The Gap in the Curtain

by John Buchan

  “What about having a look at the place?” Greenlees asked. “You could easily look in on your way down country.”

  Tavanger shook his head. “I’m not a technical expert,” he said, “and I would learn very little. I’ve always made it a rule never to mix myself up with things I don’t understand. But I reckon myself a fair judge of men, and I shall be content to trust you.”

  As they went to bed Greenlees showed him a telegram. “Did you ever hear of this fellow? Steinacker or Stemacker his name is. He wants to see me—has an introduction from the chairman of my company. I wired to him to come along, and he is turning up the day after tomorrow.”

  This was the story which Tavanger told me that night in my rooms. His adventures seemed to have renewed his youth, for he looked actually boyish, and I understood that half the power of the man— and indeed of anyone who succeeds in his line—lay just in a boyish readiness to fling his cap on the right occasion over the moon.

  “I deserve to win out, don’t you think?” he said, “for I’ve risked my neck by air, land and water—not to mention black mambas . . . I should like to have seen Steinacker’s face when he had finished gleaning in my tracks . . . The next thing is to get to grips with Glaubsteins. Oh yes, I’ll keep you informed. You’re the only man I can talk to frankly about this business, and half the fun of an adventure is to be able to gossip about it.”

  Chapter 3

  I saw nothing of Tavanger again till the end of February, when he appeared as a witness for the defence in a case in which I led for the plaintiff, and I had the dubious pleasure of cross-examining him. I say “dubious,” for he was one of the most formidable witnesses I have ever met, candid, accurate, self-possessed and unshakable. Two days later I had to make a speech—an old promise to him—at the annual meeting, in the hall of the Fletchers’ Company, of the children’s hospital of which he was chairman. There I saw a new Tavanger, one who spoke of the hospital and its work as a man speaks of his family in a moment of expansion, who had every detail at his fingers’ end and who descanted on its future with a sober passion. I was amazed, till I remembered that this was one of his two hobbies. He was Master of the Company, so he gave me tea afterwards in his private room, and expanded on the new dental clinic which he said was the next step in the hospital’s progress.

  “I mean to present the clinic,” he told me, “if things turn out well. That is why I’m so keen about this Daphne business . . .”

  He stopped and smiled at me.

  “I know that I’m reputed to be very well off, and I can see that you’re wondering why I don’t present it in any case, since presumably I can afford it. Perhaps I can, but that has never been my way. I have for years kept a separate account which I call my ‘gambling fund,’ and into it goes whatever comes to me by the grace of God outside the main line of my business. I draw on that account for my hobbies—my pictures and my hospital. Whatever I make out of Daphnes will go there, and if my luck is in I may be able to make the hospital the best-equipped thing of its kind on the globe. That way, you see, I get a kind of sporting interest in the game.

  “Oh, we have brisked up Daphnes a bit,” he said in reply to my question. “I’m chairman now—my predecessor was an elderly titled nonentity who was easily induced to retire. We had our annual meeting last month, and the two vacancies on the directorate which occurred by rotation were filled by my own men. We’ve cleaned up the South African board too. Greenlees is now chairman, as well as general manager of the mine. He has already reduced the costs of mining the stuff, and we’re getting a bigger share of the British import . . . No, there’s been no reduction of price, though that may come. We stick to the same price as the other companies. There is a modest market for our shares, too, when they’re offered, which isn’t often. The price is about fifteen shillings, pretty much the same as Anatillas.

  “I own fifty-two thousand shares out of the hundred thousand ordinaries,” he went on, “just enough to give me control with a small margin. They have cost me the best part of seventy thousand pounds, but I consider them a good bargain. For Glaubsteins have opened the ball. They’re determined to get Daphne into their pool, and I am quite willing to oblige them—at my own price.” Tavanger’s smile told me the kind of price that would be.

  “Oh yes, they’re nibbling hard. I hear that Steinacker managed to pick up about ten thousand shares in South Africa, and now they are stuck fast. They must come to me, and they’ve started a voluptuous curve in my direction. You know the way people like Glaubsteins work. The man who approaches you may be a simple fellow who never heard of them. They like to have layers of agents between themselves and the man they’re after. Well, I’ve had offers for my Daphnes through one of my banks, and through two insurance companies, and through”—he mentioned the name of a solid and rather chauvinistic British financial house which was supposed to lay a rigid embargo on anything speculative. His intelligence department, he said, was pretty good, and the connection had been traced.

  “They’ve offered me par,” he continued. “The dear innocents! The fact is, they can’t get on without me, and they know it, but at present they are only maneuvering for position. When we get down to real business, we’ll talk a different language.”

  As I have said, I had guessed that Tavanger was working on a piece of knowledge which he had got at Flambard, and I argued that this could only be a world-wide merger of michelite interests. He knew this for a fact, and was therefore gambling on what he believed to be a certainty. Consequently he could afford to wait. I am a novice in such matters, but it seemed to me that the only possible snag was Sprenger. Sprenger was a man of genius, and though he was loyal to the German company, I had understood from Tavanger that there was a working arrangement between that company and the Anatilla. At any moment he might make some discovery which would alter the whole industrial status of michelite, and no part of the benefit of such a discovery would go to the Daphne Concessions. I mentioned my doubt.

