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 F I R S T E D I T I O N

SUSTAINABILITY
GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

EDITED
BY Astrid Cerny
Bassim Hamadeh, CEO and Publisher
Michael Simpson, Vice President of Acquisitions and Sales
Jamie Giganti, Senior Managing Editor
Jess Busch, Senior Graphic Designer
John Remington, Senior Field Acquisitions Editor
Monika Dziamka, Project Editor
Brian Fahey, Licensing Specialist
Allie Kiekhofer, Interior Designer

Copyright © 2016 by Cognella, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re-
printed, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or
in any information retrieval system without the written permission of Cognella, Inc.

First published in the United States of America in 2016 by Cognella, Inc.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Cover image copyright © 2012 by Depositphotos / 1xpert.

Interior image copyright © by Depositphotos / smarques27.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63487-895-1 (pbk) / 978-1-63487-896-8 (br)

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures v

Preface vii

SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION 1
CH. 1 An Introduction to Environmental Thought 3
BY BETH KINNE

SECTION 2
CHALLENGES FOR GLOBAL
SUSTAINABILITY TODAY 25
CH. 2 Energy: Changing the Rules with Efficiency and
Renewables 27
BY DARRIN MAGEE AND BETH KINNE

CH. 3 Human Population Explosion 59

BY ELISE BOWDITCH

CH. 4 Food Security and Sustainable Food

Production in Africa 91
BY FRANKLIN C. GRAHAM IV

CH. 5 Global Climate Change and

Andean Regional Impacts 117
BY CARMEN CAPRILES

CH. 6 Our Common Good: The Oceans 151

BY ELISE BOWDITCH

CH. 7 The Possibility of Global Governance 183

BY GASTON MESKENS
SECTION 3
PARADIGM SHIFTS FOR
SUSTAINABILITY 213
CH. 8 Education for Sustainability 215
BY ELISE BOWDITCH

CH. 9 Economic Schools and Different

Paths to Development 249
BY FRANKLIN C. GRAHAM IV

CH. 10 Waste Management: Rethinking

Garbage in a Throwaway World 271
BY DARRIN MAGEE

CH. 11 Ecological Landscape Practices:

A Sustainable Model for North America 305
BY MICHAEL WILSON

IV
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLES
5.1 Greenhouses gases found in the earth’s atmosphere
5.2 Short- and long-term effects of climate change
5.3 Annual average concentrations of CO2 from 1959 to 2014
5.4 Availability of water in the Andean countries
5.5 Emissions of CO2 by Andean countries in MtCO2

10.1 The hierarchy of solid waste management

FIGURES
2.1 A tree fern, a plant little changed since the time of the dinosaurs
2.2 Simplified schematic of an electric power grid and typical efficiencies
2.3 A rooftop-mounted solar hot water heater in China
2.4 Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in southern California
2.5 Parkent solar furnace in Uzbekistan
2.6 Two HAWTs in New York and a dual VAWT in Taiwan
2.7 Hoover Dam in the western United States and a run-of-river hydropower
station in Japan

3.1A-D Population pyramids

3.2 Population growth 1 CE to 2100 CE
3.3 Future possible population graphs

4.1 Location of field sites in Western Africa

4.2 A view of Sikasso market in Mali

V
5.1 Global temperature trends
5.2 Climate attributes for the Andean Region

9.1 Kuma in the United Arab Emirates

10.1 A typical landfill in the United States

10.2 Hickory Ridge landfill with solar photovoltaic array
10.3 Public posting about proper waste disposal
10.4 A mega-landfill in a rural area of New York State

11.1 Using mulch for proper bed preparation

11.2 Beneficial ground covers
11.3, 11.4 Cottage garden planting
11.5, 11.6 Using extra property to cultivate native plantings

VI SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

Preface
BY ASTRID CERNY

A KAZAK WHO LIVES WITH HIS FAMILY AS PART OF A LARGER COM-

munity of Kazak livestock herders in western China knows his place in the
grand scheme of things. He is required to know from memory his lineage
and the names of his ancestors for seven generations into the past.
Kazak hospitality is very distinct and practiced across several Central
Asian cultures in a similar way. When a guest arrives, the women rush to
put out a tablecloth, a dastarqan, and to lay it with what the household has
to offer that day. Hot black tea with milk or cream and butter is served, and
the tablecloth is laid with borsaq—deep-fried dough pieces, dried fruits, nuts,
and candies. Guests help themselves and the host asks the predictable ques-
tions: whose child are you? What is your family line? What is your lineage?
The guest answers, and host and guest enjoy the conversation to look for
common ancestors that will strengthen a deeper bond between them.
The Iroquois confederation of North America also traces its place in
time by the power of seven. The Iroquois think and make decisions accord-
ing to the idea of seven generations into the future. No decision should be
made in self-interest, says article 28 of the Iroquois Nations constitution,
but always under consideration of the needs of coming generations, even
those as yet unborn.1 Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Onondaga Council of

1 In fact, the original language (modern version) is as follows: “In all of your deliberations
in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-
interest shall be cast into oblivion. … Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people
and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those
whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground—the unborn of the future Nation.”
Gerald Murphy, “About the Iroquois Confederation.” Modern History Sourcebook accessed
October 27, 2014, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/iroquois.asp.

VII
Chiefs, speaking at the Association of American Geographers conference
in New York in 2012 said, “Look to the seventh generation. When you do
that, you yourself will have peace.”
It is no coincidence that the Kazak herders and Iroquois are peoples
of Asia and North America who still today are deeply aware of the land
they inhabit. Their historical and customary rights to land and territory
were diminished by the encroachment of new settlers who asserted their
own stakes on property. Today, remaining Native American and other
native populations seek strength in numbers through the identification as
indigenous people, for which they fought 30 years to get recognition at
the United Nations. This recognition came in the form of the Declaration
of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, on September 13, 2007, adopted at
the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. Their unique,
distinct cultures have been recognized, and their voices speak from an-
other kind of wisdom—about what it means to live an honorable life,
with respect for traditional knowledge from the generations of the past
still present in their actions today.
The length of a generation is commonly understood as 20 years. Thus,
the Kazaks know their lineage at least 140 years into the past, and the
Iroquois consider the needs of people 140 years into the future. The idea
of intergenerational equity, that which binds generations together in con-
sciousness and responsibility, is slowly gaining ground.
In 1987, a seminal document was published, also at the United
Nations, which considered environment and development as inexora-
bly linked with each other. Officially called Our Common Future, it is
also referred to as “the Brundtland Report” after its chairwoman, Gro
Harlem Brundtland (United Nations General Assembly, Report of the
World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common
Future, 1987). The effort to write this report was monumental for its
day, to select and bring to words the most pressing issues of the time,
and to articulate the anticipated wishes and needs for all of humanity on
a finite planet Earth into the future. Officially registered as a UN docu-
ment bearing the classification A/42/427, it generated many important
new international debates, and it is today, like the Constitution of the
Iroquois Confederacy, a document circulating in its entirety in the public
domain of the Internet.
Our Common Future articulated the moral and ethical obligation to
make significant changes in how we treat our oceans and atmosphere, and
how we regulate to ensure equity among generations and nations. Its most
quoted statement is the definition of sustainable development in chapter

