The Strode Venturer (7 page)

“Yet he gave him a huge holding in the business he’d created.”

“To save death duties. At least that’s what he told me when he gave me my shares.”

And when I pointed out that he could have achieved that
just as easily by leaving the shares to his two sons who were in the business, she said, “Yes, that’s true. Well, maybe he’d got the measure of them by then.” And she added, “This didn’t concern me at the time. It was 1950 when he gave me my shares and I’d just got married. Now that my husband’s dead, I’m much more interested.” She was standing in front of the fire now, staring
down
into the flames. “Philippe died in a car crash two years ago and left nothing but debts. He was that sort of man. He’d have run through my Strode shares if he’d been able to.”

There was a sadness about her that had its appeal, a sense of frustration that matched my own. She’d no children and her loneliness was apparent. I stayed much longer than I’d intended, for I was spending the night with friends who had a cottage on the edge of Dartmoor and they were waiting for me. “If you do get to see Peter,” she said as I was leaving, “give him my love, won’t you. And tell him if he’s got the guts of a louse he’ll accept their offer.” She was smiling again then as she held the door open for me. “And you can tell him also that I’m not selling—not until I know what he’s going to do.”

She had given me the solicitor’s address and two days later I saw him at his office off Holborn, a dry little wisp of a man with skin like parchment. “So they’re offering him a directorship.” He smiled thinly, nodding to himself. All the time I’d been talking he’d been busy with a pencil embellishing my name which he’d written down on a blank sheet of paper. Now he looked up at me, staring at me fixedly out of pale blue eyes. “You were at the meeting, you say. You must be a shareholder, then?” And when I nodded, he said, “I was in correspondence with a Lady Bailey once about some Strode Orient shares. Are you her son by any chance?”

“Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair. “It was a long time ago,” he murmured. “At the beginning of the war. And now you come here saying you’re a friend of Peter Strode. It’s a queer world.” He laughed, a quick sour laugh that disintegrated into a fit of coughing. The thin white skin of his face mottled
and he reached into a drawer for a box of pills. He took one and leaned back with his eyes closed. “Well now, what was it I was going to say? Oh, yes. The letter. You say young Henry has written confirming the offer. If you like to give it to me——” But he knew I wasn’t going to do that, for he shook his head. “No, you want to go out there, don’t you. You want to talk to Peter. I wonder why?” He was staring across at me speculatively. “What’s your motive?” And when I told him, he shook his head, smiling gently to himself. “The human mind is more complex than that. You say it’s just the job you’re after. You may even believe it, but deep down …” He hesitated and I could see his mind searching the dusty files of his memory. “You wouldn’t remember it, but it was a bitter struggle. I was a young man then. Young, that is, to have a man like Henry Strode for a client. I was just under forty.” He was back in the past, his thoughts withdrawn.

“Did you know my father?” I asked.

He nodded without looking up. “I met him—twice. And I can tell you this, they weren’t pleasant meetings. Your father was tough. Quite as tough as Henry Strode. But in a different way. It was the breeding, I suppose. There was always a veneer of politeness.” He peered up at me, a quick, searching look. “How tough are you, Bailey?”

I laughed. “I don’t know.”

The pale eyes watching me remained fixed for a long time. Finally he said, “No, you probably don’t. But it’s something I have to consider.”

“Damn it,” I said. “I’m only asking you for his address.”

He nodded, still staring at me with those cold, heavy-lidded eyes. And then his hand reached out for the bell-push on his desk. “It hasn’t occurred to you, I suppose, that that’s just what he doesn’t want anybody to know.” He pressed the bell and I thought I’d failed. But instead of ordering his clerk to show me out he told him to bring the Strode file. “My connection with Strode House ended when Henry Strode died. From a business that occupied a great deal of my time I was left with nothing but a young man whose
only thought in life was travel.” He leaned forward, his hands clutching at the edge of the desk as though bracing himself. “Now, before I let you have Peter’s address I want you to understand and appreciate that my hopes are now centred on this young man. First, let me say that I was in on all his father’s deals, all the battles that built up the Strode group, including the battle with Bailey Oriental. We weren’t always in agreement, for he sailed very close to the wind at times, but he was one of the most exciting men in the City at a time when the City lacked personalities and had become almost moribund. I’m talking now of the period between the wars. I don’t think we were conscious then that the Empire was slipping from our grasp, but the smell of decay was in the air, all the life blood of the country poured out in the trenches of that First World War and the men that were left, most of them of poor quality. In a world of mediocrity and sloth Henry’s drive and ability stood out, and I’m proud to have been associated with him. I helped him build a great merchant adventuring business at a time when safety first and security was the dominant mood; and I’ve lived to see it virtually destroyed in less than a decade.” He leaned back, exhausted as much by the emotions his thoughts had evoked as by the effort of putting them into words.

