To think out all these steps reads long, yet there was hardly a pause between the asking of Lawson’s question and McAuley’s giving his answer. The answer was thus.
“It’s no use your asking me and looking on me like that, Mr. Lawson. I haven’t got that document. I haven’t got yon other document. I have not got Halterton’s letter to me either. Mr. Williams the Home Secretary has got them. I won’t say how—but he’s a smart man.”
It was Arthur Lawson’s turn to pause.
“You’re not deceiving me, Mr. McAuley. I can see that. Will you be good enough to make certain where Mr. Williams is at this moment. You will be good enough to tell him that Mr. Arthur Lawson—he will know my name”—McAuley smiled genially at that, and nodded— “wishes to speak to him. To see him immediately. Upon the matter of the new Television Charter.”
“Aye, Mr. Lawson, I will do that. I’ll go to the private line in the next room—now, at once.”
“I will come with you,” said Mr. Lawson.
McAuley smiled again, because he did not like it. They went together into the next room, and Lawson listened carefully. McAuley rang up the Home Office.
“Is Mr. Williams in? … He is? … Will you ask him to come to the telephone to speak to Mr. McAuley a minute—Mr. James McAuley.” J. waited patiently, smiling up once again at the stern face above him, but got no answering smile, nor any word. Then the machine went on again. “Eh? Is that you, Jack? There’s Mr. Arthur Lawson—ye know Mr. Arthur Lawson—he’s wanting to come and see ye about that matter of ours. … No, no … he’ll not be waiting, he’s on his way now—he asked me to let you know. … No, no, ye must be there. … I tell ye, man, it’s necessary, absolutely necessary. … Well, yes, that’s it—ye’ll understand when ye see him, and ye won’t be sorry ye’ve done as I bid ye. He’ll be with you now. … No, he’s not with me—he’ll be on his way to you.” He put up the receiver.
“He’ll be waiting for you, Mr. Lawson,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Lawson, and he moved towards the door. James McAuley followed him into the passage and to the outer door of the flat. He opened it for the great man with a bow, and stood there, still smiling, and held out his hand. But Arthur Lawson did not take that hand.
“Good morning,” he said.
McAuley, with the first heat he had shown that morning, slammed the door. And in ten minutes Arthur Lawson had reached the Home Office.
He had met both these men, of course, casually enough. He had divined them, but superficially and without interest; he had pigeon-holed them in his steel trap of a mind, under the heading “politicians” —the one by profession, the other by relationship; but he had a clear distinction between them in the matter of character. He was expecting a reception from Williams very different from that which he had got from McAuley—and he was right.
A lesser man might have expected that McAuley would forewarn and arm his partner; but Lawson knew better. He fully understood why McAuley had given way; why he had told the whereabouts of both those fatal letters.
McAuley had thrown himself upon Lawson’s mercy —but that Williams would give way as McAuley had given way Lawson did not believe. There would be a struggle. But Lawson held the trumps; whereas for McAuley it had only been a change of masters, and a change which he had preferred.
The Home Secretary received Arthur Lawson in his big room. He was sitting in his official chair at his huge official table, looking official with the pomp and majesty of his office upon him. He did not rise. He greeted his visitor courteously enough, and waved his arm towards a chair, but for the second time that morning Arthur Lawson refused to sit down.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Lawson?” said Williams, using the fairly civil but impersonal tone which is used by these exalted men when they are to be consulted upon very exalted business.
“I have come to tell you that, Mr. Williams,” answered Lawson quietly, but with clear-cut syllables. “I have come to obtain from you two documents that you have in your possession, after having obtained them, I presume, by fraud. And I shall be much obliged if you will let me have them with the least delay, as I have a great deal to do this morning. One is the engagement given by my friend Mr. Wilfrid Halterton, the Postmaster - General to Mr. James McAuley—whom I believe I may now call your partner — promising the contract for the new Television business to Durrant’s Company; the other is the signed letter which Mr. McAuley gave to Mr. Halterton promising him in return the General Managership of the new Television Corporation at a high salary named and free of tax.”
