Swirling Waters | Page 8

banks of the Seine."
"Sure they were his?"
"Yes, quite sure. I was with a journalist friend of mine, but I didn't let him know that I recognized the coat and stick. I thought perhaps you would like me to tell you before the matter was made public."
"Good! Now give me the full story."
Arthur Dean summoned up his nerve to tell the connected tale he had thought out during the long cab rides that morning. It was essential that he should disguise his cowardice and his failure to carry out orders of the night before. With that exception, his account was a truthful and detailed story of all that had happened. He concluded with:--
"I 'phoned up Mr Matheson's office--without telling my name--and asked if he was in or had been to the office this morning. They said no. I got his hotel address from them and 'phoned the hotel. They also could tell me nothing about Mr Matheson."
Lars Larssen paced the room in silence for some time. Finally he shot out a question.
"Your salary is?"
"��100 a year, sir."
"Engaged, or likely to be?"
The young man blushed deeply as he replied: "I hope to be shortly."
"You can't marry on two pound a week."
"I am hoping to get promotion in the office, and then----"
"Do you understand how to get promotion?"
"Of course, sir. I intend to work hard and study the details of the business outside my own department, and learn Spanish as well as French----"
Lars Larssen flicked thumb and finger together contemptuously. "The men I pay real money to are not that kind of men."
Arthur Dean looked in surprise.
"Now see here," pursued the shipowner, fixing his eyes deep into the young man's, "why did you lie to me just now?"
Dean went deathly white, and began to falter a denial.
"Don't lie any further! Something happened last night that you haven't told me of. I know, because you brought in no report last night. Out with it!"
Under that merciless look the young clerk made a clean breast of the matter. His voice shook as he realized that it probably meant instant dismissal for him. Here was the end of all his hopes.
Lars Larssen made no comment until the last details had been faltered out. Then he said abruptly: "I propose to raise you ��300 a year."
Dean stared at him in silent amazement.
"��300 a year is good salary for a young man. If I pay it, I want it earned. Now understand this: what I want in my men is absolute loyalty, absolute obedience to orders, and absolute truthfulness to me. Lie to others if you like--that's no concern of mine--but not to me. Further, understand what orders mean. If I tell you to do a thing, I am wholly responsible for its outcome. The responsibility is not yours--it's mine. Got that?"
"It's very generous of you to give me such a chance, sir. It's much more than I have the right to expect. You can count on my loyalty and obedience to the utmost--of course, provided that----"
"The men I want to raise in my employ, and the men I have raised, leave fine scruples to me. That's my end. Your end is to carry out orders. If you're going to set store on niceties of truthfulness when business interests demand otherwise, you'll 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