CHAPTER V
The _Nadine_ had been lying for a fortnight in Southampton Water, andall that was mortal of the man who might have been master of the worldwas resting in a nameless grave in the cemetery.
In the oak-panelled dining-room of Orrel Court, an old ramblingmansion, dating partly from Reformation times, and standing on thelower slopes of the South Downs overlooking the distant Solent, therewas a little dinner-party in the process of eating, drinking, andchatting, which was a good deal more pregnant with the fate of nationsthan many a Cabinet meeting.
At the head of the long, massive table sat a man of a little overfifty, tall and rather squarely built, and still erect. A man, stillhandsome and capable of attracting the attention and even theadmiration of many fair ladies, who would have been only too glad tooccupy the place at the other end of the table which was now occupiedby the owner of the _Nadine_, for Harry Shafto Hardress, eighth Earlof Orrel, came of one of the oldest and proudest stocks in thecountry, and, thanks to the millions which his dead American wife hadbrought him, the broad, fat acres that he owned in half-a-dozencounties were absolutely unencumbered, and he possessed a personalfortune that yielded more than twice his goodly rent-roll.
Miss Chrysie Vandel sat at his right hand, and, next to her, DoctorLamson, faced by Lady Olive and a tall, angular, square-headed,keen-featured man of about the Earl's own age, with a heavy,well-trained, iron-grey, moustache, and an equally well-ordered,little tuft of hair on the square chin. This was Clifford K. Vandel,President of the Empire State Electric Storage and Transmission Trustof New York and Buffalo. He was commonly known throughout the Statesand Europe as the Lightning King; and he controlled not only the powerdistribution, but also the whole system of Etherography or wirelesstelegraphy throughout the Continent of North America.
He had come over post-haste from New York in response to an urgentcable from Lord Orrel. He was an uncle of the late Lady Orrel, and heand the Earl had already done a good deal of business together on bothsides of the Atlantic. The cablegram had contained the words "urgentbusiness," so he had taken the first available steamer and arrived inSouthampton that afternoon.
During dinner only ordinary topics had been touched upon, but when thecloth was removed and the butler, with a ceremonious care that wasalmost reverential, had placed the ancient decanters and jugscontaining the port and claret and Madeira, for which the cellars ofOrrel Court had long been famous, his lordship told him that they werenot to be disturbed until he rang; and, when the door had closedbehind him, he said:
"Well, now, Vandel, we can talk. Miss Chrysie, a glass of port--allowme--and, if you will, pass the decanter. Mr Lamson, this is the sameseal as before. Olive, you will make the coffee later on, won't you,in that patent concern of yours? You certainly do it much better thanthey do downstairs; and I don't see why for once we shouldn't have oursmoke here, since our--what is it they say?--revolting daughters bothindulge."
"Revolted, if you don't mind, my lord," remarked Miss Chrysie acrossher wine-glass. "Though I don't see much what Olive and I want torevolt for; and I guess if two girls ever had more easily managedpoppas they'd be curiosities. What do you say poppa? You haven't triedto run me much, have you?"
The iron-faced man of millions, the commander-in-chief of armies ofhand and brain workers, the ruthless wrecker of industries which stoodin the way of the realisation of his gigantic schemes, lookedsmilingly at the living likeness of his dead wife, and said, with thatsoft intonation and hardly perceptible accent which evidenced his oldSouthern descent:
"Well, Chrysie, I don't know that either of you ever wanted very muchrunning; and as for smoking, well, your mothers and grandmothers didit down South two generations ago, and I guess what was good enoughfor the South in those days is good enough for anywhere else."
From which speech it may be gathered that Clifford Kingsley Vandel wasone of those Americans who, although he had come in with the Union,and made many millions out of it, still cherished the traditions ofthe old Southern aristocracy. In fact, in his heart of hearts, no man,saving only perhaps Louis Xavier de Conde and his present host, had agreater contempt for all democratic institutions than he had; acontempt which is amply shared by nine out of ten of the dollardespots of the great Republic.
He helped himself to a glass of the pale ruby-coloured port, andpassed the decanter to Hardress. Lady Olive was taking claret.
"And now," said Lord Orrel, raising his glass, "suppose we begin inthe good old-fashioned way. Here's success to the Storage Trust andall its future developments."
"Which, from what I've heard of them, will be big and go far," saidthe Lightning King.
"Even unto the running of the earth, and all that therein is. Is thatgood American, Chrysie?"
"Not quite," she laughed, in reply. "I must say that your ladyshipseems to have considerable difficulty in picking up the Americanlanguage. However, the sentiment's all right, so we'll let it go atthat. What do you say, Doctor? Somehow you don't seem quite asenthusiastic about this as a man who knows everything might be."
"If a man knew everything, Miss Vandel," replied Lamson, rathergravely, "he would probably be enthusiastic about nothing. Still, Iconfess that, as I said at first on board the yacht, I do look uponthis scheme, splendid and all as it is, and perfectly feasible fromthe scientific point of view, as something just a little too splendidfor human responsibility. After all, you know, to make oneself thearbiter of human destiny, supreme lord of earth and air, dispenser oflife and death, health and sickness, is what is popularly described asa somewhat large order."
"Well," chimed in Miss Chrysie, "I guess if it enables you to reformthe British climate, by way of a start, and give this unhappy countrysome weather instead of just a lot of ragged-edged samples, you'll notbegin badly."
