House of All Nations (76 page)

‘Why,' said Mr. James Ledger, with dignity and with a sunbeam of respect in his eye, nay even love, for the gentleman who asked these welcome gold-bearing questions, ‘the British Government has never confiscated the gold of aliens or violated the sanctity of the safe-deposit box. Britain is, after all, still the leading financial nation, London the leading financial city, her vaults the greatest strongbox, except, of course, Switzerland (and is that safe with
her
frontiers?) in the world: and as the crisis deepens in Europe, we expect gold to pour in here. We have solved our problem. The French will certainly have to go off gold soon and with their turbulent politics no one has any confidence in them … You may tell Mr. Bertillon that any gold deposited in that fashion—may I ask whether the gold mentioned in the hypothetical case is thought of as gold coins or gold bars? It is not necessary to answer' (he interposed desirously) ‘—is perfectly safe … But I doubt that the question will arise: the City will certainly have some inkling of it, and your relations in the City are not of the very worst.' He laughed. A legal joke. He recalled himself and permitted himself a question of more than curiosity, on account of the youth of Constant.

‘Might one assume that the value of the gold would be fairly high?'

‘Yes.' Constant realized suddenly that Ledger belonged to a club and that Ledger's reputation would in no way be damaged if the members of this club learned or inferred or deduced or dreamed that Bertillon was worth round about so-and-so. He therefore went on, ‘It would be—large. We might hazard a figure like—half a million sterling.'

‘By James,' said James Ledger, admiringly, ‘that is quite a figure.'

Ledger resolved immediately to redouble his efforts to uncover the traces of Carrière's crookery: nothing was too bad for a man so base and immoral as to attack half a million sterling in gold bars.

Reaching his hotel, Constant found yet another note from Alphendéry:

Make further inquiries on the point brought up before. This is very important and relevant to future profits. Be circumspect: do not let him know our projects (J. Ledger, I mean); 1. What are the prospects for a trustee shareholding company: could it be formed along the lines of the ‘Nominee' departments of the Big Five? 2. Who manages the present trustee shareholding cos. if there are any? Who manages the ‘Nominee' departments? 3. What type of shares do they hold? What quantities? What restrictions? Is C.P.R. one? 4. Can we get hold of these shares on any consideration? Could we lend money on such shares ourselves, holding them as equity? 5. What right to sell them out and/or replace? Also go to the C.P.R., Dominion of Canada offices, etc. and get what information you can about the C.P.R. Go round to the Big Five, represent yourself as a young fellow coming into an estate, and ask for information on C.P.R. as an investment, and inquire about ‘Nominee' departments.

James Ledger looked bewildered when Constant came in on a third day with a third line of inquiry but he settled himself to the job of finding out what he could about the formation of an investment trust.

On the fourth day Constant reappeared with a further inquiry.

‘Could a bank-deposits-insurance company be formed, for German depositors in German banks, business office in London, on account of the prestige of London, but head office (secretly) in Paris: the object being to avoid income tax and if possible responsibility?' Due to the failure of banks all over the U.S.A. the failure of the Darmstädter and other banks in Germany in July, 1931, no one had any confidence in banks and Bertillon reckoned that he would easily get people all over the world to pay insurance premiums. If one bank caved in and the depositors came to him (by mail) clamoring for money, there would always be a saving clause that would either be an argument against paying the claim at all, or would delay the payment of claim for years. This scheme arose from Jules's conviction that the
whole system
would eventually go under and that he could put off the payment of any particular claim, until there was a general banking disaster and a moratorium. Until then the accumulated premiums would be his, he could use the money for stock-speculation and for supporting his own bank … Adam was desired to form a new insurance company to make it possible for them to send out letters to German and Scandinavian banks, offering insurance.

When he got home on the fourth day Adam found a letter saying that Jules was very irate that Ledger, Ledger, and Braves had discovered nothing yet about Carrière, and that Constant must go at once to another lawyer, the brilliant but theatrical firm of Quidd, Soleck, and Company.

Quidd was thirty-five, had thick black shiny hair and considered himself a diamond. In fact, he wore a diamond with a peculiar air of intimacy on his little finger.

