His father raised his eyebrows.
“Better be careful,” he advised. “This is France, not America. You are supposed to be in it for life when you start that sort of thing over here.”
“I hope I shall be,” Hamer declared. “When you have seen my young woman you will hope so, too, for my sake.”
“Confident young feller, aren’t you? How old are you, Hamer?”
“Twenty-six, sir.”
“A year older than I thought. Well, I’m glad that you are not one of these crazy super-sportsmen, anyway. You look as though you took plenty of exercise.”
“I swim three times a day,” Hamer said, “play tennis most days, a little golf now and then, and enough canoeing to keep my muscles in order every evening.”
“Well, well,” his father said tolerantly. “It is not every man who is born ambitious. I am not really sure,” he went on, “that to be ambitious—unless it is a very definite and worthy form of ambition—is not a sign of weakness. Tell me about the young lady. I am afraid that she must be French.”
“She is, sir.”
“Innkeeper’s daughter or princess, eh?”
“Half-way between the two, I suppose. I believe her family is quite good. They own the château close to where my boat is moored. Her name is Montelimar—Lucienne de Montelimar.”
“Very pretty,” his father observed approvingly. “The name sounds familiar.”
“Her father, the Marquis de Montelimar, has been French ambassador in several European capitals, I believe,” Hamer confided. “I think you will like him. For a Frenchman he has quite a broad outlook.”
“If it becomes necessary I shall, of course, be prepared to make the acquaintance of the family,” Scott Wildburn said after a moment’s hesitation. “You are aware, however, of course, of my prejudices. I have no great friendship for the French, as I think you know…Tell me about this boat of yours, Hamer.”
“The Bird of Paradise,” the young man replied in some surprise. “Oh, she isn’t much, but then I never had any ambition to own a yacht. Nothing like your Valkyrie or even the Storm Cloud. She’s just a thirty-ton schooner yacht, built by a Frenchman for his honeymoon, with one large cabin and a decent little saloon. Just big enough for me to get some fun out of sailing her and cruising around—although I haven’t done much of that lately.”
“Something in the nature of an engine, I suppose?”
“Diesels. Why don’t you come down and see her? I think you told me that you’ve never been down to the Riviera in the summer.”
“That may happen. You are fond of the boat, I suppose?”
“I am, rather,” Hamer confessed.
“How much did you give for her?”
“Eighteen hundred pounds, sir. She was not particularly cheap, but I thought she was worth it, and she was so exactly what I wanted.”
“Bought her at Marseilles, didn’t you?”
“Why, how did you know that, sir?” Hamer asked, more surprised than ever. “I didn’t know that I had ever written you about her.”
“You haven’t—and yet I know,” his father observed, smiling. “Now, I am going to give you a chance of doing a little remunerative business. You say that you gave eighteen hundred pounds for her. I am going to buy her from you at five thousand.”
To Hamer Wildburn his father’s words wore perhaps the greatest shock of his life. He dropped his cigarette upon the carpet, and stared across the room open-mouthed. There was no doubt whatever but that Scott Wildburn was in earnest. He was smiling at his son’s astonishment, but he had by no means the appearance of a man who had embarked upon a jest.
“Come, Hamer, don’t look as though you had lost your senses,” he admonished his son. “Sit up and take notice. I want to buy the Bird of Paradise. I am offering you five thousand pounds for her; cheque before you leave this room.”
“What on earth,” Hamer gasped, as a flood of memories came rushing into his brain, “do you want to buy the Bird of Paradise for?”
His father tapped the ash from his cigar into the plate by his side.
“Well, I may tell you that some day,” he promised. “Just at present it doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll give you a cheque for the amount now, or if you see anything you fancy at a few thousands more that won’t matter. I’ll give you the Storm Cloud if you care to sail her across. That’s the sort of enterprise that might appeal to you, I imagine. She would cross the Atlantic all right. She has done it twice already. What about it, Hamer? I have a crew ready. When can I put them on board?”
“You have rather taken my breath away.” his son acknowledged. “Do you know, sir, that nearly everyone in the neighbourhood has been trying to buy that boat from me?”
Scott Wildburn stiffened visibly.
“What do you mean by’ everyone in the neighbourhood’?”
“Why, Monsieur Edouard Mermillon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, General Perissol, the man who has the wonderful new post, in the Ministry, and controls the whole of the police of France. He has not made me any definite offer, but it is easy to see that he’s interested. I have since discovered that a very beautiful woman who swam from the shore one night and turned my cabin inside out is his chere amie. Then there is a young woman, a danseuse, but you wouldn’t know about her.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, no one has made a direct offer to me,” Hamer confessed, “but Lucienne—that’s Lucienne de Montelimar, you know, the girl I am engaged to marry—has made me promise to give it to her for a wedding present.”
There was a brief silence. Scott Wildburn had drawn his chair further back and his face seemed to have relapsed into the shadows.
“Mermillon,” he muttered. “Let me see—he is Minister for Foreign Affairs. General Perissol. H’m. I should have thought he would have adopted another line. Montelimar’s daughter. A young danseuse: mixed up in some intrigue, I suppose. All this is very strange, Hamer.”
