MAXELL did not stay many hours in Paris. The Sud Express landed him in the French capital at seven in the morning. He left Paris by the midday train for London. The Long Vacation was drawing to an end, and there were briefs of certain importance requiring examination. There was also a consultation with the Attorney-General on an interpretation of a clause in the new Shipping Act, and he was also due to address his constituents before the reassembling of Parliament. He might ruminate in vain to find one attractive feature of his programme. Parliament wearied him, and the ordinary practices of the law no longer gave him pleasure.
There was an interest in the work he was doing for the Government, and if he had the faintest hint of pleasure in his immediate prospects, the cause was to be found in the vexed problems centring about this new, and loosely drawn, shipping law. It was a measure which had been passed in a hurry, and when the acid test of litigation had been applied, some of its weak points had been discovered.
The weakest of these points was one affecting the load-line. In an action heard before a High Court Judge, the doubtful clause had been interpreted so as to render the Act a dead letter; and there were particular and especial Governmental reasons why the appeal which the Government had made from the verdict of the lower Court should upset that decision.
There is no need to give the particulars of the great dispute, which arose over the three words “or otherwise loaded,” and it is only necessary to say that, before he had reached London, Mr. Maxell had discovered a way for the Government out of their difficulty.
It was this opinion which he delivered to a relieved Attorney-General, and, with the new argument, the Government were able to present so strong a case to the Court of Appeal, that a month after his return the verdict of the lower Court was reversed.
“And,” said the Attorney-General, “the devils can take it to the House of Lords now and still lose—thanks to your brain wave, Maxell!”
They were smoking in the Crown Room at the Law Courts after the decision had been delivered.
“Where have you been for your holiday, by the way?” asked the Attorney suddenly.
“Morocco,” replied the other.
“Morocco?” The Attorney nodded thoughtfully. “Did you hear anything of friend Cartwright?” he asked.
“We were staying at the same hotel,” replied Maxell.
“A weird person,” said the thoughtful Attorney. “A very curious man—what a Chancellor that fellow would make!”
“He never struck me that way,” smiled Maxell.
“Do you know him well—I mean, are you a particular friend of his?” demanded the Attorney.
“No,” said Maxell indifferently. “I know him—so many men in the law know him.”
“You’re not by any chance associating with him in business now, are you?”
“No,” said Maxell promptly.
It was a lie and he knew it was a lie. It was told deliberately from the desire to stand well in the eyes of his friends. He knew Cartwright’s reputation well enough, and just how he was regarded by the party whom he had served for three years. Cartwright had been Member for a London borough, but had resigned. “Pressure of business” was the excuse he gave, but there were people who said that it was owing to the pressure of the Party Whips, who smelt a somewhat unsavoury case coming into Court with Cartwright figuring prominently.
There is no way of proving or disproving the statement, because the case in which Cartwright most decidedly was interested was withdrawn from the list at the last moment. The uncharitable say that it cost Cartwright a small fortune to bring about this withdrawal, and certainly one of the ladies interested (she was a small-part actress at the Hippoceus) gave up her stage work and had been living in affluence ever since. Cartwright pooh-poohed the suggestion that the case held anything sensational—but he did not enter political life again.
“I am glad you’re not associated with him,” said the Attorney simply. “He’s an awfully nice fellow and I suppose he is as straight and as sound as the best man in the City. But he’s a shifty fellow—just a little bit”—he hesitated—“a little wrong. You understand, Maxell—or shall we say slightly shop-soiled?”
“He is certainly a brilliant man,” said Maxell, not desirous of defending his friend too vigorously.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” admitted the Attorney. “All men like that are brilliant. What a pity his genius does not run in a smooth channel, but must follow the course of a burning cracker, here, there and everywhere, exploding at every turn!”
He slipped down from the table, on the edge of which he had been sitting and pulled off his robe.
“I’m glad to know you’re not associated with Cartwright, anyway,” he said.
Maxell did not attempt to probe beneath the surface of his twice-repeated remark.
