Stone's Fall (46 page)

“Very well.”

“I was penniless and without even a name; I heard about the death of Madame Stauffer and that I was being blamed. I could not call myself Elizabeth Lemercier any more. Fortunately, girls like I was then are two a penny. No one cares who they are, or what they are called. We can do without papers, or anything. So I chose a new name for myself: Virginie, as I had read my Rousseau and still dreamed of finding my Paul. There was only myself in the world to rely on. I crossed into France and the rest, I suppose, you can guess. I had tasted enough comfort not to want to become a servant once more, but I had few abilities, and little to recommend me. Except that I knew how to attract men. I realised quite how easy in Lyon when I was walking down the street, and this man started looking at me. I ended up in a brothel, where I stayed for about six months before I had to move on.

“I was discovered. It was simple enough. Wichmann found me; I do not think he was looking, but he was the sort who would visit brothels whenever he travelled, and he travelled to Lyon. When he saw me, and recognised me, he also saw an opportunity. He said I would have to do exactly as he wanted, otherwise he would go to the police. Do you think that is enough to make me panic? It was not. By then there was nothing anyone might have asked me to do that I would not have managed, however much it might make ordinary people blanch. I would quite easily have complied with his wishes, had I had some assurance that he would keep his word. But I knew he would not. He was one of the very few people who knew me from Lausanne, and he would never let me go.”

“So you killed him.”

She nodded. “I did. Cold-bloodedly, and deliberately. I stabbed him in the heart, and sat and watched him die. Are you horrified?”

I thought, then, of Simon.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly.

“I changed my clothes, packed my bag and left, locking the door behind me. By the time he was discovered I was well away from Lyon, I had cut my hair, changed the way I dressed. I changed my name, but kept Virginie. I liked it; it was my secret name, the one I had given myself.”

“And Madame Stauffer?”

“I do not know. I imagine it was her husband; Wichmann all but admitted that he was still blackmailing him, but as his dalliance with me was known by that stage, there must have been something else, something serious, that he could hold over him.”

“Would a man murder his wife over such a thing?”

“If the wife threatens separation and is the one who has brought the fortune to the marriage? Dr. Stauffer lived well and worked little. Many people have killed for less. Not that it matters, I think. As I freely confess to one murder, there would be no reason not to confess to another, had I committed it. I did not.”

“The police did not look for you?”

“Yes, but not very hard. A foreigner found dead in a brothel is not going to be a matter of the greatest importance for them. And it is easy to escape the attention of the police, if you know how.”

“Tell me.”

“Firstly, do not draw attention to yourself. Change the way you dress and look and behave. It is easy to become a different person entirely, if you wish. I was very upset when you recognised me in Biarritz, you know. You are the only person to have done so. I even met General Mercier at a ball, a few months back. Even though he knew every part of my body intimately, he did not for a moment make any connection between me and the woman he knew in Nancy. How did you recognise me?”

I thought back to the moment. “I don’t know, exactly. Certainly there is nothing physical that recalls what you were. All your mannerisms are now those of a countess, your voice is different, the way of walking and moving; it has all changed. I didn’t recognise you at first, that I know. What can I say? I merely knew. But not so certainly that I dared introduce myself in anything but the most ambiguous fashion, in case I was wrong. It says little for your former lovers that they do not recognise you.”

“That is because they were never interested in me, only in themselves. When they were with me, they thought how splendid they were to have such a beautiful woman as their companion. When they made love to me, they were aware only of what wonderful lovers they were. And, believe me, I made sure they felt that.”

“All part of the service?”

She nodded. “Then and now.”

I glanced down to examine my fingernails, so I did not have to look at her. “Why do you tell me this?”

“You asked. Besides, I need your help. That does not come for nothing.”

I frowned. “Not everything has a price, you know.”

“There are few things which do not in this life.”

“A depressing way of looking at things.”

“No. It is liberating, once you get used to it. And it shields you from disappointment.”

I let out a huge, involuntary sigh, one of confusion and, almost, despair. She had defeated me. Every time I felt I knew her, the real woman slipped away, and put another phantom in her place. Now, there was this: cynical, cold, murderous. Vulnerable, childlike, innocent. Was this, finally, seeing into the depths of her soul and its real nature?

