Kindling (24 page)

She stared at it, uncomprehending. “Potiscu? Did you know him?”

He laughed shortly. “He’s the one who got the umbrella.”

He stared at the account again. “Looting—and burning—murdering in cabarets—soldiers shooting down their officers in cafés.… God knows what this will mean to us, up here.”

She stared up at him, open-eyed. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry—it’ll all pan out all right. But I must get along to London right away.”

He caught the night train down from Newcastle, and was in London in the early hours of Sunday morning. He went straight to his flat and read the morning papers carefully; the situation was as bad as it could be. He spent an hour at the Laevatian Embassy, but got little comfort there; in the afternoon he attended an emergency conference at the London offices of Laevol Ltd. He came away from that with little new information, but with one certainty: the preference dividend, due in May and secured upon the profits of the State Railway, would not be paid.

“There can’t be any profit on the railway after this,” remarked the secretary. “Look at the Decree—free transport of all food materials and free travelling for all manual workers. There cannot possibly be any profit after that to pay our dividend. And anyway, they’ll probably rescind the Agreement now—it’s subject to Laevatian law, that one.”

Warren’s lips narrowed to a line. “It’s bad,” he said.

“It’s bad, all right,” remarked the secretary, a little hostile. “This should have been foreseen.”

In the City the next morning, the Laevatian news was treated with concerned derision, as a joke in rather poor taste. During the day the Laevol shares fell catastrophically from twenty-two shillings to fourteen and six; next day they were marked down to about nine shillings, where they hovered for a week or two.
A feeling of hostility was evident; the
Argus
, relating the news, took the occasion to comment acidly upon the “flotation of a certain company, which would now seem to be a subject for investigation.”

Mr. Todd, who held few of the Laevol shares, took the matter philosophically. “Write ’em off the books,” he said. “They’ll never be worth anything now.”

Mr. Cartoni was not amused. “My godfathers,” he said. “To hear you talk! I put the best clients that I’ve got into this thing, and look at it now! Thirty thousand pounds of my clients’ money gone already, and the rest not worth a sausage. Look at that!”

“Moral—use your own judgment, and not other people’s,” said Mr. Todd.

Mr. Castroni ground his cigarette out in the tray. “This thing’s a bloody racket,” he said bitterly, “and I’ve let Warren suck me in. I’ve been a fool, and now I’ve got to pay for it. I felt that there was something crooked in it when he gave the Laevol order to his other company, that Hawside thing. That paper’s right—there’s something here wants digging into, and I’m going to do it.”

Mr. Todd gazed at him in wonder. “You won’t find anything that you can lay a finger on,” he said. “Look at the issues that they’ve been behind.”

“That may be,” said Mr. Castroni. “If there’s nothing in it but a run of bad luck, I shall be glad. But with the letters I’ve been getting from my clients …”

He broke off. “There’s a retired canon down at Shoreham,” he said bitterly. “One of the best I’ve got. And now, he rings me up to tell me that I’ve swindled
him. Me! I’ve come to the conclusion that he has been swindled, but it’s not by me.”

His researches led him in the end to Warren’s office. Warren received him courteously.

“I agree,” he said, after the first discussion, “that the Company has had a setback. I am concerned about it, because in some degree I feel it as a reflection on my House. Our issues do not usually have setbacks of this sort. But then, a revolution is itself unusual.”

Mr. Castroni eyed him for a minute. “You had a bit of bad luck there. Now. I’ve been studying the Agreement with the then Government of Laevatia. It was rather an unusual proviso that the contract for the ships be placed through your House, rather than at public tender?”

Warren shrugged his shoulders. “That was a part of the deal. It was disclosed in the prospectus that you underwrote. Are you objecting to it now?”

Mr. Castroni swallowed something. “I was merely remarking on the matter. Apart from that, the security for the dividend has fallen down. I didn’t understand that that was subject to Laevatian law.”

“You should read the prospectus. But, in any case, an agreement between a foreign company and its own Government isn’t usually ruled by British law.”

He got up from his desk. “I see that you are feeling badly about Laevol,” he said quietly, “and I am sorry for that. But, as I say, we didn’t cater for a revolution in the country.”

