was Gareth's turn to ask the next question.
"You didn't really roast that poor fellow's chestnuts, did you?"
No, "Jake admitted. "But it made a better story." They reached the
door of Madame Cecile's, discreetly set back in a walled garden, with a
lamp burning over the lintel.
Gareth paused with his hand on the brass knocker.
"You know damned if I don't owe you an apology. I've misjudged you all
along the line."
"It's been a lot of laughs."
"I think I'm going to have to be honest with you."
"I don't know if I can stand the shock." They grinned at each other
and Gareth punched his shoulder lightly.
"It's still my treat, what?" Madame Cecile was so tall and thin and
bosorriless that she seemed in danger of snapping off like a brittle
stick. She wore a severely cut dress of dark and indeterminate colour
which swept the ground and buttoned up under her chin and at the
wrists. Her hair was drawn back tightly into a large bun at the back
of her neck and her expression was prim and disapproving, but it
softened a little when she let them into the front room.
"Major Swales, it is always a pleasure. Mr. Barton, we haven't seen
you in a long while. I was afraid you'd left town."
"Let us have a bottle of Charlie Champers, my dear." Gareth handed his
silk scarf to the maid. "Have you run out of the Pal Roger 1923?"
"Indeed not,
Major."
"And we'd like to talk alone for a while before meeting any of the
young tallies. Is your private lounge vacant?" Gareth was settled
comfortably in one of the big leather armchairs with a glass of
champagne in one hand and a cheroot in the other.
Duce is about to put himself in to bat. Though God alone knows what he
hopes to gain by it. From all accounts, it's the most desolate stretch
of desert and mountain one could imagine. However,
Mussolini wants it perhaps he has visions of empire and glory. The old
Napoleonic itch, you know."
"How do you know this?" Jake was sprawled on the buttoned couch across
the room. He wasn't drinking the champagne. He didn't like the
taste.
"It's my business to know, old chap. I can smell out a barney before
the fellows themselves know they are going to fight. This one is a
racing certainty. Duce is going through all the classic stages of
protestations of peaceful intentions, combined with wholesale military
preparations.
The other big powers France, our chaps and yours have given him the
wink. Of course, they'll all squeal like blazes, and make all sorts of
protests at the League of Nations but nobody is about to stop old
Benito making a big grab for Ethiopia. hail Selassie, the king of
kings, knows it and so is princes and roses an c ieftains and merry
men.
And they are desperately trying to prepare some kind of defence.
That's where I come in, old boy."
"Why must they buy from you at the prices you say they are offering?
Surely they could get this sort of stuff direct from the
manufacturers?"
"Embargo, old chap. The
League of Nations have slapped an arms embargo on the whole of
Eritrea,
Somaliland and Ethiopia. No imports of war material into the area.
It's intended to reduce tension but of course it works out completely
one-sided. Mussolini doesn't have to go shopping for his armaments he
has all the guns, aircraft and armour that he needs already landed at
Eritrea. just ready to go and the jolly old Ethiopia has a few ancient
rifles and a lot of those long two-anded swords. It should be a close
match.
You aren't drinking your Charlie Champers?"
"I think I'll go get myself a Tusker. Back in a minute. "Jake rose
and moved to the door and
Gareth shook his head sadly.
"You've got taste buds like a crocodile's back. Tusker, forsooth,
when I'm offering you a vintage Charlie." It was more for a chance to
think out his position and plan his moves than desire for beer that
made Jake seek the bar in the front room. He leaned against the
counter in the crowded room, and his mind went swiftly over what
Gareth
Swales had told him. He tried to decide how much was fact and how much
was fantasy. How the facts affected him and where, if there were
any,
the profits to himself might lie.
He had almost decided not to involve himself in the deal there were too
many thorns along that path and to go ahead with his original
intentions, selling the engines as cane-crushing units when he was made
the victim of one of those coincidences which were too neat not to be
one of the sardonic jokes of fate.
Beside him at the bar were two young men in the sober dress of clerks
or accountants. Each of them had a girl tucked under his arm and they
fondled them absentmindedly as they talked in loud assertive voices.
Jake had been too busy making his decision to follow this conversation
until a name caught his attention.
"By the way, did you hear that Anglo Sugar has gone bang?"
"No, I
don't believe it."
"It's true. Heard it from the Master of the Court himself.
They say they've gone bust for half a million."
"Good God that's the third big company this month."
"It's hard times we live in. This will bring down a lot of little men