And then I knew. I glanced up and saw her face; it was a plastic face, an actor’s face, able to show any emotion, any trait of character. But she did not see me looking and was not prepared. And I caught a glimpse of something I had seen once before, in a restaurant in Nancy, when I had called her a lady.

“You are lying to me again.”

“I am not. I did not kill Madame Stauffer.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, you are trying to push me away from you, to disgust me, and make me say how monstrous you are. You are trying to prove to yourself that all men are the same in the end. Why? So you can keep on living your life without changing, allowing no one near you?”

“Stop this, please.”

“And why would you want to do that?” I continued remorselessly. “Let me see…”

“Shut up,” she said, more intently now.

“Not because of me, obviously,” I said. “You like me, but so what? I have been around for long enough. It must be something else. Or someone else.”

“Shut up, I tell you! Just shut your mouth!” Her face was transformed; her voice was angry, furious, but her face was one of pure terror. For the first time, she looked what she was.

At that moment, I justified all her opinions about men. I was enjoying myself. I was reducing her to nothing, crying, raging, out of control—truly out of control, not with some fake passion that she sold by the yard to the highest bidder. This was the real Elizabeth, frightened, defenceless and totally alone. I had pushed through all her defences at last. I was not proud of myself, but I could not stop. I wanted to push her over the edge.

“Someone else? That must be it. Someone who does not fit into that ideal of cruelty. Who does not deserve the way you treat them, and you’re frightened. Not a woman, obviously. So, a man. Oh, my God! That’s it! It’s obvious, really. You are in love. You have finally, really, fallen in love.”

She had collapsed off the settee, and was on her knees on the floor, head in her hands, her entire body shaking with sobs as she dissolved into tears of misery and hatred. Then a wave of compassion flowed over me and I regretted what I had said. But only a little. The feeling of triumph was too strong.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

She attacked me, flailing at me with her fists, hitting me on the face and on my shoulders and chest. She meant it, and knew how to fight. I had to grab her by both hands to make her stop, and still she struggled to get free and renew the attack. So I bound her to me, by putting my arms around her so she could scarcely move, and then had to lie on top of her, squeezing the breath out of her body as she tried to squirm free.

“Listen to me,” I said into her ear when the struggling subsided enough for me to speak. “You need to understand a few things here. I am your friend. I don’t know why, but I am. You do not understand much about friendship, I know. It is time to learn. I do not judge you or criticise you. I never have. I never will. For as long as you have known me, you have hidden from me. That does not matter either. But it is time to stop. You have fallen in love with someone. Serve you right. You now know it is not merely a word in a book. Your life will change forever, and not before time. You will have to make more room for trust and generosity. And heartache and disappointment, perhaps. Don’t be afraid of it. Now, can I risk letting you go without meeting the fate of Herr Wichmann?”

She sniffled, which I took to be a yes, so I cautiously let her go. She immediately came towards me again, and sobbed into my shoulder for a good ten minutes.

“I’m sorry. I have never behaved like that before.”

“And I, also, am sorry you have never behaved like that before,” I said with a smile. “Who is this paragon of all the manly virtues who has stolen your heart where all others have failed?”

There was a long, long pause, before she finally lifted her face, sniffled—she even managed to make that attractive—and stared at me with defiance. “Mr. Stone.”

I just stopped myself from laughing.

“Are you… I mean, really?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not,” I said, “really I’m not,” although I was. “It’s just that I imagined… that Russian Count, now. He’s a handsome, rich fellow.”

“He’s also married. Besides, I do not wish to live in Russia.”

“But Stone is… you know…”

“Middling height, a tendency to the plump, gruff, unforthcoming and old,” she replied with a watery smile.

“Yes. So…”

“He is the only man—apart from you—who does not look at me as a potential possession. He is kind and has asked nothing in return. He likes me, I think, and dislikes everything that others find fascinating. He is completely gauche, and uncomfortable, but seems to want nothing more than to be with me. He is not a shareholder, and never will be. I really do love him. I knew it the first time I met him. I have never known anyone like him, never felt like that for anyone else.”

“Does he know about…”

“About me? No. Nothing. And he must not. I want to be loved. Really loved. And by him.”

“Are you ashamed?”

“Of course I’m ashamed! I want to be what he thinks I am. Promise me you will never say anything? Please?”

I nodded. “I met you for the first time a few months back. I know nothing else about you at all. But I am not the problem at the moment. Drennan is.”

