The King's Commisar

'Ah,' he said, 'I see. We're to have a new door.'

'Good morning, Sir Horace,' a girl he recognized as a secretary said, nipping past him in embarrassment, an hour late and as aware of it as he was.

' 'Morning. ' He touched his bowler hat to her, and found the workman looking hard at him.

'You the boss, then?'

'In a manner of speaking. Tell me about the door.'

'Thought you was an accounts clerk. Well, guv, that old door's coming out, that and the fanlight, and this one goes in.'

'Handsome, is it?' He moved towards the thing and ripped at the covering. Something shiny and coppery gleamed at him.

'Reflecting glass, that is, guv. Three-quarters of an inch thick. Weighs a bleedin' ton, I'll tell you.'

it would, yes. But what takes the place of the fanlight?' Like the old door, the fanlight was Georgian and exquisite.

'Door's curved at the top, see. Takes up the whole space. Smashing thing it is, all copper. You can see out, but no nosey bleeder can see in. And it's reinforced.'

'Charming,' said Malory gently. 'A fine match for the name-plate, there.' He glanced at the plate with distaste. For seventy years nothing but a small, silver square had indicated that this was the home of Hillyard, Cleef. Generations of women had worked on it with silver polish until the copperplate inscription had been worn almost away.

Pilgrim, typically, had moved at once to change it. The new one, in stainless steel, was inscribed in a modern lettering:

HILLYARD + CLEEF

And that, Malory thought, since there hadn't been a genuine Hillyard in the bank for a hundred years, or a Cleef either, was unnecessary and even misleading.

'And that's coming off, too, guv.'

'The plate - changing it again?'

'Yer. We got another. Want to see it?' The man fished out a small package from behind the new door, and slid out the new plate. 'Brushed stainless, guv.' The man held it for Malory's inspection. 'Somebody don't like that one there.'

Malory's distaste deepened. The lettering this time was modern-barbaric. It now read HILLYARD & CLEEF

and reminded him of the figures spewed out by their various computers.

'Like it, guv? I reckon it's great. Just like a record cover.'

Malory said, 'Certainly your description is apt. Thank you for showing me. Good morning.'

'S'okay. 'Ere, guv. You couldn't organize us some coffee, could you?'

Malory smiled bleakly, I expect so.'

He stepped past the old door, which now hung drunkenly from a single hinge, and paused for a moment, looking at the door's familiar numeraclass="underline" the slender, cursive, brass figure six which for decades had been the colophon on the bank's stationery. A smaller version, finer and in gold, hung from Malory's watch-chain. He was thinking that the Almighty sometimes handed out talents in a seriously unbalanced way. Pilgrim was superlatively well-equipped as a banker: sensitive antennae, rapid mind, a good eye for the possible and an even better eye for the impracticable; toughness, skill in negotiation, the ability to think well on his feet. All that: yet in matters of taste Master Pilgrim would have made a very fine Goth. Slowly, thinking about Laurence Pilgrim, Sir Horace Malory ascended the stairs to the first floor. The day had already provided its first surprise, and there would be others. Pilgrim, six months in London after a meteoric rise in New York, was still engaged in a process he called 'getting acquainted with the total landscape'. When Malory once enquired what he meant, Pilgrim explained: 'I like to know all the flowers by name.' It meant Pilgrim was working a sixteen-hour day, prodding sticks into every corner.

'Oh, Sir Horace,' Mrs Frobisher said, 'I'm so glad you're here. Mr Pilgrim has called a meeting at eleven.' She stood waiting for his hat, coat and stick, and put them away in a wardrobe that was part of the furnishing of her office.

'Be surprised if he hadn't,' Malory said.

'Just time for some coffee, though.'

He sat at his desk, a little heavily. For a man his age, Malory was, and knew he was, quite unusually spry. The stairs took it out of him a bit nowadays, but it was a private point of honour to avoid the lift.

'Oh, Mrs Frobisher, that reminds me,' he said as she came in with the tray, set with two silver pots and a Crown Derby cup and saucer. 'There's a party of men downstairs. One of them asked me, now let me see: yes, he wanted to know could I organize some coffee?'

She gave her little laugh. Mrs Frobisher had been Malory's private secretary for two decades, and the laugh was her only real fault. 'You mean the workmen?'

'That what they are? I took them for Vandals.'

She missed the reference, and the laugh came again. 'I'll see to it, Sir Horace. It is a pity to move that door, though. So elegant, wasn't it?'

Sir Horace poured his own coffee, as he preferred to do, black this morning, glanced at his watch, and busied himself with his morning cigar, a Romeo No.3. He made a small ceremony of cutting and lighting, and settled himself to ten minutes of civilized enjoyment. Life, these days, he reflected, appeared to consist entirely of meetings, and damned dull a lot of them were. An hour and a half later, the morning's meeting having proved quite as tedious as usual, he was allowing the discussion to pass by him, and considering lunch. The food served in the partners' room was moderately good, but he knew from much recent sad experience that the meeting was certain to continue across the luncheon table. On the other hand, if he went to his club - well, things there weren't too inviting nowadays. The beef was usually all right, but beef wasn't on the menu every day . . . He realized Pilgrim was addressing him.

'I do beg your pardon, Laurence. What was that again?'

'There's this payment here, Horace. Fifty thousand pounds on the seventeenth of July every year to Zurich’s-bank. You know anything about that?'

He was instantly awake. 'I think I might.'

'Care to explain? This has been going on for years. Started nineteen-twenty, for God's sake! That's a heck of a time -'

Gently Malory interrupted. 'I'll have a word afterwards, Laurence.'

Laurence Pilgrim's evident exasperation did not surprise Malory. 'Look, Horace, we ought to get this thing out in the sunlight.'

Malory said mildly, 'A point or two for your private ear, no more. Better, I think.'

'Well, okay.'

With the meeting at an end, or at any rate adjourned while the participants washed prior to resumption over food, Malory followed Pilgrim through to the rosewood-and-chrome of the newly-furnished office.

"Have you the file, or just a note of the payment?'

'The file. Right here.' Pilgrim held it up. 'Fifty thousand for sixty years, Horace. That's three million before we even start computing interest. What in hell's going on?'

'May I see?' Malory opened the folder. It contained merely a single typed sheet of paper, on which were set out instructions for payment. At the bottom were a few handwritten words. 'It says, "See Senior Partner's note,"' Malory said. 'Did you check up on that?'

'No.'

'Then perhaps you should.'

Pilgrim said, 'What's a Senior Partner's note?'

'Well, when things last a long time, like this,' Malory said, 'sometimes they go on well beyond the lifetimes of the people originally concerned. And sometimes matters of discretion are involved also. You see?'

'I suppose. But sixty years!'

'I'll have the Senior Partner's Notes sent up.' Malory picked up the telephone and gave instructions to Mrs Frobisher. 'They're kept for safety in the basement safe,' he explained to Pilgrim. 'Most remiss of me not to have mentioned it to you before. Supposed to be my job to introduce you to our curious ways, after all -'