the old robber who cornered platinum?” asked Jeremy.
“In my youth I was guilty of that,” Strange answered dryly.
“Hah! My old dad bought International Platinum stock at bottom on margin, and followed you all the way up! He invested the proceeds in a sheep station. My regards!” said Jeremy, with a wave of the hand that signified a lot of things. “You big whales all have barnacles on your belly. We three now haven’t got a parasite between us.”
“Isn’t there a drunken Sikh?” Strange answered.
“There’s a Sikh who happens to be drunk,” said Jeremy. “If you want to see some fun, old top, come with us. Grim can tell you. Grim’s had to tidy up after him half-a-dozen times.”
Grim volunteered no information. All he knew yet was that Meldrum Strange was a multimillionaire with a reputation for titanic thoroughness.
“Came to make Ramsden a business offer,” said Strange abruptly. “He tells me you three are inseparable.”
“Agreed five minutes ago,” smiled Jeremy, with the air of a man raking in a jack-pot. “We’re Grim, Ramsden, and Ross.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Strange.
“Oh, anything. The world’s full of things to do,” said Jeremy. “What d’you want? We’re charter members of the Jack-of-all-trades Union. Exploring expeditions fixed up while you wait. Kings dethroned and national boundaries rearranged to order. Mines discovered, opened up, and worked. Revolutions produced or prevented. Horses swapped. Teeth pulled by the piece or dozen. Everything contracted for, from flaying whales to raising potatoes on Mount Everest, wholesale jobs preferred. All you’ve got to do is name your requirements, write your check, and sign your contract on the dotted line. We do the rest. Shoot, old top; we’re listening.”
Strange glanced at me. He looked over at Grim, with no more result. Having agreed to be Jeremy’s partners, there was nothing further for us to say in his behalf; and Strange saw the obvious logic of that after a minute.
“You didn’t mention keeping secrets in your list of offerings,” he said, holding out his cigar case.
Jeremy took one, balanced it on the end of one finger, tossed it, caught it between his teeth, apparently swallowed it whole, and handed the case back.
“Count ’em,” was all he said.
There was the same number of cigars in the case as before, but one of them bore teeth-marks. Strange pulled it out, examined it, and tossed it with a laugh to Jeremy, who caught it, spun it point-downward on the table like a top, and while it still spun brought down the flat of his hand on it as if driving a nail into the wood. He removed his hand instantly, showing it empty. The cigar had disappeared, but a second later he produced it undamaged from his mouth with the other hand. It was superbly done, like all his tricks.
“Do you know how to do that?” he asked.
“No,” said Strange.
“I know you don’t. I’ve kept that secret twenty years. Show you another.”
“No,” Strange answered. “I get the drift of your genius. Major Grim, I understand you’re senior partner of this unusual firm.”
“We’re ready to listen to your proposal,” said Grim.
“Can I depend on your silence if you shouldn’t like the offer after I’ve made it?”
“I’ve kept Government secrets for a number of years,” Grim answered. “Depend on all three of us absolutely.”
“Suppose you all come to my room.”
“Here’s the best place,” Grim answered. “We can see all ways, and can’t be overheard.”
So, as happens I daresay oftener than folk suspect, a secret that had never yet passed the lips of its first guardian was trotted out, not within four walls, but in full view of the street.
“I’ll begin at the beginning,” said Strange, biting on a new cigar. “I’m an egoist. Nothing matters to a man but what he does. Not what he gets, but what he does. That’s my religion, and the whole of it. I’ve amassed an enormous fortune. Never had partners. I regard my fortune as the product of my own use of natural gifts in compliance with universal laws. I never consciously broke a written law accumulating it, but I’ve often done things that experience has since taught me are not in the general interest, and I believe that what I do in the general interest is the only thing that counts as far as I’m concerned. I’m face to face with a fact, a question, and a condition. I have the fortune. What am I going to do with it? No good comes of doing things for people. That’s the problem. What shall I do? It’s up to me to use my money in the general interest.”
“Why worry? Pay off a part of your national debt, and go to sleep,” suggested Jeremy.
“Huh! I’d lie awake to curse myself if I wasted a nickel in that way,” Strange retorted. “Our government would simply buy an extra battleship. If we all refused to pay for war there would be none. I’ve finished paying for it.”
“Oh, are you one of those men without a country?” asked Jeremy blandly. “One red flag for all of us, and a world doing lockstep in time to the Internationale.”
Strange liked that. The question threw light on Jeremy’s own view-point. He laughed—just one gruff bark like a watchdog’s.
“The man who doesn’t put his country first might as well neglect his own body and expect to do business,” he answered. “On the other hand, a state is composed of individuals, of whom I’m one, with an opinion. I obey the laws. There’s not even wine in my cellar. But I make use of every opening the law allows to escape paying for armaments that I don’t approve of. I lose income by it, because the tax-exempt securities come high; but that loss is part of my contribution to the general interest. That’s what I, personally, do in that particular instance, and intend to keep on doing.”
“Do you propose to start a society or hire us to preach?” Jeremy suggested.
“I belong to no societies. I’m an individualist, believing that what I do is my concern, and what other folk do is their concern, subject to the law as it stands on the statute books. Charity leaves me unconvinced. I don’t care to endow colleges. I paid the men who taught me what I wanted to know, with money that I earned.”
“Well? Where are we getting to?” demanded Grim.
“To this: I made my money all over the world. I propose to use it all over the world. Nobody can fool me with a bald statement that peoples are self-governing. They should be, but they’re not given a chance to be. They’re herded up in mobs, blarneyed, coaxed, cheated, and made fools of; and because some of them have free institutions, they’re blamed for the result, while the real culprits get away with the plunder. I’m after the real culprits. I want you men to join me.”
Grim whistled. So did Jeremy. So did I. Three notes of a rising scale.
“D’you suppose you’ve any right to take that on yourself?” asked Jeremy.
“As much right as any reformer has, and more,” Strange answered, “for I intend to pay my own expenses! I’ll make it my business to fall foul of these international crooks, who are laughing behind the scenes at the world’s misery. My business is to seek those swine out, force an issue—a personal issue, mind—and swat them!”
“You want to be a sort of international police?” suggested Grim.
“I do not. An international police would be answerable to an international government, and there is none. These devils I’m after obey no government. Governments are tricked by them into furthering their designs. Governments are made up of individuals, each of whom can be worked, persuaded, bribed, blackmailed or deceived at some time in some way. The rascals I’m after play with kings and cabinets like pieces on a chess-board. They play crooked boss with the whole world