Fatal Venture (2 page)

Morrison hesitated. He glanced round. The man in the opposite corner had dropped his paper and was composing himself to sleep. They had slacked for the curve at Amiens and now the platform slid past the window. The conductor showed for a moment in the corridor. The line narrowed and they went under a bridge.

“I don’t know that I could form an opinion,” he said at last. “I should think if there was money in it, someone would have done it. Let me have some more details. You spoke of cheap fares. What does that mean? How cheap?”

“I don’t know,” Bristow returned. “That would have to be worked out. I would suggest all one class, and things to be run on the lines of your popular excursions to Lucerne or Blankenberghe. Everything plain, but comfortable and good. Plenty of deck space for games and so on. I should hope to keep the ship full for the season.”

Morrison gazed vacantly at the fields and copses as they hurried past the window. “Tell me,” he asked, “is this a serious matter? Have you some actual scheme in your mind?”

It was now Bristow’s turn to hesitate. He looked searchingly at Morrison, then spoke more confidentially.

“I don’t mind telling you that I have; a very definite scheme. I’ve even got a name for it: Home Waters Cruising Limited.” He glanced at his now slumbering neighbour and still further lowered his voice. “I believe there is money in it, big money. But, like all these schemes, it would take money to develop. And that money I haven’t got. I want to interest someone who has.”

Morrison laughed. “You don’t suppose I have, do you?”

“You may not have money, but you’ve something else,” Bristow returned seriously. “In fact, you’ve two things. First, you have a knowledge of the tourist business and particularly of cruising, and secondly, you have – or I presume you have – access to the heads of your firm.”

Morrison shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t access enough to persuade them to charter an Atlantic liner for cruising round the British Isles.”

“No; I didn’t suggest that. That’s not my plan. But leave that for the moment. I want some technical help in the matter, which I think you could give me. You’ll excuse me” – he smiled crookedly – “I don’t know anything about you really, but from your appearance and manner I feel I can trust you.”

“I hope you can,” Morrison retorted dryly.

Bristow nodded. “I may say now that I didn’t start this conversation merely to pass the time. I did it to lead up to this question: Would you be willing to give me that help? It’s not very polite, but I admit I’m asking you because no one else will listen to me.”

Morrison grew slightly uneasy. He didn’t want to become involved in anything doubtful. Was Bristow telling the truth, or was it merely a trick hoary with age? Enter Mr X. “I have an admirable idea, which only requires a little capital to become a gold mine. Will you put in the capital? You will? Excellent!” Exit Mr X and the capital.

And yet as Morrison studied the other’s appearance he did not think it that of a swindler. Bristow was a big man, six feet tall or over, and, though not stout, was muscular and strongly built. He was of the Nordic type, with a long, rectangular face, a high forehead and a strong jaw. His nose was straight and his clean shaven mouth was firm. He was fair, with light hair, blue eyes, and what official documents call a fresh complexion. There was a general look of decision and competence about him, as if he would be slow to make up his mind, but when once this was done – from an exhaustive weighing of all the available evidence – he would carry out his decision in the face of heavy odds. He did not look too kindly, and Morrison imagined that he might be unpleasant if crossed. However, when he smiled his face lighted up and its somewhat hard lines disappeared. It was certainly, thought Morrison, the face of an honest, if a hard man.

“That’s rather a large question,” he answered. “What help do you want?”

“Before we begin to talk business,” Bristow returned, “I think we should know something more of each other. I’ll start. My name is Charles Bristow and I’m thirty-two years old. I’m a solicitor; junior partner in the firm of Bristow, Emerson and Bristow of Fenchurch Street.” He handed over a business card. “I’ve had the usual education, which I needn’t go into. I’m not married and I live in rooms in Hampstead. If there’s anything else you want to know to establish my bona fides, ask it and I’ll answer you. If not, tell me the same about yourself.”

To Morrison it seemed like a game. However, he was interested and there could be no harm in going so far.

