ood-smoke and roast coffee, and I daresay heaps
healthier, but I sigh me for the downright odours of old England!
Imitaciong poetry--excuse this display of emotion."

When Riviere left the office of the journal on the Boulevard des
Italiens, he made his way rapidly to No. 8 Rue Laffitte, second floor.
There he inquired for Clifford Matheson, and was informed that the
financier was in Winnipeg.

"You're certain of that?" asked Riviere.

"Quite, sir!" answered the clerk in surprise. "We get cables from him
giving addresses to send letters to. If you'd like anything forwarded,
sir, leave it here and we shall attend to it."

It was now clear beyond doubt that Lars Larssen was playing a game of
unparalleled audacity. He had somehow arranged to impersonate the "dead"
Clifford Matheson, and was using the impersonation to float the Hudson
Bay scheme on his own lines.

Riviere flushed with anger at the realization of how Lars Larssen was
using his name.

But that was a trifle compared with the main issue. When he had fought
Lars Larssen, it was not a mere petty squabble over a division of loot.
The Hudson Bay scheme was no mere commercial machine for grinding out a
ten per cent. profit. If successful, it meant an entire re-organization
of the wheat traffic between Canada and Great Britain. It meant, in
kernel, the control of Britain's bread-supply. It affected directly
fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.

For that reason Riviere had refused to lend his name to a scheme under
which Lars Larssen would hold the reins of control. He knew the
ruthlessness of the man and his overweening lust of power, which had
passed the bounds of ordinary ambition and had become a Napoleonic
egomania.

In refusing to act on the Board, Riviere had made an altruistic
decision. But now the same problem confronted him again in a different
guise. If he remained silent, the scheme would in all probability be
floated in his name to a successful issue. If he remained silent, he
would be betraying fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.

He had thought to strike out from the whirlpool into peaceful waters,
but the whirlpool was sucking him back.

Weighing duty against duty, he saw clearly that he must at once confront
Larssen and crumple up his daring scheme. And so he wired to Elaine:

"An urgent affair calls me to London. Shall return to you at the
earliest possible moment. Address, Avon Hotel, Lincoln's Inn Fields."

CHAPTER XVI