed it, put on the pair of workman's boots when I was in the
darkness of the river bank, and found the coat and stick just where
Martin and I had hidden them in the bushes. The trees make it quite dark
along that part of the Seine, and I am certain no one saw me taking them
and wrapping them in my brown paper. The coat was nearly dry."
"Did you find the stick broken?"
"No. I broke it in two so that it could be wrapped in the same parcel as
the coat."
"Did you examine footprints?"
"Yes. The only ones around the bushes were Martin's and mine made this
morning, and the prints of the man who first discovered them. Of course
my own prints this time were made by the boots you told me to buy and
put on."
"What next?"
"I went along the river bank for a couple of miles with my parcel until
I came to some other suburb, and then I caught a cab to the Arc de
Triomphe, and there I took another cab to here."
"The workman's boots?"
"After I changed back to my ordinary boots, I threw them in the river,
as you told me to."
"They sank?"
"Yes, sir."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing else worth reporting, I think.... Do you recognize this coat
and stick as belonging to Mr Matheson, sir?"
Lars Larssen nodded non-committally, and ordered the young fellow to get
a trunk telephone call through to Sir Francis Letchmere at Monte Carlo.
Dean had already found out that he was staying at the Hotel des
Hespérides.
But when the telephone connexion had been made, it was Olive who
answered from the other end of the wire:--
"This is Mrs Matheson. Who is speaking?"
"Mr Larssen. I want Sir Francis Letchmere."
"He's out just now. Shall I take your message?"
"Have you heard yet from your husband?"
"No. Why?"
"He's off to Canada. I thought he would have wired you."
"That's just like Clifford!" There was an angry sharpness in the voice
over the wire.
"I reckon he was in too much of a hurry. It's in connexion with the
Hudson Bay scheme--you know about that?"
"Yes. Has anything gone wrong with it?" Now there was anxiety in the
voice.
"A new situation has arisen. Your husband suggested to me that he had
better hurry across the pond and straighten up matters." Larssen lowered
his voice. "Somebody in the Canadian Government wants oiling. Of course
he will have to work the affair very quietly."
"It's too annoying! Clifford had promised me faithfully to come on to
Monte by to-night's train. I wanted him here."
"That's rough on you!"
"What message did you wish to give to my father?"
"About the Hudson Bay deal. I want to meet Sir Francis and talk
business."
"You're not going to drag him back to Paris!"
Again there was annoyance in her voice, and Lars Larssen made a quick
resolution. He answered: "Certainly not, if you don't wish it. Rather
than that, I'll come myself to Monte."
"That's charming of you!"
"The least I can do. I'll wire later when to expect me."
"Many thanks."
When the conversation had concluded, the shipowner called the young
secretary and asked him to bring in the new "Thor" travelling typewriter
he had purchased that afternoon. Larssen had proved right in his guess
of the make of machine with which his scrap of typing had been done.
"Take a letter. Envelope first," said Larssen.
"You want me to take it direct on the machine, sir?"
"Yes." The shipowner began to dictate. "Monsieur G. R. Coulter, Rue
Laffitte, 8, Paris.... Now for the letter.... Cherbourg, March 15th."
"Any address above Cherbourg?"
"Not at present. 'Cherbourg, March 15th. Dear Coulter, I am called away
to Canada on business. The matter is very private, and I want my trip
kept very quiet. I leave affairs in your hands until my return. Get my
luggage from my hotel and keep it in the office. If anything urgent
arises, my name and address will be Arthur Dean, Hotel Ritz-Carlton,
Montreal.'"
The young secretary went white, and his fingers dropped from the keys of
the typewriter.
"Sir!"
It was a moment of crisis.
"Well?" asked Lars Larssen sharply.
"A letter like that, sir...!"
"You don't care to go to Canada?"
"It's not that, but----" He stammered, and stopped short.
Lars Larssen allowed a moment of silence to give weight to his coming
words. He drew out a cheque-book from his breast-pocket and very
deliberately said: "Make yourself out a cheque for a usual month's
wages, and bring it to me to sign. That will be in lieu of notice."
Arthur Dean took the cheque-book with shaking fingers and went to the
adjoining room.
