The Rich Are Different (99 page)

‘If Cornelius wants a German office he can damn well come over here and open one himself. I’ll see you next week, Sam.’

‘Wait! Steve, are you still there? Thank God, I thought you’d gone. Uh … Steve …’ He stopped.

Steve and I looked at one another. We both knew then that Cornelius had been listening to the entire conversation.

‘Steve, I’ve just remembered that Cornelius asked me to tell you that he’s having a big dinner party next weekend for the Morgan partners and their wives. He says he’s not sure how to entertain them after dinner, but he thought that once the ladies had withdrawn the men might like to listen to certain old recordings from the twenties. There was one in particular he had in mind. It was recorded on the seventeenth of July, 1928. He said
to be sure to mention it to you because he felt it would bring back so many interesting memories.’

Steve was ashen. He did not reply. The whisky stood untasted in his glass.

‘Well,’ said the friendly voice in New York, ‘we’ll give you a great welcome, Steve, whenever you choose to come back on a visit, but meanwhile I can tell Cornelius, can’t I, that you’ll be staying on to take care of our European interests?’

‘You can tell Cornelius that next time I hope he has the guts to talk to me instead of sitting on an extension and letting you do all his dirty work.’

He severed the connection. The whisky slopped in the glass as his hand shook.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘My God.’ He seemed incapable of further speech, and I was so shocked to see him so shattered that I too could think of nothing to say. At last, realizing that one of us at least had to remain calm I said carefully: ‘I think I understood all that. Cornelius knew that you and Lewis together could always overpower him so he smashes your coalition by forcing Lewis into retirement. Then he tames the discontented Martin by offering him the new bank. With that stroke he succeeds in getting rid of every single partner – except Hal and you’ve always told me he was too tame to count – who was at the bank when Paul was assassinated. Charley and Walter are dead. Clay’s resigned, Lewis has retired, Martin’s been dispatched elsewhere and you’re in London. That leaves Cornelius with a bunch of new partners—’

‘Window-dressing,’ said Steve. ‘Solid, mature yes-men, paragons of respectability. Now that Lewis is gone and Martin and I aren’t there they’ll simply follow Cornelius like a bunch of sheep. Then he’ll pack the vacant partnerships with his own men and manoeuvre himself into a position where he can cut my throat.’

‘But how can he possibly do that when you have complete autonomy here?’

‘Because Van Zale’s in London isn’t in fact a separate entity from Van Zale’s, New York. It’s true I’m allowed a free rein but ultimately I’m always answerable to One Willow Street. And I’m vulnerable. All Cornelius has to do is set me up on the brink of a precipice and then kick me over the edge. He’s got me by the balls.’

‘But I still don’t understand—’ I broke off as I saw he was reaching for the whisky again. ‘Let’s go home, Steve, and get out of this office. You’ll feel better once you’re away from the scene of the crime.’

On our way home in the car he explained to me how Cornelius could ruin him. He only gave one example but said he could think of others.

‘Supposing someone comes to me for a loan to expand their business. Since I’m a banker in London instead of a banker in New York, the situation goes like this …’

I listened, struggling to concentrate. In England a period of two weeks elapsed between the time the issuing house, such as Van Zale’s, put an issue
on the market and the time at which it was required to make payment to the borrowing company. Thus Van Zale’s would normally have between ten and fifteen days during which it could receive money from subscribers to buy stock in the issue. In this period a large part if not all of the money due to the borrowers would be collected. This was where British practice differed from the American, for in America the company wouldn’t deliver its securities to the banker until it had received payment for them in full. This was why the American investment banks had to form syndicates and borrow from commercial banks; they had to pay for the securities before they could sell them to the public.

However, in England the borrowing company was more lenient to the issuing house, and Van Zale’s would be allowed not only two weeks to pay for the stock but the use of the incoming subscribers’ money during that time. The one danger was that if the issue didn’t sell, the issuing house had to come up with the balance at the end of the two-week period, and to safeguard themselves against this potentially awkward situation the issuing house would insure the issue so that if it failed to sell within the two weeks the insurance company would provide the money to tide them over until the sale of the issue was completed. Usually there was no problem in getting an issue underwritten but difficulties could arise.

