“Certainly. I’ve already been into that point. Smith must never be much richer than he is now; if he goes on with this money-lending, he must be rather poorer. Of course, Bassett can see nothing but twenty per cent. instead of ten, and some of the other members are like him, but I think we can do without a dividend for a year or two if necessary. There’s no need to show our hand. We can’t adopt deliberately a thwarting policy. But I have an idea that when Smith begins to be too prosperous he will lose a schooner with a valuable cargo. A store or two may be burned down. Some new line of business, which has been suggested by his English friends, is likely to be a financial loss. The second point is that he must not get into touch with the people who can help him—publicists. It would not be healthy for us to have much written about Faloo in the London papers. Well, he can’t get away himself—his trade and the natives tie him by the leg. There’s no telephone or telegraph here—thank Heaven!—and our mail arrives and leaves irregularly in one of his own schooners, which has to go hundreds of miles with it. I fancy that if you chose to go a cruise in that schooner something might happen to any letters it carried which were not to the general interest. You could manage that?”
“Pleasure—at any time.”
“I may ask you to do it.”
“Look here, Sweetling, that’s all right, of course. But I fancy you’re looking so far ahead that you’re missing the next step. The row with the natives about their women is the next step. And although there’s no need to get into blue funk about it, like Bassett, it may very easily be the last step too.”
“I know,” said Sir John. “I’m going to speak to some of the men about it. I wish you’d tackle Cyril Mast.”
“Well,” said Dr Pryce, “it’s rather difficult. You see, I’m not exactly qualified for—er—er—stained-glass treatment myself, and Mast knows it. For that matter, I could tell you a true story about the amiable Bassett. However, I’ll advise discretion—if they’d only remember that all the native women don’t come into the same category it would be all right. By the way, you were rather down on Cyril Mast.”
“The man’s a human sink.”
“There are times when that describes him. There are also times when he’d shock Naples and make Port Said blush. There is no act of madness which he might not possibly commit. But he has his moments. I’ll try to find him in a lucid interval. Good Lord! I wonder why King Smith doesn’t give the natives their head and wipe the island clean of the whole lot of us.”
“Excellent prudential reasons. Smith banks—has been compelled to bank by those who financed him. His cheques require the signatures of two Englishmen as well as his own. It is awkward at times to have a bank so far away, but I thought it advisable that the money should not be kept here.”
“That’s all right,” said the doctor, rising from the table. “I’ve got a native with pneumonia down on the beach. I’ll go and look at him.”