VIII SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

two: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs” (United Nations General Assembly, “A/42/427”).
This definition became somewhat normative to the international de-
velopment and environmental communities from that point forward,
and it helped to stimulate the many articulations of what it means to
be sustainable, to pursue sustainable development, sustainable agricul-
ture, sustainability, and many other ideas. Significantly, the legacy of
Our Common Future has helped shape the way we see, promote, and
delimit the three pillars of sustainability—environment, economy, and
society.
A new paradigm wants to emerge in our time, but it is fighting with an
old one. The old one is the paradigm of capitalism as a universal force of
growth and development for positive change in the world. We are taught
in schools about the wonders that the Industrial Revolution unleashed
and how post-World War II development has connected us through trans-
portation, trade, and new communication technologies, seemingly into
a global village. Capitalism did stimulate and pay for many important
advances, notably in health and human longevity, but capitalism may now
have gone too far in serving itself. It can no longer be understood only as
our benefactor.
The current paradigm, which encourages us to support the economy as
our friend and protector, teaches us to spend and consume. It teaches us to
indulge ourselves, buy ourselves new objects, those trending, luxuriously
packaged ones, or those imprinted with a certain brand name or logo. We
are encouraged and even intentionally misled into believing that it is all
about us, our individual self, me.
Media and technology both now converge on this message: here, right
now, it is about this moment, me and my newest latest gadget and its apps,
on Facetime, Facebook, texting, tweeting, or just plain staring into the
screen that gives the illusion of endless choice and access to anything on
the big wide world of the Internet. Yet this is not the whole truth. Gadget
fixation teaches self-centeredness, short-term thinking, and denial of
technology’s consequences—such as environmental pollution in someone
else’s backyard and human isolation even in congested cities. All because
the stimulation of the distracting message on the screen right now, in this
instant, feels. So. Good.
Limited at first to the economically richest countries in the world, gad-
gets like laptops and iPhones have changed the world we live in, in many
ways for the better. It is true that technology, in the form of handheld

PREFACE IX
Visit https://ebookmass.com today to explore
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gadgets, is increasingly becoming available to people in poorer nations
and even in the most remote regions like the Himalayan plateau and sub-
Saharan Africa is somewhat of a game changer. Cell phones allow farm-
ers to make deals with middlemen to buy the new harvest, just as these
phones allow Wall Street traders to reach their most important customers
for rapid and convenient transactions.
We appreciate the convenience of these technologies, but increasingly
we are also bearing the costs of their existence. More and more people
can see a new truth emerging. This truth is still diffuse, arising in the
consciousness of individuals such as Chief Lyons, in global political fo-
rums such as the General Assembly at the United Nations, and in research
across the sciences and social sciences.
This understanding is that humans have gone too far in taking natural
resources from Earth, and too far in putting back into the air, soil, and
water only our wastes and innumerable forms of contamination.
This book builds on the emerging understandings of sustainability as a
holistic endeavor for humanity, and that embracing sustainability, indeed
changing the paradigm of what we mean by development, is the only
way we have of handling the massive geophysical changes we are already
beginning to experience under climate change.
In this book we examine a few of the major topics of concern for
students and professionals from the Environment with a capital E, to
the very loaded term sustainability. We take a global perspective, though
of course we had to limit our scope to a reasonable page limit. This is
the first edition of a book we will expand to include more topics and
perspectives. The goal of this textbook is to provide the interested reader
with a snapshot of the dominant concerns, even major crises that we all
face together, whether they are visible to us in our immediate location or
not. Intended for classroom use and personal enjoyment in introductory
environmental, sustainability, or global studies courses, the authors share
their many years of research and their professional perspectives from a
range of academic disciplines and activist practice. In this edition, the
authors write about Mali, Mauritania, and Africa as a whole, the United
States at the state and national level, and select examples from many Latin
American, European, and Asian locations.
We discuss the major topics for sustainability, and we also intro-
duce important components for a new paradigm. We are perhaps not
revolutionary in our concepts, but we are part of the new paradigm
emerging. We posit a holistic perspective. In this book we question the
legacy of globalization and promote ideas of inclusion of people and

X SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

acceptance of responsibility to create the change we want to see in the
world, whether that is in our immediate surroundings, in our country,
or for global equity.
What will people seven generations from now say about us? In a way,
this edition lays the foundation for understanding where we are at, and
what choices are already available for us to make, for the common good.

Astrid Cerny
Editor

REFERENCES

Murphy, Gerald. 2014. “About the Iroquois Confederation.” Modern History

Sourcebook. Available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/iroquois.asp.
United Nations General Assembly. 1987. Report of the World Commission on
Environment and Development: Our Common Future.

PREFACE XI
INTRODUCTION

N 1
TIO
C
SE
Chapter 1
AN INTRODUCTION TO
ENVIRONMENTAL THOUGHT
BY BETH KINNE

THE CONCEPT OF THE ENVIRONMENT AS A SUSTAINING FORCE FOR

human life is not new. Hundreds of years of study have steadily increased
our scientific understanding of the role of the greater environment in
maintaining the human species and all we depend on for life. However,
despite our ever-increasing understanding of the interrelatedness of species,
ecosystems, and geophysical, chemical, and biological processes, most of us
live with less tangible contact with the world that supports us than did our
grandparents of just two generations ago. Most students can name the three
pillars of environmental sustainability: economic, social, environmental.
Many are concerned about the impacts of climate change on fresh water
availability, food production, and sea levels. Few people in the developed
world have any direct experience raising the food they eat whether animals
or vegetables. And only a slightly greater number have ever spent more
than one night outside in the woods camping or hiking.
Chances are, if you are reading this chapter, you have a greater-than-
average interest in the environment, but you may still not know where the
water comes from at the home where you grew up, or where your garbage
goes after the truck picks it up at the curb.
You are probably similar to most Americans, indeed most people in the
developed world, in the lack of awareness of physical connection between
your daily life and the natural systems that support it. Most of us regularly

3
consume meat and vegetables at cafeterias and restaurants, purchase gro-
ceries regularly at the local market, and take showers and flush toilets,
seldom giving a thought to where that food or water came from or where
it will go after we are finished with it. The popularity of environmental
science and environmental studies as a respectable area of academic pur-
suit is growing, but our individual connections to the environment are
arguably weakening as people—particularly in the developed world—live
in increasingly dense populations of humans and their man-made arti-
facts: buildings, sidewalks, airports, shopping malls, houses. It is ironic
that as our scientific knowledge of the state of the environment grows
increasingly sophisticated, our personal relationship or direct experience
with that environment grows increasingly limited.
This is not to say that the value of individual experiences is more im-
portant than having a theoretical, big-picture understanding. It is impos-
sible to make good long-term policy decisions based solely on individual
experiences over short periods of time. For example, our understanding
of climate change is based on data collected over many decades in many
locations around the globe. Individual experiences of weather in the
short term—such as the abnormally cold winter in North America in
2014–2015—seem to contradict the longer trend of global temperature
increase, and without a more comprehensive picture could lead us to a
very different conclusion. Nevertheless, the short-term, immediate expe-
riences such as weather are still important. We have to survive today’s
hurricane or tornado, this year’s winter, in order to survive the coming
century. It is the challenge of sound environmental thinking to take both
into consideration—the immediate and the relatively far-off welfare of
ourselves, future generations, and our environment.
Like science and art, the concept of environment is not static but
changes with time, place, and individuals or groups. History, culture, and
social norms impact how people think of “the environment” and how
they perceive their relationship to it.
An appreciation for the natural world as “the environment” or “nature”
has led to innovations such as national parks. The US national park system
is a model for national park systems around the world. National parks
are areas set aside for the preservation of ecological diversity, shielded
from human intervention. But national parks are managed by people who
effectively stop natural processes from occurring in them. Park manag-
ers halt the march of invasive species; preserve specific habitats through
controlled burn regimens, and cull or encourage various populations of
animals and plants in particular places. Human intervention is still there,

4 SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

then, but it is carefully prescribed and culturally shaped. Historically,
people lived in the forests, until we regulated them out. Wolves were part
of the forest as well, until they were hunted to extinction in most of the
United States. The lack of people and wolves in the forest is a result of
policy and legal decisions created in a cultural context that defined the
relationship between humans and the environment. The development of
this relationship has changed over time, through applications of philoso-
phies that as often as not are contradictory, in tension with one another.
This chapter introduces some of the individual people—philosophers,
scientists, farmers, politicians, and activists—who have contributed to the
evolution of environmental thought and “environmentalism.” Indeed, the
myriad ways in which humans around the world perceive of their relation-
ship to the non-human world gives rise to multiple “environmentalisms,”
not simply one all-encompassing version. Limitations on time and space do
not allow us to mention every influential movement or person in the history
of environmental thought. Moreover, this text will not even do justice to the
contributions of those we mention here. Therefore, this chapter should serve
as a place from which your study and understanding of environmentalism
can begin, rather than one where it both begins and ends.