“It is bewildering.”
“From what I remember of your younger days,” his father remarked, “it seems to me that you never had the bump of curiosity very strongly developed. I presume the same idiosyncrasy has survived your adolescence. But seriously, Hamer, haven’t you ever wondered what they wanted your boat for?”
“I have racked my brains,” the young man acknowledged. “Even Lucienne wouldn’t tell me. I always imagined that she wanted it for sentimental reasons. You see, we really met on board. I pulled her in when she was exhausted swimming on a rough day and since then we have spent a good deal of time on board together. Mermillon wanted it for a present to his nephew. That seemed quite reasonable. Then, for the first time, within the last few days, the danseuse I have spoken of gave me an idea. I thought I saw a gleam of light. Now you come along and I am all in the dark again. You could not want the boat for the same reason that my little friend. Mademoiselle Tanya wanted it.”
“You think not,” his father observed.
“I don’t think. I’m sure of it, Dad,” Hamer declared. “Why not tell me what you do want her for? It would help me out of a dilemma, anyway.”
“Serve you right if I did tell you,” was the somewhat grim reply.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, do. The story I have heard seems to me most terribly improbable, but I was never so curious about anything in my life.”
“Bottle it up, my boy,” his father advised him. “Believe me, you are a safer man, in France, at any rate, not to know…And now I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you, Hamer. I want that boat. I must have her—and at once.”
Something in his father’s tone startled him. He looked up in surprise.
“But, Dad,” he expostulated, “I’ve told you I’ve promised it to Lucienne. It is the only thing she has ever asked me for.”
“And that may be the only promise you have ever broken,” was the quiet reply, “but you will have to break it.”
There was a short but somewhat awkward silence.
Scott Wildburn had sunk ba
ck in his comfortable chair, and his eyes—cold and relentless—were fixed upon his son. The fingers of his right hand drummed restlessly upon the table by his side. Hamer was in the throes of a great bewilderment. His father’s request, almost demand, had come like a thunderbolt. He temporised—weakly, as he realised afterwards.
“You won’t mind my writing to Lucienne, sir?” he said at last. “I must give some explanation. You see,” he went on, a little awkwardly, “she looks upon the boat as her own already.”
“That is, of course, unfortunate,” his father admitted calmly, “but it can’t be helped. I want possession within the next few hours. I have brought a crew of my own over from New York to take her to Marseilles.
“From New York?” Hamer gasped.
“I can assure you that this is no sudden impulse. Nothing in the world but to acquire possession of the ‘Bird of Paradise‘ would have brought me back to France.”
Hamer leaned forward with his hand behind his head.
“I’m sorry, dad,” he reiterated. “I must speak lo Lucienne first. I cannot break the first promise I ever made to her without some explanation.”
Considering the number of years which had passed since anyone had even hesitated for a single moment to do the bidding of the great millionaire, his present attitude was exemplary. He showed no signs of losing his temper. He even smiled indulgently.
“Hamer,” he said, “I do not propose lo enter into lengthy explanations, but it has already, no doubt, dawned upon you that we are up against no ordinary situation. The fact that you risk your life every moment that you stay upon that boat means, I am sure, very little to you because you are courageous, almost rash, by disposition. But you must get this firmly into your head. I should not ask you to break your promise to the young woman whom yon propose to marry if there were not vital and overwhelming reasons for doing so. You would not be able to comprehend if I were to tell you why I am making this demand upon you. You will have to accept the bald facts. I must have the boat and at once.”
“I will get on the telephone to Lucienne,” Hamer proposed.
“You must do nothing of the sort,” his father enjoined firmly. “You must tell her nothing until the boat is safely in my possession.”
Hamer was beginning slowly to recover his poise. He was perhaps more uncomfortable, though, than he had ever been in his life.
“Dad,” he said, “I am not sure that I can do what you ask me until I have spoken to Lucienne.”
Scott Wildburn looked thoughtfully across at his son. There, alas, was the same firm chin, the same steady eyes, the same note of determination in the voice. It was a duplication of himself and his own obstinacy with which he was confronted.
“This is going to be a very awkward affair, Hamer,” he meditated.
“A very awkward affair for me, without doubt,” his son replied. “I realise, of course, what it may mean to refuse what you ask me. I am afraid, however, that I cannot let that make any difference.”
“Good lad,” his father approved. “Quite the right attitude.”
A waiter had entered the room during the last few minutes with the petit dejeuner, which he wheeled up on a small table lo Hamer’s side. Scott Wildburn rose to his feet.
“I shall leave you alone for a quarter of an hour,” he said. “You can talk to Ned if you like. Sometimes that young man has gleams of positive inspiration. Between you, you may be able to work something out.”
“I’m sorry to be such a nuisance, sir,” Hamer regretted.
“Under the unfortunate circumstances,” his father admitted. “I am not surprised that this trouble has arisen. However, we must try and get over it somehow…They have given you my special coffee, I hope? You will find it delicious. I shall be back within a quarter of an hour.”
“Well?”
Scott Wildburn had returned. Hamer had dealt with his breakfast, and smoked two cigarettes without coming any nearer to a solution of the quandary in which his father’s demands had placed him.
