I glanced at my watch. It was just eleven. I found myself strangely nervous. The atmosphere of the place was one of business and money. Sentiment seemed out of place. I pulled myself to my feet and went through the door marked Donald McCrae and Acheson, Solicitors. A girl secretary asked me my business and showed me into a small waiting room. The place smelt faintly of leather and cigars. The furnishings were Edwardian. But through the open door I saw a young man seated in his shirt sleeves dictating into a dictaphone.
A few minutes later the secretary returned and showed me through into Acheson’s office. He was a big man, rather florid, with smooth cheeks that shone slightly as though they had been rubbed with pumice stone. He had a high, domed forehead and round blue eyes. ‘Mr Wetheral?’ He rose to greet me and his hand was soft and plump. ‘Glad to see you.’ He waved me to a chair and sat down. ‘Cigar?’
I shook my head. Behind him was a portrait of himself in cowboy garb riding a big chestnut. Round the walls were photographs of oil rigs. ‘Pity you didn’t write me before you came out,’ he said. ‘I could have saved you the journey. However, now you’re here maybe I can clear up any points that are worrying you.’ He flicked a switch on the house phone box. ‘Ellen. Bring in the Campbell file, will you? Now then …’ He sat back and clipped the end of a cigar. ‘Fothergill writes that for some reason best known to yourself you don’t want to sell.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not till I’ve seen the place, anyway.’
He gave a grunt. ‘There’s been too much delay already.’ The door opened behind me and the secretary placed a file on his desk. He opened it and flipped through the documents, the tips of his fingers smoothing his cheeks along the line of the jaw. Then he sat back and lit his cigar. ‘I quite appreciate your wanting to see the property before disposing of it, but in this case it’s just not possible. Did Fothergill give you all the details?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t able to get the position regarding mineral rights clear and-’
‘Mineral rights!’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t worry about the mineral rights, if I were you.’ He leaned back and stared at me out of small, clear blue eyes. ‘It’s oil you’re thinking of, is it? I warned Fothergill to make it perfectly clear to you that there wasn’t any oil. Did he give you my letter?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And you’re not satisfied? All right. Well, let me tell you that Roger Fergus had a geophysical outfit up in the Kingdom last summer and Louis Winnick’s report on that survey finally damns Campbell’s ideas about oil up there as a lot of moonshine.’ He reached forward and pulled a document from the file. ‘Here’s a copy of that report.’ He tossed it on to the desk in front of me. ‘Take it away and read it at your leisure. In any case, the mineral rights don’t belong to you. They belong to Roger Fergus.’
‘But I thought I had a controlling interest in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company?’
‘Certainly you do. But the mineral rights were mortgaged as security for the cash Fergus advanced the company. Of course,’ he added, with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘that was just a matter of form. They weren’t worth anything. Roger Fergus knew that. He was just being kind to the old fellow and we fixed it that way so that Campbell wouldn’t think it was charity.’
He paused, evidently to let this piece of information sink in. His manner was vastly different to Fothergill’s — to any solicitor I had ever met, for that matter. It was more the manner of a business man, hard and factual. He was like a battering ram and I could feel him trying to steamroller me into selling. To gain time and sort out my impressions I glanced down at the report and my attention was caught by the final paragraph: ‘… Therefore I ‘have no hesitation in saying there is absolutely no possibility whatever of oil being discovered on this property. -Signed — Louis Winnick, Oil Consultant.’ ‘Is a survey of this nature conclusive?’ I asked him.
‘Not entirely. It won’t prove the presence of oil. But it’s pretty well a hundred per cent in indicating that a territory is not oil-bearing. In this case, when you read the report through, you’ll find that the strata under the surface is far too broken up to contain any oil traps.’
‘I see.’
So that was that. My grandfather’s vision of a great new oilfield in the Rockies was scientifically destroyed.. I suddenly felt tired and dispirited. I had come a long way, buoyed up with the feeling that I had a mission to accomplish. ‘I’d like to see the place,’ I murmured.
He leaned back and drew slowly on his cigar. I think he was giving me time to adjust myself. ‘Ever seen a big mountain range?’
‘I’ve skied in the Alps.’
He nodded. ‘Well, the Rockies are just about as high. The difference is that they extend north and.south the length of the North American continent and they’re about 500 miles through. Travel gets to be pretty difficult at this time of the year. It’s still winter in the mountains and most of the roads are blocked. The Kingdom is a goodish way from any railroad. You might not get through for a month, maybe more. Meantime, the company that’s interested in the property has got to get organised so that work on the dam begins as soon as they can get up there.
The season is a short one.’ He leaned forward and searched among the papers on his desk. ‘Here you are.’ He pushed a document across to me. ‘All you have to do is sign that. I’ll look after the rest. You’ll see the figure they agree to pay is $50,000. It’s a damn sight more than the property is worth. But they’re willing to pay that figure to avoid a court action on compensation. They already have the authority of the Provincial Parliament to go ahead with the construction, so whether you sign or not they are in a position to take over the property and flood it, subject to payment of compensation.’
I didn’t say anything and there was an awkward silence. I was thinking that the dam had still to be built. For a few months the Kingdom could be mine. Even if there wasn’t any oil it was a patch of land that belonged to me. I’d never owned any property before. I’d never really owned anything.
‘I must warn you,’ Acheson said, ‘that the purchasers’ original plan was to take power from one of the existing companies. This hydro-electric scheme is subsidiary to their main business which is the opening up of some low-grade lead mines. If you don’t sign now the odds are they’ll abandon the project.’
So the Kingdom could still be saved. I lit a cigarette, thinking it over.
‘Well?’
I stared down at the deed of sale. ‘I notice you’ve not inserted the name of the purchasing, company.’
‘No.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘A subsidiary will be formed to operate the power scheme. If you’ll sign the deed, I’ll insert the name of the company as soon as it’s formed. Then there’ll be just the deeds and the land registration to be settled. I’ll look after all that.’ His eyes fastened on mine, waiting.
‘You seem very anxious for me to sell,’ I murmured.
‘It’s in your interests.’ He took the cigar out of his mouth and leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. His tone was one of exasperation. ‘In the letter I sent you via Fothergill I made it perfectly clear to you that my advice was to sell. Instead you come all the way out here, wasting time and delaying the whole project.’ He got suddenly to his feet. ‘I should tell you, Wetheral, that it’s largely as a result of my efforts that these people have become interested in the Kingdom at all. As I told you, their original plan…’ He turned and crossed the room towards me. ‘For two pins I’d tell you to get somebody else to handle your affairs. I’ve had nothing but trouble acting for Stuart Campbell and not a nickel for it. If it weren’t for the interests of another client…’ He was standing over me. ‘I act for old ‘Roger Fergus. He’s sunk nearly $40,000 in Campbell’s company. Now that Campbell’s dead I consider it my duty to see that the company is wound up and that debt paid off.’ He leaned down, tapping my shoulder with a large, podgy hand. ‘I’d go further. I’d say that you have a moral obligation to see that Roger Fergus is repaid.’ He turned slowly away and resumed his seat at his desk. ‘You’ve got till this evening,’ he said. ‘Where are you staying?’