On arriving at Paris next evening, he left his luggage in the hotel at
the Quai d’Orsay station. He wired his address to the Minister and to
Alzugaray, and went out at once to look for Carlos Yarza. He was unable
to find him until very late at night. He explained to his friend what
had brought him, and Yarza told him he was at his disposition.
“When you need me, let me know.”
“Good.”
Cæsar went off to bed, and the next morning he proceeded to the
banking-house in the Rue de Provence where he was to cash the cheque
handed him by the Minister of the Treasury.
He entered the bank and asked for the president. A clerk came out and
Cæsar explained to him that on arriving at his hotel he had missed a
cheque for three thousand francs from the Spanish Minister of Finance.
He introduced himself as a Deputy, as an intimate friend of the
Minister’s, and behaved as if much vexed. The department manager told
him that they could do no more than take the number and not pay the
cheque if anybody presented it for payment.
“You don’t handle the Minister’s business here?” asked Cæsar.
“No, only very rarely,” said the manager.
“You don’t know who his regular banker is?”
“No; I will ask, because it is very possible that the chief may know.”
The clerk went out and came back a little later, informing Cæsar that
they said the house the Spanish Minister of Finance did his banking with
was Recquillart and Company, Rue Bergère.
The street was near at hand, and it took Cæsar only a very little while
to get there. The building was dark, lighted by electricity even in the
daytime, one of those classic corners where Jewish usurers amass great
fortunes.
There was no question of employing the same ruse as in the Rue de
Provence, and Cæsar thought of another.
He asked for M. Recquillart, and out came a heavy gentleman, a blond
going grey, with a rosy cranium and gold eyeglasses.
Cæsar told him he was secretary to a rich Spanish miner, who was then
in Paris. That gentleman wanted to try some business on the Bourse, but
was unable to come to the bank because he was ill of the dropsy.
“Who recommended our house to this gentleman?” asked the banker.
“I think it was the Minister of Finance, in Spain.”
“Ah, yes, very good, very good! And how are we to communicate with him?
Through you?”
“No. He told me he would prefer to have a clerk who knows Spanish come
to him and take his orders.” “That is all right; one shall go. We
happen to have a Spanish clerk. At what hour shall he come?” said M.
Recquillart, taking out a pencil.
“At nine in the evening.”
“For whom shall he ask?”
“For Señor Pérez Cuesta.”
“At what hotel?”
“The one in the Quai d’Orsay station.”
“Very good indeed.”
Cæsar bowed; and after he had sent Yarza a telephone message, making
an appointment for after the Bourse at the Café Riche, he took an
automobile and went to hunt for the great financier Dupont de Sarthe,
who lived on the other bank of the Seine, near the Montparnasse station.
He had a large, sumptuous office, with an enormous library. Two
secretaries were at work at small tables placed in front of the
balconies, and the master wrote at a big Ministerial table full of
books. When Cæsar introduced himself, the great economist rose, offered
his hand, and in a sharp voice with a Parisian accent, asked what he
desired.
Cæsar told him the Minister’s request, and the great economist became
indignant.
“Does that gentleman imagine that I am at his bidding, to begin a piece
of work and stop it according as it suits him, and take it up again when
he orders? No, tell him no. Tell him the scheme he asked me for is not
done, not finished; that I cannot give him any data or any information
at all.”
In view of the great man’s indignation, Cæsar made no reply, but left
the house. He lunched at his hotel, gave orders that if any one brought
a letter or message for Señor Pérez Cuesta they should receive it, and
went again to the Rue de Provence, where he said he had had the good
luck to find his cheque.
With all these goings and comings it got to be three o’clock, and Cæsar
turned his steps toward the Café Riche. Yarza was there and the two
talked a long while. Yarza knew of the manoeuvres of the Minister of
Finance, and he gave his opinion about them with great knowledge of the
business questions. He also knew Recquillart’s clerk, the Catalan Pujol,
of whom he had not a very good opinion.
The two friends made an engagement for the next day and Cæsar
hurried to his hotel. He wrote to the Minister, telling him what the
fundamentals of Dupont de Sarthe’s project were; and between his own
ideas and those Yarza had expounded to him, he was able to draw up a
complete enough plan.
“The Minister being a man who knows nothing about all this,” thought
Cæsar, “when he understands that the ideas I expound are those of the
celebrated Dupont de Sarthe, will find them wonderful.”