KEY CONCEPTS: WILDERNESS, PRESERVATION,

AND CONSERVATION

Environmental thought is shaped by conceptions we have in our minds,

and how we distinguish distinct ideas about nature, the environment, and
wilderness. We then find a long-standing separation between nature and
that which our ancestors considered civilization or the human world.
For example, the Oxford English Dictionary defines wilderness as “an
uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region,” a definitively nega-
tive connotation. Early references to wilderness also impact our historical
concepts of the environment. In the Judeo-Christian tradition as illustrated
in the Old Testament, for example, the wilderness is a place of uncertainty,
exile, danger, and testing,1, 2 but it is also a place of transformation and
renewal.3 These two competing ideas about wilderness as something that

1 God led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness in Exodus.
2 See Matthew 4:1, where God led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.
3 The Israelites formed a new relationship with God while in the wilderness, for example.

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL THOUGHT 5

needs to be tamed and controlled continue to permeate Western literature
and even legal policies toward the environment. These concepts, which
have parallels in the conflicting roles of humans as both rightful recipi-
ents of the earth’s bounty and stewards of its future, shape our attitude
towards everything non-human in our world.
In the early and mid-1800s, thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry
David Thoreau contributed to the development of a new American cul-
tural identity, one that included Emerson’s intellectual understanding of a
divinity that is within everything and Thoreau’s reverence for the value of
nature.4 In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a generation of advocates for
the environment continued to build on Thoreau’s seminal work, promot-
ing the concept of the value of wilderness and therefore preservation of
that wilderness. They would leave an indelible mark on Western ideas of
environmentalism. Among them, Edward Abby and John Muir promoted
a concern for the loss of wild areas in the American West, in stark contrast
to the widely held political support for the rapid growth of California and
“progress,” which meant a definite taming of that “Wild West.”
A pioneering thinker on conservation, John Muir (1838–1914) re-
portedly once described himself as a “poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist
and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc.!!!!”5 Muir’s writings and advocacy
greatly influenced President Theodore Roosevelt and spurred the creation
of some of the first US National Parks. In 1892, he and others founded
the Sierra Club, and he served as the club’s first president.6 Muir con-
sidered the experience of nature and wilderness as critical to the moral
and spiritual development and well-being of people, and he advocated
for preservation of nature as part of our natural heritage. His success
in helping to create Yosemite National Park in 1890 and his legacy of
connection to the environment inspire many environmental activists and
outdoor enthusiasts to this day.
The resource conservation movement became institutionalized at the
turn of the twentieth century with the installation of Theodore Roosevelt
as US President and subsequent appointment of Yale University graduate
Gifford Pinchot as Chief Forester.7 Roosevelt and Pinchot realized that

4 Emerson’s writings include his seminal essay “Nature” (1836).

5 “The John Muir Exhibit,” The Sierra Club, http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/
about.
6 For a chronology of John Muir’s life, see “Chronology (Timeline) of the Life and
Legacy of John Muir,” The Sierra Club, http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/
chronology.aspx .
7 For more on Pinchot, see his autobiography, Breaking New Ground (New York: Island
Press, 1998).

6 SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

US forests, which had seemed so vast to early European settlers as to be
indomitable, were in danger of being destroyed by indiscriminate use.8 As
first head of the US Forest Service, Pinchot’s vision for the national forests
was one of conservation.
The concept of “conservation” is often used interchangeably with
“preservation,” and in many modern examples, this is appropriate. In
fact, the National Wilderness Act, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964,
provided an avenue for the protection of several hundred millions of acres
of land under the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS).9
National parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) lands are all part of the NWPS.10 However,
some of these places (national wildlife refuges) are largely protected from
human encroachment while others (national forests and BLM lands) are
open to logging, mining, and grazing, among other activities. In some
cases, preservation includes active maintenance of certain ecosystems to
support wildlife, or specific forms of wildlife.
In spite of the common usage of the terms, the distinction between con-
servation and preservation is worth maintaining because in theory they
can point to very different managerial approaches and to a very different
relationship between humans and the natural environment. Conservation
includes use and harvesting of natural resources at a sustainable rate,
meaning one that will allow renewal of the resource.11 Non-renewable
resources such as fossil fuels require conservative use so as to maximize
the length of time those resources can support the human population.12
Conservation practices have been applied to forests, fisheries, and range-
lands with some success. The key, of course, to effective conservation, is
accurate prediction of what the maximum yield is. Historically, natural
resource managers and industry, and even fishermen and farmers, have
often overestimated that number, causing precipitous declines in species
we would like to maintain in perpetuity.

8 Note that freshwater and ocean fisheries also fell victim to the same fate, but were
arguably less easy to remediate.
9 For a map of areas protected under the NWPS, see http://www.wilderness.net/map.
cfm.
10 “National Wilderness Preservation System,” The Wilderness Society, http://wilderness.
org/article/national-wilderness-preservation-system.
11 One could argue that all resources are renewable, but the time frame over which that
occurs may or may not be useful to humans. A forest that regrows in 25 years is renewable
from a human perspective; coal that might be formed millions of years from now from the
remains of these trees is not, in all practicality, renewable.
12 See “Conservation,” The US Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, http://www.
fs.fed.us/gt/local-links/historical-info/gifford/conservation.shtml.

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL THOUGHT 7

 In contrast, preservation means setting aside valued resources and
preventing their use or change. National parks are probably the regions
in the United States most closely governed by the preservation ethic. The
Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone are examples of how unique
characteristics in landscape and wildlife led to their geographic area being
considered valued resources and thus enclosed and protected within the
National Park System.
In practice, complete preservation is very difficult and seldom ap-
plied. People need to be kept out, which is not easy, but easier than
managing migrating wildlife, pests, and invasive species. This is a big
challenge to true preservation—maintaining the dynamic and authentic
character of natural systems over time. The trouble is that preserva-
tion in a steady state actually requires a great deal of active manage-
ment—which is done by people. For example, the US National Park
Service employs Invasive Plant Management Teams, which are involved
in the extirpation of invasive species.13 Pine beetles, leaf borers, and
other insects do not observe the toll gates to the parks, but pursue their
activities inside and outside the park just the same. Wildfire manage-
ment has also been a contentious issue over time, as wildfires do occur
naturally and can leave unsightly devastation behind, as with the 1988
fires in Yellowstone. People are divided on the issue of when and what
to preserve in the case of wildfires.
Finally, we need to remember that maintaining the parks in a more
“natural” state is based on a baseline or standard set at some point in
historical time. This point was chosen by an expert manager of ecosys-
tems in a particular political context that was favorable to protecting
land and water resources. When signing the Wilderness Act of 1964,
Lyndon B. Johnson stated, “If future generations are to remember us with
gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than
the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as
it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”14 Heroic
words for an ongoing act of protection of some unique and beautiful
places. But let us not forget that the “beginning,” in this instance, is really
the post–World War II period.

13 “Invasive Species: What Are They and Why Are They a Problem?” National Park
Service, http://www.nature.nps.gov/biology/invasivespecies.
14 Quoted in “National Wilderness Preservation System,” The Wilderness Society,
http://wilderness.org/article/national-wilderness-preservation-system.