When at length he came back, he found the shipowner making out a
telegram. He stood in silence until the telegram was given into his
hand, open, with an order to send it off to London. His glance fell
involuntarily on the writing, and he could see that the wire was to call
over somebody to replace him.
"I don't think this will be necessary, sir," said Dean, with a tremor in
his voice which told of the mental struggle he had been through in the
adjoining room, when his career lay staked on the issue of a single
decision.
It was not without definite purpose that Lars Larssen had put the
cheque-book into his hands. He knew well the power of suggestion, and
used it with a master-hand. He could almost see the young secretary torn
between the thoughts of a miserable £8 on the one hand, and the
illimitable wealth suggested by a blank cheque-book on the other.
"Understand this," answered Larssen. "Whichever way you decide matters
nothing to me from the business point of view. I can get a dozen, twenty
men to replace you at a moment's notice. If you don't care to go to
Canada, you're perfectly free to say so. Then we part, because you're
useless to me. Aside from the purely business point of view, I should
be sorry. I like you; I see possibilities in you; I could help you up
the business ladder."
"That's very good of you, sir."
"Wait. I want you to see this matter in the proper light. You have an
idea that what that letter represents could get you into trouble with
the law. That's it, isn't it?"
Dean coloured.
"Now see here. I stand behind that letter. My reputation is worth about
ten thousand times yours in hard cash. Would I be mad enough to risk my
reputation unless I had looked at every move on the board?"
"I didn't think of that at the time."
"Exactly. Now you see the other side of the picture. If you want half an
hour to make up your mind once and for all, take it. Consider carefully
what you'd like to be in the future: clerk or business man. Two pound a
week; or six, ten, twenty, fifty a week. That represents the difference
between the clerk and the business man in cold cash."
"I've made up my mind, sir," answered Dean firmly.
"Good!" said Lars Larssen, and held out his hand to his young employee.
"There's the right stuff in you!"
To have his hand shaken in friendship by the millionaire shipowner was
as strong wine to Arthur Dean. He flushed with pleasure as he stammered
out his thanks.
A couple of hours packed with feverish activity followed. Lars Larssen
knew that Clifford Matheson had the habit of carrying a small typewriter
with him on his journeys, in order to get through correspondence while
on trains and steamers. Many busy men carry them. This habit of
Matheson's was exceedingly useful for his present purpose. The letter
that Arthur Dean was to post off at Cherbourg--one to the Paris office
of Clifford Matheson and one of similar purport to the London
office--would only need the signature in holograph. Larssen had several
of Matheson's signatures on various letters that had passed between
them, and these he cut off and gave to his employee to copy.
He criticised the spacing and the general lay-out of the letter already
typed, showed Dean how to imitate Matheson's little habits of typing,
and arranged that the letters dictated should be retyped on hotel paper
at Cherbourg and posted there. Dean was to catch a night train to
Cherbourg, take steamer ticket there for Quebec, and proceed to
Montreal. There were a host of directions as to his conduct while in
Canada, and as Larssen poured out a stream of detailed orders, searching
into every cranny and crevice of the situation, the young clerk felt
once more the glamour of the master-mind.
Here was an employer worth working for!
Early next morning Dean was at grimy Cherbourg, and after posting off
his letters he sent the following telegram to Mrs Matheson at Monte
Carlo:--
"Sailing this morning for Canada on 'La Bretagne.' Urgent and very
private business. Larssen, Grand Hotel, Paris, will explain. Sailing as
Arthur Dean to avoid Canadian reporters. Good-bye. Much love."
As the liner lay by the quayside with smoke pouring from her funnels and
the bustle of near departure on her decks, a telegram in reply was
brought to Arthur Dean. He opened and read:--
"Most annoying. Cannot understand why business could not have been given
to somebody else. However, expect nothing from you nowadays. Where is
Rivière? Not arrived, and no line from him."
Rivière? Who was this man? Lars Larssen had made no mention of this
name. It was the one facet of the situation of which the shipowner knew
nothing--the one unknown link in the chain of circumstance.
Arthur Dean could only send a frantic wire to Lars Larssen, and the
liner had cast off from her moorings before an answer came. This is what
the shipowner found awaiting him at his hotel:--
"Mrs M. wants to know where is Rivière. Reply urgent. Who is Rivière?"