He went back to Cavendish Square to his flat and to a tiny, solemn-eyed little girl who had been brought up from Hindhead that day on her monthly visit to “Uncle Max.”
Cartwright had not accompanied his friend to England, and with good reasons. A great deal of his work was carried out in Paris, where he had an important financial backing. He occupied a flat overlooking the imposing, but none too convenient, Avenue of the Grand Army. His home was at the unfashionable end of this interminable thoroughfare, which meant that his rooms were larger and his rent cheaper, and that he was freer from observation than he would have been had he lived according to his means or station in a luxurious flat nearer the Etoil.
He had a board meeting to attend, an informal board meeting, it is true, but none the less important.
Cartwright was the chairman and managing director of the London and Paris Gold Syndicate, a flourishing concern which held big blocks of shares in various land and gold-mining companies, and controlled three mines of its own on the West Rand. Though a Company drawing a modest revenue from its Johannesburg property, its operations were not confined to gold development pure and simple. It was, in fact, an outside broker’s on a grand scale. It gambled heavily and gambled wisely. The shareholders seldom received less than a twelve and a half per cent. dividend, and there were years when in addition it paid a bonus equal to its own share capital.
It numbered its clients at one hundred and fifty thousand, the majority being small people who preferred speculation to investment—country parsons, doctors and the small gamblers who lived fearfully on the fringe of high finance. The shares were at a premium and Cartwright’s interest brought him a considerable sum annually. What probably attracted the little speculator was the knowledge of the Company’s reserve, which stood in the balance-sheet at a respectable figure. It was the question of these reserves that occupied the attention of the four quiet men who met informally in the room of a Paris hotel.
There were three to one against Cartwright, because none of his companions could see eye to eye with him.
“It is too dangerous, M. Cartwright,” said Gribber, whose nationality was suspect; “our risks are already high and we cannot afford, in my judgment, to extend them. The money would be subscribed over and over again if you went to the English public.”
Cartwright frowned.
“Why shouldn’t we make the profit?” he asked; “we could borrow from our reserve.”
“That we can’t touch!” interrupted the cautious Gribber, shaking his head violently. “My faith, no, we cannot touch that! For it is certain that the lean years will come when our clients will require their dividends.”
Cartwright did not pursue the subject. There were other ways of financing his Moorish scheme.
The Benson Syndicate, for example.
He spoke eloquently of this new venture, which was to have its headquarters in Paris, and would be under the eye of his sceptical co-directors. He mentioned names glibly and easily—names that carried weight in the financial world. The three men agreed that the Benson Syndicate had the appearance of a safe investment.
More important was the business which brought Alfred Cartwright to the St. Lazaire Station to meet a passenger a week later.
She sprang from the train and looked round with doubting face, which lighted the moment she saw the saturnine Cartwright.
“My! I am relieved,” she said. “I was scared to think you wouldn’t be here to meet me, and I’d only got a few pounds left.”
“You got my wire?” he asked, and she smiled, showing two rows of pearly teeth.
“I’m still mystified,” she said. “What is it you want me to do in Paris?”
“Let us eat first and talk afterwards,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
“I’m starving!” she laughed.
He had a car waiting for her, and whisked her off to a little street leading from the Boulevard des Italiens, where one of the best restaurants in Paris is situated. The girl looked about her with an approving air. The gaiety and luxury of the place appealed to her.
“My word!” she said enviously; “do you come to lunch here every day?”
“Do you know this place?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it,” she admitted, “but a three-franc dinner at Duval’s has been my limit so far.”
She told him how she had come to the Continent as a dancer, and had “starred” in a tiny little cabaret in Montmartre as one of the “dashing Sisters Jones,” before she had been seen by the impresario who was recruiting material for his tour through the Levant.
