'though I should have to go wanting the breeks to do it.'
Tavanger, seeing the sort of man he had to deal with, put his cards on the table. He told Greenlees frankly that he meant to control Daphne. He described, as only Tavanger could describe, the manoeuvres by which he had acquired the big London block, his journey to South Africa ('God, but you're the determined one,' said Greenlees), his doings at the Cape and in Johannesburg, and his wild trek in the Rhodesian rains.
'I want to buy your holding, Mr Greenlees,' he concluded. 'I will pay any price you fix, and will contract to sell you the shares back on demand any time after next June at the price I gave for them. What I want is control of the stock till then, and for the privilege I am ready to pay you a bonus of one thousand pounds.'
Of course Greenlees consented, for he saw that Tavanger was a believer like himself, and so far he had not met another. He asked various questions. Tavanger said nothing about the coming combine, but let him think that his views were the same as his own, a belief that presently a scientific discovery would make michelite a commodity of universal use.
He mentioned having talked with Sprenger in Berlin, and Greenlees nodded respectfully.
They sat late into the night discussing the future. Greenlees explained the system at work at the Daphne mine, and how it could be bettered, and Tavanger then and there offered him the managership. It was a London company, and its annual shareholders' meeting fell in January; Tavanger proposed drastically to reconstruct both the English and South African boards and to reform the management.
'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.'
3
Chapter
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 non-entity who was easily induced to retire. We had our annual meeting last month, and the two vacancies on the directorate which occurred by rota-tion 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 manoeuvring 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 realise 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
