'And a company is also merely a machine, supplying the wants of others. Why not blame the governments who buy those torpedoes and order them to be used, or the people who vote for those governments?

'Should I stop building these weapons, and deny governments the chance to murder their citizens more cheaply and efficiently? Certainly not. I am obliged to make them. The laws of economics dictate that. If I do not, then a demand will go unsatisfied, or it may be that the money is spent on a less worthy machine, which would be an inefficient use of capital. If men do not have torpedoes, they will use cannon. If there are no cannon, they will use bows and arrows. If there are no arrows, they will use stones and if there are no stones, they will bite each other to death. I merely convert desire into its most efficient form and extract capital from the process.

'That is what companies are for. They are designed to multiply capital; what they make is irrelevant. Torpedoes, food, clothes, furniture. It is all the same. To that end they will do anything to survive and prosper. Can they make more money employing slave labour? If so, they must do so. Can they increase profits by selling things which kill others? They must do so again. What if they lay waste the landscape, ruin forests, uproot communities and poison the rivers? They are obliged to do all these things, if they can increase their profits.

'A company is a moral imbecile. It has no sense of right or wrong. Any restraints have to come from the outside, from laws and customs which forbid it from doing certain things of which we disapprove. But it is a restraint which reduces profits. Which is why all companies will strain forever to break the bounds of the law, to act unfettered in their pursuit of advantage. That is the only way they can survive because the more powerful will devour the weak. And because it is in the nature of capital, which is wild, longs to be free and chafes at each and every restriction imposed on it.'

'You justify selling weapons to your country's enemies?'

'To the French, you mean?'

'Yes.'

'And the Germans and the Italians and the Austrians?' he added.

'Yes. You justify that?'

'But they are not my country's enemies,' he said with a faint smile. 'We are not at war.'

'We may well be soon.'

'True enough. But with which country, do you think?'

'Does it matter?'

'No,' he admitted. 'I would sell them the weapons even if I knew that we would be at war with them in six months' time. It is not my job to conduct foreign policy. Such sales are not illegal and anything which is not forbidden is permissible. If the Government decided to ban sales to France, then I would comply with the law. At the moment, for example, I can see a great deal of money to be made in building shipyards for the Russian Empire. But the government does not wish Russia to have a shipbuilding industry. I would like to supply the Tsar with our new submarines, as the Russian Government would pay handsomely for them. Again, I do not.'

'There is a law against that?'

'Oh, dear no. The laws of the land are not only those on the statute book, as approved by Parliament. But I am told that my business here would suffer, and naturally I listen to such warnings. In my opinion it is a mistake. Russia will surely learn how to make battleships and submarines; all we are doing is delaying this by a few years, while also making enemies of them and denying ourselves considerable profit.'

'You are very honest.'

'Not at all. Only when there is no reason not to be.'

I considered all this, a passionate speech delivered in an utterly dispassionate, dry manner, and tried to make sense of it. When talking of capital, Stone spoke more like a romantic poet than a businessman.

'And where do I fit into this?'

'You? You will make the Government better able to take correct decisions, if you do your job well. At the same time, you will provide a better view of the future, so that I can plan more accurately.'

'Presumably you want there to be conflict.'

'Oh, no. It is a matter of complete indifference to me. I merely wish to be ready for whatever occurs.'

'And the safety of the country? The Empire?'

He shrugged. 'If I had to judge, I would say that the Empire is inefficient and wasteful. It has no purpose and little justification. Undoubtedly the country would be better off without it, but I do not expect many people will ever agree with me. Its only justification is that India deposits its gold in the Bank of England, and that has allowed the gigantic increase in our trade with the world by strengthening the pound sterling.'

I found Mr Stone an alarming man. I had anticipated working for the Government, a patriot labouring for the public good. Not for a man like John Stone. Only towards the end of our interview did I see something else in him; puzzling, and unexpected.

'Tell me,' he said as we stood to leave. 'How is your father?'

'As usual, I think,' I said. I felt as guilty as I was surprised; I had not made the journey to Dorset to see my father for some while, and as I have mentioned, every time I went, there seemed less point in doing so.

'I see.'

'You know him?'

'We were acquainted, once. Before he became ill. I liked him. You look very much like him. But you do not have his personality. He was gentler than you. You should be careful.'

'Of what?'

'Oh, I don't know. Of getting too far away from your father's nature, perhaps.'

And he nodded at me, wished me well in a formal, impersonal fashion, and left.

CHAPTER 7

Having damned all others for their ineptitude and promised an entirely new way of collecting information, I found that I was left entirely without any assistance or instructions as a result. So, show us, seemed to be the general opinion and I discovered later that there were many – of the few who knew anything of this experiment – who wanted me to fail dismally.

Saying what you will do on paper is one thing; doing it is another, and I had not the slightest idea how to proceed. Getting myself to Paris was the first step, fairly obviously. After that I would have to make it up as I went along. My official employers were somewhat more useful to me; George Buckle, the editor of The Times, accepted my sudden irruption into his life with remarkable calm and handed me over to a junior reporter called McEwen for instruction about how to write for a newspaper, as well as practical guidance on the uses of telegraph machines for transmitting any stories I might feel like writing. The fact that The Times wasn't required to pay me no doubt made Buckle more easy-going about my existence.

Then I left, arriving in Paris one Wednesday morning. My luggage had already gone on ahead, and I was little encumbered by baggage. So I went straight to the offices of The Times – offices being a misnomer, as they were in truth little more than a single room which contained nothing that might indicate its purpose except for bundles of old French newspapers on the floor. The door was unlocked and the room was empty, but on the desk was a little note addressed to me: would I be so kind as to join the writer, Thomas Barclay, in the nearby restaurant for lunch?

I was so kind; a waiter led me over to the right table, and I joined the man who was, theoretically, my new colleague.

Thomas Barclay was in his late forties at that stage, with a fine flowing beard that was russet coloured. He had enormous ears, an oddly pointed nose and an intellectual forehead. He frowned a lot to show high seriousness, a tendency he had acquired, I suspect, through spending too much time studying German philosophy in Jena, although the effect was to make him look more confused than thoughtful.