Larsan

“ At that hour Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson, assisted by Daddy Jacques, were engaged in making an interesting chemical experiment in the part of the laboratory taken up by the furnaces. Larsan says, unlikely as that may seem, that the murderer may have slipped behind them. He has already got the examining magistrate to listen to him. When one looks closely into it, the reasoning is absurd, seeing that the ‘intimate’—if there is one—must have known that the professor would shortly leave the pavilion, and that the ‘friend’ had only to put off operating till after the professor’s departure. ”

“ The illustrious professor had lost his head. Mademoiselle Stangerson in a tone of tender distress said: ‘Father!—father!’ Daddy Jacques blows his nose, and Frédéric Larsan himself is obliged to turn away to hide his emotion. For myself, I am able neither to think or feel. I felt an infinite contempt for myself.
“It was the first time that Frédéric Larsan, like myself, found himself face to face with Mademoiselle Stangerson since the attack in The Yellow Room. Like me, he had insisted on being allowed to question the unhappy lady ”

“ Frédéric Larsan did not tell me where he had picked up this information; but he appeared to be quite sure of what he said.
Had we known these facts at the time Arthur Rance met us at the Donjon Inn, his presence at the château might not have puzzled us, but they could not have failed to increase our interest in the man himself. The American must have been at least forty-five years old. He spoke in a perfectly natural tone in reply to Rouletabille’s question.
“I put off my return to America when I heard of the attack on Mademoiselle Stangerson. ”

“ I kept silence for awhile, then, anxious to know his thoughts, I asked him point blank:
“Why not tell Arthur Rance?—He may be of great assistance to us?”
“Oh!” said Rouletabille crossly, “then you want to let everybody into Mademoiselle Stangerson’s secrets?—Come, let us go to dinner; it is time. This evening we dine in Frédéric Larsan’s room,—at least, if he is not on the heels of Darzac. He sticks to him like a leech. But, anyhow, if he is not there now, I am quite sure he will be, to-night! He ’s the one I am going to knock over!” ”

“ The many-tunnelled cliff-route from Villefranche to Cap D'Ail, where moments of darkness tease one to longing for the sight of the azure coves dotted with white-winged yachts and foam-slashed motor-boats.... Europe's silken, jewelled fringe!
But scenery made no appeal to Lars Larssen. Scenery would not help him to the attainment of his great ambitions. Scenery was no use to him. His delight lay in men and women and the using of them. Business—the turning of other men's energies to his own ends—was the very breath of his being. ”

“ Moralists might have labelled them "blackmail," but Lars Larssen was utterly free from scruples where his own interests were concerned. Honesty with him was a mere matter of policy. To a man with the average sense of honour, such an attitude of mind is scarcely realisable, but Lars Larssen was no normal man. In him the Napoleonic madness—or genius—burned fiercely. He had ambitions colossal in scale—he regarded his present wealth and power as a mere stepping-stone to the realisation of his Great Idea. ”

“ Mac cut off the transmitter reluctantly, but he said, "Yeah, I guess I see what you mean, skipper." Larson got to his feet and paced the crowded wedge of space, punching a fist into his other hand with meaty slaps.
He stopped and listened to the soft muttering of the speaker and shook his head. "It makes no sense. It's impossible. Utterly impossible!"
The man's voice from the planet implacably continued repeating the message—no trace of an accent, nothing to suggest an alien origin in its tone, pitch or enunciation. ”

“ It was also a complete success, to which Larson now added a pair of black-rimmed spectacles. With his mustache gone and his hair changed from gray to a glossy black, he looked twenty years younger; eyebrows had become black too, and subtle changes in the outline of his face, due probably to wads of cotton against his teeth, gave him an entirely new look, as did the goggles—stamping him in London as an American tourist. ”

“ Larssen, a master-mind, had his peculiar limitations as well as smaller men. His brain had been trained to see the world as an ant-heap into which some Power External had stamped an iron heel. The ants fought blindly with one another to reach the surface—to live. ”

