‘An earlier Chancellor, Powerscourt, told me once that he had conducted an experiment in the speed of rumour in this great city of ours. It took about five hours to get round the Foreign Office. It took three hours to get round the House of Commons. But it took less than half an hour to get round the City of London. Maybe it’s because they deal in little else over there. But if word ever got out, then the damage this German person wants to cause would have been done. We cannot let that happen. We cannot.’
Powerscourt saw from the clock on the wall that their interview had lasted nearly twenty minutes.
‘You say this banker fellow is with the Governor this afternoon?’ said the Prime Minister.
‘So we believe, Prime Minister,’ said Rosebery.
‘Then we must all meet again early this evening. I might be able to avoid another of these damned receptions. Perhaps I shall be indisposed. Might I suggest that we reconvene, with Mr Burke and the Governor, here at seven o’clock. And pray give some thought to how we smuggle four million pounds into the coffers of Harrison’s Bank before Monday. I must go and make conversation with these New Zealanders. Bloody sheep, I expect.’
It was nearly five o’clock when Sophie Williams finally reached Markham Square.
‘You must be Miss Williams,’ said Lady Lucy, as the girl was shown into the Powerscourt drawing room. ‘How very kind of you to call.’
‘How do you do, Lady Powerscourt, how very kind of you to invite me here after all the trouble Richard has caused everybody.’ Sophie was smiling at her new friend.
‘Not at all,’ said Lady Lucy, smiling back at the young teacher. ‘But it’s Richard you’ll be wanting to see, Miss Williams, I’m sure.’
‘Is he all right, Lady Powerscourt? He’s not hurt, is he?’
‘He’s fine, just fine, a few bruises here and there.’ Lady Lucy spoke as if a few bruises were a regular part of a banker’s daily life. ‘At this moment he’s closeted with Mr Burke, who you know, upstairs. I’ll just go and bring him down. Would you like some tea?’
‘That would be very kind, Lady Powerscourt,’ said Sophie, ‘it’s a long way from North London.’
Lady Lucy departed upstairs to see her brother-in-law. As Richard Martin made his way downstairs she had a brief conversation with William Burke.
‘William,’ she said firmly, ‘whatever happens, however much the nation is in peril, you are to stay here for the next half-hour. If, by any chance, you have to leave, please do not go into the drawing room.’
‘Here I am,’ said Burke plaintively, ‘trying to resolve great affairs of finance that endanger the future prosperity of this country, and you tell me I cannot go in to your drawing room for half an hour?’
Lady Lucy smiled again. ‘Affairs of the heart, William, are at least as important as affairs of state, particularly when the people involved are young.’
Sophie had just time to notice a copy of Jude the Obscure lying on a side table when Richard appeared.
‘Hello, Sophie,’ he said shyly. He thought she looked perfectly at home in this luxurious house.
‘Richard,’ replied Sophie, ‘I am so pleased to see you all in one piece again.’
He told her of his adventures, of his incarceration in the summerhouse at Blackwater, the last-minute rescue, the desperate flight down the Thames and the early morning journey to Markham Square.
‘And there’s another thing, Sophie,’ he went on. ‘Mr Burke has offered me a job in his bank. It pays a little more than I was getting at Harrison’s.’
Sophie felt that insufficient attention had been paid to her own role in the rescue of Richard Martin. ‘It’s just as well I went to call on Mr Burke the other afternoon, Richard,’ she said firmly. ‘If I hadn’t, you might still be locked up down there by that funny lake.’
She didn’t say that she had broken down in tears, but Mr Burke had already told Richard that. Sophie felt that her relations with Richard must be on a new footing now. She stood up and went to the window. Maybe we always have to take the initiative, she thought. Maybe these feeble men would never do anything if women didn’t give them a lead.
‘Richard . . .’ She turned back to face him, her eyes dancing. ‘Richard, give me a kiss.’
The Governor of the Bank of England was a very worried man. He rubbed his ample stomach as if for reassurance. He fidgeted with his small beard. His eyes flickered restlessly round the room.
Burke had told Powerscourt before the evening meeting that the Governor was not facing up to the crisis well.
‘He’s never seen anything like this in his whole life, Francis. His only idea of a commercial crisis is two bad tea harvests in a row. Even then he probably had enough of the stuff stockpiled somewhere to raise his prices and make a killing. But of bankers and bankers’ follies he has no idea, no idea at all. I fear he will not serve the City well tonight.’
The Prime Minister, fresh from his conference with the New Zealanders, looked tired. By seven o’clock in the evening he had normally fled by train back to his beloved Hatfield. Rosebery looked anxious. Powerscourt wondered how much money Rosebery and the Prime Minister would lose personally if there was a great crash in the City. Burke had put on a clean shirt for the occasion, remarking to his wife that one might as well go to Armageddon in a fit state to meet God or the Devil.
The Prime Minister called the meeting to order. They were seated at a small square table in the study of Number 10 Downing Street. The Governor was on the Prime Minister’s left, with Burke on his far side. Rosebery and Powerscourt, representing forces other than Mammon, were on the other flank, Powerscourt feeling slightly out of place.
‘Very well,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I hope we can find a way out of this sorry imbroglio this evening. Governor, what do you have to report?’
The Governor was breathing fast. His fingers beat a small tattoo on the table as he spoke.
‘I believe Lord Rosebery has already acquainted you with the facts, Prime Minister. The position, I understand, is more serious than we first thought. As well as the Latin American loan obligations, there are a number of bills due next week, amounting to another million pounds, bringing the total obligation to five million pounds. We believe that the total available capital of Harrison’s Bank at present is less than one hundred thousand pounds. The rest of it has been transferred abroad. I do not have to tell you, Prime Minister, that our hands are tied. If we approach any of the private or joint stock banks in the City for assistance, I believe they would refuse. Nobody liked the Harrisons. The Bank of England’s total reserve at the present time is just over one million pounds. We cannot effect a rescue. We cannot try to mount a combined operation, even if that were likely to succeed. The only solution,’ the Governor looked desperately at the Prime Minister, ‘is to let Harrison’s Bank fail, with all that means. Or for the Government itself to intervene.’
The Prime Minister looked at the Governor as he might have looked at the senior steward on his estates, bringing him news of a bad harvest.
‘I see, Governor. Mr Burke, let me ask you two questions. If a combined rescue operation were attempted, what in your opinion would be the chances of success? And what would be the chances of keeping it secret?’
Burke paused for a moment before he replied. ‘Let me answer your questions in reverse order, Prime Minister. I do not believe it would be possible to keep such an operation secret, were it to be mounted. Too many people, too many boards of directors would have to be consulted. I do not believe the secret could be kept for as long as twenty-four hours. As to your first point, people are prepared to rally round, to pass the hat if you like, for one of their own, for people they like. It is an almost indefinable thing in the City. People who have been to the same school or belong to the same clubs will always have a sense of fellow feeling with their own kind. The Harrisons were outsiders. They were tolerated, but not welcomed. Some of our foreign bankers have made every effort to wrap themselves in the garments of Englishness, if I may put it that way. They join the clubs, they hunt or shoot with their colleagues in the financial world. They try to become insiders. The Harrisons were outsiders, necessary outsiders probably, performing a useful function in the business life of the financial community, but not really belonging. I do not believe anyone would lift a finger to save them.’