Maxell did not attempt to probe beneath the surface of his twice-repeated remark.
He went back to Cavendish Square to his flat and to a tiny, solemn-eyed little girl who had been brought up from Hindhead that day on her monthly visit to “Uncle Max.”
Cartwright had not accompanied his friend to England, and with good reasons. A great deal of his work was carried out in Paris, where he had an important financial backing. He occupied a flat overlooking the imposing, but none too convenient, Avenue of the Grand Army. His home was at the unfashionable end of this interminable thoroughfare, which meant that his rooms were larger and his rent cheaper, and that he was freer from observation than he would have been had he lived according to his means or station in a luxurious flat nearer the Etoil.
He had a board meeting to attend, an informal board meeting, it is true, but none the less important.
Cartwright was the chairman and managing director of the London and Paris Gold Syndicate, a flourishing concern which held big blocks of shares in various land and gold-mining companies, and controlled three mines of its own on the West Rand. Though a Company drawing a modest revenue from its Johannesburg property, its operations were not confined to gold development pure and simple. It was, in fact, an outside broker’s on a grand scale. It gambled heavily and gambled wisely. The shareholders seldom received less than a twelve and a half per cent. dividend, and there were years when in addition it paid a bonus equal to its own share capital.
It numbered its clients at one hundred and fifty thousand, the majority being small people who preferred speculation to investment—country parsons, doctors and the small gamblers who lived fearfully on the fringe of high finance. The shares were at a premium and Cartwright’s interest brought him a considerable sum annually. What probably attracted the little speculator was the knowledge of the Company’s reserve, which stood in the balance-sheet at a respectable figure. It was the question of these reserves that occupied the attention of the four quiet men who met informally in the room of a Paris hotel.
There were three to one against Cartwright, because none of his companions could see eye to eye with him.
“It is too dangerous, M. Cartwright,” said Gribber, whose nationality was suspect; “our risks are already high and we cannot afford, in my judgment, to extend them. The money would be subscribed over and over again if you went to the English public.”
Cartwright frowned.
“Why shouldn’t we make the profit?” he asked; “we could borrow from our reserve.”