She pulled up her legs, and wrapped her arms around them, then laid her head on her arms. She looked as she should have been, a young girl, innocent, and naïve. “I’m so tired,” she said. “And I don’t know what to do. I have to stay here, hoping he will come to see me. Every time the doorbell rings, I hope it is him. Every time a letter comes, I hope it will be from him. There is nothing I can do about it. For the first time in my life, I cannot do anything at all except hope.”

“Classic symptoms. You should know, surely? You’ve read the books.”

“I never thought it would be like this. It is so painful. I am more afraid than I have ever been. Always, in the past, I have been able to take control and think my way through. Now I can do nothing. And he will find out about me, I know he will. And then I will never see him again.”

“Well,” I said, “that is not necessarily the case. I have not walked out in outrage.”

“But you, Mr. Cort, are a liar and a criminal, with the morals of the gutter.”

“Oh, that’s true. I had forgotten that.” I took her hand, and smiled. “And we guttersnipes must stick together. So you can count on me, at least.”

“And what about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You lecture me about love, but who do you love? About friendship and trust, but who do you trust?”

I shrugged.

“Your world is as cold as mine. The only difference is that I didn’t choose my world and now I want to get out of it.”

“I have to go. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Stay with me.”

I was tempted, believe me I was. But I shook my head. “I think it would be better if I had the singular honour of being the only man in the world ever to refuse you.”

“Twice, now.”

“So it is. Take it as a mark of my esteem.”

She leaned over and kissed me very gently on the forehead, then I saw her swiftly brush a tear from her eye. “Good luck, my friend.”

I kissed her on the cheek, and left. I felt utterly exhausted. I should have been preoccupied with the fate of empires and the fortunes of the mighty. Instead, the only image in my mind was of a beautiful young woman crying her eyes out.

CHAPTER
18

The next day I went as soon as it was polite to see Sir Edward Merson, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to France. I was fairly certain it would be a waste of time, but I had been close to British civil servants long enough to realise that it is necessary to cover all possibilities, to stop up all routes by which blame can come and attach itself. Should everything end badly—and I thought it might well—a failure on my part to alert the British Embassy would undoubtedly become the reason why everything went wrong.

A strange morning, as it turned out, an island of tranquillity in the midst of the chaos that was surrounding me. Sir Edward was not there—it was the hunting season, and he was not a man to allow business to get between him and a quail. So I left a message, then, feeling unsure of what to do next, wandered into the nearby English church where all the English expatriates (except me) gathered as a matter of course every Sunday to listen to the Word of God and breathe in the aroma of the Home Counties. It was like stepping into a different world. The church was a perfect imitation of an English Gothic building, as reinterpreted by people like my own father in the past fifty years. I sat through the entire service, the first time I had done such a thing in many years. My father may have rebuilt the odd church, but he had only rarely gone into them for other than professional reasons. The Campbells were dutiful in their religion and took me along to St. Mary’s Bayswater every Sunday, but were hardly exuberant in their religiosity. And school chapel, twenty minutes of prayer, hymn, lecture, every morning, was such a common place that I think most of the boys there were entirely unaware that it had any religious significance whatsoever. It was just part of the day, a moment where you could drift off in your thoughts and dream of other things.

But I found that I relaxed. The rolling sound of a good hymn badly sung is particularly evocative. The sermon had just the right blend of comic irrelevance and tedium to make it pleasurable, and the very smell of the place reminded me of England in a manner that quite took me by surprise. And to see all those men in their Sunday best, the women who had taken pains with their clothes but still looked slightly askew in comparison to their French counterparts, the rebellious children struggling to remain still, so that the whole service was punctuated by the quiet, reassuring noise of hand against trouser bottom, was strangely calming. It was a very long way from the pews to the fate of the Buenos Aires Water Supply 5 per cent, but they were intimately connected.

And finally it was all over, the last hymn sung, the collection plate full, the blessings given. A cheerful chatter broke out and the organist started showing off his command of the instrument as the congregation began to file out. I waited a few moments. The vicar was coming in the opposite direction, and stopped me.

“You looked troubled, young man.”

“Oh, Reverend. You would not believe.”

I nodded and walked on. What could I have said anyway? Which would have been the better one to start with? The coming attack on British finance? Or should I have said how I was trying to think of a way that a whore, whose pimp I had once been shortly after she had committed murder, could marry an English industrialist and get away with it? Or should I have mentioned how I had murdered a man in cold blood a few days previously? All, I hoped, were a little outside the experience of a Church of England cleric.

