“I fancy I could guard against that,” Bristow declared grimly. “However, the first thing is to find the man. I suggest we think over it until next Sunday, and if we’ve no luck we’ll then consider the syndicate.”
“Right,” Morrison agreed. Then, as an afterthought, he touched on the Malthus matter, which at intervals had given him a little uneasiness. “Something I forgot to mention to you. Do you remember the man in the carriage when we were talking?”
“Yes; he was asleep.”
“He wasn’t asleep – at least, not all the time.”
Bristow sat up. “What?” he almost shouted.
“You remember some people came past and a woman said something about a monkey? I happened to glance at him just as she spoke. He opened his eyes and looked at her and shut them again.”
Bristow swore. “Then, damn it all, man, he might have heard what I said!”
“I doubt it.”
Bristow grew more upset. “Of course he could! It was a silent-running coach. Why in hell didn’t you mention it before?”
Morrison was getting annoyed. “How could I? There was no opportunity, as you know very well. Besides, I didn’t think it important.”
“No opportunity! A word in the corridor and we might have found out who he was!”
“I did that myself,” Morrison retorted in slightly sulky tones.
Bristow made a gesture of exasperation. “Damn you, Morrison. You’re hard to live up to! Who was it?”
Morrison turned over the pages of his notebook. “Mr A N Malthus, 777 Jordan Square, W8. He seems to be well off; is believed to have no job, but goes to races and does a lot of cruising.”
“Cruising? Hell! How did you find all that out?”
“I saw his name and address on his suitcase, and I checked him up in the directory. He’s not in Who’s Who. As he was travelling abroad, I wondered if we knew anything about him, but his name wasn’t on our books. I asked a friend of mine in Butler’s, and he knew him all right. He had dealt with them for years.”
“Any special reputation?”
“Pleasant spoken, but too sharp to be quite wholesome.”
Bristow seemed unreasonably upset. “I don’t like it,” he repeated. “I was a fool to talk in a place like that, but I was sure the man was asleep.”
“But what matter?” persisted Morrison. “It’s not likely he’d steal the idea.”
“It’s not likely perhaps, but it’s possible. What did you think he looked like, Morrison? You sat opposite him and could see him better than I.”
Morrison reassured him, though without much success. “It just means,” Bristow ended up, “that we must get our money and an option on the ship as soon as possible.”
All the next week the problem remained in Morrison’s mind, and then on the Friday an incident occurred which led to a new development.
On that morning Morrison was called into his manager’s room. Mr Alcorn was a pleasant man, on good terms with his staff. He was writing as Morrison entered, but he looked up, grunted, “Here’s Stott on the warpath again,” pushed a letter across the desk, and buried himself once more in his correspondence.
Morrison took the letter. “The wanderlust is again upon me,” it read, “and this time I want to go somewhere new. I’m sick of all the usual tours. What do you advise? You know where I’ve been for the past few years, and also that I will neither take violent exercise of any kind, nor rough it in order to visit out of the way corners of the earth. Will you send someone down to talk it over?”
John M Stott had for some time been one of Morrison’s bêtes noires. A man of about seventy, he was small of stature, red-faced and choleric in appearance, and possessed at moments of stress of an unpleasantly rough tongue. He lived alone with his butler, housekeeper and chauffeur in a charming house near Windsor. He was undoubtedly rich – to Morrison his wealth seemed fabulous – and he was a good friend to the house of Boscombe. He liked sea travel, as represented by patronage of the largest and most luxurious liners, and every year he gave the Agency the pleasure and profit of arranging some still more extensive tour. Three months of the previous winter he had spent on the liner Silurian, 34,000 tons, doing a world tour at a quoted price of 800 guineas. This was his most expensive holiday to date, though its cost was not unduly above the average.
