"Show him in."
A moment afterwards I was shaking hands with the thickset man whose jaw was like a pike's and whose eyes resembled animated steel. Thumbwood went off with the letter. I heard the front door close after him.
Now I don't suppose at that moment I would have seen any other man in London unconnected with my office at Whitehall. I didn't want to see the millionaire, but directly he was inside the room my irritation vanished. He had meant to see me. He had now accomplished his end, and I had a firm conviction that sentries with fixed bayonets wouldn't have kept him out.
He sat down quietly in the chair I indicated, and took a cigar with great deliberation. I was not in the least impatient. I knew now that I was glad that he had come, and waited for him to begin. When he did speak the harsh voice was considerably modified, and no one whatever could have said that he was an American.
"Any success I may have made in life," he said without preliminary, "has come from the faculty of judging men. I started, as a youth, with this power in a more than ordinary degree. I've been developing it ever since."
He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. He had said this with calm determination, not in the least as if he were speaking of himself, but merely as a man stating a fact which would be useful a little later on.
For my part I said nothing. I felt as though I was playing a sort of decorous game with rigid rules. To speak then would be to revoke!
"... And, though the ordinary man does not like to hear such a statement, I have a pretty good idea of you, Sir John. You're not an ordinary man. That's why I'm here. I'll put it in two words. I want to help you. I can help you. It is for you to say if you want me."
Now there could only be one answer to a question like that. The man in my arm-chair was one of the most powerful men on earth. Moreover, his reputation stood high. He was no financial pirate. The whole world trusted him.
"I answer that, Mr. Van Adams, with a single word: Thank you."