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Updated: June 28, 2025
The one inevitable, clean-cut solution to all this tangle of circumstance seemed farther off than ever. If Rivière had been a man of Larssen's temperament, difficulties would have been smoothed away like hills under the drive of a high-powered car.
Not fear of Larssen as a man, but as a spokesman for Fate. In the deliberate unfolding of his statement, there was the passionless gravity of Fate. Guessing her thoughts, Larssen's voice deepened as he continued: "I definitely place Mrs Matheson before yourself. She is his wife. He married her for better or worse.
At the side of Larssen's forehead, under the temple, a tiny vein throbbed and jerked. That was the only outward sign of the feelings of murder which lay in his heart. "You have your nerve!" he commented. "I'm offering you easy terms." "Offer me terms!" "Easy terms," repeated Matheson. "I could, if I chose, step from here to my lawyers' and have you indicted for conspiracy.
"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.
He did not tell her of what he had seen through the lighted window of Thornton Chase, but passed on to the interview at Larssen's office. She shuddered as he spoke of the shipowner's brutal insinuations, and burst out: "It was blackmail." "Yes, but legalized blackmail." "You never gave in to him on that ground?" "Listen further."
Matheson had realised the altered situation, and putting aside any over-fine scruples, had gripped advantage from it. Larssen's eyes blazed anger at the financier. Then he held out his hand to Olive. "Good-bye!" he said. "Good-bye!" she answered, taking his hand. "You or I?" repeated Matheson. The shipowner turned at the door through which he was hurrying out. "I," he conceded. "Then sign on it."
He reached for the electric bell to summon Sylvester as a witness to Matheson's signature, but at that very moment the secretary knocked and entered quickly with an open cablegram, which he passed to his chief. Larssen's face grew white as he read it, but he said nothing beyond: "Wait to witness a signature." Matheson took the prospectus and read it through mechanically.
By her side was Larssen's little son, holding her hand. He might have almost been posed there by the shipowner to inspire confidence in the peaceful intentions of the yachting cruise. Olive thoroughly believed that Larssen's sole object in placing the yacht at her disposal was to reconcile husband and wife, and so indirectly to smooth over the quarrel between himself and Clifford.
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.
When Larssen had closed the door behind him, Olive felt as if a big strong arm of support had suddenly been taken away from her. Larssen's mere presence, even if he remained silent, gave her a fictitious sense of her own power, which now was crumbling away and leaving her with a feeling of insecurity and self-distrust. Openly it expressed itself in peevish annoyance.
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