LARSSEN TURNS ANOTHER CORNER
"Clifford is a very shrewd man of business," remarked Larssen, drinking
his third cognac at Ciro's at the end of a dinner which was a
masterpiece even for Monte Carlo, where dining is taken _au grand
sérieux_. He did not sip cognac, but took it neat in liqueur glassfuls
at a time. There was a clean-cut forcefulness even in his drinking,
typical of the human dynamo of will-power within.
Sir Francis puffed out a cloud of cigar-smoke with an air of reflected
glory. He had helped to capture Matheson as a son-in-law, and a
compliment of this kind was therefore an indirect compliment to himself.
The capture of Matheson was, in fact, the most notable achievement of
his career. Beyond that, he had done little but ornament the Boards of
companies with his name; manage his estate (through an agent) with a
mixture of cross conservatism and despotic benevolence; and shoot, hunt
and fish with impeccable "good form." He was typical of that very large
class of leisured landowner in whose creed good form is next above
godliness.
"Yes, Clifford has his head screwed on right," he said.
"Before he left for Canada," continued Larssen, "he managed to gouge me
for a tidy extra in shares for you and for Mrs Matheson."
Olive had been markedly listless, heavy-eyed and abstracted during the
course of the dinner, a point which Larssen had noted with some
puzzlement. His mind had worked over the reasons for it without arriving
at any definite conclusion. But now, at this unexpected announcement,
her eyes lighted up greedily.
"For me!" she exclaimed. "That's more than I expected from Clifford."
The shipowner reached to take out some papers from his breast-pocket,
then stopped. "I was forgetting. I oughtn't to be talking shop over the
dinner-table."
Sir Francis made an inarticulate noise which was a kind of tribute to
the fetish of good form. He wanted to hear more, but did not want to ask
to hear more.
"Please go on," said Olive. "Talk business now just as much as you like.
Unless, of course, you'd rather not discuss details while I'm here."
"I'd sooner talk business with you present, Mrs Matheson. I think a wife
has every right to be her husband's business partner. I think it's good
for both sides. When my dear wife was with me, we were share-and-share
partners." He paused for a moment, then continued: "Here's the draft
scheme for the flotation."
He held out a paper between Sir Francis and Olive, and Sir Francis took
it and read it over with an air of concentrated, conscious wisdom--the
air he carefully donned at Board meetings, together with a pair of
gold-rimmed pince-nez.
"Clifford will be Chairman," explained Larssen. "You and Lord St Aubyn
and Carleton-Wingate are the men I want for the other Directors. I, as
vendor, join the Board after allotment."
"Where's the point about shares for me?" asked Sir Francis, reading on.
"That doesn't appear in the prospectus, of course. A private arrangement
between Clifford and myself. Here's the memorandum."
This he handed to Olive, who nodded her head with pleasure as she read
it through, her father looking over her shoulder.
"Keep it," said Larssen as she made to hand it back. "Keep it till your
husband returns from Canada."
"When did he say he will be back?"
"It's very uncertain. He doesn't know himself. It's a delicate matter to
handle--very delicate. That's why he went himself to Montreal."
"He wired me that he's travelling under an assumed name."
"Very prudent," commented Larssen.
"I don't quite like it," murmured Sir Francis. "Not the right thing, you
know."
Larssen did not answer, but Olive rejoined sharply: "What does it matter
if it helps to get the flotation off and make money?"
"Well, perhaps so. Still----"
"Can you fix up St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate?" asked Larssen.
"Quickly?"
"Yes, I expect so. But has Clifford approved this scheme?"
"Of course."
"Have you it with you?"
"Have I what?"
"I mean the agreement Clifford signed."
Sir Francis, without knowing it, had stumbled upon the crucial weakness
of Larssen's daring scheme. But it would have taken a far shrewder man
than he to realize the vital import of the point from Larssen's easy,
almost causal answer:
"There's no signed agreement. We agreed the scheme in principle at the
interview in Clifford's office, and he left details to you and me. His
last words were: 'Tell my father-in-law to go ahead as quickly as he can
manage.'"
"But when I put this before St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate, they'll be
expecting me to--I mean to say, isn't it deuced irregular, you know?"
Larssen did not answer this for a moment. He had a keen appreciation of
the value of silence in business negotiations. He poured himself out
another glass of cognac and drank it off. His attitude conveyed a
contempt for Letchmere's cautiousness which he would be too polite to
put into words.
"If you'd sooner write to Clifford and have his agreement to the scheme
in black and white ..." was his studiously, chilly reply.
Olive put in a word: "I dislike all those niggling formalities."
"Business is business," quoted her father sententiously.
"Besides, Clifford will be back before the prospectus goes to the
public."
"Probably," agreed Larssen. "But in case he is not back in time, we're
to go ahead just as if he were here. That's what he told me before he
left Paris. Didn't he write you to that effect, Sir Francis?"
"I heard nothing from him."
"But I showed you my telegram," answered Olive. "Clifford said to refer
to Mr Larssen for all details."
"I must think matters over," said the baronet obstinately.
Lars Larssen had been studying his man through half-closed eyelids, and
he now summed him up with penetrating accuracy. It was not suspicion
that made Sir Francis hesitate, but petty dignity. He had become huffed.