It was an idiosyncrasy of Stott’s that he would never call to see people if they could be made to call to see him. When, therefore, his urge for travel possessed him, a representative of the Boscombe Agency found it convenient to attend at “St Austell,” the charming villa near Windsor. Formerly the managing director himself had gone, but latterly the dirty work had fallen to Morrison. This was due to Morrison’s successful handling of another job. Stott’s neighbour, the Earl of Bullen, had called at the Agency about a complicated shooting journey through Syria, Transjordania and Iraq, and been so impressed by Morrison that on his return he had sung his praises, Stott, always ready to defer to a peer of the realm, demanded Morrison’s aid when the time came for his next tour. Once again Morrison gave satisfaction and from that date Stott became his special charge.
“Well,” said Alcorn, putting down his pen and throwing his letter into the “out” basket, “where shall we send the blighter this time?” Alcorn hated Stott, who had always treated him as a not very superior servant.
“The trouble is, sir, that’s he’s been everywhere,” Morrison pointed out; “everywhere that there are big liners and restaurant cars and de luxe hotels.”
“What about improvements and developments since his last visit?”
I tried that last year and it didn’t work. If you suggest his going back to a place, he always says: “Damn it! I was there three years ago, or five or whatever it is?”
“I know. A lot of people before Stott have wanted new worlds to conquer. Then what about a new vehicle of travel? A private yacht or plane?”
“He doesn’t like the air, sir, but a yacht might do the trick. What about crossing Europe by water in a super-launch?”
“Too humdrum. He must be able to prate about his originality. What about that South American river: the Parana, isn’t it? A super-launch to explore the Chaco where the fighting was, and those forests someone wrote about a few years ago: Something Hell, I think the name was. A good book, I remember.”
Morrison smiled. “You’ve hit it, sir. Blue Star to Buenos and then up the Parana or whatever it is, until he gets too sick of it to go further. Back to Buenos and across the continent by de luxe express to Valparaiso and home by the Canal, I believe that’s the ticket.”
“Very well. Go down and try it on. And if he turns it down, ask him what he’d prefer.”
So it happened that Morrison, after a rapid though intensive study of what the British Museum had to say on the Chaco, turned the bonnet of the firm’s small Ford westwards. It was a charming autumn day and Morrison was in the best of spirits. He gazed about him with approval. The leaves had not yet begun to come down, but they had turned every conceivable shade of brown and russet: all spectacular and delightful. The sun shone brightly, though its light was already a little thinner than in full, summer. Morrison congratulated himself as the last vestiges of Town fell behind and he came to what was indubitable country.
It was just as he was approaching the gate of “St Austell” that the great idea shot into his mind. Stott! Wasn’t Stott the man he had been looking for?
Stott’s enemy, to escape which he had planned these colossal tours, was, Morrison believed, nothing more nor less than boredom. What the man wanted was not a trip or a cruise, but an interest. He had too much money to work, and he was no sportsman. He had often told Morrison that the thought of poking a ball about with a golf club or billiard cue made him ill. He neither fished nor shot nor rode to hounds. It was true he was a bridge player, but one couldn’t play bridge all day.
But if he wanted an interest and a cruise, how more perfectly could he have both than through Bristow’s scheme? If only he could
be interested, the thing was as good as done.
He could live on board in the most luxurious suite – indeed, if he wanted it, he could have a whole deck reserved for himself and his friends. He could be made chairman of the venture, which would pander to his pride, while presiding at frequent staff conferences would give him an interest and he could kid himself that he was running the entire affair. Certainly Stott seemed to be their man!
Morrison ran past the gates of “St Austell” to the Post Office in Windsor. There he was lucky enough to get a through call to Bristow. A possible backer! Should he put the thing up to him?
With Bristow’s reply drumming in his ears and his heart beating slightly quicker than usual, Morrison headed the Ford back to “St Austell.”