So much he said, and it was to the point.
“Can’t I persuade you to sit down, Mr. Lawson?”
“No, thank you. I make no doubt, Mr. Williams, that these documents are now upon your person. Be good enough to hand them to me.”
Jack Williams folded his arms upon the table, looked up deliberately and soberly into the great financier’s face.
“You are under a complete misapprehension, Mr. Lawson. I won’t say more than that. I have plenty of experience of things like this. It is not the first misunderstanding I have come across in my life by a thousand. You are under a complete misapprehension. If you desire to do anything in this matter, I can only refer you to Mr. Halterton himself, and to Mr. McAuley. They are the principals, and I have nothing whatever to do with it.”
“That,” said Arthur Lawson impassively, “is a lie. Be good enough to give me the documents.”
I am sorry to say that Mr. John Williams, in spite of all those years of experience in the lofty rhetoric in public life, in spite of all his knowledge of the great world, in which he was himself so great a figure, reacted to that word “lie.”
It does not sound credible, still less does it sound as though I were doing justice to one of our first statesmen, but he did react to the word, and slipped. He gave himself away.
“You shall not have them, Mr. Lawson,” he said angrily. And with that he put on such a bull-dog look that the issue was certainly joined.
“You have admitted you have them and you refuse to give them to me, here and now?” said Lawson.
“I refuse to give you them at any time,” said Mr. Williams. “And if those whom I have the honour to advise accept my advice—and I am pretty sure that they will—they will have no more to do with you either, Mr. Lawson.”
“Think carefully what you are doing, Mr. Williams,” said Lawson, drawing a step back and half turning as though about to go. “You are in a vulnerable position.”
“I am the best judge of that,” answered Williams. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Mr. Williams,” said Lawson, and he went out.
Williams had concealed no one in a cupboard during that interview; he had had no dictaphone at work; it was not for him to establish a record; he desired these brief five minutes to be as though they had not been. He was impregnable.
John Williams was not one of those impressionable men who vaguely fear the power of great wealth. No clearer brain has been at work in the great field of public life in our time. He knew all the real factors in the case: of imaginations he took no account at all.
The real factors were simply these. Lawson, as everybody knew, was acquainted with, might be called a friend of, Halterton. Perhaps for that reason, perhaps from love of power, perhaps from the mere desire to increase his enormous wealth, he desired to obtain control over the coming Television Corporation. How he had got his information, how much he knew, Williams could not guess, and it was immaterial to the issue of the struggle. Williams saw all the factors clearly, he gave each its exact weight, and he repeated to himself again: “Impregnable.” The contract had been set going, there was only the vote to come. There was no evidence producible against him. All the evidence against others was in his own hands. The vote would be taken in quite a few days, its result was a matter of course. Less than ever could Halterton interfere now, and in any case he would not dare to do so, no matter what millions were behind him, for they cou
ld not save him.
With that Williams, using a will as strong as was his intelligence, dismissed the matter wholly from his mind and rang for his secretary. He would spend the next hour in further close work upon the big police reform. He had it at heart that no one should be in future able to use the word “corrupt” in connection with that great public service.
. . . . . . .
During Wednesday the troops stood to arms on either side. The only incident was one pleasurable rather than otherwise to Williams. It was a note from one whom he knew vaguely to be a wealthy young man about town, and in touch with a good many people, asking him to dine at the Palatine on the morrow, Thursday, at 8.30. The note told him that McAuley would be there to meet him. The note hoped that Mr. Williams would be able to get away from the House for the purpose of the dinner, as Mr. McAuley had especially asked that his friend might be present. Mr. des Cuoyes added in a postscript that his object in asking Mr. McAuley, whom he had first asked to dine alone with him, was to discuss Dow’s Patent, on which he had certain information which would be useful. Mr. McAuley had told him that he had taken the Home Secretary’s advice on the affair, and it was on this account that he hoped Mr. Williams would be present.