8 SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL ISSUES, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

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 ‘But,’ the old man continued, ‘I made money faster than I could
get rid of it. It gradually accumulated. Then it was that I invented
my Mexican uncle, so that I might deal with the coin more openly.’
‘Yes?’ said Richard.
‘That is all,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘But the object of the scheme?’ asked Richard. ‘You said you
needed all this money for a certain scheme.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man solemnly, ‘and the scheme is approaching
fruition. Yet a little time, and my task will be done.’
‘It is well,’ Richard put in, ‘that your scheme is nearly completed,
for the methods you have employed might even now be found out,
and then good-bye to the scheme, whatever it is.’
Raphael Craig smiled.
‘No, my friend,’ he remarked composedly, ‘nothing can upset it
now. The last of my silver is disposed of—safely negotiated. Go into
my sheds now, and you will discover—nothing. My machinery is
destroyed; all evidence is annihilated. For twenty years I have been
crossing an abyss by means of a tight-rope; at any moment I might
have been precipitated into the gulf. But at last I am on firm ground
once more. It is the Other, now, who will shortly be plunged into the
abyss.’
‘The Other!’ Richard repeated, struck by the strange and mordant
accent with which Raphael Craig had pronounced that word.
‘The Other,’ said the old man. ‘His hour comes.’
‘And who is he?’ demanded Richard.
‘That,’ Raphael Craig said, ‘you will never know until my deed is
accomplished. The train is laid, the fuse is ignited. I have only to
wait.’
 ‘Then you will tell me nothing more?’ said Richard.
‘Have I not interested you so far?’ said the old man.
‘Undoubtedly, but my curiosity is still not quite sated.’
‘It occurs to me that your curiosity exceeds mine. By what right,
young man, do you put all these questions? I have never sought to
cross-examine you, as I might have done.’
‘Under the circumstances,’ said Richard, ‘I think you have a perfect
right to know, and certainly I have no objection to telling you. I
came on behalf of the directors of the bank.’
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ Richard cheerfully admitted.
‘Ah!’
‘Then you decline to admit me further into your confidence?’
Richard doggedly persisted.
‘Redgrave,’ said the old man, standing up, my scheme is my own.
It is the most precious thing I have—the one thing that has kept me
alive, given me vitality, vivacity, strength, hope. During all these
years I have shared it with none. Shall I share it now? Shall I share
it with a man young enough to be my son, a man who forced
himself into my house, wormed himself into the secrets of my
private life? I shall not. It is too sacred a thing. You do not know
what my scheme means to me; you cannot guess all that is involved
in it. I can conceive that you might even laugh at my scheme—you
who do not yet know what life is and what life means.’
Raphael Craig resumed with dignity his seat on the sofa. Richard
was impressed by this exhibition of profound feeling on the part of
the old man. He was inclined to admit, privately, that perhaps the
old man was right—perhaps he did not know what life was and what
life meant; perhaps there were things in life deeper, more terrible,
than he had ever suspected.
A silence fell upon the room. The old man seemed not inclined to
break it; Richard, still under the hypnotism of the scene, would not
speak. To relieve the intensity of the moment he quietly opened the
Westminster Gazette. The lamp had sunk lower and lower, and it
was with difficulty that he could read. His eye, however, chanced to
fall on the financial page, and there, as the heading of a paragraph
in the ‘Notes,’ he saw these words: ‘LOCK RUMOURS.’ He brought
the page nearer to his face, and read: ‘The rumours that the Lock
group are in serious difficulties was again rife on ’Change to-day. Mr.
Simon Lock, seen by one of our representatives, merely smiled when
told of the prevalence of these sinister rumours. He gave our
representative the somewhat cryptic answer that we should see
what we should see. We do not doubt the truth of this remark.
Dealing in the shares of the newly-floated “La Princesse” Gold Mining
Company (Westralian) was very active this morning, but fell flat after
lunch. The one-pound shares, which, after a sensational rise last
week, fell on Thursday to a shade over par, are now at five and a
half, with a distinct tendency to harden, in spite of the fact that the
demand is slight.’
Richard looked up from the paper.
‘I see,’ he said, with interest, ‘that it is not absolutely all plain
sailing even with the great Simon Lock. Did you read this paragraph
here about him?’
‘No,’ murmured the old man. ‘Read it to me.’
Richard did so in the rapidly-dying light.
‘Very curious and interesting,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘I have
sometimes permitted myself to wonder whether our respected
chairman is, after all, the impregnable rock which he is usually taken
for.’
 At this moment the lamp went out, and the two men sat in
absolute darkness.
The next ensuing phenomenon was the sound of an apparently
heavy body falling down the stairs into the hall, and then a girl’s
terrified scream.
Richard sprang to the door, but a few moments elapsed before his
fingers could find the handle. At length he opened the door. The
lamp in the hall was still brightly burning. At the foot of the stairs lay
Nolan, the detective, wrapped in a bedgown. At the head of the
stairs, in an attitude of dismay, stood Juana.
There was a heavy and terrible sigh at Richard’s elbow. He turned
his head sharply. Raphael Craig stood behind him, his body swaying
as though in a breeze.
‘Juana!’ he stammered out hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the
trembling girl.
‘Do not curse me again, father,’ she cried, with a superb gesture; ‘I
have suffered enough.’
An oak chest stood to the left of the drawing-room door. Raphael
Craig sank down upon it, as if exhausted by a sudden and frightful
emotion.
‘Go!’ he said in a low voice.
But the girl came steadily downstairs towards him.
No one seemed to take any notice of the body of the detective.
 CHAPTER XI—END OF THE NIGHT

