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CHAPTER II

“We three now haven’t a parasite between us.”

I sat down beside Meldrum Strange without saying anything and it wasn’t until the chair creaked under my weight that he laid the newspaper down.

“Oh, hello,” he said then.

“Hello yourself,” said I. “How’s business?”

“I’ve gone out of business.”

I looked hard at him and he at me. He was good to look at, with a face carved out of granite and a neat black beard. There was a suggestion of Ulysses Grant, with the same look of good humor balancing an iron will.

“I’ve come all the way from the States to see you,” he said.

“Nothing else?”

“Just that,” he answered, biting the end of a dark cigar.

“I don’t believe you,” I answered, “but I’ll smoke while you elaborate the fiction.”

“You’re going out of business too,” he said, passing me his leather case.

“I did that during the first year of the War,” I answered. “Cleaned up in Abyssinia and quit for keeps.”

“Uh. Who was behind that Abyssinian thing? You put it up to me. Cohn and Campbell fell, didn’t they? Make anything?”

“Three times what they put in.”

“Uh. What did you get?”

“Enough,” I answered.

He nodded and began chewing his cigar.

“Well,” he said presently, “I heard you were wandering in these parts. Tried to reach you by cable, but you’d left no address.”

“Any banker out here would have delivered a message sooner or later,” I answered, puzzled. I’m not used to being in such demand.

“I daresay. Nothing to keep me in Chicago. Came to look for you—P & O from Marseilles. Saw your name on the hotel register.”

“Did you ask for me?”

“No. No hurry. Met some people. Up at Government House. Seems you’ve been trying your hand at international politics?”

“I’ve a friend who was interested. Helped him,” I said.

“Did you like it?” he asked suddenly, looking sharply at me.

“You bet! We spiked a crooked game and pulled a good man out of a tight place.”

“I’m in that game nowadays,” he said.

He took hold of his chin in his left hand and eyed me steadily.

“Can you afford to be independent?”

I nodded.

“Got enough, eh? Good. Couldn’t use a man who thought he needed money badly.”

“What’s eating you?” I asked. “The only time I handled your dollars you had me bonded.”

“Couldn’t get a bond to cover this. Need a man used to acting on his own responsibility, not given to talking—be depended on to keep important secrets—act coolly in emergency—knows the world in the widest sense—willing to have no other ambition than to unknot the international snarls. You’ll fill the bill.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “My gifts are mechanical. You need a man with brains for a job like that. James Schuyler Grim is the man for you.”

“Ah. Now let me see; they mentioned Grim—Major Grim, isn’t he? American? Um-m-m. What do you know of him?”

“How d’you rate my opinion?”

“Ace-high, or I wouldn’t have gone to this trouble to find you.”

“I rate Grim ace-high plus, or I wouldn’t have gone to Damascus with him on any such risky business,” I answered.

“What else can you say for him?”

“The British Government thought highly enough of him to keep him in their Intelligence Department, while they were retrenching in every direction.”

“Expects the sack now, does he?”

“Jeremy is trying to persuade him to resign.”

“Who’s Jeremy?”

“Jeremy Ross—Australian. Knows Arabic as well as Grim does. Kidnaped in the War and carried off into the heart of Arabia. Made good. Escaped—gathered a following—led them the whole length of Arabia—discovered a gold-mine—worked it—dollied out more than two thousand pounds—made himself a power in the land—and was finally rescued by Grim and me with the help of Narayan Singh and some Arabs. Made a present of his mine to Feisul the other day, as a private contribution to the Arab cause.”

“Um-m-m. Mine any good?”

“Best I ever saw.”

“Gave it to the Arabs, eh? Who’s Narayan Singh?”

“Sikh. Friend of Grim’s. Sepoy in the British Army. On a bat just now—discouraged.”

“Broke?”

“Not while I’ve a nickel left.”

“How long have you been acting banker to broken men?” Meldrum Strange demanded, looking at me curiously.

“Nothing to it,” I answered. “But I’ll back a good man when he’s down the same way you helped the market in the 1907 panic. Maybe it’ll pay me, same as buying stocks paid you. If it don’t I’ll take my loss, and you won’t be any the wiser, Meldrum Strange.”

“Extraordinary!” he said. “Most extraordinary! World full of coincidences. Time was I’d have doubted this. Looks too good.”

“Same here,” I said. “Few things fit without blacksmith-work and blasting. Study this right carefully before you submit proposals. We’d hate to let you down.”