“ Then he half raised himself from his chair at sight of a Lanstron with eyes in a daze of brilliancy; a Lanstron with his maimed hand twitching in an outstretched gesture; a Lanstron in the dilemma of being at the same time lover and chief of intelligence. Should he let her make the sacrifice of everything that he held to be sacred to a woman's delicacy? Should he not return to the telephone and tell her that he would not permit her to play such a part? Partow's voice cut in on his demoralization with the sharpness of a blade. ”

“ Four were to sail; one was Tim Bell. He, too, had some one to wave a special good-by—Sigrid.
“See,” Lars's mother whispered, poking his shins with her stick, “she watches you while she talks to him! Say something pretty to make her remember you; bring her a present from the city. Her tongue is for him, but her eyes are for you—and a girl's heart is in her eyes.” ”

“ A fair-haired giant in build, with inscrutable eyes and mouth set grim and straight—such was Lars Larssen.
Though Matheson was in no way a small man, yet he seemed somehow dwarfed when Larssen entered the room. The financier was a self-made master, but the shipowner was a born master of men—perhaps one's instinctive contrast lay there. The one had the strength of finished steel, but the other was rugged granite.
Lars Larssen said quietly: "Your letter brought me over to Paris. I don't usually waste time in railway trains myself when I have men I can pay [Pg 9] to do it for me. ”

“ A few days after he had the answer from Olle in Säby, he sent his servant to fiddler Lars Larsson, who lived at the game lodge in Ullerud parish. Lars Larsson was a well-to-do man who owned a fine farm. He was sensible and considerate and no hotspur, like the other musicians. But Lars Larsson, like the others, at once thought of Jan Öster, and asked how it happened that he was not to play at the wedding. ”

“ He fancied the large pine roots began to gesticulate, as if they were threatening him. "Beware, you who think yourself cleverer than the Water-Sprite!" it seemed as if they wanted to say.
Lars Larsson felt how his heart contracted with dread. A heavy weight bore down upon his chest, so that he could scarcely breathe, and his hands became ice-cold. Then he stopped in the middle of the wood and tried to talk sense to himself.
"Why, there's no musician in the waterfall!" said he. "Such things are only superstition and nonsense! ”

“ Lanstron referred in unmistakable apprehension to the vice-chief of staff, whom all the army knew had no real ability or decision underneath his pleasing, confident exterior.
"No, not Goerwitz," said Partow, with a shrug. "Some one who will go on with the weaving, not by knotting threads but with the same threads in a smooth fabric." Lanstron felt an increased pressure of the hand, a communicated tingling to his nerves. "I have chosen him. The old fogy who has aimed to join experience to youth chooses youth. ”

“ When he had finished, the great audience sat spellbound, while Lars shuffled off behind the stage. Then the people jumped to their feet. Men shouted, women wept; never had they heard such wonderful music.
241 Men gave Lars so much gold that he was dazzled and wondered what he would do with it all. But he did not forget the old folks, and a good part of his gold found its bright way to the cottage in the far northern country. If he did forget sometimes there was always the shoes to remind him, and Lars wore them constantly and lovingly. ”

“ I told ye the woman was good to look at; and ye remember Red Larson: big as a horse and built from the ground up. Well that there boy was as fine as the two of them together. A good breed, all right, they had made. I give him my jack-knife before his mother had the fish hot fer me. It got me the only pleasant look she handed me.
“She had cooked the salmon white man's style all right; and there was some mountain goat meat, and high bush cranberries, fixed up without any seal grease or other of them Siwash trimmings. I eat until I could not put more inside of me—until I could hardly wiggle. ”