“My name is Harry Morrison,” he returned, “and I’m a clerk in the head office of the Boscombe Travel Agency in Lower Regent Street. I’m not really a courier, and I was only sent on this job because of illness among the regular staff. I’m twenty-five and I’ve been in the office for five years, having been twice promoted in that time. I’m not married either and I lodge in Acton. Anything else?”

“Just one thing before we get down to it. I want your word of honour that you’ll keep all this confidential.”

“I promise,” Morrison returned without hesitation.

“Very well. What I want is this: a statement of the cost of running a big ship. I want it divided into two items: first, interest on the cost of the ship with depreciation, and, second, the actual running. This latter would include fuel, food, stores, wages and so on. Then lastly I want the probable daily rate we should have to charge to make the thing pay. Can you get these out, approximately?”

Morrison was not sure. The charges his firm paid for big liners were not divided under the required headings. However, he knew clerks in the shipping offices and he might be able to get the information. The fares he could work out for himself.

But he was not sure whether he ought. It would mean a lot of work, and if it were a thank-you job, it would not be worth his while. Then some of the information might be confidential. Bristow looked all right, but, for all Morrison knew to the contrary, he might be acting for some other tourist firm and merely want to learn some of the Boscombe’s secrets. There was no proof even that he was a solicitor. Morrison felt that until he knew more, he should not commit himself.

“We would, of course, want a proper agreement before you did anything,” Bristow chimed in, having apparently read his thoughts. “You would want to be sure, first, of my bona fides, and, second, that you yourself would be paid for your trouble. Now, on the first item I shall tell you my idea, trusting you to keep it to yourself. That should meet that difficulty. On the second, I’ll offer you alternatives. Either I’ll pay for your labour at an agreed rate, or else I’ll offer you nothing now, but a much larger sum if the idea should come to anything.”

This sounded reassuring, and Morrison decided to go a step further. “If you care to tell me your idea,” he said, “I repeat my promise to keep it to myself.”

“Good enough,” Bristow nodded. “I’ll tell you.”

Like a skilled narrator, he paused to whet his listener’s interest and enhance the value of what was coming. In spite of the speed of the train, it was comparatively silent in the compartment. The roar of the wheels on the rails, with the underlying rhythm of the passing joints, was muffled in the well-sprung coach with its sound-insulated walls and floor. For a moment none of the three occupants moved. Bristow sat with an eager expression in his eyes; Morrison awaited developments with a certain doubt, while the man in the further corner still slept unconcernedly. Bristow glanced at him searchingly; then, satisfied, he leant still further forward and resumed.

“My tentative estimates – which I am not sure are correct – tell me that the cost of the ship itself is a heavy item in the cruising balance sheet. Take a great liner of, say, fifty thousand tons, and put her present day cost down at two and a half millions. Say, she has a life of twenty years. That would mean about three hundred and seventy-five thousand a year for interest and sinking fund alone. Suppose we cruised for six months in the year and carried an average of two thousand passengers. Then each passenger would have to pay a hundred and eighty-seven pounds towards the cost of the ship, or over seven pounds a week. Am I correct so far?”

Morrison calculated on the margin of a newspaper. “I think so,” he agreed.

“Now here’s my idea. I happened to be in Southampton recently and I saw the
Berengaria
leaving for the Tyne to be broken up. The papers said that she was sold for a hundred thousand. There’s another big ship, the
Hellenic
lying there waiting to be sold for the same purpose. Now, why not buy her and fit her up for cruising?”

Morrison almost gasped. “But, good Lord, you couldn’t!” he exclaimed. “They’re done, those ships: worn out: finished. Their plates are thin. Isn’t that the reason for them being broken up?”

“No,” Bristow returned, “more frequently it’s because they’re out of date. But don’t worry about that. Suppose they
are
done for the Atlantic traffic. Remember that thrashing at full speed through winter storms in the Western Ocean is one thing, and summer cruising at half speed in sheltered waters not more than thirty miles from land is quite another.”

“Would you get a certificate?” Morrison asked dubiously. “I doubt if the Board of Trade would grant it, or Lloyd’s either.”

“I’ve enquired into that. I’m told they would: for that limited work. But leave that for the moment and consider costs. The ship is bought, say, for a hundred thousand. Another hundred thousand is spent in overhaul and decorations. That is, she costs two hundred thousand instead of two and a half million.”