3
JOHN STOTT AT HOME
Stott’s house was long and low, built of reddish-brown bricks and tiles, mellowed not with chemicals, but by age. It gave an extraordinary impression of peace and stability, as if nothing could ever disturb its serenity, standing there with its creeper-covered walls, its surrounding lawns and gardens and its background of great elms and beeches. Perfectly appointed, it might have been chosen as a sample of the English country cottage at its best.
Marshall, the butler, greeted Morrison with becoming gravity. “Mr Stott’s expecting you, sir,” he declared. “He’s in the garden. Will you come this way?”
The master of the house was lying in a deckchair in the shadow of a patriarchal elm, a giant among trees, with a cigar in his mouth, a book on his knee and a glass of whisky and soda at his elbow. He did not move as Morrison appeared, though he greeted him civilly enough.
“I expected you before lunch,” he said. “However, now that you’ve arrived, pull over that chair and help yourself to a cigar and a drink.”
Morrison did as he was told. “I wanted to have some proposals to submit to you, sir,” he explained, “and I had to look various points up. I hope you’ll approve the result.”
“Well, go ahead and let’s hear.”
Morrison opened with a graceful tribute to the profundity of his host’s knowledge of the world, geographically as well as sociologically. He indicated that organised tours were no longer capable of giving satisfaction to so experienced a traveller, and, moving by easy stages, at length reached the suggestion of river exploration.
Stott, obviously taking the flattery as his due, made no reply to this, but sat obviously waiting for more.
“We thought that you might care to hire a motor cruiser, sufficiently large to have comfortable cabins for yourself, and, if you desired it, for friends. In this way you could go where you wished at your own time and independent of steamer schedules.”
“I’ve done a lot of rivers, as you know,” Stott replied, “and I can’t say I found them very interesting.”
This was not exactly promising, but Morrison knew his man. “I can well understand that, sir,” he answered diplomatically. “But, if I may say so, I think that was because you travelled by tourist steamer – not always very comfortably, I’m afraid. I was going to suggest a waterways tour a little off the beaten track.”
“Where?”
“Well, what about the Northern European countries? Say, Norway, Sweden and Finland to start with?”
Stott pointed out with some force that there was little of Norway, Sweden and Finland that he didn’t already know. Morrison, however, was just getting into his stride. He suggested a more ambitious programme: across Europe from the English Channel to the Black Sea. This also Stott turned down with contumely, as the police say, together with similar suggestions about the USA and India. With skill, Morrison finally worked round to the Chaco scheme.
“There is one other proposal,” he said hesitatingly, “but I scarcely like to mention it, as I don’t think it would appeal to you. It’s to go out by Blue Star Line to Buenos Aires and then take a private cruiser up the Parana, through the Chaco, where the fighting was. But I need hardly talk about that. I feel sure you wouldn’t consider it.”
Stott rose to it as Morrison had hoped. “And why shouldn’t I consider it, young man? It seems to me the first sensible thing you’ve said today. Tell me more about it.”
Morrison threw off as casually as he could the information he had amassed at the British Museum. Stott listened silently and at first seemed favourable to the scheme. But as he learned the distance he would have to go and the character of the forest through which he would have to pass, he grew less enthusiastic. Finally, he turned it down with a complete lack of ambiguity.
Morrison wondered if the time had yet come to attempt his coup. He thought so, but, to keep his conscience clear, he decided first to put Alcorn’s question.
“Then, sir, is there any other proposal you would prefer? As you know, we should be only too glad to get out details.”
It was when Stott declared pithily that to make proposals was Morrison’s job, not his, that the young man felt that zero hour had come. He went to work craftily.
“I wonder, sir,” he began deprecatingly, “whether you would care to get in on this new home waters cruising idea? It’s novel enough and you might enjoy it.”
Stott glanced at him shrewdly. “Never heard of it. What is it?”
“Well, it’s really confidential, sir, and perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it. A friend of mine is mixed up with it and that’s how I happen to know. It’s proposed to try cruising in home waters with big ships. You know the Hebrides, of course?”
“Been to Oban and Skye and so on long ago.”
