"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-G.o.d 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 exact.i.tude.
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!