The Gap in the Curtain

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 realised, I think, that I had divined his share in that morning session at Flambard.

4

Chapter

A few weeks later 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 equanim-ity 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