Morrison shook his head. “That sounds right enough, but there’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”

“What’s that?”

“The two and a half million ship will last twenty years. Yours at two hundred thousand won’t last five.”

“I think she’d last twenty under the conditions I’ve named – always in sheltered waters and never at more than half speed. There are plenty of steamers forty years old and more still plying under such conditions. However, let’s take ten for argument’s sake. I make interest and sinking fund forty thousand a year, or say, fifteen shillings a week per passenger. That’s a saving of nearly six pound ten per passenger per week.”

Morrison figured again. “That’s correct, so far as it goes.”

“Then there’s fuel. I don’t know what the oil would cost for running her at full speed, but I’m told about fourteen thousand pounds per week. Now I estimate my scheme would save sixty-six percent of this. First, if you run her at half speed, you save a lot more than half the fuel, and then on this cruising she’d lie a lot at anchor. There’d be stops during the day for shore excursions, and at night where beauty spots lay close together. Say, however, you only saved nine thousand a week: that would be four pounds ten per week per passenger.”

“Good God!” Morrison exclaimed, overawed by these figures.

“Then, of course, the working of the ship would cost less. With the easier conditions, I should hope for a small saving in both deck and engineering staffs. I’d carry only about half her complement of passengers and that would mean a big saving in food and stewards. Then, again, the food would be simpler and cheaper. I don’t know what these would come to, but say another pound per passenger per week.”

“You mean a total saving of some twelve pounds per passenger per week?”

“Yes, but it’s not quite so good as it looks. There are items on the other side. Harbour dues, for instance, or, alternatively, the hire of tenders. I’m only speaking very approximately.”

Morrison felt that Bristow was wrong to limit the number of passengers to be carried, but before he could say so, there came an interruption. A little group of people appeared moving along the corridor, an early contingent from the first lunch. One of these, a flamboyant-looking woman, was talking vivaciously. “Ach, no!” she said in English as she passed the compartment, “I must have the monkey!” She moved on and her further words were lost.

The incongruous phrase, thrust into the serious discussion on marine transport costs, struck Morrison. Involuntarily, he stopped to listen. Evidently their fellow traveller was similarly affected. Morrison, glancing across the compartment, happened to notice him open an interested eye, look at the speaker, close it again, and remain motionless as if still asleep.

A little qualm of doubt passed through Morrison’s mind. Had the man been awake long? Had he heard Bristow’s scheme?

Morrison did not think he could. Bristow had not spoken loudly and the man was the whole length of the seat from him. The coach, admittedly, was running silently, yet even the best coach makes a fair noise at seventy miles an hour. No, it was all right. Nothing could have been heard.

All the same, Morrison noted again the label hanging from the suitcase above the man’s head: A N Malthus, 777 Jordan Square. London, W8. He wondered if they should continue their talk, but as it happened the decision was taken from him. The man whose place he occupied arrived from the first lunch and he had to move.

“You taking the second lunch?” Bristow asked. “Then let’s carry on there.”

But the restaurant car was crowded, and though they sat together, they could no longer speak in private. And after lunch Morrison’s duties claimed him. It was not till an hour later, on the deck of the
Canterbury
that they were able to talk again, and then there was only time to fix a meeting in London for the following weekend.

It was on a Monday that the Greek Islands cruising party returned to London, and at intervals all through that week Morrison thought over the strange interview the journey had included.

He was impressed with the case Bristow had made. While remaining pessimistic about the ship’s certificate, he had no doubts as to the tourist side of the affair. The popularity of the piers at seaside places – the nearest approach to large ship cruising that the average man could achieve – proved that the scheme would meet a real need. If Bristow could produce his ship, he, Morrison, could fill her.

The more, indeed, he thought over it, the more profitable the scheme began to appear. It was overheads that killed the great steamship lines, and here there would be comparatively little. Only the ship herself would be needed. No great sets of offices would have to be maintained. The existing tourist agencies would do the booking, and the purser’s rooms on board would accommodate the clerical staff.