“ He got away with the loss of his sword, his pistols, and his gloves. “I will remember you with a crust that shall do for your bairns too,” he promised one of his rescuers, a stout peasant lad, and he kept his word. Thomas Larssön’s descendants a generation ago still tilled the farm the King gave him. When the trouble with Denmark was over for the time being, he settled old scores with Russia and Poland in a way that left Sweden mistress of the Baltic. In the Polish war he was wounded twice and was repeatedly in peril of his life. ”

“ I looked around for Larsen.
"That was where I got my first light on Larsen. I found him scowling after the tug that was carrying Nolan back to the city. His big fists swung down at his thighs, like knotted clubs. 'What does he want to come here for—buttin' into this?' he said. 'We near had her! We near had her! He thinks because he owns this business—'
"And so forth.
"I could see that it was n't any personal feeling of loyalty to Nolan that had kept him faithful. I still had to find out whether it was his wages—or the prospect of better wages. ”

“ SIGRID had grown up in a springtime, as girls of the open often develop. One week Lars had thought her just a child of Petit Blanc, working about her father's house, in the evening playing on the white beach with the other children; one of the several of negligible age to whom he waved his hand at rare intervals when he put out into the lake, and who, at other times, he told gruffly to go away from where he worked on shore. But the next time he noticed the girl—ah, she had become a woman! Not one to wave the hand at, not one to order out of his way. ”

“ Somehow, somewhere, there would be other clues—clues a man who knew what to look for might find. The Galactics couldn't be perfect, or they wouldn't have let him get the mind impressor in his hands. Ergo, somewhere they would slip again.
Karnes knew he would spend the rest of his life looking for that one slip. He had to know the truth, one way or another.
Or he might not stay sane.
Lansberg picked him up at eight in a police copter. As they floated toward New York, Karnes' mind settled itself into one cold purpose; a purpose that lay at the base of his brain, waiting. ”

“ It was to no purpose that Lars showed him the drop of blood on the rude whittled arrow; he insisted that the feather was the Prince’s, and that Lars was a thief and a robber. But Lars was not to be frightened even at that. He stuck to his story and refused to give up the feather.
“Well, then,” said the King, with a wicked grin, “we’ll say that it is yours. But in that case you must be prepared to prove it. When you bring me the golden hen, from whose tail this feather has been shot, then I’ll admit that it is yours. But if you fail, you will be burned alive in a barrel of tar.” ”

“ The doctor found the book very amusing.
The Reverend Lars Larsen was a reactionary Swede. His father came to Iowa in the sixties, married a Swedish girl who was ambitious, like himself, and they moved to Kansas and took up land under the Homestead Act. After that, they bought land and leased it from the Government, acquired land in every possible way. They worked like horses, both of them; indeed, they would never have used any horse-flesh they owned as they used themselves. They reared a large family and worked their sons and daughters as mercilessly as they worked themselves ”

“ And he knew that if he carried out orders faithfully and intelligently, his future with his employer was assured. Larssen had a strong reputation for loyalty to his employees. He exacted much, but he gave much in return. As his own fortunes grew, so did those of his right-hand men. If a man after faithful service was stricken down by illness, Larssen allowed him a liberal pension.
That was "business" as the shipowner viewed it in his broad, far-sighted way. He saw business not as the mere handling of goods, but as the handling of men. ”

“ Sir Francis was leaning back in an easy-chair with one leg crossed squarely over the other knee, and in spite of country tweeds and Homburg hat, he was somehow well within the picture. But Lars Larssen, with his broad frame and his masterful step, was markedly out of harmony with that atmosphere of leisured artificiality.
A lesser man would have been conscious of his [Pg 265] incongruity—not so with Larssen. He forced his personality on his environment. ”

“ The "Starlight" was a well-found yacht, capable of weathering any North Sea gale. She had oil-engines to supplement her sailing power. She was provisioned for a month. Rough weather would not drive her back to harbour. She could fight through any wind or sea to Norway. Nothing had been overlooked to carry Larssen's scheme to perfect success.
Save only the hand of Providence.... Fate....
For such a man as Lars Larssen there is no other antagonist he need fear. ”