"Can"t you find him?" asked Sir Francis. Larssen shook his head. "Gad, that"s curious. Why doesn"t he write? Bad form, you know. But when a man"s lived all his life in the backwoods of Canada, I suppose one can"t expect him to know what"s what."
Olive studied the shipowner keenly as they drove to their hotel. His ma.s.sive strength of body and masterful purpose of mind, showing in every line of his face, attracted her strongly. Olive worshipped power, money, and all that breathed of them. Here was the living embodiment of money and power.
After dinner that evening all three went to the Casino. The order had been given to Sir Francis Letchmere"s valet that he was to bring over to the Salle de Jeux any telegram or "phone message that might arrive.
Larssen was keenly interested in the throng of smart men and women cl.u.s.tered around the tables. Here was the raw material of his craft--human nature. Moths around a candle--well, he himself had lit many candles. The process of singeing their wings intrigued him vastly.
Olive explained the game to him with a flush of excitement on her cheeks. He noted that flush and made a mental note to use it for his own ends. She took a seat at a roulette table and asked him to advise her where to stake her money. Sir Francis preferred _trente-et-quarante_, and went off to another table.
"I can see you"ve been born lucky," she whispered to Larssen.
"I"ll try to share it with you," he answered, and suggested some numbers with firm, decisive confidence. Though he had keen pride in his intellect and his will, he had also firm reliance on his intuitive sense. With Lars Larssen, all three worked hand in hand.
Olive began to win. Her eyes sparkled, and she exchanged little gay pleasantries and compliments with the shipowner.
"We"ve made all the loose hay out of _this_ sunshine," said Larssen after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. "Now we"ll move to another table."
Olive obeyed him with alacrity. She liked his masterful orders. Here was a man to whom one could give confidence.
"Five louis on _carre_ 16-20," he advised suddenly when they had found place at another table.
Without hesitation she placed a gold hundred-franc piece on the intersecting point of the four squares 16, 17, 19, 20. The croupier flicked the white marble between thumb and second finger, and it whizzed round the roulette board like an echo round the whispering gallery of St Paul"s. At length it slowed down, hit against a metal deflector, and dropped sharply into one of the thirty-seven compartments of the roulette board. A croupier silently touched the square of 16 with his rake to indicate that this number had won, and the other croupier proceeded to gather in the stakes.
Forty louis in notes were pushed over to Olive.
At this moment Sir Francis" valet came up to Larssen with a telegram in his hand. The latter opened and scanned it quickly.
"What is it?" asked Olive.
"A tip to gamble the limit on number 14," replied Larssen smilingly.
Olive placed nine louis, the limit stake, on number 14, and two minutes later a pile of bank-notes aggregating 6300 francs came to her from the croupier"s metal box.
"You"re Midas!" she whispered exultantly.
"Midas has a hurry call to the "phone," he answered.
For the telegram was from Sylvester, and it read:--
"Fourteen replies to hand. Fourteen J. Riviere"s scattered about France."
CHAPTER X
LARSSEN TURNS ANOTHER CORNER
"Clifford is a very shrewd man of business," remarked Larssen, drinking his third cognac at Ciro"s at the end of a dinner which was a masterpiece even for Monte Carlo, where dining is taken _au grand serieux_. He did not sip cognac, but took it neat in liqueur gla.s.sfuls at a time. There was a clean-cut forcefulness even in his drinking, typical of the human dynamo of will-power within.
Sir Francis puffed out a cloud of cigar-smoke with an air of reflected glory. He had helped to capture Matheson as a son-in-law, and a compliment of this kind was therefore an indirect compliment to himself.
The capture of Matheson was, in fact, the most notable achievement of his career. Beyond that, he had done little but ornament the Boards of companies with his name; manage his estate (through an agent) with a mixture of cross conservatism and despotic benevolence; and shoot, hunt and fish with impeccable "good form." He was typical of that very large cla.s.s of leisured landowner in whose creed good form is next above G.o.dliness.
"Yes, Clifford has his head screwed on right," he said.
"Before he left for Canada," continued Larssen, "he managed to gouge me for a tidy extra in shares for you and for Mrs Matheson."
Olive had been markedly listless, heavy-eyed and abstracted during the course of the dinner, a point which Larssen had noted with some puzzlement. His mind had worked over the reasons for it without arriving at any definite conclusion. But now, at this unexpected announcement, her eyes lighted up greedily.
"For me!" she exclaimed. "That"s more than I expected from Clifford."
The shipowner reached to take out some papers from his breast-pocket, then stopped. "I was forgetting. I oughtn"t to be talking shop over the dinner-table."
Sir Francis made an inarticulate noise which was a kind of tribute to the fetish of good form. He wanted to hear more, but did not want to ask to hear more.
"Please go on," said Olive. "Talk business now just as much as you like.
Unless, of course, you"d rather not discuss details while I"m here."
"I"d sooner talk business with you present, Mrs Matheson. I think a wife has every right to be her husband"s business partner. I think it"s good for both sides. When my dear wife was with me, we were share-and-share partners." He paused for a moment, then continued: "Here"s the draft scheme for the flotation."
He held out a paper between Sir Francis and Olive, and Sir Francis took it and read it over with an air of concentrated, conscious wisdom--the air he carefully donned at Board meetings, together with a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.
"Clifford will be Chairman," explained Larssen. "You and Lord St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate are the men I want for the other Directors. I, as vendor, join the Board after allotment."
"Where"s the point about shares for me?" asked Sir Francis, reading on.
"That doesn"t appear in the prospectus, of course. A private arrangement between Clifford and myself. Here"s the memorandum."
This he handed to Olive, who nodded her head with pleasure as she read it through, her father looking over her shoulder.
"Keep it," said Larssen as she made to hand it back. "Keep it till your husband returns from Canada."
"When did he say he will be back?"
"It"s very uncertain. He doesn"t know himself. It"s a delicate matter to handle--very delicate. That"s why he went himself to Montreal."
"He wired me that he"s travelling under an a.s.sumed name."
"Very prudent," commented Larssen.
"I don"t quite like it," murmured Sir Francis. "Not the right thing, you know."
Larssen did not answer, but Olive rejoined sharply: "What does it matter if it helps to get the flotation off and make money?"
"Well, perhaps so. Still----"
"Can you fix up St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate?" asked Larssen.