'M going, of course,” said Gorman. “The whole thing is interesting, quite exciting.”
He had just given me a detailed account of his interview with Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton, and a rather picturesque version of the way King Konrad Karl presented his case.
“Do you expect,” I said, “to be able to persuade Donovan to sell?”
“Of course not,” said Gorman. “I don’t even mean to try.”
“Gorman,” I said, “I’m accustomed more or less to political morality, I mean the morality of politicians. I recognize—everybody must recognize—that you can’t be expected to tie yourselves down to the ordinary standards. But”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing much. Only you’ve accepted a Pink Vulture from Megalia and a baronetcy from England as a reward for services you don’t mean to render. Now is that quite—quite?”
Gorman looked at me for a minute without speaking. There was a peculiar twinkle in his eyes.
“If I were you,” he said at last, “I’d go back to Ireland for a while. Try Dublin. You have been too long over here. You wouldn’t say things like that if you weren’t becoming English.”
I accepted the rebuke. Gorman was perfectly right. In English public life it is necessary to profess a respect for decency, to make aprons of fig leaves. In Ireland we do without these coverings.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Gorman, “if I got some sort of decoration out of the Emperor too before I’m through with this business. Once these ribbons and stars begin to drop on a man, they come thick and fast, kind of attract each other, I suppose. I wonder,” he added with sudden irrelevancy, “what the Emperor’s game is. That’s what I’ve been trying to make out all along. Why is he in it?”
“He wants the Island of Salissa restored to the Crown of Megalia,” I said. “You’ve been told that often enough.”
“Yes, but why? Why? The island isn’t worth having. As well as I can make out it’s simply a rock with a little clay sprinkled on top of it. What can it matter to the Emperor who owns the place? It isn’t as if it were his originally or as if it would become his. It belongs to Megalia. With all the fuss that’s being made you’d think there was a gold mine there.”
The puzzle became more complicated and Gorman’s curiosity was further whetted before he started for Salissa. After leaving my rooms he went to Cockspur Street and called at the office of the Cyrenian Sea Steam Navigation Company. Steinwitz was expecting him and received him in the most friendly manner.
“Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton,” said Steinwitz, “rang me up this morning, and told me that you’d undertaken our little negotiation. I need scarcely say that we’re quite satisfied. We feel”
“By we,” said Gorman, “you mean yourself and the Emperor, I suppose. Now what I want to know is this: Why is the Emperor so keen on?”
Steinwitz waved that question away with a motion of his hand.
“I do not discuss the policy of the Emperor,” he said.
“You must be the only man in Europe who doesn’t,” said Gorman. “However, I don’t mind. I suppose the Emperor must have some pretty strong reasons for wanting to get Donovan out of Salissa, or he wouldn’t offer to pay a fancy price—it was a fancy price, you know.”
“King Konrad Karl will pay,” said Steinwitz.
“No, he won’t. He can’t. He hasn’t got it. There’s a cool ten thousand gone on a pearl necklace, as well as”
“Goldsturmer is prepared to buy back the necklace,” said Steinwitz. “I have arranged that.”
“Well,” said Gorman, “it’s your affair, of course. But I wouldn’t be too sure. I don’t think Madame Ypsilante will sell at any price.”
“Madame Ypsilante will do what she must,” said Steinwitz. “The Emperor”
“I don’t envy the Emperor the job of tackling her,” said Gorman. “He won’t find it a bit pleasant. I daresay he doesn’t know Madame Ypsilante. He wouldn’t be so cocksure of himself if he did. She’s the kind of woman who throws things about if she’s the least irritated. If the Emperor suggests her selling those jewels there’ll be a riot. But it’s no business of mine. If that Emperor of yours really enjoys a rag with a woman like Madame Ypsilante—I should have thought a man in his position wouldn’t care to be mixed up in the sort of scene there will certainly be.”
Steinwitz stiffened visibly. His hair always stands upright on his head. It actually bristled while Gorman was speaking.
“I do not,” he said, “discuss the Emperor in that way. It is enough for you to know this. Madame Ypsilante will sell. Goldsturmer will buy. I myself will settle these matters.”