The hours of consultations and interviews were drawing to an end.
The features of Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe showed weariness. The
last person who had left him had been a Japanese, a councillor of the
ministry of war at Tokio. One of the directors had been present at the
conference, which had been important and of far-reaching political
implications. He was about to go when Wahnschaffe called him back by a
gesture.
“Have you selected an engineer to go to Glasgow?” he asked. He avoided
looking at the man’s face. What annoyed him in the men around him was a
certain expression of greed after power, possession, and success, which
they wore like a mental uniform. He saw almost no other expression any
more.
The director mentioned a name.
Herr Wahnschaffe nodded. “It is a curious thing about the English,” he
said. “They are gradually becoming wholly dependent on us. Not only do
they no longer manufacture machines of this type, but we have to send
an expert to set them up and explain their workings. Who would have
thought that possible ten years ago?”
“They frankly admit their inferiority in this respect,” the director
answered. “One of the gentlemen from Birmingham, whom we took through
the works recently, expressed his utter amazement at out resistless
progress. He said it was phenomenal. I gave him the most modest
reason I could think of. I explained that we didn’t have the English
institution of the weekend, and this added five to six hours a week to
our productive activity.”
“And did that explanation satisfy him?”
“He asked: ‘Do you really think that accounts for your getting ahead of
us?’ I said that the time amounted to several thousand hours a year in
the activity of a whole nation. He shook his head and said that we were
extremely well-informed and industrious, but that, closely looked upon,
our competition was unfair.”
The Privy Councillor shrugged his shoulders. “It is always their last
word--unfair. I do not know their meaning. In what way are they fairer
than ourselves? But they use the word as a last resort.”
“They haven’t much good-will toward us,” said the director.
“No. I regret it; but it is true that they have not.” He nodded to the
director, who bowed and left the room.
Herr Wahnschaffe leaned back in his chair, glanced wearily at the
documents scattered over his huge desk, and covered his eyes with his
pale hand. It was his way of resting and of collecting his thoughts.
Then he pressed one of the numerous electric buttons on the edge of
the desk. A clerk entered. “Is there any one else?”
The clerk handed him a card, and said: “This gentleman is from Berlin,
and says he has an appointment with you, sir.”
The card read: “Willibald Girke, Private Detective. The Girke and
Graurock Private Detective Agency. Puttbuser Street 2, Berlin, C.”