“ ‘We?’ ” he asked.

“All or none,” I said. “When you showed up we were just beginning to talk partnership.”

“Those your two friends opposite?”

He sat and looked at them for several minutes.

“The one with his back turned is Ross, I take it, and the other Grim?” he said at last. “You vouch for both of them, eh? I’m inclined to think you may be right.”

He sat for five more minutes saying nothing, chewing steadily at the stump of his cigar, and every now and then casting a sidewise glance at me. At last he threw away the cigar with a gesture that meant he had made his mind up.

“Anyhow,” he said, “men like you are scarce. It’s like looking for a dime and finding a dollar bill. Bring ’em over here!”

I caught Grim’s eye; and he and Jeremy strolled over, laughing at one of Jeremy’s jokes. I introduced them and they sat down.

“You the old robber who cornered platinum?” asked Jeremy.

“In my youth I was guilty of that,” Strange answered dryly.

“Hah! My old dad bought International Platinum stock at bottom on margin, and followed you all the way up! He invested the proceeds in a sheep station. My regards!” said Jeremy, with a wave of the hand that signified a lot of things. “You big whales all have barnacles on your belly. We three now haven’t got a parasite between us.”

“Isn’t there a drunken Sikh?” Strange answered.

“There’s a Sikh who happens to be drunk,” said Jeremy. “If you want to see some fun, old top, come with us. Grim can tell you. Grim’s had to tidy up after him half-a-dozen times.”

Grim volunteered no information. All he knew yet was that Meldrum Strange was a multimillionaire with a reputation for titanic thoroughness.

“Came to make Ramsden a business offer,” said Strange abruptly. “He tells me you three are inseparable.”

“Agreed five minutes ago,” smiled Jeremy, with the air of a man raking in a jack-pot. “We’re Grim, Ramsden, and Ross.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Strange.

“Oh, anything. The world’s full of things to do,” said Jeremy. “What d’you want? We’re charter members of the Jack-of-all-trades Union. Exploring expeditions fixed up while you wait. Kings dethroned and national boundaries ­re­arranged to order. Mines discovered, opened up, and worked. Revolutions produced or prevented. Horses swapped. Teeth pulled by the piece or dozen. Everything contracted for, from flaying whales to raising potatoes on Mount Everest, wholesale jobs preferred. All you’ve got to do is name your requirements, write your check, and sign your contract on the dotted line. We do the rest. Shoot, old top; we’re listening.”

Strange glanced at me. He looked over at Grim, with no more result. Having agreed to be Jeremy’s partners, there was nothing further for us to say in his behalf; and Strange saw the obvious logic of that after a minute.

“You didn’t mention keeping secrets in your list of offerings,” he said, holding out his cigar case.

Jeremy took one, balanced it on the end of one finger, tossed it, caught it between his teeth, apparently swallowed it whole, and handed the case back.

“Count ’em,” was all he said.

There was the same number of cigars in the case as before, but one of them bore teeth-marks. Strange pulled it out, examined it, and tossed it with a laugh to Jeremy, who caught it, spun it point-downward on the table like a top, and while it still spun brought down the flat of his hand on it as if driving a nail into the wood. He removed his hand instantly, showing it empty. The cigar had disappeared, but a second later he produced it undamaged from his mouth with the other hand. It was superbly done, like all his tricks.

“Do you know how to do that?” he asked.

“No,” said Strange.

“I know you don’t. I’ve kept that secret twenty years. Show you another.”

“No,” Strange answered. “I get the drift of your genius. Major Grim, I understand you’re senior partner of this unusual firm.”

“We’re ready to listen to your proposal,” said Grim.

“Can I depend on your silence if you shouldn’t like the offer after I’ve made it?”

“I’ve kept Government secrets for a number of years,” Grim answered. “Depend on all three of us absolutely.”

“Suppose you all come to my room.”

“Here’s the best place,” Grim answered. “We can see all ways, and can’t be overheard.”

So, as happens I daresay oftener than folk suspect, a secret that had never yet passed the lips of its first guardian was trotted out, not within four walls, but in full view of the street.

“I’ll begin at the beginning,” said Strange, biting on a new cigar. “I’m an egoist. Nothing matters to a man but what he does. Not what he gets, but what he does. That’s my religion, and the whole of it. I’ve amassed an enormous fortune. Never had partners. I regard my fortune as the product of my own use of natural gifts in compliance with universal laws. I never consciously broke a written law accumulating it, but I’ve often done things that experience has since taught me are not in the general interest, and I believe that what I do in the general interest is the only thing that counts as far as I’m concerned. I’m face to face with a fact, a question, and a condition. I have the fortune. What am I going to do with it? No good comes of doing things for people. That’s the problem. What shall I do? It’s up to me to use my money in the general interest.”