T
he body of the detective lay, by chance, lengthwise along the
mat at the foot of the stairs. In order to reach the hall,
therefore, Juana had no alternative but to step over the prone
figure. This she did unhesitatingly, and then turned to Richard.
‘Carry the poor fellow upstairs, will you?’ she asked quietly. ‘He is
delirious. The room overhead.’
Richard obeyed. The small, light frame of the detective gave him
no trouble. At the top of the stairs he met Mrs. Bridget hastening
towards him.
‘Holy Virgin!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did but run down by the backstairs
to the kitchen and left the spalpeen with Miss Juana, and when I
came back to them the room was as empty as my pocket.’
‘He got a bit wild,’ Richard explained. ‘I suppose his head is
affected. Miss Juana is talking with her father. Where is Miss Teresa?’
‘Sure, she’s gone out to the mares. They must have their water, if
every soul of us was dying.’
Richard carefully laid Nolan on the bed in the room over the
porch. By this time the sufferer had recovered consciousness. He
murmured a few meaningless strings of words, then sighed.
‘I will leave him with you,’ said Richard.
‘Not alone! If he begins to kick out——’
‘He’s quite quiet now,’ said Richard, closing the door behind him.
Richard was extremely anxious to be present, as he had a sort of
right to be, at the conversation between Raphael Craig and Juana.
He descended the stairs with such an air of deliberation as he could
assume, and stood hesitatingly at the foot. He felt like an interloper,
an eavesdropper, one who is not wanted, but, indeed, there was no
other place for him to put himself into, unless it might be the
kitchen; for the drawing-room lamp was extinguished, and the lamp
in the dining-room had not been lighted.
Juana had approached her father, who still sat on the oak chest.
She bent slightly towards him, like a figure of retribution, or menace,
or sinister prophecy. Richard noticed the little wisps of curls in the
nape of her neck. She was still dressed in her riding-habit, but the
lengthy skirt had been fastened up by means of a safety-pin. Richard
could not be sure whether father or daughter had so much as
observed his presence in the hall.
‘I’ll stay where I am,’ he thought. ‘I’m a member of the family
now, and it is my business to know all the family secrets.’
For at least thirty seconds Juana uttered no word. Then she said,
in a low vibrating voice:
‘Why do you tell me to go, father?’
‘Did I not say to you last year,’ the old man replied, ‘that if you left
me you must leave me for ever?’
‘You abide by that?’ the girl demanded.
‘I abide by it,’ said Raphael Craig.
Like a flash, Juana swept round and faced Richard, and he at once
perceived that she had been aware of his presence.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ she said, with head in air, and nostrils dilated,
‘Teresa has just told me that at my father’s—er—suggestion you and
she have become engaged to be married.’
‘That is so,’ said Richard politely. ‘May we hope for your
congratulations?’
 She ignored the remark.
‘Do you know whom you are marrying?’ she asked curtly.
‘I am under the impression that I am about to marry the daughter
of Mr. Raphael Craig, manager of the Kilburn branch of the British
and Scottish Bank.’
‘You are about to do nothing of the sort,’ said Juana. ‘Mr. Raphael
Craig has no daughter. Teresa and myself, I may explain to you, are
twin-sisters, though I have the misfortune to look much the older.
We have always passed as the daughters of Mr. Craig, We have
always called him father. Teresa still thinks him her father. It was
only recently that I discovered——’
‘Juana,’ the old man interrupted, ‘have you, too, got hold of the
wild tale? It is astonishing how long a falsehood, an idle rumour, will
survive and flourish.’
‘There is no falsehood, no idle rumour,’ said Juana coldly; ‘and I
think it proper that Mr. Redgrave should know all that I know.’
‘It will make no difference whatever to me,’ said Richard, ‘whose
daughter Teresa may be. ‘It is herself, and not her ancestors, that I
shall have the honour of marrying.’
‘Still,’ said Juana, ‘do you not think that you ought to know
Teresa’s history?’
‘Decidedly,’ said Richard.
With an embittered glance at her father, Juana resumed:
‘Some time ago, Mr. Redgrave, a difficulty between Mr. Craig and
myself led to my leaving this house. I was the merest girl, but I left.
I was too proud to stay. I had a mare of my own, whom I had
trained to do a number of tricks. I could ride as well as most.
Bosco’s circus happened to be in the neighbourhood. I conceived the
wild idea of applying for a situation in the circus. Only a girl utterly
inexperienced in life would have dreamt of such a thing. The circus
people had me performing for them, and they engaged me. On the
whole I lived a not unhappy existence. I tell you this only to account
for my presence not long since in Limerick.’
‘Limerick!’ exclaimed Raphael Craig in alarm. ‘You have been
there?’
Juana continued calmly:
‘The circus travelled in Ireland, and eventually came to Limerick. I
knew that Limerick was my mother’s home, and I began to make
inquiries. I found out that my sister and I were born previous to Mr.
Craig’s marriage with my mother. She had been married before, or
she had, at least, been through the ceremony of marriage with
another man—a man unknown, who came suddenly into her life and
as suddenly went out of it. You will gather, then, that Mr. Craig is not
our father, and that he has no authority over us.’
‘Redgrave,’ muttered Raphael Craig, ‘I tell you the poor girl is
mad.’
Juana resumed quietly:
‘I must inform you of another thing. While in Limerick and the
district I met this Nolan, the detective. He had another name there. I
know now, from what my sister has told me, that he must have been
investigating the early history of my mother, and my real and false
fathers, for some purpose of the police. But I judge him as I found
him. He was very kind to me once, and I liked him. He was the
personification of good-nature and good temper. When our ways
parted he expressed the certain hope that we should meet again.
We have met again, under circumstances extremely painful. He has
not yet recognised me. You may ask, father,’ she went on, turning to
Raphael Craig, ‘why I came back to your house to-day. There were
two reasons. It is three months since I learnt about my parentage,
and during the whole of that time I have been debating with myself
whether or not to come and have it out with you. I inclined more
and more to having a clear understanding, not only for my own
sake, but for Teresa’s. Then, the second reason, the circus folk had
begun to talk. There were jealousies, of course; and the rumour that
my birth was surrounded by doubtful mysteries somehow got afoot
in the tents. I decided to leave. Here I am. I came prepared for
peace; but you, father, have decided otherwise. I shall leave to-
morrow morning, We have no claim on each other. Mr. Redgrave,
that is all I have to say.’
She ceased.
Richard bowed, and looked expectantly towards the old man, but
the old man said nothing.
‘I have the right to ask you, sir,’ said Richard, ‘for your version of
what Miss Juana has just told us.’
‘We will talk of that to-morrow,’ answered the old man testily. ‘We
will talk of that to-morrow.’
‘It is already to-morrow,’ said Juana scornfully.
There was a sudden tremendous racket overhead. A scream could
be heard from Bridget, and a loud, confused chattering from Nolan.
The latter rushed violently half-way downstairs, his eyes burning,
Mrs. Bridget after him.
 ‘I tell you I won’t stay there!’ he shouted. ‘It’s unlucky—that room
where Featherstone slept the night before he killed himself! It’s
unlucky!’
The restless patient sank on the stairs, exhausted by the exertion.
Before Richard could do anything, Mrs. Bridget, that gaunt and
powerful creature, had picked up the little man, and by great effort
carried him away again. The people downstairs saw no more of him.
Mrs. Bridget had at last made up her mind to take him firmly in
hand.
Richard was startled by a light touch on his shoulder, and he was
still more startled when he caught the horror-struck face of Juana—
the staring eyes, the drawn mouth.
‘Tell me,’ she said, her finger still on his shoulder—‘tell me—I
cannot trust him—has Mr. Featherstone committed suicide? Is he
dead?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard, extremely mystified, but judging that simple
candour would be the best course to adopt under the circumstances.
‘There was an inquest. Didn’t you see it in the papers?’
‘Circus folk seldom trouble with newspapers,’ she said. ‘When was
it?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘Poor fellow!’
Tears ran down her cheeks, and she spoke with an accent
indescribably mournful.
‘You knew him?’ Richard suggested.
‘I should have been his wife a year ago,’ said Juana, ‘had he not
forbidden it.’ Again she pointed to Raphael Craig. ‘I never loved Mr.
Featherstone, but I liked him. He was an honourable man—old
enough to be my father, but an honourable man. He worshipped me.
Why should I not have married him? It was the best chance I was
ever likely to get, living the life we lived—solitary, utterly withdrawn
from the world. Yes, I would have married him, and I would have
made him a good wife. But he forbade. He gave no reason. I was so
angry that I would have taken Mr. Featherstone despite him. But Mr.
Featherstone had old-fashioned ideas. He thought it wrong to marry
a girl without her father’s consent. And so we parted. That, Mr.
Redgrave, was the reason why I left the house of my so-called
father. Scarcely a month ago Mr. Featherstone came to me again
secretly, one night after the performance was over, and he again
asked me to marry him, and said that he had decided to dispense
with Mr. Craig’s consent. He begged me to marry him. His love was
as great as ever, but with me things had changed. I had almost
ceased even to like Mr. Featherstone. I was free, independent, and
almost happy in that wandering life. Besides, I—never mind that. I
refused him as kindly as I could. It must have been immediately
afterwards that the poor fellow committed suicide, And you’—she
flashed a swift denunciatory glance on Raphael Craig—‘are his
murderer.’
The old man collected himself and stood up, his face calm, stately,
livid.
‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘daughter—for I shall I still call you so, by the
right of all that I have done for you—you have said a good deal in
your anger that had been better left unsaid. But doubtless you have
found a sufficient justification for your wrath. You are severe in your
judgments. In youth we judge; in age we are merciful. You think you
have been hardly done to. Perhaps it is so; but not by me—rather by
fate. Even now I could tell you such things as would bring you to
your knees at my feet, but I refrain. Like you, I am proud. Some day
you will know all the truth—the secret of my actions and the final
goal of my desires. And I think that on that day you will bless me.
No man ever had a more sacred, a holier aim, than that which has
been the aim of my life. I thank God it is now all but achieved.’
He lighted one of the candles which always stood on the bookcase
in the hall, and passed into the drawing-room, where he sat down,
leaving the door ajar.
Richard crept towards the door and looked in. The old man sat
motionless, absently holding the candle in his hand. The frontdoor
opened from the outside, and Teresa ran into the house. She saw
her father, and hastened, with a charming gesture, towards him.
‘Old darling!’ she exclaimed; ‘why that sad face, and why that
candle? What are you all doing? See!’ She pulled back the shutters
of the window. ‘See! the sun has risen!’
So ended that long night.
 CHAPTER XII—THE NAPOLEON

