Free The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan Page A

on the first city page, had a glimpse of a note on the formation of a great combine, by the Anatilla Corporation, of the michelite-producing interests of the world.
    Reggie Daker, on the court page, saw an account of the departure of an archaeological expedition to Yucatan, and his name appeared as one of the members.
    Goodeve and Charles Ottery—the one on the page opposite the leaders and the other on the first page of the paper—read the announcement of their own deaths.

Epigraph

    â€œFor mee (if there be such a thing as I)
Fortune (if there be such a thing as shee)
Spies that I beare so well her tyranny,
That she thinks nothing else so fit for mee.”
—John Donne,
To Sir Henry Wotton at His Going Ambassador to Venice

Chapter 1
    Tavanger’s life was a little beyond my beat. Your busy city magnate does not dine out a great deal, and as a rule he fights shy of political circles. Before that Flambard Whitsuntide I had met him occasionally at public dinners, and once I had had to cross-examine him in a case in the Commercial Court, and a very tough proposition I found him. I was attracted by something solid and dignified in his air, and I thought his taciturnity agreeable; your loquacious financier is the dullest of God’s creatures. During the early autumn I found myself occasionally wondering whether Tavanger had seen anything under Moe’s spell, for he had had the look of a convinced disciple. I was certain that he would play up to whatever vision he had been vouchsafed, for your financier is as superstitious as a punter and will act boldly on hints which he never attempts to rationalize. Then, in the beginning of the Michaelmas term, fortune brought us together.
    I was invited to arbitrate in a case sent me by a firm of city solicitors who often briefed me. It concerned the ownership of a parcel of shares in a Rhodesian company. Tavanger had bought and paid for them, but there was some question about the title, and another party, representing a trust estate, had put forward a claim. It was a friendly affair, for the trustees only wished to protect themselves, and instead of making a case in court of it they had agreed, to save expense, to submit it to me as arbitrator— a growing practice in those days when there was little money to spend on litigation. The case, which turned on the interpretation of certain letters and involved a fairly obvious point of law, presented no great difficulty. I sat for four hours on a Saturday afternoon, and, after a most amicable presentation of both sides, I found for Tavanger.
    This happened at the end of October, and interfered with a Saturday to Monday which I had meant to spend at Wirlesdon. It upset Tavanger’s plans also, and, as we were leaving my chambers, he suggested that, since we were both left at a loose end, we should dine together. I agreed willingly, for I had taken a strong liking to Tavanger. He had given his evidence that afternoon with a downright reasonableness which impressed me, and I had enjoyed watching his strong, rather sullen face, enlivened by his bright humorous eyes. His father, I had been told, had come originally from Geneva, but the name had been anglicized to rhyme with “scavenger,” and the man himself was as typical a Briton as you could picture. He had made a great reputation, and, incidentally, a great fortune, by buying wreckage and working it up into sound business. In whatever direction he moved he had a crowd of followers who trusted his judgement, but they trusted him blindly, for he was not communicative. He had done bold things, too, and more than once had defied city opinion and won. His name stood high for integrity as well as for acumen and courage, but he was not regarded as companionable. He was a bachelor, living alone in a big house in Kensington, and his hobbies were a hospital, which he ran brilliantly, and his collection of Dutch pictures. Nobody claimed to know him well, and I own to