‘For instance,’ said Steve, ‘supposing I agreed to market a South American issue which I thought was safe but which the underwriters distrusted – South American issues have an uncertain reputation. Supposing I found myself unable to insure the sale of the issue and unable to dispose of it in two weeks. It’s not very likely, but it could happen. What would I do? I’ve got to produce this money on the nail and no one here will help me. Well, there’s only one thing I can do. I cable New York for backing and naturally they give it to me. Except that if Cornelius was in the saddle waiting to stab me in the back, they might not. That would be my final curtain. I wouldn’t be able to produce the money on time and word would get around that my parent house wasn’t backing me up. My reputation would be deader than a dodo in no time flat. I’d be finished.’

The car drew up outside our house but neither of us made any effort to get out of the car. As the chauffeur opened the door for us Steve said: ‘Dinah, I’m sorry but I can’t face the children – can’t face anyone – until I’ve talked this out. Can we go down the road to the Ritz?’

We ended up drinking champagne. ‘So cheering in times of crisis!’ I said firmly, but I wanted to stop him drinking whisky.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ he was saying, not listening to me. ‘My best bet is probably to move to another house before he outflanks me, but I hate the thought of quitting Van Zale’s, I hate the thought of being beaten by that snot-nosed little kid and I’m damned if I’m going to let him get away with this.’

‘Could you move to another American house in London – Morgan Grenfell, for example?’ I was thinking what a relief it would be if he were to settle permanently in England and we were no longer faced with the
challenge of dividing our time between two continents. Much as I had been looking forward to opening a salon in New York I had become increasingly disturbed by the thought of being away from Mallingham for six months of the year, and besides I was by no means certain we wouldn’t spend most of the year in America in order to accommodate Steve. Having by this time foreseen numerous crises arising, I now realized more clearly than ever that it would be better for our marriage if Steve could resign himself to working in Europe, and I even wondered if Cornelius’ midsummer mayhem might not turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

‘Not Morgan’s,’ said Steve. ‘I’m too unconventional for them.’ His eyes darkened as the name of Morgan was repeated, and I remembered Sam Keller’s velvet-voiced threat on the phone. ‘Steve,’ I said very, very carefully as if he were a piece of pottery five thousand years old, ‘what exactly is this hold which Cornelius has over you?’ and it was then that I first heard what had happened in 1928 when Charley Blair and Terence O’Reilly had died in Paul’s office and Cornelius had set out in his waders along the bloody road to power.

[2]

No story could have shocked me more. It wasn’t simply that Charley Blair had financed Paul’s death, though that was shocking enough. It wasn’t even the lawlessness of New York where respected men took the law into their own hands and bribed the police not to interfere. What shocked me most was the thought of Cornelius, little more than a baby, effortlessly manipulating the corruption to his best advantage.

‘But Steve,’ I said at last when I could speak, ‘how could you ever have believed there would be any lasting future for you at Van Zale’s after you found out what kind of a man Cornelius was?’

‘Hell, Dinah, he was just a kid!’

‘All the more reason why you should have been scared out of your wits. If he was like that at twenty, what in God’s name is he going to be like when he’s forty? And what can he possibly be like now he’s twenty-six? How valid do you think his present threat is? Would he ever dare play that recording to the Morgan partners?’

‘No. He wouldn’t. But what he’s really saying is that he could use his own version of the past to discredit me without damaging himself. My style’s never been popular in the most respectable corners of the Street and Cornelius knows that. He also knows that if he started a whisper campaign by dropping a few hints to any of the Wall Street insiders my name would be mud in all the front-rank houses within six months. Then I’d be in Jay Da Costa’s shoes. An investment banker depends on his reputation and once that’s shot he might as well blow his brains out. God damn it, Dinah, what
am
I going to do?’

