Between the Dark and the Daylight Part 26

"That's rather new--for Plumline."

"The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which she only dreams."

"And the idea?"

"Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany."

"Great snakes!" The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's lips. He carefully picked it up again. "That's not a bad idea--for Plumline."

"It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference."

Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.

"Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see which of us two is drunk."

"In the play the man has a big bear account--the biggest upon record. I need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the exact moment of the outbreak--arrange it, in fact--we might realise wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--hundreds of thousands of millions, if we chose."

"I suppose you're joking?"

"How?"

"That's what I want to know--how."

"It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a war between two Great Powers."

"A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend."

"Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this occasion?"

Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr.

Railton addressed himself.

"Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?"

"Why, certainly."

It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she affected what she supposed to be American idioms.

"Would you stick at a little to obtain it?"

"Certainly not."

"It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk."

"I guess."

"Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say--I want to put it modestly--a hundred millions."

"Pounds?"

"Pounds."

It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.

"Figures large," she said.

"All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and Germany."

"Proceed."

"I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best suits me."

"I guess you're a modest man," she said.

Her husband smiled.

"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs.

Macmathers, have only to kick up a s.h.i.+ndy on the Alsatian borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the roaring of the flames of war."

There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.

"It's a big order," she said.

"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It requires them, my friend."

Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.

"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended; but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"

"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"

"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me they would fight."

"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at the moment which would best suit your pocket."

"There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have meant starvation to thousands."

The lady interposed.

"Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you propose?"

"The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M.

Quelquechose his chance."

"It's the biggest order ever I heard."

"Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down with a run."