I walked out of the church feeling bemused. I had done everything I could. If the world collapsed because no one would listen it was hardly my fault now. I had—so I believed—uncovered this great plot, and passed the information on. And yet, I felt I should do more. It was pride, if you like. No one likes to be powerless. And it was patriotism, strangely enhanced by my visit to that oddly English church. For a moment—one of the few such moments of my career—I knew why I was doing my job.

And out of that came a desire to do more, to step definitively out of my role as a gatherer of information, into something different and very much more difficult. But how to go about it? I had Netscher as a means of access to the French, so I thought, and I had contacted the Russians, but the difficulty was how to persuade them to take me seriously. I had no official status whatsoever. What did I propose to do? Open negotiations on my own account? Claim to be the personal spokesman of the Empire? Why would anyone believe me? The only thing I had at the moment to claim special status was knowledge, and in a very few days, when the markets opened on Thursday morning, everybody in the world would have that knowledge. I needed more authority, and I would have to go to London to get it.

So I took the night train yet again, and arrived at Victoria on Monday morning, then drove directly to the Foreign Office to see Wilkinson. I did not sleep as the train rumbled onwards and the boat gently swung as it ploughed across the Channel. All the figures, all the facts, kept on dancing in my head as I tried to work out some way that I was wrong. That this wasn’t happening. I could see no alternative, but still I could not quite believe it.

I had not the slightest idea what sort of reception my sudden, un announced arrival would get. Would my report have even been read? Would anyone pay the slightest bit of attention to it? Would I be laughed at—“Oh, dear boy, this happens all the time. Don’t worry, the Bank knows what it is doing.” Or even, “Lord Revelstoke is furious that you ruined his weekend, and has demanded your instant dismissal.” All such possibilities had passed through my mind, as the train and boat had brought me ever closer to London. The Foreign Office itself is not a place to inspire self-confidence. It was built to intimidate and does its job very well. Its walls and marble colonnades are designed for eternity, the product of a nation which will never fail, which will never make mistakes. The inhabitants of such a building would never allow the colossal blunder I thought I had uncovered. I must be wrong.

I almost began my meeting with Wilkinson by apologising. But when I looked at him, when he lifted his face from his desk, I could see he had not slept. He had lines of tiredness across his face, the pasty shade that only anxiety or exhaustion can produce.

“Cort,” he said wearily, gesturing to my seat. “Good. I had hoped you might show up, but as you didn’t mention it in your letter…”

“I didn’t think of it until afterwards. Then I realised there was little I could do in Paris without further instructions, so…”

“Yes. Well, I’m glad you are here. Although, as the bearer of ill tidings, you cannot expect many others to be pleased to see you.”

“Was I correct?”

“You doubted it?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean I was right.”

“True enough.” He stood up and stretched. “At seven-thirty this morning, a French bank informed Barings by letter they would no longer trade in Argentinian or Uruguayan securities. At eight another two did so. All the indications are that no continental banks will touch them any more. What is the significance of that?”

“Then it is beginning and will get very much worse. The price of South American securities will drop so, when Barings needs to raise serious money on Thursday, it will be able to offer little as collateral.”

“So, in that respect, you are so far correct. I hope I do not see a look of pleasure at your cleverness.”

“How much does it need at the moment?”

“At eleven o’clock, assuming there are no hitches, it will be given a credit for £800,000 by Glyn Mills, which is standing as proxy for the Bank of England to prevent matters becoming public. That will get it through today, I understand. Exactly how much it will need over the coming week we do not know.”

“Barings has more than enough assets at the moment.”

“True. And here you must remember that I know little of finance. But I understand they have also received a letter from the Russian Government, asking to withdraw bullion on deposit.”

“How much?”

“A million. On top of that, you may have noticed that Argentina is in a virtual state of war. The value of Argentine bonds and securities was falling even before the French banks pulled their little surprise. All that is required is that the failure of this bond issue becomes public knowledge, and the deluge will begin.”

“Which is only a matter of time.”

“I presume so. The Bank has had a word with the newspaper editors here, and they will say nothing. But we cannot influence the French newspapers, who may well be already primed. Come with me, please.”