  “I realize that,” said Tavanger, “and I am keeping Sprenger under observation. Easy enough to manage, for I have many lines down in Berlin. My information is that for the moment he has come to a halt. Indeed, he has had a breakdown, and has been sent off for a couple of months to some high place in the Alps. Also Anatilla and Rosas are not on the friendliest terms at present. Glaubsteins have been trying to buy out the Germans, and since they have lent them money, I fancy the method of procedure was rather arbitrary. They’ll get them in the end, of course, but just now relations are rather strained, and it will take a fair amount of time to ease them.”

  The word “time” impressed me. Clearly Tavanger believed that he had a free field up to the tenth of June—after which nothing mattered.

  “I’m a babe in finance,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be wise to screw up Anatilla to a good offer as soon as possible, and close with it. It’s an uncertain world, and you never know what trick fortune may play you.”

  He smiled. “You’re a cautious lawyer, and I’m a bit of an adventurer. I mean to play this game with the stakes high. The way I look at it is this. Glaubsteins have unlimited resources, and they believe firmly in the future of michelite. So for that matter do I. They want to have control of the world output against the day when the boom comes. They can’t do without me, for I own what is practically the largest supply and certainly the best quality. Very well, they must treat.”

  “Yes, but they may spin out the negotiations if you open your mouth too wide. There is no reason why they should be in a hurry. And meantime something may happen to lower the value of your property. You never know.”

  He shook his head.

  “No. I am convinced they will bring things to a head by midsummer.”

  He looked curiously at something which he saw in my face. In that moment he realized, I think, that I had divined his share in that morning session at Flambard.

  Chapter 4

  A few weeks lat
er I happened to run across a member of the firm of stockbrokers who did my modest business.

  “You were asking about michelite in the autumn,” he said. “There’s a certain liveliness in the market just now. There has been a number of dealings in Daphnes—you mentioned them, I think—at rather a fancy price—round about eighteen shillings. I don’t recommend them, but if you want something to put away you might do worse than buy Anatillas. For some reason or other their price has come down to twelve shillings. In my opinion you would be perfectly safe with them. Glaubsteins are behind them, you know, and Glaubsteins don’t make mistakes. It would be a lock-up investment, but certain to appreciate.”

  I thanked him, but told him that I was not looking for any new investments.

  That very night I met Tavanger at dinner and, since the weather was dry and fine, we walked part of the way home together. I asked him what he had been doing to depress Anatillas.

  “We’ve cut prices,” he replied. “We could afford to do so, for our costs of getting michelite out of the ground have always been twenty-five per cent lower than the other companies.’ We practically quarry the stuff, and the ore is in a purer state. Under Greenlees’ management the margin is still greater, so we could afford a bold stroke. So far the result has been good. We have extended our market, and though we are making a smaller profit per ton, it has increased the quantity sold by about twenty per cent. But that, of course, wasn’t my real object. I wanted to frighten Anatilla and make them more anxious to deal. I fancy I’ve rattled them a bit, for, as you seem to have observed, the price of their ordinaries has had a nasty jolt.”

  “Couldn’t you force them down farther?” I suggested. “When you get them low enough you might be able to buy Anatilla and make the merger yourself.”

  “Not for worlds!” he said. “You don’t appreciate the difference between the financier and the industrialist. Supposing I engineered the merger. I should be left with it on my hands till I could sell it to somebody else. I’m not the man who makes things, but the man who provides the money for other people to make them with. Besides, Glaubsteins would never sell—not on your life. They’ve simply got to control a stuff with the possibilities of michelite. With their enormous mineral and metal interests, and all their commercial subsidiaries, they couldn’t afford to let it get out of their hands. They’re immensely rich, and could put down a thousand pounds for every hundred that any group I got together could produce. Believe me, they’ll hang on to michelite till their last gasp. And rightly—because they are users. They have a policy for dealing with it. I’m only a pirate who sails in and demands ransom because they’ve become a little negligent on the voyage.”

  I asked how the negotiations were proceeding.

  “According to plan. We’ve got rid of some of the agency layers, and have now arrived at one remove from the principals. My last step, as I have said, woke them up. Javerts have now taken a hand in it, and Javerts, as you may or may not know, do most of the English business for Glaubsteins. They are obviously anxious to bring things to a head pretty soon, for they have bid me sixty shillings a share.”

  “Take it, man,” I said. “It will give you more than a hundred per cent profit.”

  “Not enough. Besides, I want to get alongside Glaubsteins themselves. No intermediaries for me. That’s bound to happen too. When you see in the press that Mr. Bronson Jane has arrived in Europe, then you may know that we’re entering on the last lap.”

  We parted at Hyde Park Corner, and I watched him set off westward with his shoulders squared and his step as light as a boy’s. This Daphne adventure was assuredly renewing Tavanger’s youth.

