Swirling Waters | Page 9

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 was as free from constraint or subservience as it would be in the dressing-room of La Belle Ariola, who danced the bolero at a caf�� chantant, or in the ward of the Malesherbes H?pital, interviewing an apache with a cracked skull.
Lars Larssen summed him up with lightning rapidity of thought, and adjusted his own attitude to a friendly, confidential basis.
Said Martin: "You want to talk about contraband of war? I'd better tell you the Chronicle's red-hot against the olive-branch merchants, so I hope you're not one of them. Say you agree with us, and I can spread you over half a column."
The shipowner smiled. "That's the talk I like. Make a policy and set the buzzer going. Now see here...."
At the end of half an hour he had established a link of easy friendship, and had brought the conversation round without difficulty to the matter which was the real object of the interview.
"Dean was telling me about the help you gave him on his wild-goose chase to-day. Many thanks. He's a steady young fellow and will get on--but a little too ready to jump at conclusions. Of course you found nothing at the hospital?"
On the answer much depended, but no one could have guessed it from the shipowner's face, which was smilingly confident.
"Nothing doing!" answered Martin. "Our young friend with the cracked skull met the holy Tartar last night. He's raving sore--wants to prosecute him for assault, if he can find out who he is."
"Exactly. But there's a disappointment in store for him. I met my friend to-day going off to Canada. What are you going to do about the coat and stick at Neuilly?"
"Hunt around for a few more clues