Swirling Waters Part 5

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 att.i.tude 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 _cafe chantant_, or in the ward of the Malesherbes Hopital, interviewing an _apache_ with a cracked skull.

Lars Larssen summed him up with lightning rapidity of thought, and adjusted his own att.i.tude 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 a.s.sault, 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 before turning it over to the police."

There was a tired disappointment in the journalist's voice that Lars Larssen noted with keen satisfaction. "I doubt if the police'll do much unless the relations kick up a shindy. Paris is the finest place in Europe to get murdered in peacefully and without a lot of silly fuss.

You see, it might be a hoax. Your Parisian hoaxer likes a dash of Grand Guignol horrors in his jokelet. The police have been had several times, and they're very much hoax-shy. I could tell you some pretty tales about mysterious disappearances that never get into the papers."

A little later the journalist took his departure. As the great shipowner shook hands at the door, he said cordially: "If you want news from me when I'm in Paris any time, come straight to me. I like your paper; I like your methods."

Martin left without a suspicion that he had been "pumped" for vital information.

Now the shipowner had to wait patiently for nightfall before the first definite move of his game could be played. One of his secrets of success was that he never allowed his mind to worry him. He shut the matter completely out of his conscious thoughts; got a trunk telephone call to his London office; sent off some cables to his New York office; and generally immersed himself on business matters quite unrelated to the Matheson case.

It was nearly ten o'clock that night before Arthur Dean returned from an errand on which he had been sent. In his arms was a bulky brown-paper parcel.

He opened it in the privacy of his employer's sitting-room, and remembering the advice given him that morning as to the way to present a business report, pointed silently to a small slit in the side of the fur-lined coat, where it would cover a man's ribs. On the inner lining of the coat there was a dark stain around the slit, though the immersion in the river had of course washed away any definite blood-clot.

Lars Larssen nodded appreciation of the young fellow's method of going straight to the heart of the subject. "Good!" said he. "Now for details."

"I carried out your orders exactly, sir. Took a cab to Neuilly, dismissed it, put on the pair of workman's boots when I was in the darkness of the river bank, and found the coat and stick just where Martin and I had hidden them in the bushes. The trees make it quite dark along that part of the Seine, and I am certain no one saw me taking them and wrapping them in my brown paper. The coat was nearly dry."

"Did you find the stick broken?"

"No. I broke it in two so that it could be wrapped in the same parcel as the coat."

"Did you examine footprints?"

"Yes. The only ones around the bushes were Martin's and mine made this morning, and the prints of the man who first discovered them. Of course my own prints this time were made by the boots you told me to buy and put on."

"What next?"

"I went along the river bank for a couple of miles with my parcel until I came to some other suburb, and then I caught a cab to the Arc de Triomphe, and there I took another cab to here."

"The workman's boots?"

"After I changed back to my ordinary boots, I threw them in the river, as you told me to."

"They sank?"

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing else worth reporting, I think.... Do you recognize this coat and stick as belonging to Mr Matheson, sir?"

Lars Larssen nodded non-committally, and ordered the young fellow to get a trunk telephone call through to Sir Francis Letchmere at Monte Carlo.

Dean had already found out that he was staying at the Hotel des Hesperides.

But when the telephone connexion had been made, it was Olive who answered from the other end of the wire:--

"This is Mrs Matheson. Who is speaking?"

"Mr Larssen. I want Sir Francis Letchmere."

"He's out just now. Shall I take your message?"

"Have you heard yet from your husband?"

"No. Why?"

"He's off to Canada. I thought he would have wired you."

"That's just like Clifford!" There was an angry sharpness in the voice over the wire.

"I reckon he was in too much of a hurry. It's in connexion with the Hudson Bay scheme--you know about that?"

"Yes. Has anything gone wrong with it?" Now there was anxiety in the voice.

"A new situation has arisen. Your husband suggested to me that he had better hurry across the pond and straighten up matters." Larssen lowered his voice. "Somebody in the Canadian Government wants oiling. Of course he will have to work the affair very quietly."

"It's too annoying! Clifford had promised me faithfully to come on to Monte by to-night's train. I wanted him here."

"That's rough on you!"

"What message did you wish to give to my father?"

"About the Hudson Bay deal. I want to meet Sir Francis and talk business."