W
e have now to watch another aspect of the great struggle
which for so many years had been maturing in secrecy and
darkness, and the true nature of which was hidden from all
save one man.
It was seven o’clock in the morning, and in a vast bedroom of a
house in Manchester Square a man lay with closed eyes. The house
was one of those excessively plain dwellings of the very rich which
are characteristic of the streets and squares of the West End of
London. Its façade was relieved by no ornament. You saw merely a
flat face of brick, with four rows of windows, getting smaller towards
the roof, and a sombre green front-door in the middle of the lowest
row. The house did not even seem large, but it was, in fact,
extremely spacious, as anyone could see who put foot into the hall,
where two footmen lounged from morn till night. The bedroom to
which we have referred was on the first-floor. It occupied half the
width of the house, and looked out on the square. Its three windows
were made double, so that no sound from outside could penetrate
that sacred apartment. Ventilation was contrived by means of two
electric fans. The furniture consisted of the articles usual in an
English bedroom, for the man in bed prided himself on being an
Englishman who did not ape foreign ways. The said articles were,
however, extraordinarily large, massive, and ornate. The pile of the
immense carpet probably could not have been surpassed by any
carpet in London. Across the foot of the carved oak bedstead was a
broad sofa upholstered in softest silk.
An English bracket-clock on the mantelshelf intoned the hour of
seven with English solemnity, and instantly afterwards an electric
bell rang about six inches over the head of the occupant of the bed.
 He opened his eyes wearily. He had not been asleep; indeed, he
had spent most of the night in a futile wakefulness, which was a bad
sign with a man who boasted that as a rule he could sleep at will,
like Napoleon. Here was one detail out of many in which this man
considered that he resembled Napoleon.
He groaned, pulled his gray moustache, stroked his chin, which
bristled with the night’s growth of beard, and ran his fingers through
his gray hair. Then he touched an electric button. Within ten seconds
a valet entered, bearing the morning papers—not merely a judicious
selection of morning papers, but every morning paper published in
London.
‘Put them on the sofa, Jack.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The man rose out of bed with a sudden jerk. At the same moment
the valet, with a movement which would have done credit to a
juggler, placed a pair of bath slippers on his master’s feet, and with
another movement of equal swiftness deposited a pair of six-pound
dumbbells in his hands. The man performed six distinct exercises
twelve times each, and then dropped the lumps of iron on the bed,
whence the valet removed them.
‘Seven-thirty,’ said the man.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the valet, and disappeared.
The man sank languidly on to the sofa, and began, with the
efficiency of a highly-practised reader, to skim the papers one after
the other. He led off with the Financial, proceeded to the Times, and
took the rest anyhow. When he had finished, the papers lay in a
tangled heap on the thick carpet. This man was pre-eminently tidy
and orderly, yet few things delighted him more than, at intervals, to
achieve a gigantic disorder. It was a little affectation which he
permitted himself. Another little affectation was his manner of
appearing always to be busy from the hour of opening his eyes to
the hour of closing them. He was, in truth, a very busy man indeed;
but it pleased him to seem more deeply employed than he actually
was. He had a telephone affixed to his bed-head, by means of which
he could communicate with his private secretary’s bedroom in the
house, and also with his office in Cannon Street. This telephone
tickled his fancy. He used it for the sake of using it; he enjoyed using
it in the middle of the night. He went to it now, and rang
imperiously. He did everything imperiously. There was a tinkling
reply on the bell.
‘Are you up, Oakley? Well, get up then. Go to Cannon Street, and
bring the important letters. And tell——’ He went off into a series of
detailed instructions. ‘And be back here at half-past eight.’
The clock struck half-past seven. The valet entered as silently as a
nun, and the modern Napoleon passed into his marble bath-room.
By this time everyone in the household—that household which
revolved round the autocrat as the solar system revolves round the
sun—knew that the master had awakened in a somewhat dangerous
mood, and that squally weather might be expected. And they all,
from the page-boy to the great Mr. Oakley, the private secretary,
accepted this fact as further evidence that the master’s career of
prosperity had received a check.
At eight o’clock precisely the master took breakfast—an English
breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, marmalade—in the breakfast-
room, a room of medium size opening off the library. He took it in
solitude, for he could not tolerate the presence of servants so early
in the morning, and he had neither wife nor family. He poured out
his own coffee like one of his own clerks, and read his private letters
propped up one by one against the coffee-pot, also like one of his
own clerks. He looked at his watch as he drank the last drop of
coffee. It was thirty-one minutes past eight. He walked quickly into
the library. If Oakley had not been there Oakley would have caught
it; but Oakley happened to be there, calmly opening envelopes with
a small ivory paper-cutter. It was mainly in virtue of his faculty of
always ‘being there’ that Oakley received a salary of six hundred a
year.
‘Shall you go to Cannon Street this morning, sir?’ asked Oakley, a
middle-aged man with the featureless face of a waiter in a large
restaurant.
‘Why?’
‘Sir Arthur Custer has telegraphed to know.’
‘No.’
‘I thought not, and have told him.’
‘Umph!’ said the master, nettled, but not daring to say anything.
Like many a man equally powerful, this Napoleon was in some
ways in awe of his unexceptionable clerk. Oakley might easily get
another master, but it was doubtful whether his employer could get
another clerk equal to Oakley.
‘A light post this morning, sir,’ said Oakley.
‘Umph!’ said the master again. ‘Take down this letter, and have it
sent off instantly:
‘“Richard Redgrave, Esq., 4, Adelphi Terrace. Dear Sir,—I shall be
obliged if you can make it convenient to call on me this morning as
early as possible at the above address. The bearer can bring you
here in his cab.—Yours truly.”’
The letter was written, signed, and despatched.
‘Anything from Gaunt and Griffiths?’ asked the Napoleon.
‘Yes, sir.’
Oakley turned to a letter on large, thick, quarto paper. The
stationery of this famous firm of stock-brokers—perhaps the largest