I drank some more champagne and lit a cigarette. Then I crossed my legs, blew smoke at the ceiling and assumed my calmest expression. ‘Why
should Cornelius be the only one to follow in Paul’s footsteps?’ I inquired. ‘You can follow in them too. What did Paul do when he was kicked out of Reischman’s?’

‘He founded his own house – my God!’ He was thunderstruck by the possibility but I saw his excitement die. ‘Well, there’s no way I can do that,’ he said. ‘I don’t have the capital.’

‘Would you be prepared to stay in England if you could raise the capital here?’

‘You bet I would. Cornelius could whisper along Wall Street till he’s blue in the face, but he’d have to shout out loud to get the message across the Atlantic and he’s not going to go broadcasting the events of the seventeenth of July through a megaphone. I’d be safe here.’

‘Then your worries are over, darling. I’ll sell my business. Lord Malchin offered me two million pounds for it back in 1930 and it’s worth much more now.’

‘CHRIST ALMIGHTY!’ shouted Steve in a voice which must almost have reached Willow Street, and as everyone else in the room jumped with fright he joyously called to the barman: ‘Give us another bottle of champagne!’

I had to laugh because everyone was looking at him as if he had escaped from the zoo, but I did manage to say: ‘Steve, we must keep sober so that we can think this out.’

‘You’re right,’ he said and amended the order to half a bottle. ‘Honey, would you really do that for me?’

‘I want you to be successful and happy, Steve. I want to live in England. And I really would like to learn a little about banking. Would it be possible for me to—’

‘Well, of course you must be a partner in the firm!’ he said hugging me. ‘We’ll be unbeatable! And we’ll knock the hell out of those bastards at Willow and Wall!’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we must take great care and make no mistakes.’ I was already wondering what Cornelius would think when he discovered it was
I
who was turning the tables on him by backing Steve with my money, and I wondered too if he would realize that for Steve’s sake I was prepared to fight him all the way to the very end of the line.

That was the day I ceased to be a pacifist. Most people did not start to drift away from pacifism until a year later when Mussolini walked into Abyssinia in defiance of the League, but my change of heart took place on that June day in 1934, when I realized Steve had to fight Cornelius to survive. At first I thought my decision to fight was merely a personal one which had no broad application to the world beyond Van Zale’s, but unknown to me I was on the road to the wilderness where Churchill was already exiled, shouting advice to which no one would listen, thundering prophecies which no one would believe.

[3]

It takes
time to sell a business for the best possible price and I was reluctant to rush matters. Steve was also anxious to increase his roster of clients before he launched his own issuing house, since the more clients he had the more were likely to follow him when he left Van Zale’s.

We discussed our plans carefully. Steve calculated that he had at least one year and probably two before Cornelius moved against him, for after the upheavals in New York that summer Cornelius would be anxious to let the firm settle down before he risked further disruptions. Eventually we decided that Steve would work for a further year at Van Zale’s without betraying a hint of his future plans, but in the summer of 1935 I would complete the sale of my business and Steve would begin secret negotiations to establish a link with a strong secondary, or second-rank, house on the other side of the Atlantic. Since Steve was himself an American with first-class transatlantic connections and considerable European experience it seemed foolish to ignore these assets in seeking a new house, and he told me there were plenty of American firms who would welcome the chance of a reputable link with London. Only the front-rank houses could afford the luxury of having their own men in associated houses in Europe, and the other firms were usually obliged to come to arrangements with independent foreign banks to help them with their European business.

When the American link had been established and the new issuing house was ready to be launched Steve would resign from Van Zale’s and open his house as near to his old firm as possible, preferably in Milk Street itself. It would be less effort for the clients if they merely had to follow him a couple of doors down the road.

‘There’s only one thing that worries me,’ said Steve, ‘and that’s this: I’ll probably have my hands so full at first that I won’t be able to offer you more than a – a—’

‘Sleeping partnership,’ I said amused. ‘Quite. No pun intended, of course.’

He laughed but he was still embarrassed. ‘You mustn’t think I don’t want you to help me,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t think I’m keeping you out in the cold.’