Grant Allen

At Hull, prepared by wireless, doctors and nurses were waiting for Olive when the vessel reached port late at night. As Matheson hurried with the ambulance along the quayside, a tubby little figure of a man came up to him.

"You remember me—Martin?" he asked. "I'm covering this story for the Daily Truth."

"Come with me," answered Matheson. "I'll give you the information you want presently."

He had first to see Olive safely in hospital. It was all that he could do for her. Then he returned to the journalist.

"I suppose that you know that the other two boats were picked up early this morning?" said Martin.

"Good! and Larssen's little boy?"

"Quite sound. I made a special interview with him.... By the way, you know that the Hudson Bay flotation is going strong on the wing?"

He held out a newspaper folded back to the financial page. A few moments' glance was sufficient to tell Matheson all that he needed to know—that the issue had been launched in his name on the night of April 30th; that to-morrow at twelve o'clock the lists were to be closed.

If he were to act at all, he must act now—at once. His jaw squared and his mouth tightened as he thought out the situation.

Then to the journalist: "We've got to smash this—you and I."

From the wallet in his breast-pocket Matheson took out Larssen's two agreements—blurred with sea-water, but now dried and fit for his purpose. He handed the agreements to Martin, who whistled surprise as he read them.

"He's underwritten it himself," was the latter's comment.

"Yes. That evades his agreement with me.... What's the price of a full-page advertisement in your paper?"

"First, what's the idea?" returned the journalist.

Matheson led the way to a hotel near at hand, and on a sheet of hotel note-paper wrote these words:—

"The use of my name on the Hudson Bay prospectus is absolutely unauthorized. I earnestly advise all investors to cancel their applications by wire—at once.

(Signed) "Clifford Matheson"

"I want that on a full page," he said decisively.

The journalist read the words, and then looked up suspiciously.

"I knew you as a Mr John RiviÈre," he objected.

"I know, but I'm Clifford Matheson. I'll prove it to you. I'll bring you the two survivors from the 'Starlight' to testify."

"That's not much evidence."

"In town I could take you to my bankers, but to-night it's impossible. Martin, you've got to believe me! Hear what those two men have to say!"

The journalist considered the matter in sober silence.

"An advertisement like this is sheer libel," he answered presently. "Larssen could rook you for goodness knows what damages if you got it published."

"I know. That goes."

"But my owners wouldn't stand for the damages. They'd be equally liable, you know."

"I'll guarantee them up to my last shilling. Get your editor on the trunk wire, and find out how much guarantee he'll want me to put up."

Martin looked at him half in admiration and half in doubtfulness.

"It would be a tremendous risk for me to take!"

Matheson looked him square in the eye.

"If you want a scoop that will make your career," he answered slowly, "it's here. Waiting for you to pick it up. I promised you first call on my news—here it is. Have you the pluck to take your opportunity?"

"Exclusive?" asked Martin, the magic word "scoop" setting him aflame.

"Exclusive," agreed Matheson.

"You'll prove to me that you're Clifford Matheson right enough?"

"Within half an hour. And give you a full interview, explaining my reasons for the announcement."

"Well, I'm on!"

Martin had a well-deserved newspaper reputation for accuracy and good judgment. On his urgent recommendation, therefore, the managing editor of the Daily Truth consented to run Clifford Matheson's full-page advertisement and to insert the interview, contingent on his depositing with Martin a cheque for £250,000 to indemnify the paper against a possible libel action on the part of Lars Larssen.

Matheson also prepared letters to Sir Francis Letchmere, Lord St Aubyn, and Carleton-Wingate, giving a statement of his reasons for the announcement in the Daily Truth of the next morning, and asking them to send telegrams to all those who had made applications for shares. The telegram to be sent out was worded:—

"I strongly advise all investors to cancel by wire their applications for shares in Hudson Bay Transport. See explanation in Daily Truth of May 3rd.—Clifford Matheson."

Martin, who was leaving for London by a midnight train, took charge of the three letters and promised to have them safely delivered to the three Directors of the company early in the morning.

Two days later, Matheson had to leave his wife in the hands of the doctors in order to attend a brief meeting of the Board of Directors of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd.

They were seated in the stately board-room of the London and United Kingdom Bank in Lombard Street, at one end of the huge oval table over which the affairs of nations are settled. Clifford Matheson was in the chair.

The routine business of the meeting had been cleared when a clerk announced that Mr Larssen wished to enter. Until the allotments had been made by the other four Directors, he had no legal right to sit at the board of the company or to take part in any discussion. He now asked formal permission to enter, and the Directors formally agreed to receive him.

If they thought to find in Lars Larssen a beaten man, they were greatly mistaken. He came in with his usual masterful stride, and his eyes met theirs surely and squarely.

"I've come to hear what's been fixed between you," he said, and took a seat at the table.

Matheson took up a paper from the bundle before him on the table, and replied with studied formality: "The applications for shares totalled £6,714,000 in round figures. Of these, all but £8200 were cancelled by telegram or letter on the morning of May 3rd."

"As a consequence of your advertisement in the newspaper?"

"Yes. The Board decided to proceed to allotment, and we have accordingly allotted the applications for 8200 shares. The remainder of the 5,000,000 ordinary shares will have to be taken up and paid for by yourself under the terms of your underwriting agreement."

"I expected that. I'm ready to carry out my bond."

"As you will see," continued Matheson with the same studied formality cloaking the irony of his words, "you gain control."

Larssen smiled tolerantly. "That's turned the trick right enough, but don't flatter yourself that you did it. If it hadn't been for a sheer accident that no man alive could foresee or prevent, I'd have won hands down. I haven't been beaten by you, and so I don't bear grudge. And I've no intention of bringing a libel action to gratify your longing for the limelight. I'll just sit tight and let the Hudson Bay scheme flatten out to nothing."

He flicked thumb and forefinger together contemptuously. "That Hudson Bay scheme was chicken-feed. I've bigger than that up my sleeve. What you've done won't put the stopper on me. Let me tell you, Matheson, that it will take a better man than you to down Lars Larssen."

When he left the board-room, all four Directors remained silent. They knew that he had spoken truth. Even in defeat Lars Larssen was a bigger man than any of the four.

From the first, the doctors had little hope of saving Olive. Her constitution, never a strong one, had been undermined by the luxurious pleasure-seeking of her life and the deadly nerve-poison of the morphia. That night and day on the upturned boat—drenched with the waves, chilled, famished, tortured with thirst—had been an ordeal to shatter even a woman with big reserves of strength, and Olive had no such reserves.

When Matheson and his father-in-law hurried back to Hull, it was to find that life was slowly ebbing. Towards the end her mind cleared of delirium, and she spoke rationally.

"Perhaps it is all for the best, Clifford," she murmured. "You came back to me, but could I have held you?"

"You had come to care for me again," he answered gently.

"Yes, but I am so uncertain. It's my nature. I might have held you for a little while ... and then."

"You must think only of getting well again," he urged.

"Don't try to buoy me up with false hopes. It is kind of you, dear; but I see things clearly now.... You came back to me, and I am content. I want rest now—just rest."

Presently her eyelids closed in sleep. Matheson sat watching by her bedside for a long while, holding her hand. She stirred once and murmured drowsily, "You came back to me." And in her sleep she passed away so gradually that none could say when mortal life had ended and the life eternal had begun.