Morrison’s heart leaped. “Ah, yes, sir; very pretty and all that,” he admitted condescendingly. “But it’s not what I mean. The outer islands are the thing; at least, so I’ve heard. But the snag is that you can only see them by going in small steamers. Very comfortable, of course, but not what you, sir, are accustomed to. Now, this scheme is to bring these islands and other interesting parts of our coast within the reach of the traveller who knows what’s what.”
“Why didn’t you suggest that for the motor cruiser?”
“Because of the sea, sir,” Morrison returned with admirable presence of mind. “It can be rough there. Still, the motor cruiser might be the best way, if you didn’t care for the idea of the other.”
“Why shouldn’t I care for it? What’s the hitch? What are you beating about the bush for?”
Morrison made a deprecating gesture. “Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear. The scheme is not in operation yet. In fact, I understand the company is only being floated.”
“Oh.” Stott looked unpleasant. “Money wanted?”
“You’ll naturally think that’s what I’m after, sir, and, of course, if you became interested, it would be fine for my friend. But it was really yourself I was thinking of: as a passenger. Would you care for a trip of the kind?”
“I might.”
“Then we could keep that in view. Of course, there is the other side of it that you suggested. If you chose to put some money into it you might find the scheme an interest: to have some control, for instance, and perhaps a complete deck reserved for yourself and friends. It would certainly be novel.”
“And what would you get if I came in?”
Morrison was careful to avoid showing indignation.
“Nothing sir, if you came in. But – between ourselves, if you please – I’m hoping for a job in the new company.”
Stott did not answer, continuing to stare questioningly at the other, and Morrison presently continued: “Please don’t think, sir, that I’m asking you to invest in it. It simply occurred to me that, as you were out for a novel cruise, you might be interested to hear the details.”
“Well, I suppose I’m for it to that extent. Go ahead.”
Morrison realised that he had reached his principal hurdle. “I’m afraid, sir, I’ve told you all I know myself. If you’re interested you’d have to see someone in the affair. I dare say I could bring down my friend, if you cared to meet him.”
Stott looked harder at the young man. “Looks damned tricky,” he said threateningly.
Morrison smiled. “I’m not such a fool as to think we could get you to do anything against your will, Mr Stott.”
Stott grunted. “Huh! You know that much, do you?” He paused, then went on: “Who is he, this friend?”
“His name is Bristow and he’s a partner in a firm of solicitors, Bristow, Emerson and Bristow of Fenchurch Street.”
“Oh. Acting for someone?”
“He spoke as if he had the business in his own hands, but there, I’m afraid, you’d have to ask him yourself.”
“Not communicative, are you? Well, when is this blessed solicitor to be seen?”
It was victory. Before Morrison left he had fixed up a meeting for the following Sunday.
Morrison chuckled with pleasure as he drove back to Town. If through his efforts Bristow was enabled to carry out his plan, the £500 and probably the job would materialise. In fact, if the thing went big, Morrison felt his future was assured.
But his satisfaction was lukewarm compared to Bristow’s when that evening he was told the news. He was overwhelmed.
“My word!” he cried. “What a chance! We’ll never get a better! We must pull this off, Morrison, at all costs!”
On Sunday afternoon they drove down in Bristow’s small Standard. In the back seat were two young men, friends of Bristow’s.
“Salmon and Nickleby – Morrison,” said Bristow introducing them. “We shall want a witness to the agreement if we get a bite, and these two can’t be separated.”
All the way down the prospective witness and his friend kept up an interminable discussion about racing. Morrison, who scarcely knew which end of a horse went first, was bored beyond words, particularly as the chatter prevented him from discussing the coming interview. Fortunately for his peace of mind, Bristow left them in the car when they reached “St Austell”.
The allies found Stott sitting under his tree with his book and whisky and cigars. Again he did not move at their approach, but contented himself with offering them drinks and smokes.
Fatal Venture Page 3