"And if we can also do something with the furious, untamed, Americanblizzard," laughed Hardress, nodding at her over his glass, "we shallalso confer a certain amount of blessing upon a not inconsiderableproportion of the Anglo-Saxon race. What's your idea, Mr Vandel?"
"We could do about as well without them as London could do withoutfog, or the British farmer do without a week of January shifted oninto May," replied the Lightning King. "I've often thought that asyndicate which could control the British climate, and educate yourfarmers and railroads into something like commonsense, would makequite big money. Maybe that's what we'll do later on."
"An excellent idea," laughed Lord Orrel. "I have suffered from both ofthem--as well as from our free-trading amateur politicians who make itas expensive for me to bring a ton of my own wheat from Yorkshire toLondon as to import a ton of yours from Chicago. However, we shall beable to alter that later on. And now, suppose Olive brews the coffee,and we have a cigar, and then, perhaps, Mr Lamson will oblige us byshedding the light of his knowledge on the subject before the meeting.I suppose, Mr Lamson, you have not found, on more mature study of thequestion, that there are any serious objections to the scheme, saving,of course, the one which your modesty has created?"
"No, Lord Orrel," he replied, with one of his grave smiles. "Duringthe last week or so I have worked out, I think, every possibledevelopment of the scheme, and I am bound to say that the unknowngenius whom we buried the other day has left nothing to chance. Thereis not even a speculation. Everything is fact, figure, anddemonstration. Given the capital, and the concessions from theCanadian Government, there does not appear to me the remotest chanceof failure. The ultimate consequences of putting the scheme intopractice are, of course, quite another affair--but on that subject youalready have my opinion."
"My dear Lamson," said Hardress, "that, if you will pardon me sayingso, is merely one of the characteristic failings of the scientificintellect. It has too much imagination, and therefore looks too farahead."
"I'm with you there, Viscount," said the Lightning King. "This is justa question of dollars first, last, and all the time. Of course, we'vegot to see the other side of it; but we're not concerned much withwhat there is beyond--or back of b
eyond, for that matter. So, aspractical men, we'll just respect the doctor's scruples all theydeserve, and take all the help he can give us."
"Exactly," said Lord Orrel; "you put the case with your usualterseness, Vandel. And now, if you won't have any more wine, Olivewill give us some coffee, and we may light up and get to business."
"And, Lamson, you will consider yourself on deck for the present,"added Hardress. "I can see that Mr Vandel is just dying to know thedetails, in spite of that cast-iron self-control of his."
"My dear Viscount," laughed the multi-millionaire, "I'm among friends,and I'm not controlling any just now. Still, I'll admit that I'm justabout as anxious to know the details of this scheme as Chrysie was totry on her first ball-dress, and that was no small circumstance, Itell you."
"I should think not," laughed Lady Olive. "There's only one thing moreimportant in life than that, and that's a wedding-dress. But if thesepeople are going to immerse themselves in facts and figures, Chrysie,suppose we have our coffee up in my room. I want to have a good talkwith you about the presentation dresses."
"An even more weighty subject," laughed Hardress, "than thewedding-dress--which may never be worn. I mean, of course----"
"I guess I wouldn't try and explain, Viscount," said Miss Chrysie, asshe got up and went towards the door. "Wasn't it your LordBeaconsfield who said that the most dreary duty of humanity wasexplanation? Reckon you'll find it pretty dreary work explaining thatremark away."
Hardress looked distinctly uncomfortable, for there was a flush onMiss Chrysie's cheeks, and a glint in her eyes which, although theymade her look distractingly pretty, were not of great promise to him.
"I'm awfully sorry----" he began.
"My dear Shafto," laughed Lady Olive, as Lamson opened the door forthem, "don't attempt it. A man who could make a remark like that couldnot possibly improve the situation by an apology."
With that they disappeared, and Lamson shut the door. When he got backto his seat he took a lot of papers out of the breast-pocket of hiscoat, put his plate aside, laid them on the table, and said:
"Well, then, since I am in the chair, I may as well get to business.As Mr Vandel has not yet been made fully acquainted with the detailsof the scheme, perhaps it will be as well if I begin at thebeginning."
"Quite so," said Lord Orrel, with a nod; "and your kindness will havethe additional effect of refreshing my own memory, which, I mustadmit, is not a particularly good one for technicalities."
Then Doctor Lamson began, and for a couple of hours or so expoundedwith every possible exactness of detail the discovery made by theman whose mangled remains had been picked up by the _Nadine_ inmid-Channel, and which might have made France mistress of the world.
When he had finished, they went into the library, where they werejoined by Lady Olive and Miss Chrysie, and the conversation graduallydrifted away into topics more socially interesting, but of lessimperial importance. But when Clifford Kingsley Vandel went to bedthat night he spent half-an-hour or more walking up and down his big,thickly-carpeted bedroom, with his hands clasped behind his back, hiseyes fixed on the floor, and his lips shaping inarticulate words whichwould have been worth millions to anyone who could have heard them.Then he stopped his promenade, undressed, and got into bed, and justbefore he dismissed the whole subject from his perfectly-trainedintellect and addressed himself to the necessary business of sleep, hesaid:
"Well, that's just about the biggest scheme that mortal man ever had achance of bringing to a head; and I guess we'll do it. Masters of theworld, givers of life or death, lords of the nations, makers of peaceor war as we please! That's so, and now, Clifford Vandel, I have thehonour to wish you a very good night--a very good night indeed--aboutthe best night you've ever had."
And then the masterful brain ceased working, like an engine from whichthe steam had been shut off, and he fell asleep as quickly and aspeacefully as a little child.