Swirling Waters | Page 9

remain a two-pound-a-week
clerk all your life."

Dean's weakness of moral fibre had been shrewdly weighed up by
Larssen. The young man was plastic clay to be moulded by a firm grasp.
£300 a year opened out to him a vista of roseate possibilities. £300 a
year was his price.
The colour came and went in his face as he thought out the meaning of
what his employer had just said. At length he answered: "I owe you
many thanks, sir. What do you want me to do?"
"Understand this: £300 a year is your starting salary. If I find you after
trial to be the man I think you are, you can look forward to bigger
money.... Now my point lies here; Mr Matheson was engaged with me
in a large-scale enterprise. Alive, he would have been useful to me. I
intend to keep him alive!"
CHAPTER V
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