"But I showed you my telegram," answered Olive. "Clifford said to refer to Mr Larssen for all details."
"I must think matters over," said the baronet obstinately.
Lars Larssen had been studying his man through half-closed eyelids, and he now summed him up with penetrating accuracy. It was not suspicion that made Sir Francis hesitate, but petty dignity. He had become huffed. He felt that his dignity had not been sufficiently studied in the transaction. Matters had been arranged over his head without formally consulting him. It was "not the thing"—"not good form."
To attempt to force matters would merely drive him into deeper obstinacy.
And yet it was vital to Larssen's plan that Sir Francis should go ahead with the work of the flotation quickly—should go ahead with it in the full belief that Clifford Matheson had agreed to the scheme and to the use of his name. It was vital that Sir Francis should take the whole responsibility of the flotation on to his own shoulders. He was to make use of his son-in-law's name with the other prospective Directors and on the printed prospectus just as though Matheson were personally sanctioning it.
Larssen himself planned to remain in the background and pull the wires unseen. When the revelation of Matheson's death came to light—as it inevitably must in the course of time—Letchmere would be so far involved that he would be forced to shoulder responsibility for the use of Matheson's name.
To try to rush matters with Sir Francis would perhaps wreck the whole delicate machinery of the scheme. Larssen quickly resolved to get at him in indirect fashion through Olive, and accordingly he answered evenly:
"Think it over by all means. There's plenty to consider. Take the draft scheme and look it through at your leisure.... Now what's the plan of amusement for to-night?"
Before going to the Casino, Olive made an excuse to return to her rooms at the Hespérides. Alone in her bedroom, she took out from a locked drawer a hypodermic syringe in silver and glass, and a phial of colourless liquid. She held the phial in her hands with a curious look of furtive tenderness, fondling it softly. For many months past this had been her cherished secret—the drug that unlocked for her new realms of fancy and exquisite sensation.
To herself she called it by a pet name, as though it were a lover.