Over the High Side Read Online Free PDF

forgotten an ashtray. He attacked the business file first.
    After a little while, he began to discover a pattern.
    KANTOOR MACHINE TOOLS
    Weteringschans 612
    Amsterdam
    My dear Xavier,
    Well – water under bridges – we don’t get any younger, you and I. It was exceedingly pleasant to relive a more youthful decade in your company and I got back to the office feeling the better for that slightly self-indulgent lunch!
    I looked up the correspondence as promised, but I don’t think there is an awful lot to be done, since they were infiltrated, for the levers of decision are now in other hands. I can of course put you in touch with Masterson, but frankly he has become a figurehead, and I fear that the gentleman from Akron would not be disposed to give much continuance to your notion. But I will of course think around your problem in more general terms. Do please remember me to your charming Aglaia.
    Yours youthfully,
Alfred.
    Plainly a frost. Businessmen’s smoke, masking a diplomatic refusal to help, despite the personal approach from an old pal.
…
Lyon le 20 mars, 19
Siége Sociale
 
Rue Taitbout
 
Paris IXe
    Cher Monsieur,
    We accuse reception of your study concerning the proposal outlined in your verbal communication to Monsieur Martin in Rotterdam, and we have studied the modalities thereof with an interest wholly sympathetic.
    You will forgive our labouring the point (already in all probability well known to you) that the credits available for paymentsof American-owned patents are parsimoniously distributed by the Ministry. Copyright in a licence of this nature would in our opinion be unduly onerous, and in the Ministry’s eye tending to outweigh the indubitable technical advantage attractive to ourselves and rightly emphasized in your interesting presentation. It is therefore with the utmost regret that we decline.
    We beg you, cher monsieur, to have the goodness to believe in our most distinguished and sincere sentiments.
    Matthieux
for the Company.
    VEREENIGDE VLAAMSE CHIMIE NV
    Antwerpen 24 maart
    oliebollenkade 97
    Esteemed Sir,
    It is with considerable sorrow that I am compelled to point out an error which has inadvertently crept into your calculation, based to the best of my knowledge upon the figures supplied by our Textiles Division in Kortrijk. Due to an unfortunate lapse by a clerical junior, in it must be said a hasty telephonic communication, these figures are not altogether as advantageous as you were then led to believe, since they fail unluckily to take account of the recent tendency towards a universal upgrading in raw materials.
    Begging to undersign with highest and most faithful esteem,
    Moers.
    Poor old Martinez.
    There were successes to be sure, and even coups, glad confident mornings of wouldn’t-you-like-a-few-oysters-to-begin with, but in a world growing ever more bland and slippery too few. The carbon flimsies of Martinez’ own letters, carefully typed at home, sparkled with wit, ingenuity, imaginative enterprise and grasp of detail, but with the cautious deadness of professional commerce choked too many young plants.
    None of the letters showed trace of anything construably illegal. To be sure Martinez might be engaged in contraband, industrial espionage, bribery, tax evasion, and tra la la, and had simply been too prudent to put things on paper; but one had no right to assume any such thing. No apparent motive for murder. He hoped the personal files would be a less barren field.
Caracas December 9th
    Dearest Father,
    We were overjoyed, naturally, to hear from you for the St Nicolas. The little parcel – sweet breath of Holland far away – arrived on the exact date and gave much pleasure. I had to stop Joaquin being greedy!
    I am infinitely sorry to hear that your health gives anxiety, and Paquita, I must tell you, is making a special Advent Novena. She was entranced with the little Bavarian figures, which are quite unobtainable here and gave me