“Why worry? Pay off a part of your national debt, and go to sleep,” suggested Jeremy.

“Huh! I’d lie awake to curse myself if I wasted a nickel in that way,” Strange retorted. “Our government would simply buy an extra battleship. If we all refused to pay for war there would be none. I’ve finished paying for it.”

“Oh, are you one of those men without a country?” asked Jeremy blandly. “One red flag for all of us, and a world doing lockstep in time to the Internationale.”

Strange liked that. The question threw light on Jeremy’s own view-point. He laughed—just one gruff bark like a watchdog’s.

“The man who doesn’t put his country first might as well neglect his own body and expect to do business,” he answered. “On the other hand, a state is composed of individuals, of whom I’m one, with an opinion. I obey the laws. There’s not even wine in my cellar. But I make use of every opening the law allows to escape paying for armaments that I don’t approve of. I lose income by it, because the tax-exempt securities come high; but that loss is part of my contribution to the general interest. That’s what I, personally, do in that particular instance, and intend to keep on doing.”

“Do you propose to start a society or hire us to preach?” Jeremy suggested.

“I belong to no societies. I’m an individualist, believing that what I do is my concern, and what other folk do is their concern, subject to the law as it stands on the statute books. Charity leaves me unconvinced. I don’t care to endow colleges. I paid the men who taught me what I wanted to know, with money that I earned.”

“Well? Where are we getting to?” demanded Grim.

“To this: I made my money all over the world. I propose to use it all over the world. Nobody can fool me with a bald statement that peoples are self-governing. They should be, but they’re not given a chance to be. They’re herded up in mobs, blarneyed, coaxed, cheated, and made fools of; and because some of them have free institutions, they’re blamed for the result, while the real culprits get away with the plunder. I’m after the real culprits. I want you men to join me.”

Grim whistled. So did Jeremy. So did I. Three notes of a rising scale.

“D’you suppose you’ve any right to take that on yourself?” asked Jeremy.

“As much right as any reformer has, and more,” Strange answered, “for I intend to pay my own expenses! I’ll make it my business to fall foul of these international crooks, who are laughing behind the scenes at the world’s misery. My business is to seek those swine out, force an issue—a personal issue, mind—and swat them!”

“You want to be a sort of international police?” suggested Grim.

“I do not. An international police would be answerable to an international government, and there is none. These devils I’m after obey no government. Governments are tricked by them into furthering their designs. Governments are made up of individuals, each of whom can be worked, persuaded, bribed, blackmailed or deceived at some time in some way. The rascals I’m after play with kings and cabinets like pieces on a chess-board. They play crooked boss with the whole world for a stage, and they’re safe because they’ve only got to deal with the representatives of majorities. They’re persons, dealing with impersonal ministries. I’m going to make it a personal issue with them in every instance. But I have to work in secret, or I’ll last about a minute and a half. That’s how you three men happen to be the first who ever heard a word from me on a subject that I’ve been pondering for five-and-twenty years.”

“Strange, old boy,” said Jeremy. “You altruists are all plausible; and you all turn out in the end to be feathering your own nests.”

“My impression of you is that you’re honest,” Strange answered.

“Honest? You don’t know me,” laughed Jeremy. “I posed as a prophet of Islam in an Arab village. They used to pay me to make the dead talk from their tombs, and I charged ’em so much extra for every ten years the corpse had been dead and buried. Sure I’m honest.”

“You keep good company,” Strange answered. “How about you, Ramsden? Are you interested?”

“Interested, yes,” I answered. “Grim is the senior partner. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

“How about it, Major Grim?”

“How would it pay?” Grim asked.

“Five thousand dollars a year for each of you, and all expenses.”

“Would you expect us to obey you blindly? The answer is ‘No’ in that case,” Grim assured him.

“Strict confidence, and the best judgment of all of you. Once we agree together on a course my instructions must be carried out.”

“How about additions to the staff? I’d have to choose the men I’ll work with,” said Grim.

“I approve of that.”

“Very well, Mr. Strange. We three will talk it over and give you a definite answer tonight,” said Grim; and we got up together and left Strange sitting there.