Mr. Castroni rose to go. “I’m not only feeling badly,” he said evenly. “I’m feeling that I’ve been had for a mug, but I can’t prove it yet.”

In spite of her inability to write English, to spell, and to type, and in spite of a certain physical disability, Miss ffolliot-Johnson had quite enough intelligence to follow the affairs of Laevol with interest. She was accustomed to spend occasional week-ends with her uncle down at Shoreham, but it was sheer coincidence that brought the canon to her uncle’s house to tea one Saturday.

Canon Ward-Stephenson was still full of his great trouble. “I am not a habitual dealer on the Stock Exchange,” he informed his host, “—far from it. We clergy have little money to indulge such tastes. But quite recently I was persuaded by my broker—persuaded, I may say, against my better judgment—to invest a very considerable sum, a very considerable sum indeed, in a new issue, Laevol Ltd.”

Miss ffolliot-Johnson stiffened to attention.

“And what is the result? It appears to me—I may, of course, be in error—that all decency and honest dealing, all proper rectitude, have vanished from the City since the War. No, I do not think I am in error. I do not think that is an over-statement. The issue has hardly been upon the market for three months, and look at the shares now! I see that they are quoted at eight shillings and threepence for the one-pound shares, and are quite unlikely to declare the dividend which was supposed to have been guaranteed. To put the matter plainly, I have been swindled out of a great many hundreds of pounds.”

His host made sympathetic noises. “These bucket shops,” he said. “I don’t know why they allow them to continue.”

“But this was not a bucket shop,” exclaimed the canon. “The Company was launched by a firm of bankers, Warren Sons and Mortimer, who were supposed to be above reproach. I satisfied myself upon that point most particularly. No, the fact of the matter is that there is an infection of dishonest dealing which has crept into the City since the War, even into concerns that seem to be of good repute.”

Miss ffolliot-Johnson laughed shortly. “You wouldn’t call Warren Sons and Mortimer a firm of good repute,” she said shortly. “I mean, one has to be careful what company one gets into, even if one is only a secretary, don’t you think?” She gazed appealingly at the canon. “I left as soon as I found out what sort of people they were running it.”

Her uncle explained. “My niece was employed by Warren Sons and Mortimer for a short time. They seem to be a very bad crowd.”

The girl nodded. “I never was in such a horrid office,” she said mincingly. “I mean, it was just horrid. It’s not very nice to be where people are being swindled all day long, is it? The stories I could tell!”

Without a great deal of difficulty she was induced to tell them.

“And then there was the Hawside Ship and Engineering Company,” she said. “That was just awful, that was. Robbing the public, that’s what I call it.”

The canon’s heart turned over. He had about five hundred pounds invested in that company. He frowned. “What was the trouble there?” he asked.

The girl laughed shortly. “All of it was trouble, if you ask me. Mr. Warren had this shipyard that he’d
bought by mistake or something, and he had it on his hands and it was just a dead loss to him, if you see what I mean. So he faked up this order from the Laevol Company, taking it out of one pocket and putting it into the other, that’s what I call it. And then he was able to make a big issue to the public, because of that. And then he sold the shipyard, which wasn’t worth anything at all, to the Hawside Company, and got it off his hands. You wouldn’t hardly credit what fools people are with their money.”

The canon winced.

“I don’t see that there’s much harm in that,” said her uncle mildly. “The shipyard may do very well, if it’s got orders.”

“That’s what it said in the prospectus,” said the girl. “But that’s all lies, just to take people in and make them put up their money.”

Canon Ward-Stephenson eyed her steadily. “Why do you say that?”

“I know it’s all lies,” she said defiantly. “His manager wrote to him to say that they were going to make a loss of over fifty thousand pounds, and Mr. Warren put it in the prospectus that they were going to make a profit.”

Her uncle looked at her incredulously. “But that’s not right,” he said. “You can go to prison for that.”

She tossed her head. “That’s where he ought to be, that Mr. Warren.”

“Are you sure that you aren’t making a mistake?” enquired the canon.

Miss ffolliot-Johnson was offended. “If you don’t
believe me, I could show you the letter.”

“What letter?” asked the canon.

She was a little confused. “Such a funny thing,” she said. “When I left, I found some letters in my attaché case, because I did work for the firm out of hours, sometimes. And there was that one from the manager that said about the loss.” She glanced at the canon sideways.