‘What firm has handled these heretofore?' he asked Constant, with excessive politeness, after having given him the softest seat, set at an angle, and offered him a cigarette (which Constant refused).

Constant hesitated.

‘I understand your prudence,' smiled Quidd with much good humor and
savoir-faire
and a smile that made Constant feel like a schoolboy again. Constant murmured, ‘I see no harm—really: it was our ordinary solicitors, Ledger, Ledger, and Braves.'

A smile of greedy triumph appeared ill-masked on Quidd's face.

‘A very good old firm: routine, of course, but for routine matters—However, as far as the present matter goes—I think I can promise you' (a savant emphasis on the
you
, a personal favor, undoubtedly to Constant, whom he had just met), ‘that we will unearth something.' He smiled widely, ‘I think I can say that here we have—
pipe lines
, direct wires, to persons of importance, in the affair.'

Constant was astonished, but kept a modest face. Quidd considered him and appeared to take a great liking to him. He inquired in a honey tone, ‘Did you ever chance to look through
this
?' It was a thick volume of letters of Ambassador Page which had just come out and made a ‘sensation' in the right-thinking papers. ‘Personally inscribed to me and sent by a friend of mine, one who was in sort a secretary,' said Quidd, with an air of discounting such greatness, and being given over entirely to the anxieties of his profession.

‘No, no,' said Constant. Such things were really a pest. Quidd apparently took his denial for modesty, timidity even, and became splendidly friendly.

‘Take it, take it as a personal gift: you must read it. He was a great friend of England,' he said with index finger slightly lifted from the desk.

Constant was astonished again and perhaps too apathetic. ‘I don't want to rob you of it; really, you are too kind.' Quidd only needed this to become compelling: he turned his magnetic eye on Constant, ‘Yes, you must take it: you really should read, if you have not read already: we owe it to ourselves—a peacemaker.'

Constant took it grudgingly, feeling he was being made ridiculous, quite apart from the appearance Quidd gave of doing him a solemn, an intimate favor … Suddenly Quidd relieved the air by smiling graciously and saying almost whimsically, ‘Tell Mr. Bertillon I am his to command. I will give this my very best attention. It shall be in the forefront of all our business. And we are busy. But nevertheless—! And Mr. Alphendéry. Mr. Alphendéry is well known to me. He is a remarkable man: don't you think so?'

Constant was so weak as to say with a tone of enthusiasm, ‘Yes, I think he is remarkable.'

Quidd became compellingly patronizing. ‘Yes, indeed, take it from me: a man almost of genius. I have had some long talks with him. My French is doubtless not absolutely native, but it will serve; and then Mr. Alphendéry knows a little English …' A pause intervened. Constant unconsciously left the book on the table as he rose. Roguishly Quidd pressed it on him. ‘Oh, but you must not forget Page's letters: they are very important as documentation—for an understanding of our own time. Yes, indeed! Please read them as a personal favor to me. And remember me especially to Mr. Alphendéry.'

Constant was quite angry: he had an impulse to leave the book in the corridor, outside the door. And with this book under his arm he had to go straight back to Ledger, Ledger, and Braves and get some papers which had escaped—perhaps had been taken, for this very purpose, from the folder. Ledger smiled, when he reappeared. (He had been admitted at once, which was unusual with Ledger's: Ledger's usually made clients wait exactly five minutes, for the good of their souls.) Constant thought, ‘Why keep up one absurd unreal play to support another absurd unreal and criminally misplaced drama?' He said soberly to Ledger, ‘I am very sorry to give these papers to another lawyer: I am only acting under orders. I think they are mistaken. Mr. Bertillon, I hope you understand, is—he's a charming person, charming, I am very happy to—but he acts on impulse, he is a voluntary type; he is impatient if things are not done like a streak of lightning. You surely must meet clients like that. The other firm is Quidd, Soleck, and Company.'

Ledger smiled at the discomfiture of the young man, his point gained. ‘Yes. And besides, I am glad you told me: it makes things straightforward between us … Here are the papers. And thank you … By the way, purely a personal curiosity, this has nothing to do with business: what do you think of Quidd? You saw Quidd, didn't you?'

These lawyers are shamelessly inquisitive, thought Constant. He teased Ledger, wondering what was the phrase he so clearly wanted to get out.