“Thinking doesn’t seem to be of any use,” he confessed ruefully. “I must ask Lucienne before I give away her property.”
“Not her property until your wedding day, I understood,” his father objected. “Still, I won’t quibble. I will take you into my confidence instead. I will tell you why I must have the boat.”
CHAPTER XXV
Table of Contents
Scott Wildburn settled himself in his chair and lit one of his amazing cigars.
“It is Ned’s idea that I should extend this confidence to you,” he began. “Quite a stroke of genius, I call it. He proposed that I should tell you the truth. You will be murdered, of course, if anyone finds out that you know, but then so should I. It will be simply one more taking a chance. Scared?”
“Not a bit.”
“I didn’t suppose you would be. Well, you don’t read my newspapers, I suppose?”
“I certainly do,” Hamer assented. “You read my editorials?”
“Every one of them,”
“Then you can judge where my sympathies have been as regards France during the last few years.”
“The whole world knows that,” Hamer agreed. “You have not given them a chance to forget it either. You have been, if not an enemy, a very stern critic of French policy practically the whole of the time since the war.”
The newspaper millionaire nodded acquiescence.
“I mention this,” he said, “because it will help you to understand why a certain adventure was offered to me. One day a Frenchman, who had been persistently demanding an interview for days, succeeded in finding his way into my private office in New York. He stated his case in very few words.”
“‘I have read your newspapers,’ he confided, ‘day by day. I married an American and I have lived over here. That is why I understand your point of view. You hate France—for personal as well as political reasons.’
“That was going pretty far, you know. I remember the time when I should have thrown any man out of the room who had dared to say that to me.”
“I can quite understand.”
“Well,” Scott Wildburn went on, “my visitor’s next sentence was something startling.
“‘I can put you,’ he assured me, ‘in a position to ruin France as a civilised country, at any rate, for several generations.’”
“Must have been a madman.” Hamer declared.
“He was no madder than I am,” Scott Wildburn rejoined “He went on to tell me his story. The proofs he had to offer were insignificant. The whole thing might very easily have been a faked up tale, but he left my office with a certified cheque for fifty thousand dollars in his pocket. He could have had more if he had asked for it. Even if it were not true, his story was almost worth the money.”
Hamer, who was deeply interested, reverted unconsciously to the slang of his younger days.
“Gee,” he muttered “I would like to have been there!”
“He would probably have convinced you as he did me,” Scott Wildburn continued. “He reminded me of the Tositi frauds in which a number of public men were concerned, and the discovery of which has given the Communist cause in France a tremendous leg up on account of the number of men in politics and public life who are involved. He went on to assure me that the Tositi affair itself was only like one little twig on a great tree. He assured me of what I have sometimes suspected—that France is being bled through her public services by politicians to an incredible extent. According to him, there is scarcely a man in politics who is not deeply implicated in a gigantic scheme of national embezzlement. The six arch embezzlers formed a small circle, and, according to this visitor of mine, incredible as it seems, the amount of their defalcations would have pretty well paid France’s debt to America.”
“How could a country be bled to that extent?” Hamer demanded incredulously.
“The thing begins at the bottom,” Scott Wildburn pointed out. “You should realise that in a budget of fifty milliards or thereabouts the off
icials, the pensioners, and those in receipt of government assistance of some kind or other call for at least twenty-five milliards, which must never appear either before the Chamber or in print. The French budget is a gigantic plum cake for those who are nearest to help themselves, and there are very few who do not get some of the plums. From that the whole scheme moves upwards…At the time of the Tositi affair the man who had been the tool of the circle warned them promptly that unless he was protected, certain proofs which he had collected of their wrongdoing would be placed in the hands of his counsel. Their answer was a dozen revolver bullets in Tositi’s body. You may think it was a queer thing this, Hamer, my boy—I scarcely believed in it myself—but the French outlook and temperament are different to ours. Anyway, I bought the clue which would enable me to handle that list of six names, and the written evidence which Tositi had in his possession, for fifty thousand dollars and a further fifty thousand later on.”
“Do you mean to say that you have this evidence?”
“No, but I know where the records are which would damn some of the greatest statesmen in France and plunge the whole country into confusion,” Scott Wildburn answered. “They are on your boat, the Bird of Paradise.”
Hamer was speechless. He could think of nothing but Tanya. He seemed to be back on the boat on that moonless night when she had sat by his side and calmly told him her wonderful story. He remembered her words—crisp, cool, exquisitely poignant. In all this labyrinth of lies and inventions here had been the truth.
“It isn’t—it couldn’t be possible,” he faltered.
“It is very possible indeed,” his father answered tritely. “It is not a certainty, of course, but I am not exactly a credulous person, and I have ventured a hundred thousand dollars on it. A great many secrets, Hamer, have gone down to the bottom of the sea this way. My visitor was the draftsman to the naval architect who designed the Bird of Paradise, and the paper he gave me was a plan showing exactly where the secret hiding places were made. The boat will have to be practically disembowelled. She will probably be useless afterwards, but that really doesn’t matter much. Now, you see, my boy, why I must have your boat.”
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