  Some time in May I read in my morning paper the announcement of Sprenger’s death. The Times had an obituary which mentioned michelite as only one of his discoveries. It said that no chemist had made greater practical contributions to industry in our time, but most of the article was devoted to his purely scientific work, in which it appeared that he had been among the first minds in Europe. This was during the general election, when I had no time for more than a hasty thought as to how this news would affect Daphne.

  When it was all over and I was back in London, I had a note from Tavanger asking me to dinner. We dined alone in his big house in Kensington Palace Gardens, where he kept his picture collection. I remembered that I could not take my eyes off a superb Vermeer which hung over the dining-room mantelpiece. I was in that condition of bodily and mental depression which an election always induces in me, and I was inclined to resent Tavanger’s abounding vitality. For he was in the best of spirits, with just a touch of that shamefacedness with which a man, who has been holidaying extravagantly, regards one who has had his nose to the grindstone. He showed no desire to exhibit his treasures; he wanted to talk about michelite.

  Sprenger was dead—a tragedy for the world of science, but a fortunate event for Daphne. No longer need a bombshell be feared from that quarter. He seemed to have left no records behind him which might contain the germ of a possible discovery; indeed, for some months he had been a sick and broken man.

  “It’s a brutal world,” said Tavanger, “when I can regard with equanimity the disappearance of a great man who never did me any harm. But there it is. Sprenger was the danger-point for me, and he was Anatilla’s trump card. His death brought Bronson Jane across the Atlantic by the first boat. His arrival was in the papers, but I dare say you haven’t been reading them very closely.”

  It appeared that Jane had gone straight to Berlin, and, owing to the confusion caused by Sprenger’s death, had succeeded in acquiring the control of Rosas for Anatilla. That was the one advantage he could get out of the catastrophe. It was a necessary step towards the ultimate combine, but in practice it would not greatly help Anatilla, for Daphne remained the keystone. Two days ago Jane had arrived in England, and Tavanger had seen him.

  “You have never met Bronson Jane?” he asked. “But you must know all about him. He is the new thing in American big business, and you won’t find a more impressive type on the globe . . . Reasonably young—not much more than forty—rather good-looking and with charming manners . . . A scratch golfer, and quite a considerable performer at polo, I believe . . . The kind of education behind him which makes us all feel ignoramuses— good degree at college, the Harvard Law School, then a most comprehensive business training in America and Europe . . . The sort of man who is considered equally eligible for the presidency of a college, the charge of a Department of State, or the control of a world-wide business corporation. We don’t breed anything quite like it on this side. He is over here for Glaubsteins, primarily, but he had to dash off to Geneva to make a speech on some currency question, and next week he is due in Paris for a conference about German reparations. Tomorrow I believe he is dining with Geraldine and the politicians. He dined here last night alone with me, and knew rather more about my pictures than I knew myself, though books are his own particular hobby. A most impressive human being, I assure you. Agreeable too, the kind of man you’d like to go fishing with.”

  “Is the deal through?” I asked.

  “Not quite. He was very frank. He said that Glaubsteins wanted Daphne because they could use it, whereas it was no manner of good to me. I was equally frank, and assented. Then he said that if I held out I would be encumbered with a thing I could not develop— never could develop, whereas Glaubsteins could bring it at once into their great industrial pool and be working day and night on its problems. All the more need for that since Sprenger was dead. Again I assented. He said that he believed firmly in michelite, and I said that so did I. Finally, he asked if I wanted anything more than to turn the thing over at a handsome profit. I said I wanted nothing more, only the profit must be handsome.

  “So we started bargaining,” Tavanger continued, “and I ran him up to eighty shillings. There he stuck his toes into the ground, and not an inch could I induce him to budge. I assume that that figure was the limit
of his instructions, and that he’d have to cable for fresh ones. He’ll get them, I have no doubt. We’ve to meet again when he comes back from Paris.”

  “It seems to me an enormous price,” I said. “In a few months you’ve forced the shares up from under par to four pounds. If it was my show I should be content with that.”

  “I want five pounds!” he said firmly. “That is the figure I fixed in my mind when I first took up the business, and I mean to have it.”

  He saw a doubt in my eye and went on. “I’m not asking anything unreasonable. Anatilla must have their merger, and in a year or two Daphnes will be worth more than five pounds to them—not to everybody, but to them. My terms are moderation itself compared with what Brock asked and got for his tin-pot railway in the Central Pacific merger, or Assher for his rotten newspaper. I’m giving solid value for the money. You should see Greenlees’ reports. He says there is enough michelite in prospect to supply every steel plant on earth for a century.”

  We smoked afterwards in the library, and I noticed a sheaf of plans on the table. Tavanger’s eye followed mine.

  “Yes, that’s the layout for the new clinic. We mean to start building in the autumn.”

  Chapter 5

  I was in my chambers, dictating an opinion, when my clerk brought me Tavanger’s card. I had seen or heard nothing of him since that dinner at his house, and the financial columns of the press had been silent about michelite. All I had noticed was a slight rise in Anatilla shares owing to the acquisition of Rosas, the news of which had been officially published in America. Bronson Jane seemed to be still in England, judging from the press, and he had been pointed out to me on the other side of the table at a city dinner. It was a fine June evening, and I was just about to stretch my legs by strolling down to the House.