Jack Williams telephoned to James McAuley, heard all about it, and said he would be delighted to come.
As for McAuley, when he had received, a little earlier in the day, his little note of invitation from the amiable des Cuoyes, it had at first somewhat intrigued him. He knew, of course, that Dow’s would have to come to them, but he had not expected the approach to come from that quarter. Des Cuoyes, of course, knew everybody, and might well enough have interests in the property, or perhaps he was coming to speak for those who had. Anyhow, he would do well to meet him. He accepted, and in writing to accept he asked whether it would be possible for Mr. Williams to be asked too. Then des Cuoyes sent that note to Williams. So it all fitted in well enough; but had McAuley not asked for Williams to be present, des Cuoyes would have asked him just the same. He always obeyed orders exactly.
The replies to his notes reached des Cuoyes on that same Wednesday evening, before he had begun the sacred ritual of dressing for dinner. He made the Great Sacrifice, he postponed his dressing. And at Lawson’s he was sent, with high rewards, to seek whatever might be hidden in Williams’s house.
Next Lawson telephoned to the Postmaster-General.
“I won’t come round, Halterton,” he said, “but I thought I would give you the information at once. You may take it that the thing is done. I have not yet got the documents in my hand, but I am in a position to reassure you finally. Come round here to my house at ten o’clock on Friday morning. We can then talk it over till eleven. Some other things have to be done, which you will learn of. They will be final. They will be over in good time to let you get down to the House by noon for the short Friday sitting.”
. . . . . . .
At 8.30 on the next day, Thursday evening, the intolerable music of the Palatine filled the air, the still worse food was just beginning to be served at the hideous little tables, and wine, more than half of it I am glad to say imperial, was standing in its shining little metal buckets beside those same little tables, all over the place.
At one of these little tables sat, in an easy self-possession which was that of a white and stupid-looking god, the admirably dressed des Cuoyes. It was a table for four, but he was as yet alone, when there came to him the two guests whom he was awaiting, and he stood up to receive them.
“Won’t you sit opposite me, gentlemen?” he said.
“You will be more comfortable in the seats near the wall. And he pulled the table a little towards himself, eagerly helped by the waiter. “You are very punctual, I am sure—what? I am afraid I was a little early. No, waiter, don’t take that chair away. Don’t fuss.”
So there stood the empty chair.
“Sit down, Mr. McAuley, please sit down. Will you have a cocktail, Mr. Williams. I know you’ll have a cocktail—I know what your cocktail is.” For des Cuoyes did know. But he didn’t know McAuley’s. McAuley named it and was provided.
They talked of many things. They had come near the end of the meal. They were eating the tepid ice, and the band was playing “Hell’s Bells,” with all its vigour, when above the din des Cuoyes mentioned for the first time the word Dow’s.
“I didn’t want to bother with it during dinner,” he said, “because really I have very little to say. There’s a man going to look in who knows much more about it than I do. But the point is that we—that is, he, rather—wants of course to approach you about it. It’s a mere matter of routine. Now that Durrant’s is going to get the contract, Dow’s will be working with you, of course, and I don’t think you’ll find them difficult.”
“No,” said McAuley, courteously enough, but much to the point. “You admit, Mr. des Cuoyes, you have not got anyone else to sell to, have you? What do you think, Williams?”
Honest Jack Williams thought a moment, and said: “Well, it’s not my business, and I don’t pretend to understand it, but I rather agree with you, J. So far as I know, and from what you’ve told me; and I think Mr. des Cuoyes is of a mind with us. You know Dow’s and it knows you. It’s simply a matter of terms.”
“Oh, we won’t quarrel about that,” des Cuoyes said largely, and quite at his ease. “Besides, it isn’t really I who can settle all the terms.”
