not worth half a crown to the ordinary operator, but they're worth more than that to me. To
Dove stared and stammered. 'Do you mean it? It's tremendous. But I can't take it, you know. It's pure charity.'
'Not a bit of it,' said Tavanger. 'I quote you sixteen and six because I happen to know that that was the price paid for a block in London the other day by a man who was very much in my position. It's a gamble, of course, but that's my business.'
As Tavanger was leaving the club, where he had been having an early lunch with Dove, he ran into Barrowman in the company of a lean, spectacled gentleman, whose particular quality of tan proclaimed that he had just landed from a sea voyage. Barrowman was effusive in his greetings and longings for another talk before Tavanger sailed. 'I can't wait now,'
he said. 'I've got to give a man luncheon. A fellow called Steinacker, an American who has an introduction to me from one of my old directors.'
Tavanger took the night mail to Johannesburg, feeling that he had won his first race by a short head.
The next proposition was tougher. The Johannesburg stockbroker, Nall by name, to whom he had taken the precaution of being introduced by cable from London, received him royally, insisted on putting him up in his big house in the Sachsenwaid, and gave a dinner for him at the Rand Club, to which most of the magnates of the place were bidden.
Tavanger was of course a household name in these circles, and there was much curiosity as to what he was doing in South Africa. He stuck, both in private talk and in his interviews with the Press, to his original story: he was there for a holiday—had long wanted to fly Africa from north to south—was becoming interested in commercial aviation—hoped to get some notion of how South Africa was shaping—had some idea of a new steel industry. He made a speech at the Rand Club dinner in which he expounded certain views on the currency situation throughout the globe and the importance of discovering new gold-fields. For three days he feasted and talked at large, never saying anything that mattered, but asking innumerable questions. Nall watched him with a quizzical smile.
On the third evening, in the seclusion of the smoking-room, his host took off his glasses and looked at him with his shrewd eyes, a little bleared with the Rand dust.
'Seriously, Mr Tavanger, what are you here for? That steel business story won't wash, you know.'
'Why not?' Tavanger asked.
'Because you have already turned down that proposition when it was made to you.'
'May not a man have second thoughts?'
'He may, but not you—not after the reasons you gave last year.'
Tavanger laughed. 'All right. Have it your own way. Would you be surprised to learn that the simple explanation is true? I wanted a holiday. I wanted to fling my heels and get rid of London for a month or two. I was getting infernally stale. Are you clever enough to realise that the plain reason is often the right one? … But being here, I had to pretend that I had some sort of business purpose. It's a kind of
'Good,' said Nall. 'That is what I thought myself. But being here, I take it you're not averse to doing a little business.'
'By no means. I have had my fling, and now I'm quite ready to pick up anything that's going. What have you to suggest? I had better say straight off that I don't want gold-mines. I don't understand that business, and I've always made it a rule never to touch them. And I don't want town lots. I carry enough of the darned things in the city of London.'
'Good,' said Nall again. 'Now we understand each other. I wonder what would interest you.'
That was the first of several long and intricate talks. If Tavanger brought up the subject of Daphnes, at once Nall would become suspicious and ask a fancy price—or refuse to sell at all, for there was no such motive as in the cases of Dove and Barrowman. His only hope was to reach the subject by the method of exhaustion. So Tavenger had to listen while all the assets of South Africa were displayed before him—ferrous and nonferrous metals, rubies in the Lebombo hills, electric power from the streams that descended the Berg, new types of irrigation, new fruits and cereals and fibres, a variety of fancy minerals. He professed to be interested in a new copper area, and in the presence of corundum in the eastern mountains. Then Nall mentioned michelite. In a level voice Tavanger asked about it, and was given a glowing account of the possibilities of the Daphne Concessions.
'That subject rather interests me,' Tavanger said, 'for I know a German chemist, Sprenger, who is the chief authority on it. They're up against every kind of snag, which they won't get over in our time, but it might be the kind of thing to buy and lock away for one's grandchildren.'
Nall demurred. On the contrary, michelite was on the edge of a mighty boom, and in a year Daphnes would be soaring. When Tavanger shook his head, he repeated his view, and added, by way of confirma-tion, that he held twenty thousand Daphnes which he meant at all costs to stick to.
'I have some michelite shares, I think,' said Tavanger, after an apparent effort of reminiscence, 'and like you, I shall stick to them. Indeed, I wouldn't mind getting a few more. My children will curse me, but my grandchildren may bless me.'
Again and again they went over the list, and Tavanger gave the impression that he was seriously interested in corundum, moderately in copper, and very mildly in michelite, though he thought the last not practical business at the moment. He adopted the pose of a man who had no desire for anything more, but might take a few oddments if his capricious appetite were tempted. Presently he discovered that Nall was very keen about the corundum affair, and was finding it difficult to get together the requisite working capital. Tavanger poured all the cold water he could on the scheme, but Nall's faith was proof against it.
'I want you to help, Mr Tavanger. I want your money, but still more I want your name.'
Tavanger yawned. 'You've been uncommonly kind to me,' he said,
'and I'd like to give you a hand. Also I rather fancy picking up some little thing wherever I go, just as a tripper buys souvenirs. But your Lebombo business is quite outside my beat.'
'Is that final?' Nall asked.
'Yes … Well, no—I'll tell you what I'll do. You want ready money, and I have a little in hand. I'll put up ten thousand for the Lebombo, and I'll buy your Daphne shares. There's no market for them at present, you tell me. Well, I'll make you a fair offer. I'll give you sixteen and six, which was about the best price last year for Anatillas.'
Nall wrinkled his brow.
'Why do you want them?' he asked.
'Because they are in my line, which corundum isn't. I have already some michelite shares, as I told you, and I believe it's a good investment for my family.'
'I would rather not sell.'
'Then the whole deal is off. Believe me, my dear fellow, I shall be quite happy to go home without putting a penny into South Africa. I came out here literally for my health.'
Then Nall tried to screw up the price for Daphnes, but there he met with such a final negative that he relinquished the attempt. The result was that two days later Tavanger took the train for Delagoa Bay, with ten thousand more Daphnes to his credit and a liability for ten thousand pounds, his share in the underwriting of the coming flotation of the Lebombo Corundum Corporation.
From Lourenco Marquez he sailed to Beira, and ascended to the Rhodesian plateau. There he stepped off the plank into deepish waters.
The two remaining holders of Daphnes lived in the country north of Salisbury, both a long distance from railhead, but fairly near each other.
Tavanger decided to take Devenish first, who had a fruit farm in the hills about forty miles from a station. He was a little puffed up by his successes, and anticipated no difficulties; he did not trouble to enquire about Devenish or the other man, Greenlees, or to get introductions to them; he was inclined now to trust to his unaided powers of persuasion, and meant to drop in on them as a distinguished stranger touring the country.
It was early summer in those parts, when rain might be looked for, but so far the weather had been dry. The roads were in good order and Tavanger hired a car in Salisbury in which he proposed to make the trip.
But he had not gone twenty miles before the heavens opened. The country had been smoking with bush-fires,