The clerk came in and he reached out a skinny hand for the file. “Peter is a different sort of man.” He was a little breathless now, dabbing at his lips with his handkerchief. “He’s travelled, whereas his father was essentially a City man. He’s educated, too. But he’s still his father’s son and I have hopes—great hopes. That’s what I want you to understand.” He had spread the file open on his desk. “Four years ago I was resigned to the fact that he’d sell his Strode shares as soon as he was thirty and entitled so to do. Now——” He took a cable from the pile and passed it across to me. “Perhaps you’d read that.”

It was the usual tape pasted on a Cable and Wireless form.
Have received cable offering ten shillings a share signed Slattery stop who’s behind him and whats the game—Peter.
“And here’s what I replied.” He handed me a typewritten sheet, which in addition to the motive for the offer, which I already knew, gave the name of the man behind it:
Slattery’s principals are property dealer Joseph Lingrose and his associates.
The cable concluded with these words:
These are very slick operators with no other interest but a quick profit. If you sell to them they will dispose of what remains of your heritage and you will regret it to your dying day.

When I had read it the old lawyer said, “You’re a naval man and I don’t expect you to understand what all this is about. But I think you may understand this much. These men are bloodsuckers, and they smell money. Peter will be subjected to very great pressure. I don’t want him to yield to that pressure. I’d rather he made peace with his half-brothers and joined the board of Strode & Company. That’s why I’m going to ignore my instructions and give you his address. Now listen carefully please——” And for the next ten minutes he gave me a detailed and very lucid analysis of the financial position and future prospects of the Strode Orient Line, finishing up with these words: “As a director of Strode & Company he will be on the inside, which will mean that he will be in a position not so much to dictate as to influence decisions. And time is on his side. He’ll be the youngest member of the board by more than ten years.” He picked up his pen and reached for a sheet of paper. “I’ve been waiting for them to make a move like this, and I think Peter has, too. At any rate, he’s done his best these last three years to groom himself for the job.” He wrote down the address for me and then sat for a moment, quite still, staring at it. “I’d like to think that in bringing the two of you together …” But then he sighed and shook his head. “It’s too late for that now.” He folded the sheet of paper, slipped it into an envelope and handed it to me. Then he pressed the bell again. He didn’t say anything more and glancing back from the doorway I saw he had turned his swivel chair to the window and was leaning back in it, staring up at the sky.

The address he had given me was Guthrie & Coy. (Singapore)
Ltd., 24 Battery Road, Singapore 1. And underneath he had written: Ask for Charles Legrand. I knew Guthrie’s of course; everybody does who has been stationed in Singapore. Their offices in Bank Chambers look out over the Singapore river and when I rang Latham for details it was apparent why Strode had chosen that particular firm. It had been founded in 1821, but though a relic of the great days of the East India Company it had adjusted its merchanting techniques to the changed conditions of the Far East and now had some twenty offices and godowns in Malaysia alone. “Same sort of business as Strode & Company,” he said. “Except that Guthrie’s have moved with the times. Strodes haven’t—not in recent years.” The name Legrand was also a natural choice, for Ida Roche had told me that her mother had been known as Marie Legrand when she was a model, before her marriage to their father. But why had he felt it necessary to change his name?