Cartwright judged her to be nineteen, knew her to be extremely pretty, and guessed that, under certain conditions, she would be presentable even to the best of the circles in which he moved. He wondered, with a grim smile, what Maxell, that austere and fastidious man, would say if he knew that the girl was with him in Paris. Would Maxell accept her? He thought not. Maxell was a thought straitlaced and in some ways was a bore. But Maxell was necessary. He was a brilliant lawyer, and moreover stood well with the Government, and there might come a time when Maxell would be immensely useful. He could well afford to give the lawyer a slice of the pickings he intended making, because Maxell’s wants were few and his ambitions on the modest side.
Cartwright thought in millions. Maxell was a five-figure man. If all went well with Cartwright’s scheme, undoubtedly he could well afford the five figures.
“What happened to your friend?” asked the girl, as though divining his thoughts: “The man you told me I was to keep away from. Why didn’t you want him to see me?”
Cartwright shrugged his shoulders.
“Does it really matter?” he asked; “he’s in England, anyway.”
“Who is he?” She was curious.
“Oh, a friend of mine.”
“And who are you?” she asked, facing him squarely. “If I’m going to see anything of you in Paris, that Smith, Brown or Robinson business isn’t quite good enough. You’ve been decent to me, but I want to know who I’m working for, and what is the kind of work you want me to do.”
Cartwright pinched his neck—a nervous little trick of his when he was thinking.
“I have business interests here,” he said.
“You don’t want me for an office?” she asked suspiciously. “My education is perfectly rotten.”
He shook his head.
“No, I don’t want you for an office,” he replied with a smile. “And yet in a sense I want you to do office work. I have a little syndicate here, which is known as the Benson Syndicate. Benson is my name——”
“Or the name you go by,” she said quickly, and he laughed.
“How sharp you are! Well, I don’t suppose O’Grady is your name, if it comes to that.”
She made no reply and he went on:
“I want somebody in Paris I can rely upon; somebody who will receive money, transmit it to the Benson Syndicate, and re-invest that money in such concerns as I shall indicate.”
“Don’t use long words,” she said. “How do you know I’m not going to rob you? Nobody’s ever trusted me with money before.”
He might have told her that she would not be trusted with a great deal at a time and that she would be carefully watched. He preferred, however, an explanation more flattering to his new assistant. And not only was it flattering, but it contained a big grain of truth, expressing, to an extent, Alfred Cartwright’s creed.
“Women are more honest than men,” he said. “I should think twice before I put a man—even my best friend—in the position I’m putting you. It will be a simple matter, and I shall pay you well. You can live at one of the best hotels—in fact, it is absolutely necessary that you should. You may”—he hesitated—“you may be Madam Benson, a rich Englishwoman.”
She looked at him from under perplexed brows.
“What is the good of asking me to do that?” she said in a tone of disappointment. “I thought you were going to give me a job I could do. I’m a fool at business.”
“You can remain a fool,” he said coolly. “There’s nothing to do except carry out a certain routine, which I shall explain to you so that you can’t possibly make a mistake. Here is a job which gives you plenty of time, pays you well, gives you good clothes and an auto. Now, are you going to be a sensible girl and take it?”
She thought a moment, then nodded.
“If it means lunching here every day, I’ll take it,” she said decidedly.
Thus was formed the remarkable Benson Syndicate, about which so much has been written, and so many theories evolved. For, if the truth be told, the Benson Syndicate had no existence until Cartwright called it into being in Ciro’s Restaurant. It was born of the opposition he had received, and its creation was hastened by certain disquieting telegrams which arrived almost every hour from London.
Cartwright was, as has been said, a man of many interests. The door-plate of his office in Victoria Street, London, was covered with the names of the companies which had their headquarters in the ornate suite which he occupied. There were two other suites of offices in the City of London for which Mr. Cartwright paid the rent, although he did not pay it in his own name. There were syndicates and companies innumerable, Development Syndicates, Exploitation Companies, Financial and Mining Companies, all duly registered and all keeping one solicitor busy; for the Companies Acts are tricky, and Cartwright was too clever a man to contravene minor regulations.
And to all these companies there were shareholders; some of them contented, some—the majority—wholly dissatisfied with their lot, and quite a large number who were wont to show their share certificates to their friends as curiosities, and tell them the sad story of how they were inveigled into investment.