firm, and certainly the firm with the cleanest record, on the
Exchange—was always of an impressive type.
‘They say, “We are obliged by your favour of to-day’s date. We can
offer a limited number of La Princesse shares at twenty-five. We
shall be glad to have your acceptance or refusal before noon to-
morrow.—Your obedient servants, Gaunt and Griffiths.”’
‘Twenty-five!’ exclaimed the other. ‘They mean five. It’s a clerical
error.’
‘The amount is written out in words.’
‘It’s a clerical error.’
‘Doubtless, sir.’
Even now the Napoleon would not believe that misfortune,
perhaps ruin, was at his door. He doggedly refused to face the fact.
It seemed incredible, unthinkable, that anything could happen to
him. So we all think until the crash comes. He plunged into the mass
of general correspondence with a fine appearance of perfect
calmness. But he could not deceive Mr. Oakley.
At five minutes past nine there was a careful tap at the door. The
messenger had returned from Adelphi Terrace. Mr. Redgrave was not
at his rooms. He had gone out on the previous evening, and had not
come in again. The landlady knew not where he was.
‘Send again at noon, Oakley,’ said the Napoleon.
In another minute there was another tap at the door.
‘Come in!’—angrily.
The footman announced that Sir Arthur Custer had called.
‘D——n Sir Arthur Custer!’ said the master of the house. ‘Here,
Oakley, get out of this! I must see him.’
 Oakley got out, and Sir Arthur was ushered in. Sir Arthur looked at
his host queerly, and then with much care shut the door.
‘I say, Lock,’ he said, putting his silk hat on the table, ‘it seems to
me we’re in a devil of a hole.’
‘Indeed!’ said Simon Lock cautiously.
‘Yes,’ Sir Arthur insisted. ‘Of course I’m sure that when you asked
me to join you in this Princesse affair——’
‘You will pardon me, Sir Arthur,’ said Lock, stopping him very
politely and formally, ‘I did not ask you to join me. It was yourself
who suggested that.’
‘Ah, well!’ said Sir Arthur, with a little less assurance, ‘we won’t
quarrel about that. At any rate, I understood from you that we were
in for a deuced good thing.’
‘That is so,’ Lock returned. ‘By the way, sit down, Sir Arthur, and
remain calm.’
‘Am I not calm?’ asked the member of Parliament, whose
pomposity was unaccustomed to be trifled with.
‘Certainly you are calm. I merely ask you to remain so. Now to
come to the business in hand. I said, you remind me, that we were
in for a good thing. So we were. But some secret force has been
working against us. If I could unmask that secret force all would be
well, for I could then bring pressure to bear that would effectually
—— You understand?’
‘No matter from what direction the force came?’
‘No matter from what direction. And, Sir Arthur,’ said Simon Lock
impressively, ‘I shall find it out.’ He repeated the phrase still more
impressively, ‘I shall find it out. Simon Lock has never yet been
defeated, and he will not be defeated now. I began life, Sir Arthur,
on half-a-crown a week. There were conspiracies against me then,
but I upset them. At the age of fifty-five, on a slightly larger scale ‘—
he smiled—‘I shall repeat the operations of my early youth.’
Simon Lock, like many self-made men, was extremely fond of
referring to his early youth and the humbleness of his beginnings.
He thought that it proved an absence of snobbery in his individuality.
‘And in the meantime?’
‘In the meantime, I frankly confess, Sir Arthur, we have sold more
La Princesse shares than we can deliver. Nay, further, we have sold, I
fear, more La Princesse shares than actually exist. We sold freely for
the fall. I knew that the shares would fall soon after the flotation,
and they did. But they have mysteriously risen again.’
‘And are still rising,’ Sir Arthur put in, nervously stroking his long
thin beard.
‘Yes. We sold, I find, over two hundred thousand shares at three.
They then fell, as you know, to about twenty-five shillings. Then
they began to go up like a balloon. The market tightened like a
drawn string. Sir Arthur, we were led into a trap. For once in a way
some fellow has got the better of Simon Lock—temporarily, only
temporarily. My brokers thought they were selling shares to the
public in general, but they were selling to the agents of a single
buyer. That is evident.’
‘How do we stand now?’
‘We have to deliver our shares in a week’s time. We have some
eighty thousand shares in hand, bought at various prices up to five
pounds. On those eighty thousand we shall just about clear
ourselves. That leaves us over a hundred and twenty thousand yet
to buy.’
‘At the best price we can obtain?’
‘Yes.’
 ‘And what is the best price to-day?’
‘Well,’ said Lock, looking Sir Arthur straight in the face, ‘I have had
shares offered to me this morning at twenty-five.’
Sir Arthur’s reply was to rush to the sideboard and help himself to
a glass of brandy. He was a timid creature, despite his appearance.
‘And that figure means that we should lose the sum of twenty-two
pounds on each share. Twenty-two times one hundred and twenty
thousand, Sir Arthur, is two millions six hundred and forty thousand
pounds. That would be the amount of our loss on the transaction.’
‘But this is child’s play, Lock.’
‘Excuse me, it isn’t,’ said Simon Lock. ‘It is men’s play, and
desperately serious.’
‘I don’t understand the methods of the Stock Exchange—never
did,’ said Sir Arthur Custer, M.P. ‘I only came into the City because a
lot of fellows like yourself asked me to. But it seems to me the only
thing to do is to cry off.’
‘Cry off?’
‘Yes. Tell all these people to whom we have contracted to sell
Princesse shares that we simply can’t supply ’em, and tell ’em to do
their worst. Their worst won’t be worse than a dead loss of over two
and a half millions.’
‘My dear Sir Arthur,’ said Simon Lock, ‘there is no crying off in the
City. We have contracted to deliver those shares, and we must
deliver them, or pay the price—commercial ruin.’
‘The Stock Exchange,’ Sir Arthur blustered, ‘is one of the most
infamous institutions——’
‘Yes,’ Simon Lock cut him short, ‘we know all about that. The
Stock Exchange is quite right as long as we are making money; but
when we begin to lose it immediately becomes infamous.’
 Sir Arthur made an obvious effort to pull himself together.
‘What is your plan of campaign, Lock?’ he asked. ‘You must have
some scheme in your head. What is it? Don’t trifle with me.’
‘Well,’ said Simon Lock, ‘we have a week.
That is our principal asset. Seven precious days in which to turn
round. A hundred and sixty hours. In that time——’
There was a knock at the door, and a page entered with a
telegram.
Simon Lock opened it hurriedly. The message ran:
‘Sorry must withdraw offer contained in our letter yesterday.
Princesse shares now thirty-five.—Gaunt and Griffiths.’
The erstwhile Napoleon passed the orange-coloured paper to Sir
Arthur Custer.
‘No answer,’ he said calmly to the page.
 CHAPTER XIII—THE VASE

