Part 12 (1/2)

”Quickly?”

”Yes, I expect so. But has Clifford approved this scheme?”

”Of course.”

”Have you it with you?”

”Have I what?”

”I mean the agreement Clifford signed.”

Sir Francis, without knowing it, had stumbled upon the crucial weakness of Larssen's daring scheme. But it would have taken a far shrewder man than he to realize the vital import of the point from Larssen's easy, almost causal answer:

”There's no signed agreement. We agreed the scheme in principle at the interview in Clifford's office, and he left details to you and me. His last words were: 'Tell my father-in-law to go ahead as quickly as he can manage.'”

”But when I put this before St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate, they'll be expecting me to--I mean to say, isn't it deuced irregular, you know?”

Larssen did not answer this for a moment. He had a keen appreciation of the value of silence in business negotiations. He poured himself out another gla.s.s of cognac and drank it off. His att.i.tude conveyed a contempt for Letchmere's cautiousness which he would be too polite to put into words.

”If you'd sooner write to Clifford and have his agreement to the scheme in black and white ...” was his studiously, chilly reply.

Olive put in a word: ”I dislike all those niggling formalities.”

”Business is business,” quoted her father sententiously.

”Besides, Clifford will be back before the prospectus goes to the public.”

”Probably,” agreed Larssen. ”But in case he is not back in time, we're to go ahead just as if he were here. That's what he told me before he left Paris. Didn't he write you to that effect, Sir Francis?”

”I heard nothing from him.”

”But I showed you my telegram,” answered Olive. ”Clifford said to refer to Mr Larssen for all details.”

”I must think matters over,” said the baronet obstinately.

Lars Larssen had been studying his man through half-closed eyelids, and he now summed him up with penetrating accuracy. It was not suspicion that made Sir Francis hesitate, but petty dignity. He had become huffed.

He felt that his dignity had not been sufficiently studied in the transaction. Matters had been arranged over his head without formally consulting him. It was ”not the thing”--”not good form.”

To attempt to force matters would merely drive him into deeper obstinacy.

And yet it was _vital_ to Larssen's plan that Sir Francis should go ahead with the work of the flotation quickly--should go ahead with it in the full belief that Clifford Matheson had agreed to the scheme and to the use of his name. It was vital that Sir Francis should take the whole responsibility of the flotation on to his own shoulders. He was to make use of his son-in-law's name with the other prospective Directors and on the printed prospectus just as though Matheson were personally sanctioning it.

Larssen himself planned to remain in the background and pull the wires unseen. When the revelation of Matheson's death came to light--as it inevitably must in the course of time--Letchmere would be so far involved that he would be forced to shoulder responsibility for the use of Matheson's name.

To try to rush matters with Sir Francis would perhaps wreck the whole delicate machinery of the scheme. Larssen quickly resolved to get at him in indirect fas.h.i.+on through Olive, and accordingly he answered evenly:

”Think it over by all means. There's plenty to consider. Take the draft scheme and look it through at your leisure.... Now what's the plan of amus.e.m.e.nt for to-night?”

Before going to the Casino, Olive made an excuse to return to her rooms at the Hesperides. Alone in her bedroom, she took out from a locked drawer a hypodermic syringe in silver and gla.s.s, and a phial of colourless liquid. She held the phial in her hands with a curious look of furtive tenderness, fondling it softly. For many months past this had been her cherished secret--the drug that unlocked for her new realms of fancy and exquisite sensation.

To herself she called it by a pet name, as though it were a lover.