Pilgrim was saying, 'It's been there a long time. We've been showing it once a week since nineteen-twenty-five. School kids come, students, politicians looking for reassurance.' He laughed. That, gentlemen, is what made Hillyard, Cleef pre-eminent, and keeps us up there with Rothschild's and Lazard's. People have faith in a stack of gold. Not a bad hedge against inflation, either. Now come and have some coffee.'
'Before you do,' Malory said crisply, 'would you mind if I had a word with Mr Pilgrim?'
'Not at all, sir,' Coverton said politely. He thought Malory looked a nice old guy, veddy British, veddy British indeed. Kind of a relic, maybe.
As they left the viewing room, Malory seized Pilgrim's arm. 'I warned you,' he said. 'But you chose to ignore it. Do you realize what you've done? This is something that was buried; a thing Zaharoff himself intended should stay buried. And now it has been released!'
'Zaharoff himself?' Pilgrim said. 'Listen, Horace, you have to read that stuff. Some old guy's reminiscences -what harm can they do? Horace, the worms had Zaharoff forty-four years back.'
Malory shivered.
'You cold, Horace? The air-conditioning -'
'Not cold,' Malory said. 'But I have a feeling those worms you spoke of will soon be turning their attention to Number Six, Athelsgate.'
Pilgrim touched his shoulder. 'We just saw a hundred million. What can touch us?'
Malory stared at him. 'Something will, I'm sure of it. We must find out what it is.'
'So find out.'
Malory turned abruptly. 'I'll do that,' he said. 'If I can -before the catastrophe.'
Back in his own office, Malory poured himself a substantial bracer of Glenfiddich and sank into his chair with a thoughtful grunt.
Pilgrim, he thought. This fella Pilgrim . . .
Malory's senses, all five of them, remained sharp. Plenty of men in the City of London would have sworn he possessed a remarkable sixth, for business, and that it also was finely-honed. Conspicuously missing from his armoury, however, was anything resembling a sense of fair play. His willingness to look at a problem from different viewpoints sprang out of a determination never to overlook possible advantage, rather than from attachment to abstract concepts of justice.
But he was aware of the lack. When necessary, he took remedial steps; and with young Pilgrim, such steps were undoubtedly needed.
For he did not like Pilgrim. Malory was Edwardian by birth, Wykehamist by education; he was deeply conservative, a traditionalist, and massively self-confident. He liked to be surrounded by men of like background and attitude, men whose neck-ties he recognized and whose family ties he also knew, or knew about.
A few days earlier, paying a weekend visit to a crony, he had been put rather uncomfortably in mind of Pilgrim. At the time he was watching an aristocratic litter of three-month-old golden Labrador pups romping with a mongrel terrier which was appreciably quicker, more intelligent and more vital than any of them. Put the thing in canine terms, and yes, Pilgrim was the mongrel terrier, no question of it; Crufts wouldn't look at him above a moment, but quick and vital he certainly was. Yet if Hillyard, Cleef was, in its own way, a kind of Crufts, the mongrel was already in. Forced on him, Malory reflected. Well, not forced exactly: but all the same, Pilgrim was a product of change. Hillyard, Cleef had followed Lazard's and Rothschild's into Wall Street rather late, but the American offspring,
infattening rapidly, had quickly become the dominant part of the enterprise. On Wall Street, the partners felt that in Pilgrim they had what one described as 'a colt set to win the Derby' and the suggestion had been made that Pilgrim come to London and do a few hard exercise gallops beneath Malory's gaze, before he grew too big and hard-mouthed, and Malory too old, for the experience to be beneficial. And so here he was: a youngish man who had learned much, learned fast and learned well. Pilgrim was smart. To Malory's mind, he might be a little too smart, inclined to parade his gifts under the noses of men too old and too successful to enjoy it. A lifetime of manœuvre had developed in Malory the conviction that a banker, like an overcoat, should be comfortable and warming. And Pilgrim tended towards the prickly and chill.
What, Malory wondered, would Zaharoff have made of Pilgrim? Or Pilgrim of Zaharoff? It would be fascinating to see what Pilgrim did now in the face of events. Real and major danger threatened. Could Pilgrim handle it? It might well be the perfect test of his judgment. But he'd have to be watched carefully, by George! He'd made one bad blunder already.
Malory picked up the typescript. It began:
My name entire is Henry George Dikeston. In the early spring of 1918 I undertook a journey . . .
CHAPTER TWO
-------------------------An account, written by Lt-Cdr H. G. Dikeston, RN, of events which took place on, and subsequent to,
the evening of Saturday, March 30th, 1918.
My name entire is Henry George Dikeston. In the early spring of the year 1918 I undertook a journey. Even as it began there could be no doubt of the high responsibility of the tasks entrusted to me. As time passed it became ever clearer that in my hands lay the only means to resolve great matters. By the end . .
.
But there is much to tell and care must be taken that the end does not precede the beginning. Were it to do so, much thought and planning would be brought to naught; so that the answer I have devised for those who subsequently misused me would lose its merit. I shall therefore tell my story straightforwardly, save that the end, when it is reached, will not be an end at all, not finis in any conventional sense, because yet further events will have been set in train. It now seems I shall not live to see them, but I take satisfaction in knowing they are inevitable.
I hope that you, Sir, whoever you may be, reading this account for the first time, have already experienced what the French describe as a frisson: one of doubt or uncertainty or fear. On the night of Saturday, March 30th, 1918, I was on leave in London, having served for some months in His Majesty's Monitor Makesure on coastal bombardment duties, mainly off the Heligoland Bight. I had few friends in London; they, such as they were, comprised in the main serving officers of the Royal Navy, and so were away at sea. Accordingly I was faced with dining alone. Normally I would have sought out a quiet restaurant, perhaps in Soho, but on that evening I felt some need for entertainment. I decided, therefore, to attend a performance at the Gaiety Theatre, and to take a quiet supper afterwards. But as so often when one seeks to have one's spirits lifted, the reverse happens. Amid the colour, the music, the elaborate good cheer, my spirits refused to rise and I took myself off to the bar at the first opportunity. I had been standing there for only a few minutes, increasingly conscious, in that cheerful throng, of my own solitude, when a hand fell on my shoulder. I turned to see a brother officer, one Jameson.
'Enjoying yourself, Dikeston?'
'Not particularly,' I said.
'Neither am I. It's too big a change, all this.'
We stood for a moment, looking at the swirling silks and the lights, both of us filled with the knowledge that while all this empty gaiety pranced and thudded before us, men were fighting and dying, and this night upon the North Sea was cold and perilous.
'What would you say,' Jameson asked me, 'to a quiet drink and some supper at my club?'
I agreed at once. Far better to spend the evening with one who could comprehend one's mood than to persevere in the search for elusive and temporary pleasure.