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Have you got those signatures of Clifford Matheson's?" Dean produced them from his pocket-book. The shipowner rapidly unlocked his desk and drew out a printed document which he placed in the young man's hands. "Now see here. This prospectus was printed off a week after you left for Canada. You can know that by the printed date. Now what is the wording written over it in ink?"
"It means big money for you enough to retire on." "I know." "Then what the hell's the reason for this sudden attack of scruples?" For a moment Matheson's eyes blazed black anger, but the anger died out of them and the tired look of the platform of the Gare de Lyon took its place. "You wouldn't understand," he answered. "The whirlpool." "What's that?" "It would be useless to explain.
I concluded to rise, but a certificate of competency was required, and I presented myself for examination to the proper official, the editor and proprietor of 'The True Democrat' whose office was across the bridge, nearly opposite Matheson's woollen factory. I found the editor and his compositor labouring over the next edition of the paper. The editor began the examination with the alphabet.
What did all this portend, unless that the Mandarin Quong was dead? And if he were dead why was Adderley more afraid of him dead than he had been of him living? I thought of the haunting shadow, I thought of the night at Katong, and I thought of Dr. Matheson's words when he had told us of his discovery of the Chinaman lying in the road that night outside Singapore.
Another shot was fired, but this missed them, and before it could be repeated they had wrested the pistol from the hand of Matheson's wife. She was firmly secured, and they then entered the kitchen, where, crouched upon the floor, lay seven or eight negro men and women in an agony of terror.
"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs. Matheson's sitting-room, of a noble-faced woman of thirty, in a delicate evening dress of black and white. "That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken." Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her.
He searched the silhouette of the man at the window for an answer to the riddle. But Matheson's face was set, and the answer to the riddle was such as Lars Larssen could never have guessed. It lay outside the shipowner's pale of thought beyond the limitations of his mind. For Matheson also had his big life-scheme, and it now filled his mind with a blaze of light as he stood by the window, silent.
Consequently he had failed to read the riddle of Matheson's motive at that crucial interview in the financier's office on the Rue Laffitte. He had failed to realize that a man might be as eager to give as to grasp. He had failed to reckon on altruism as a possible dominating factor in the decisions of a successful man of business.
The insane idea that perhaps her mother might be induced to sell it and buy one of the new-fashioned kind, like that Archie Matheson's young wife had brought with her, did come into her head once, but she never spoke of it.
We discussed the matter the night I was here. Hasn't he written you?" "We've heard nothing." "Reckon you will to-day.... Say, couldn't you look in Mr Matheson's desk to find the address of this Mr Rivière?" Coulter was the financier's confidential man. He had full power to go over his employer's desk except for certain drawers labelled "Private," and he did so now.
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