I had two days to spare whilst waiting for the plane and I used them to see the children. Those two days made my whole trip—John bubbling over with the news that next term, his last before going to public school, he’d be captaining the cricket team, and Mary already losing her puppy fat and showing obvious signs of girlhood. She already had something of her mother’s looks, the same sparkling vitality, but she was darker and there was a seriousness about her that touched a chord in me. I had to break it to them that they wouldn’t be coming out to Singapore any more for the holidays. They were old enough to be told the facts of the situation and they seemed to understand. But their questions were disconcerting in the circumstances: Will we have a London flat? Will you buy a house in Sussex? You’ll be a director or something like that, won’t you?

How do you answer the questions of youth when they leap-frog all the difficulties? It saddened me, and at the same time it bolstered my courage. Whether I was a civilian or a naval officer made no difference to them—they looked up to me with the same absolute confidence.

It was on the Saturday evening that I arrived back in
Singapore. I should have cabled Barbara, of course. But I hadn’t. It wasn’t a conscious attempt to catch her out, though she naturally accused me of that. The truth was that I just didn’t think of it. My mind was full of other things. The result was that my unexpected arrival precipitated the crisis that had long been inevitable. The two chairs drawn up close on the veranda, the two glasses on the table were a warning. Inside the pattern was repeated, dinner for two and a man’s jacket thrown carelessly over the back of a chair. Our house was of the bungalow type and before I had started to move hesitantly and with great reluctance towards the bedroom, Barbara appeared. She was flushed and slightly dishevelled, but with a bloom on her that still had the power to make me catch my breath even though the bloom wasn’t of my getting.

It was a hopeless situation and it was only later that she found her voice and began to upbraid me. For the moment she was as aghast as I was and let me pass without a word. At least he hadn’t tried to hide or anything stupid like that. “You’d better get dressed and then we’ll discuss this over a drink,” I told him. What else could I say? It wasn’t altogether his fault and my appearance must have come as a shock to the poor devil. He was an American businessman.

There are no rules for a situation like this. A combative mood is the prerogative of those who feel that a theft has been committed, but Barbara hadn’t really belonged to me for a long time. There was no anger as I surveyed the final wreck of my family. Bitterness, yes. You can’t help feeling bitter when the evidence that you’ve been cuckolded is forced on you. It’s a slap in the face to your male pride so that the desire to hurt is very strong. For a moment I felt I could have strangled Barbara with my bare hands. But I kept a hold on my temper and gradually the mood passed, leaving me drained of all emotion and with a feeling of icy coldness. I gave him a drink whilst I explained that my lawyers would be in touch with him in due course and then I took the car and drove into Singapore. I spent the night at an hotel, lying awake for hours, remembering every one
of Barbara’s vicious, frightened words, the way she’d pleaded, using the children as the basis of her argument, and how she’d finally assumed a sullen victimized air.

There’s no point in dwelling on this or giving the name of the man I cited as co-respondent. I knew him quite well and even liked him. The only reason I have referred to my personal affairs at all is because my break with Barbara had a considerable influence on my subsequent actions. For one thing it left me entirely free of any encumbrance. The children were taken care of—they would spend the holidays with my sister in Scotland as they did whenever they couldn’t come out to join us. Barbara could now fend for herself. For another, it induced in me an urgent desire to involve myself in something that would effectively take my mind off my own affairs. In other words, I was in the right frame of mind to give myself whole-heartedly to any project, however outlandish or fantastic. Such a project was ready to hand.

Charles Legrand was in the phone book, but when I rang him from the hotel on Sunday morning his house-boy told me he was away. I spent part of the day clearing my own personal belongings out of the house. The Symingtons—Alec was an old friend from destroyer days—put a room at my disposal and I moved in with them that evening. On the Monday morning I phoned Guthrie’s. I had presumed “Legrand” was merely away for the week-end. Instead, I discovered he had been gone over a week.

I drove into town then. Battery Road is on the waterfront and as usual the river was thronged with tongkangs lightering goods out to the ships in the Roads. Peter Strode was on the general imports side of the business and I was passed to his boss, a man named Ferguson whose office looked across the river to the godowns on the North Boat Quay. He told me Charles Legrand was on indefinite leave.