“Hullo!” —he got up— “here’s Sir Andrew! Mr. McAuley, here’s your brother the Attorney-General. Sit down, Sir Andrew!” and he pulled up a fifth chair from an empty table and set it with the others opposite.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind my asking my brother to come in at the end of this meal, Mr. des Cuoyes,” said J. rather haltingly. “He could help us on the legal side.”
“By all means!” said des Cuoyes. “Take some wine, Sir Andrew. We’d just begun to talk of Dow’s Patent.”
“I had thought,” said McAuley at this point, “of going to Reynier’s first. There’s still some arrangement there, isn’t there?”
“I don’t think so,” said des Cuoyes, shaking his head. “Only an expired option. There’s no obligation to renew it.”
“Won’t you give us the name of your friend that’s coming?” said Williams at this point. But answer had he none, for des Cuoyes at that same moment looked over his shoulder again and said:
“Ah, there he is! Keep your seats, gentlemen, keep your seats.” And he went up, threading his way through the tables to a tall distant figure which had just come in through the main door. “I’ll bring him to you, gentlemen!” he called over his shoulder as he went off.
He was back in a moment, leading the figure which least of all had been expected in that place and at that hour by the three men, two of whom sat there appalled, hestitating, waiting; for the tall, spare, dark figure which moved easily towards them behind Guy was that of Arthur Lawson.
“Sit down, Mr. Lawson,” said Guy genially.
Lawson sat down, nodded slightly to the three men opposite, as though he were meeting them for the first time, and sat silent, but with his eyes still fixed upon their faces.
Coffee had just been served. Guy des Cuoyes sipped his, and then suddenly pulled out his watch.
“I say,” he said, “do you know it’s a quarter to ten—what?” And he got up. The McAuleys and Williams half lifted themselves. “Don’t move, please,” drawled Guy. “I’ve only just remembered there’s a man I have got to talk to. I will be back in a minute, what?” And he strolled leisurely away. Nor did he return.
Then there was silence in hell for the space of about a minute and a half.
It was broken by John Williams.
“Mr. Lawson, now that Mr. des Cuoyes is not here, may we ask why you have come? No one was expecting you?”
“I have come to ask you for those documents, Mr. Williams,” answered Arthur Lawson in his quiet voice.
McAuley leaned forward, anxiously expecting the issue. He had heard all about i
t from his partner in a long conversation the day before. He had admired Williams’s courage, he had been half persuaded by his clear tabulated reasoning. Yet still vaguely, instinctively, his mind, which he humbly admitted to be less than that of the master-mind that had convinced him, dreaded the enormous power of the wealth that sat opposite, inscrutable, self-contained. You never know what millions might not do.
“Well, Mr. Lawson,” answered Williams in a low tone, so that only they four could hear, “you won’t have them! You don’t know where they are, you don’t know who has them, it is not your business, and you can do nothing. We were on the point of arranging about Dow’s when you came in, and when Mr. des Cuoyes comes back we shall finish our arrangements.”
“You mean, you will have possession of Dow’s Patent, and be able to go forward?”
“That’s it,” said Williams, still in a low tone, but with rather brutal confidence. “We have got Dow’s in the hollow of our hand, and nothing can stop us.”
“I don’t agree,” said Lawson, half an octave lower than he had yet spoken.
“And why don’t you agree?” asked James McAuley, with a sort of frightened sarcasm.
“Because,” replied Arthur Lawson simply, “I am the owner of Dow’s Patent.”
Then there was another silence, and the information sank into the three minds of those who had just received it as a flat stone sinks swaying slowly downwards and settles in a clear, deep pool.
The silence was broken at last by a remark still simpler than that which had introduced it. The remark was made by Mr. Williams, and the remark he made was:
“Oh!”
As for Mr. McAuley, he said, in something not much louder than a whisper: “Well, well, well!”
The Postmaster General Page 18