T
he sensation of the next day’s Stock Exchange was the
unsuccessfulness of the attempts of Simon Lock’s brokers—he
employed several different firms—to buy La Princesse shares.
It was not definitely stated who wanted these shares, but everyone
seemed to be aware that Simon Lock was the man in the hole. The
Exchange laughed quietly to itself; it did not dare to laugh aloud, for
Simon Lock was still a person to be feared. Not a single share was to
be obtained at any price; they had all been withdrawn from the
market. In vain Simon Lock tried to discover the holders. The
identity of the holders seemed to be wrapped in impenetrable
mystery. He went to one man, a member of the Westralian market,
who varied the excitements of the Exchange by the excitements of
prodigious play at Monte Carlo, and took him out to lunch. The great
Simon Lock actually took this man, a nonentity in the distinguished
financial circles in which Simon moved, out to lunch at a famous and
expensive restaurant, where those City men who want real turtle
soup can always get it.
‘My people sold you ten thousand Princesse shares the other day,’
said Simon Lock ingratiatingly to this man.
‘True,’ said the man cautiously, ‘at three.’ ‘Just so,’ said Lock; ‘and
we have to deliver in a week.’
‘In a week,’ repeated the man absently.
‘Well, look here,’ said Simon Lock, making a sudden plunge, ‘we
don’t want to deliver; it doesn’t suit us. See?’
‘You don’t want to deliver? Why not?’ ‘Never mind why. The
question is, what will you take to release us from the contract?’
 ‘Nothing.’
‘You’ll release us for nothing?’
‘I mean I can’t release you, Mr. Lock,’ said the man with formal
politeness. ‘My clients have given me positive instructions.’
‘Who are your clients?’
‘That I am not at liberty to say.’
‘Tell me who your clients are,’ said Simon Lock, ‘and I’ll give you
five thousand down.’
The man shook his head sadly. He would have liked that five
thousand, but he dared not accept it.
‘Are you acting for Gaunt and Griffiths?’ asked Simon Lock.
‘No,’ said the man, glad to be able to give a positive answer.
‘Waiter, the bill,’ Simon Lock cried, and then gave a sigh.
The bill came to thirty shillings—thirty shillings wasted! He
reflected that in a few weeks’ time, unless something happened, he
might be in serious need of that thirty shillings. Nevertheless, such is
human nature, the idea of Simon Lock being hard up for thirty
shillings was so amusing to him that he could not dismiss a smile.
The other man wondered what evil that smile portended.
Simon Lock proceeded from the restaurant to the offices of Gaunt
and Griffiths. He demanded to see Mr. Gaunt, the venerable head of
the firm, and Mr. Gaunt kept him, Simon Lock, waiting ten minutes!
Simon Lock had not suffered such an insult for years. At his name
the most obdurate doors were accustomed to open instantly.
‘Well, Mr. Gaunt,’ he said, with an affectation of breezy familiarity,
when at length he was admitted, ‘I’ve just called about the matter of
those Princesse shares. How many can you offer?’
 ‘We can offer ten thousand, Mr. Lock.’
‘At thirty-five?’
‘At thirty-five.’
‘That means three hundred and fifty thousand pounds for your
holding?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Don’t you wish you may get it, Mr. Gaunt? Eh! eh!’
He laughed gaily, but suddenly it occurred to him that his laugh
sounded hollow and foolish, and he stopped.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr. Gaunt gravely.
‘I mean,’ said Simon Lock lamely, ‘that the price is, of course, a
fancy one. You know the market is a bit tight, and you’re playing a
game. You’ll take less than thirty-five if you really want to sell.’
‘Our firm is not in the habit of playing games, Mr. Lock. And, by
the way, your last words bring us to the point. You say “if we really
want to sell.” The fact is, we don’t want to sell. You will remember
that it was you who came first to us to ask if we had any shares to
offer. We made inquiries, and found some. Our clients——’
‘Would you mind telling me,’ Simon Lock interrupted, ‘who your
clients are?’
‘It would be useless for you to approach them personally,’ said Mr.
Gaunt.
‘I don’t want to approach them personally. I shall not dream of
such a breach of etiquette,’ said Simon Lock, with an assumed
fervour of righteousness. ‘I merely wanted to know, out of curiosity.’
‘I regret that I cannot satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Lock.’
 ‘Then that is your last word, Mr. Gaunt—ten thousand at thirty-
five?’
A boy entered with a telegram, which Mr. Gaunt perused slowly
through his gold-rimmed spectacles.
‘No,’ said Mr. Gaunt; ‘I regret to say—-at forty. I have just received
further instructions by telegraph.’
He waved the telegram in the air.
Simon Lock’s face grew ugly, and he spoke with ominous coldness.
‘Someone seems disposed to make fun of me, Mr. Gaunt,’ he said.
‘I don’t know who it is, but I shall find out; and when I do find out,
there will be trouble for that someone. I’ll let this cursed city know
that Simon Lock is not to be trifled with.’
‘Good-day,’ said Mr. Gaunt calmly.
 Simon Lock went out furious. On the pavement outside he met the
office-boy who had brought in the telegram to Mr. Gaunt.
‘Where are you going to, my boy?’ asked Simon Lock kindly.
‘To the post-office, sir,’ said the boy.
‘So am I. Now would you like to earn a couple of sovereigns
easily?’ Simon Lock inquired.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy, and added, ‘if it’s all square. Sovereigns
ain’t flying about, you know.’
 ‘It’s all square. You won’t do any harm to anyone by earning it. All
I want you to do is to go into the post-office and say that on the last
telegram sent to your firm the name of the office of despatch isn’t
stamped clearly. Ask them to refer and tell you what it is. They know
you, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘Well, run along.’
The boy, dazzled by the glitter of sovereigns, went. Simon Lock
waited for him outside the post-office.
‘What’s the answer?’ he asked when the boy came out.
‘They said I ought to have brought the form with me,’ said the
boy, ‘but I talked to ’em like a father. I reckon I know how to
manage them girls.’
‘And what’s the name of the place?’
‘Hockliffe.’
‘Here’s your two sovereigns,’ said Simon Lock gladly.
The lad capered down the street in the exuberance of joy.
Simon had learnt something. And yet, when he thought over what
he had learnt, he seemed to think somehow that it was valueless to
him. He had guessed all along who was at the bottom of the La
Princesse business. His guess had been confirmed—that was all. He
had threatened that, when he knew, he would do such and such
dreadful things; but what could he, in fact, do? Should he send for
Raphael Craig and threaten him? With what? It would be absurd to
threaten with dismissal from a post worth at most a thousand a year
a man who stood to gain hundreds of thousands from you. No; that
manoeuvre would not serve. At last he decided that he would pay a
surprise visit of inspection to the Kilburn office of the British and
Scottish Bank, and then act as circumstances dictated.
 He jumped into a hansom.
‘Kilburn,’ he said shortly.
‘What ho!’ exclaimed the driver, not caring for such a long journey;
‘Kilburn, eh? What’s the matter with the Tuppenny Toob?’
However, Simon Lock insisted on being driven to Kilburn, and was
duly driven thither, though at a pace which suited the horse better
than it suited Simon Lock. The latter revenged himself—but not on
the horse—by paying the precise legal fare.
He walked into the bank. No one knew him. His august presence
caused no flutter of excitement. The cashier inquired briefly what he
wanted.
‘The manager,’ said Simon Lock.
‘Mr. Craig?’
‘If you please.’
‘Mr. Craig is taking his annual holiday.’
‘Thanks,’ said Simon Lock, grinding his teeth, and walked out. He
had experienced exactly the same rebuff as Richard Redgrave a few
days previously.
That evening, though he had several engagements, including one
to dine at the house of a Marquis in Park Lane, Simon Lock dined at
home in Manchester Square. The entire household trembled, for the
formidable widower was obviously in a silent and bitter rage. He
found the indefatigable Oakley in the library.
‘Has that ass Custer been here again?’ he asked.
‘No, sir,’ said Oakley; ‘that ass Sir Arthur Custer has not been here
within my knowledge.’
 Many a clerk of Simon Lock’s had suffered sudden dismissal for a
far slighter peccadillo than this sally on the part of Mr. Oakley. The
fact was, Simon Lock was too surprised at the pleasantry, coming as
it did from a man who seldom joked, to take any practical notice of
it. The two men—the clerk and the Napoleon of finance—glanced at
each other.
‘You are in a devilish merry humour tonight, Oakley!’ exclaimed
Simon Lock.
‘It is my birthday, sir.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Between thirty and sixty, sir.’
‘Listen,’ said Lock: ‘you shall come and dine with me. I never knew
you in this mood before. I don’t feel like laughing myself, and I may
give you the sack before we get past the fish; but come if you like.’
‘With pleasure, sir.’
So they dined together in the great diningroom of the mansion,
with a footman apiece, and a butler behind the footmen. Mr.
Oakley’s mood was certainly singular to the last degree. Some
people might have thought that his careless hilarity was due to the
effects of intoxication, but this was not the case. And yet surely no
one except a drunken man would have dared to behave to Simon
Lock as he behaved. Mr. Oakley made deliberate fun of his master
before the three menials, and the master never flinched nor jibbed.
The fish was safely passed without an explosion, and the joint, the
poultry, the sweets, and the priceless Cheshire cheese followed
without mishap. When the coffee and cigars came round Simon Lock
dismissed his servants.
‘Oakley,’ he said, ‘why are you going to give me notice to leave?’
‘I had no intention of leaving you, sir.’
 ‘I could swear,’ said Lock, ‘that you had had the offer of a better
place, and were just amusing yourself with me before giving notice.
It would be like you to do that, Oakley. You were always a bit of a
mystery. I suppose you have come to the conclusion that Simon
Lock’s career is over?’
‘Nothing of the kind, sir. I have merely been jolly because it is my
birthday.’
‘Well, Oakley, as it is your birthday, I don’t mind confessing to you
that I am in something of a hole.’
‘Over the La Princesse shares?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is a pity,’ said Oakley, ‘that we have been unable to lay our
hands on Richard Redgrave.’
‘You think, then, Oakley, that Redgrave, if we could catch him and
make him speak, might be able to throw light on this little affair?’
‘At any rate,’ said Oakley, ‘he might tell you why he so suddenly
threw up his job.’
‘Yes, I would give something to get hold of Redgrave.’
‘I felt that so strongly, sir, that I have myself been down to his
place twice.’
‘And have discovered nothing?’
‘Nothing. But——’
‘Well, what is it?’
‘I was just thinking about the death of Featherstone. Featherstone
lived in a couple of rooms in Blenheim Mansions, off the Edgware
Road. Furnished rooms they were, let by a woman who has two flats
on the same floor, and lets them out in small quantities to bachelors.’
 ‘Yes?’
‘I wanted a couple of rooms myself.’
‘Have you not sufficient accommodation here?’
‘I wanted, as I was saying, a couple of rooms myself, and I had a
fancy to take the two rooms once occupied by the deceased
Featherstone. It was a morbid fancy, perhaps. The landlady seemed
to think so. Anyhow, I took them. I entered into possession this
afternoon, and locked the door.’
‘Did you expect to see his ghost? Featherstone killed himself at
the bank, not in his rooms.’
‘I am aware of it, sir,’ said Oakley. ‘I did not expect to see his
ghost; I merely wanted to look round.’
‘Look round for what?’
‘For anything interesting that I might be able to see.’
‘But surely the police had searched?’
‘Yes, but they had found nothing. And I knew how anxious you
were to find out anything that might be discovered about Feather-
stone’s suicide.’
‘Was that your reason for taking the rooms?’ Simon Lock sneered.
‘Why not?’ said Oakley. ‘Why should it not have been my reason? I
have always been loyal to you, sir.’
‘Well, well, did you find anything interesting, any trace of evidence
that might clear up the mystery?’
‘There was apparently nothing in the rooms except the ordinary
furniture of an ordinary lodging. In the bedroom a bed, a dressing-
table, a washstand, a small table, a small wardrobe, two chairs, a
small carpet, a few framed prints, and some nails behind the door.
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