“I should be very interested to see it,” he remarked.

She tossed her head. “I don’t mind showing it to you.”

Three days later Mr. Heinroth sat in quiet thought in his office for ten minutes, undisturbed. At the end of it he lifted the telephone upon his desk and rang up Warren.

“Morning, old boy,” he said. “Give me a quarter of an hour if I come round at once?”

“What’s it about?”

“Tell you when I see you. That all right? All right, old boy, I’ll come right over.”

Warren laid down the receiver. There was too much “old boy” about that conversation to be altogether healthy. He had worked with Heinroth ever since the War, and knew his moods.

Mr. Heinroth came into his office and accepted a cigarette. “First, about this Laevol order for the ships,” he said. “Is it true that they’ve stopped progress payments to the Hawside Company?”

Warren passed a hand over his eyes. “Not quite. As you know, the Government has placed restrictions upon the export of credits from the country. The usual thing—there must be reciprocity.”

Heinroth smiled. “You’ll have to take your progress payments in olive oil and dates?”

“Broadly speaking—that is how it stands at the moment. It’s a breach of contract with the Hawside Company, of course.”

“That won’t help you pay your wages. Unless, of course, you can pay those in olive oil and dates.”

“It’s not so bad as that. The Company could finish off these tankers on its capital, if no more payments were forthcoming of any sort.”

“It’s not so good, old boy.”

“I quite agree. But revolutions never are so good.”

Mr. Heinroth got up from his chair, and crossed over to the window. He stood there with his back to the room, looking down upon the little City court that gave on to Cornhill, a few square yards of meagre grass and stunted laurel.

“There’s going to be a row about the Hawside Company, Warren,” he said, without turning round.

“Who’s making it?”

“Castroni.”

He turned back into the room. “There’s real trouble there,” he said. “We’ve worked together now for fifteen years, and I thought I’d come along and let you know. I had Castroni in my office half an hour ago. He’s got a letter that a man called Grierson—your manager, I think—wrote to you before the issue, about a fifty thousand loss.”

Warren bent down, opened a drawer of his desk, and searched carefully through some papers. “Yes,” he said quietly, “he’s probably got that. What’s he going to do with it?”

The Jew hesitated. “He’s gone down to the City Police with it,” he said gently. “It’s not Castroni really—it’s some client of his that’s pushed him into this. But I thought I’d come along and let you know.”

There was a silence for a minute. Then Warren said, “It’s good of you to have come round, Heinroth.” He smiled, with a sardonic humour. “Perhaps one day I’ll be able to do as much for you.”

The other laughed. “Not me, old boy—I’ve got my fingers crossed. I keep them that way all the time.”

He went away, and Warren sat back in his chair for a few minutes, considering the matter. Then he buzzed for Morgan.

“I’m going up to Sharples at once,” he said. “On the noon train. Ring up Lord Cheriton at the Yard, and tell him that I’m coming up, and that I’d like to dine with him to-night. Say I’ve got something urgent to discuss. Ring Plumberg and say that I can’t see him this afternoon. Put off Delaney. If anybody calls while I’m away, you can say where I am and I’ll be back on Thursday morning.”

That night he dined with young Lord Cheriton, alone with his wife at their country house at Garton, ten miles west of Sharples. When Lady Cheriton had left them with the coffee and cigars he broached the subject that he had come north about.

“There’s trouble about the Company, down in the City, Cheriton,” he said.

His host did not seem very much put out. “Have another glass of port,” he said. He shoved the decanter across the table. “Is it over the prospectus?”

Warren raised his eyebrows. “How did you know?”

The young man laughed. “It was a pretty hot document. Jennings took me through it sentence by sentence, especially the bit about the profit we were going to make.”

“That’s the bit that’s making all the trouble. I suppose you know by now that we’ll be making a colossal loss on these three ships?”

The young man shrugged his shoulders. “I told Jennings that that seems to me to be beside the point. The real thing is—can we get the Company through and make it into a success? We decided we were going to start this thing and get some work back here again. Having decided to do that, we’ve got to see it through. As I told them all up here, you’d never have got the money if you’d told the public what the real position was.”