Only a clever company lawyer can describe in detail the tortuous character of Cartwright’s system of finance. It involved loans from one company to another, very often on the security of shares in a third company; it involved a system of over-drafts, drawn in favour of some weakly member of his family, secured by the assets of one which could show a bold face to the world, and was even quoted in the Stock Exchange list; and divers other complicated transactions, which only the expert mathematician could follow.
Cartwright was a rich man, accounted a millionaire by his friends; but he was that type of millionaire who was never at a loss for a thousand, but who was generally hard up for ten thousand. He came to London much against his will, in response to an urgent telegram, and, having cleared the difficulties which his subordinates had found insuperable, he had a few hours to attend to his private affairs before he took the train back to Paris.
His secretary produced a heap of small bills requiring settlement, and going through these, he paused before one printed slip, and frowned.
“That boy’s school fees weren’t paid last term,” he said.
“No, sir,” said the secretary. “If you remember, I mentioned the matter to you when you were in London last. I was taking upon myself the responsibility of paying the fees, if you hadn’t returned. The boy is coming up to-day, by the way, sir, to be measured for some clothes.”
“Coming here?” asked Mr. Cartwright, interested.
“Yes, sir.”
Cartwright picked up the bill.
“T. A. C. Anderson,” he read. “What does T. A. C. stand for—‘Take A Chance’?”
“I understood he was named after you—Timothy Alfred Cartwright,” said the secretary.
“Yes; of course,” Cartwright grinned. “Still, Take A Chance isn’t a bad name for a kid. When is he arriving?”
“He ought to be here now,” said the man, looking at his watch. “I’ll go out and see.”
He disappeared into the outer office, and presently returned.
“The boy is here, sir,” he said. “Would you like to see him?”
“Bring him in,” said Cartwright. “I’d like to meet this nephew, or cousin, or whatever he is.”
He wondered vaguely what had induced him to take upon himself the responsibility of the small child, and with remorseless judgment analysed the reason as being personal vanity.
The door opened and a child strode in. “Strode” is the only word to describe the quick, decisive movement of the bright-eyed lad who looked with unflinching eye at Cartwright. Cartwright did not look at his clothes, but at the grey, clear eyes, the firm mouth, extraordinarily firm for a boy of fourteen, and the capable and not over-clean hands.
“Sit down, son,” said Cartwright. “So you’re my nephew.”
“Cousin, I think,” said the boy, critically examining the contents of Cartwright’s table. “You’re Cousin Alfred, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I’m a cousin, am I? Yes, I suppose I am,” said Cartwright, amused.
“I say,” said the boy, “is that the school bill? The Head has been rather baity about that.”
“?‘Baity’?” said the puzzled Cartwright. “That’s a new one on me.”
“Shirty,” said the boy calmly. “Annoyed, I suppose, is the correct word.”
Cartwright chuckled.
“What do you want to be?” he asked.
“A financier,” said T. A. C. Anderson promptly.
He seated himself, leant his elbow on the desk and his head on his hand, his eyes never leaving Cartwright.
“I think that’s a great scheme—finance,” he said. “I’m a whale at mathematics.”
“What particular branch of finance?” asked Cartwright with a smile.
“Other people’s finance,” said the boy promptly; “the same business as yours.”
Cartwright threw back his head and laughed.
“And do you think you’d be able to keep twenty companies in the air at the same time?” he said.
“In the air?” the boy frowned. “Oh, you mean going all at once? Rather! Anyway, I’d take a chance.”
The phrase struck Cartwright.
“Take a chance? That’s curious. I called you Take A Chance Anderson just before you came in.”
“Oh, they all call me that,” said the boy indifferently. “You see, they’re bound to stick a label on to a fellow with an initial like mine. Some of them call me ‘Tin and Copper Anderson,’ but most of them—the other name.”
“You’re a rum kid,” said his cousin. “You can come to lunch with me.”