He felt that his dignity had not been sufficiently studied in the
transaction. Matters had been arranged over his head without formally
consulting him. It was "not the thing"--"not good form."
To attempt to force matters would merely drive him into deeper
obstinacy.
And yet it was _vital_ to Larssen's plan that Sir Francis should go
ahead with the work of the flotation quickly--should go ahead with it in
the full belief that Clifford Matheson had agreed to the scheme and to
the use of his name. It was vital that Sir Francis should take the whole
responsibility of the flotation on to his own shoulders. He was to make
use of his son-in-law's name with the other prospective Directors and on
the printed prospectus just as though Matheson were personally
sanctioning it.
Larssen himself planned to remain in the background and pull the wires
unseen. When the revelation of Matheson's death came to light--as it
inevitably must in the course of time--Letchmere would be so far
involved that he would be forced to shoulder responsibility for the use
of Matheson's name.
To try to rush matters with Sir Francis would perhaps wreck the whole
delicate machinery of the scheme. Larssen quickly resolved to get at him
in indirect fashion through Olive, and accordingly he answered evenly:
"Think it over by all means. There's plenty to consider. Take the draft
scheme and look it through at your leisure.... Now what's the plan of
amusement for to-night?"
Before going to the Casino, Olive made an excuse to return to her rooms
at the Hespérides. Alone in her bedroom, she took out from a locked
drawer a hypodermic syringe in silver and glass, and a phial of
colourless liquid. She held the phial in her hands with a curious look
of furtive tenderness, fondling it softly. For many months past this had
been her cherished secret--the drug that unlocked for her new realms of
fancy and exquisite sensation.
To herself she called it by a pet name, as though it were a lover.
In the course of the evening's play at the tables, Larssen was struck
with her increasing animation and gaiety. The heavy, listless look had
left her eyes, and they now glittered with life and fire. When they
left the tables to stroll by the milk-white terraces of the Casino,
there was a flush in her cheeks and iridescence in her speech very
different from a couple of hours before.
A spirit of caustic, impish brilliance was in her. She turned it upon
the people they had rubbed shoulders with at the tables; upon the people
walking past them on the terraces; even upon her husband:
"Clifford is a 90 per cent. success. There are men who can never achieve
full success in any field whatever. They climb up to 70, 80, 90 per
cent., and then the grade is too steep for them."
"They stick."
"Or run backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near
to the top, but not reaching it. So I get out to walk on myself."
"There are mighty few men who have the 100 per cent. in them."
"Tell me this, Mr Larssen. Did you know you were a 100 per cent. man
when you started your business life, or did you come to realize it
gradually?"
"I knew it from the first," replied the shipowner steadily. "Knew it
when I was a mere kiddy. Set myself apart from the other boys. Told
myself I was to be their master. Made myself master. Fought for it.
Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as
cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried
to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they
were up against. I used those men as whet-stones--used them to kick
fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy
from the days of the 'Mary R.'"
Olive looked at him with open admiration. "That's epic!" she exclaimed.
"How far are you going to climb?"
Larssen had never revealed to any man or woman--save only to his
wife--the great ultimate purpose of his life. He did not tell it to
Olive. She was to be used as a pawn in the great game, just as he was
using Sir Francis and the dead Clifford Matheson. It came upon him that
she was now a widow. He would fan her open admiration so as to make use
of it when she awoke to the fact of her widowhood.
So he answered: "How far I climb depends on the help of my best friends.
I don't hide that. When my dear wife was with me, she was an inspiration
to me. No man can drive his car to the summit without a woman to spur
him on."
"Did marriage change you much?"
"Strengthened me. Bolted me to my foundations.... But here I'm
monopolizing the conversation with talk about myself. Let's switch. What
are _your_ ambitions?"
Olive laughed--a laugh with a bitter taste in it. "I wanted to help a
man to drive his car to the summit, and the car has stuck. I could
inspire, but my inspiring goes to waste. I'm an engine racing without a
shaft to take up its energy. Clifford is developing scruples. I don't
know where he caught them. I can't stand sick people. That's my
temperament--I must have energy and action around me."
"I understand that. Felt it myself at times," he answered
sympathetically.
Without apparent reason her thoughts skipped to a woman who had sat near
them at the roulette table. "Wasn't she the image of a disappointed
vulture? I mean the woman in green. Swooping down from a distance to
gorge herself with a tasty feast, and then finding a man with a rake to
chase her off. I chuckled to myself as I watched her. Do men and women
look to you like animals? They do to me. Monte Carlo's a Zoo, only the
animals aren't caged."
"That's right! You're an extraordinarily keen observer, Mrs Matheson."
Sir Francis Letchmere approached them beamingly from the direction of
the Casino. He had won money at _trente-et-quarante_, and was feeling
very pleased with his own judgment and powers of intellect generally.
"Leave him to me," whispered Olive to Larssen. "I'll see that my father
gets busy on the Hudson Bay Scheme. But on one condition."
"What's that?"
"That you stay on at Monte for a few days. I don't want to be left here
alone. I hate being alone."
"I'm due back in London. Urgent business matters."
"Leave them for a few days. Leave them to your managers. Stay here and
amuse me."
Larssen knew when to give way--or seem to give way--and how to do so
gracefully.
"I'll stay on without asking any conditions," he answered with
flattering cordiality. "It's not often I get a command so pleasant to
carry out!"