"It means big money for you--enough to retire on."

"I know."

"Then what the hell's the reason for this sudden attack of scruples?"

For a moment Matheson's eyes blazed black anger, but the anger died out
of them and the tired look of the platform of the Gare de Lyon took its
place. "You wouldn't understand," he answered. "The whirlpool."

"What's that?"

"It would be useless to explain. I have private reasons.... I've made
you a thoroughly fair offer, and I don't think there's anything more to
be said." Matheson rose and walked to the window, pulling up the blind
and gazing out on the sombre splendour of the big banking houses of the
Rue Laffitte and the Rue Pillet-Will.

Larssen looked at the silhouette of his antagonist with a tense set of
his jaws. Many plans were revolving in his mind. Moralists might have
labelled them "blackmail," but Lars Larssen was utterly free from
scruples where his own interests were concerned. Honesty with him was a
mere matter of policy. To a man with the average sense of honour, such
an attitude of mind is scarcely realisable, but Lars Larssen was no
normal man. In him the Napoleonic madness--or genius--burned fiercely.
He had ambitions colossal in scale--he regarded his present wealth and
power as a mere stepping-stone to the realisation of his Great Idea.

That great ultimate purpose of his life he had never revealed to man or
woman--save only to his dead wife. He aimed to be controlling owner of