The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb (Unabridged). Talbot Mundy
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is a joke. His very name is a joke. Moustapha It suggests a sort of sly tom-cat with stage whiskers. He’s not worth getting Sam in trouble over. Would you have Sam get a rep for shooting tom-cats?”
“Speaking of cats,” I said, “I was talking with Zoom, of the Zee-bar-Zee, just now. Got a date with him at half-past nine. Are you quite sure about that title to your oil ranch?”
“Absolutely,” said Joan Angela, looking straight and frank at me with level brows. She comes of a crowd not given to deceiving either themselves or other people.
So I kept that appointment with Zoom after breakfast, and was ushered into an office hung with pictures of the West intended to convey the impression that Mr. Zoom held options on it all. There pictures of Mr. Zoom standing in the foreground of vast oil-well areas, and of Mr. Zoom inspecting mining properties. And on Mr. Ollie Zoom’s great, flat, mahogany desk there were samples of ore that would make your mouth water, if you didn’t know how easily such things can be obtained. Mr. Zoom produced cigars and turned his chair so as to have the light behind him, crossing one knee over the other with a sort of “make yourself at home and let’s talk intimately” gesture. He had good control of his face; his expression suggested no more than a friendly interest, but the corners of his mouth would have undeceived a widow with insurance money to invest-or so you’d think.
“Now, what are you interested in?” he asked me.
I like to stick to the unvarnished truth; but you don’t have to tell all the truth in order to retain your self-respect.
“Just at the moment I have oil in mind, and not in this state, but in California,” I answered.
“Couldn’t be better! Couldn’t be better! My partner Zezwinski runs the San Francisco office. Between you and I and these four walls, a better business head than Zezwinski’s simply ain’t, that’s all. Had you any particular property in mind?”
“Yes,”
“Come on, now; let’s have the cards on the table,” said Zoom, rubbing his hands together. “We know all the decent prospects in California—every one of them. Name your district, and I’ll reel you off what’s there!”
“Do you know a place called Arcady?”
“Do I! Eighty-eight miles from Sacramento as the crow flies. Miss Leich’s place; that’s all of it. No good as a ranch, but they’ve brought in oil. That girl has millions—‘has’ was the word I used. Getting and keeping are not always the same thing.’
“Do you know anything about the title to the property?” I asked him.
“Ah! So that’s the lay of the land, is it? Well, you’re too late, my friend. There’s a flaw in her title—a big, wide-open flaw that means she’s going to lose a long slice down the middle-about one-eighth of the property, seven-eighths of the oil, or so say men who ought to know. But there’s been a man ahead of you, who bought the claim to the title through our San Francisco office. Who d’you represent? If your man has money there still might be something doing. Money talks, you know.”
“The man I represent has ample means for anything he sets his mind on,” I assured him.
“Um-m-m!” said Zoom. “If you tell me who you represent, so there’s a basis of confidence between you and I, so to speak-why, there’s no knowing but I might give you the right steer on this proposition. Come on, now—who’s your man? My name’s Zoom; everybody knows me. I ain’t no secret!”
Neither is Meldrum Strange a secret. But if I were to have mentioned the name of Meldrum Strange all hope of worming information out of this man would be gone that instant.
“No,” I said; “if you’ve something you think can sell me, shoot.”
He hesitated, but only for a moment. The chance to add more tricks to an already tricky business was too tempting to let pass.
“Well, between ourselves, then. This thing’s a wee mite complicated. An Egyptian—he’s a prince or a duke or a count or something—calls himself a pasha—yes, that’s it, a pasha-has bought those rights from the Collins heirs. He paid a pretty stiff price. We warned him he was buying a lawsuit, but I don’t think there’s much doubt he can win, and he has already started to form a corporation here in Nevada, to be a sort of holding company for whatever can be won from the Leich estate and some lands in Egypt as well. Miss Leich happens to own both properties, and, between you and I, I rather think he knows what he’s doing. I’m on the board of directors of his new company—or shall be when we incorporate, and Ollie Zoom don’t lend tame to anything in the nature of an unfilled flush, believe me! Life’s too short for taking chances.”
“What’s the use of telling me all this?” I asked him. “If you’ve got a good thing you naturally won’t part with it.”
“On terms, my boy, on terms. I’ll always take a profit when I see one. If your man has money enough to buy me out, I’ll sell.”
“So you yourself have put money into this?”
“Well, hardly; not exactly. My partner and I have put our time and knowledge into it, and that’s worth money. We took a share instead of charging him a cash fee. For one thing he balked at the size of our fee, which is a way these foreigners have; they’ll pay any price at all for something they can look at, but when it comes to shelling out for service rendered and for legal skill and advice and so on, they yell murder. For another thing, he wants some honest-to-God Americans on the board—folk like Zezwinski and I who have influence behind the scenes at Washington. Now if your man had influence with the State Department this proposition would be his meat. D’you suppose he’s fixed so he could make his pull felt in that quarter?”
I nodded.
“You see, the idea is this: this is one of those cases that are best settled out of court, and between you and I, that’s what’s going to happen. The Leich girl’s a fighter from the word ‘go’; but I know what I’m talking about. She’ll settle, for she’s going to get the right advice. Of course, she can lose the best part of her property if she’d rather have the lawsuit; but we’re going to offer to take over her whole estate and give her stock and bonds in exchange. In that way she’ll be much better off. We’ll be more than fair, we’ll be generous. The offer we expect to make will cut her actual loss in half if she accepts it once we’re in possession of all that oil, with our own private pipe-line to the Coast, you can easily see how a combination with two or three other companies would build us into a concern that Washington would have to take mighty seriously. Get me?”
“But what about the Egyptian end of it?”
“That is the crux of the whole business! The value of that Egyptian property is something fabulous! Of course, it might turn out to be a mare’s nest, as anything may in this world, but we’ll make enough money from the oil to take care of that, and plenty over! The terms will include the surrender to the company of that real estate in Egypt, and the point is this-that under the laws of Egypt, as I understand it, it’s pretty near impossible for an Egyptian to do anything; it’s mighty close to being impossible for anyone to do anything unless he’s a British subject, with considerable pull at that. But if a strong United States corporation were to take hold of the project with the backing of the U.S. Government behind the scenes, and perhaps a little newspaper publicity to keep the politicians nervous, the British would have to sit back and look on. You get me?”
“More or less. But it doesn’t seem to me that you’ve got that Egyptian property yet,” I said: “and you haven’t as much as suggested why it should be worth as much as you seem to suppose.”
“Well, see here,” said Zoom, “I’ve told you enough to give you an inkling. If you want to know any more, you come across with the name of the man you represent.”
“Not yet,” I answered. “But I’ll tell you this, he’s one of the richest capitalists in the U.S.A.”
“Do you think from what I’ve told you that he’ll look into