‘I only saw him today for the first time. Henri Léon, a Dutch merchant, knew him long ago, it seems. Through Léon to Alphendéry, that's the connection. As to his character: he struck me as—h'm as—well, the career of a football, well sewn-up, well blown-up, but only to be dashed about from pillar to post, and the goals he makes of no consequence to himself—'

Eagerly, Ledger rushed in, his lips trembling with gratification, ‘Exactly, exactly: a bounder. Isn't that the word?'

Constant blushed and said, cowardly, ‘Yes.' It gave Ledger so much ease that one could not really say, ‘No.'

Ledger beamed on him. ‘I understand: you can't help this. And if there is anything else
I
can do, I will. No personal feeling whatever … none whatever.'

When he got back to the hotel, another letter again, from Alphendéry, transmitting wishes of Bertillon: he was to make the round of the brokers and get their ideas on the oil situation: there followed a list of the brokers he was to visit—a dozen of the most imposing in the City of London. Three brokers gave him no information whatever, that Adam could not have got better from the
Oil News
. One broker, an immense, earnest, fat fellow of sixty, in a Germanic accent spoke to him with lugubrious eloquence of the flag, the dear King, the dear Queen, the admirable Royal Family and the friendship with all countries, and the forgiveness even of Germany. ‘They will pay us yet, you will see.' He even showed him a picture of the King, with a Union Jack pinned in the office. The offices were a wandering little dusty honeycomb of cells, divided by glass-and-wood partitions. Thin young heads of clerks popped up curiously as he followed the earnest fat broker about, mild grins.

In the fifth, by pure innocence, he reached one of the directors of a bank that had suffered greatly through the German default. The young man knew little of oil but cordially explained to Adam a possible technique for German repayments.

‘Unless I get back to Paris soon,' thought Adam in despair, ‘I will look upon myself as a ninny and have to get another job at once or take ship to Shanghai: this is no longer endurable.'

He therefore telegraphed Alphendéry that he was returning and was surprised to receive his telegram in reply:

RETURN WHENEVER YOU FEEL YOUR MISSION IS ACCOMPLISHED. LETTER FOLLOWS.

The letter said he was to find out how the Bank of England was regarded and for that he was to visit such and such financial journalists, brokers, and bankers, again, if necessary representing himself as a student at the London School of Economics. Likewise he was to ask what bonds were particularly recommended by bankers, for long-term investment; and he was to go to the
Financial News
and
Financial Times
and discover what a quarter-page advertisement of a new company (he supposed the investment trust) would cost and whether any guarantees were required.

He bit his lip and set out once more on the weary lope, upstairs and downstairs, into all sorts of little offices, and grand upper stories of banks, to face surprised kindly little men, who treated him with a coddling air as if he were a rather advanced five-year-old and they had to amuse him till the policeman arrived to take him home.

If they invented nothing else, he would get home the day after tomorrow. He sent a firmer telegram to Alphendéry, received no further instructions, and, with a sigh of relief, felt the Channel airs on his face. The sea was blue, the crossing smooth and sweet: a raft on a duck-pond. The shores of England faded away in their usual ambiguities of haze. Behind the haze was the mire, thickness, and filthiness of London, the trodden, thin, tall dark ways, the old buildings, himself wandering anxiously about seeking he hardly knew what; behind there was a miserable evening in a cinema, where he sat with burning heart and saw nothing of the film, sick with the vacuity of his job. On the boat again he felt his head swiveling round and round: what a useless week; he felt the City must be holding its sides laughing, getting together whispering, ‘Bertillon, ha, ha, his clerk-envoy, ha, ha: they're both cracked, ha, ha; but you've got to humor their moneybags: he, he.' Disheartening. He would ask for the post at Singapore or Shanghai—they hadn't decided yet—as soon as he got back.

France: he hardly looked out of the windows, so glad was he to snuggle back into the contentment of being at home. When he came home and spoke of making a report to Mr. Bertillon, Alphendéry held him back: ‘Not yet, in a day or two: he isn't interested in that now.' The days went on: he made no report. The Ledgers had been writing letters all along, though, and had kept Alphendéry
au courant
, and now Quidd, Soleck, and Company sent in a grand, suave letter.