He stood up, and put on his thick winter coat, which made him look suddenly small and shrunken with worry. “I have a meeting,” he said. “I would like you to listen in and—if asked—give your opinion.”

“You organised that quickly,” I said as we walked into Whitehall, Wilkinson bundled up as though he was about to go looking for the North Pole, me less well dressed and much colder.

“My dear boy, you have no idea the chaos you have caused. I dined with the Governor of the Bank on Saturday and gave him your letter to read. He almost choked. There have been people running around like headless chickens ever since. Revelstoke was almost forcibly dragged from his bed; the Chancellor had to interrupt his shooting weekend; the Prime Minister is sulking and beginning to look menacing. Not to put too fine a point on it, Lord Salisbury sees himself as a wizard of foreign policy, and never considered for a moment that mere money might have any bearing on it whatsoever. He is managing to be alarmed and indignant simultaneously, and heads will roll unless it is sorted out quickly. Unless, of course, his rolls first.”

My heart sank as the gravity of what I had started began to sink in. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“Just round the corner.”

Just round the corner was Downing Street, and the house of the Chancellor. It was still quiet, even though it was past nine, and the policeman on duty, who had been there all night, paid us no attention at all as we strolled up the street past the Prime Minister’s house and knocked on the door of Number 11. No one answered, so Wilkinson turned the knob and walked in.

Eventually someone did appear, though, looking annoyed at being disturbed so early, and Wilkinson announced himself. “I believe the Chancellor is waiting for us.”

We were led up the stairs to a meeting room on the first floor, a surprisingly shabby place, decorated with little more than a large table, some chairs and dreary portraits of past chancellors, all of whom were striving for gravitas and gazing into eternity like statesmen rather than the politicians they were. Three men were already there: Lord Revelstoke; William Lidderdale, the Governor of the Bank; and George Goschen, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A secretary hovered in the background, taking notes.

I was introduced; the Governor and the Chancellor acknowledged me with a nod, Revelstoke looked as though he had no idea who I was.

“Well, let’s get on,” Goschen said. “Lidderdale?”

The Governor of the Bank looked up. “Well,” he said. “As of this morning, we are surviving. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that this is merely a temporary respite. The full news is not yet in the market. When it is, it will sweep over the City like a tidal wave. As far as I understand it, Barings has short-term obligations of near seven million. That is what Revelstoke here has been able to discover. It is quite unbelievable. No one at present knows what its assets are; only that they are falling in value and largely illiquid. The management has been haphazard in a way which would bring any firm to grief.”

I expected Revelstoke—used to plaudits and not to criticism, who took praise of his business acumen as a matter of course—to protest at this comment. The fact that he said nothing at all brought home the seriousness of the situation even more fully.

“To sum it up, unless Barings manages to borrow a very large sum of money, it will stop,” Lidderdale concluded. “And it will not be able to borrow without a Government guarantee to back the loan.”

“Impossible,” the Chancellor interrupted. “Quite impossible, and you know it. Pledge the national credit to a private firm? One which has got itself into such a situation through incompetence? It would not survive the Commons and, in any case, public subsidy of the City of London would do as much damage as it was supposed to prevent. No. Absolutely not. The City must get itself out of this mess, and more importantly, must be seen to do so.”

“Then we are lost!” Lidderdale exclaimed in a tone of melodrama not normally associated with a banker.

“I didn’t say the Government would not give assistance,” Goschen said tartly. “Merely that it could not be seen to be doing so. I can pledge that anything that can be done will be, of course.”

“But not if it costs you anything.”

“Precisely.”

Lidderdale lapsed into silence and Revelstoke—who I thought might have taken leave of his senses under the pressure—continued to stare out of the window, the strange blank smile still fixed on his face. He had not said a word and did not even seem to be paying any attention to the proceedings. It appeared that he could not accept what was happening, that he had concluded he was in the middle of a nightmare and the best course was to do nothing until he woke up.

“It would have been a help,” Lidderdale said, “if we had known about this in advance.” Here he glared at me. “Being alerted only a few days in advance is all but useless. Aren’t you paid for this?”

“No,” I snapped back. “This is not what I am paid for at all. And I informed the Foreign Office of what I knew some time ago. My knowledge then was incomplete, but it gave a reasonable warning, had anyone paid attention to it.”

“That was the memorandum passed on to you nearly six weeks ago,” Wilkinson murmured. “You know, the one you never got around to reading.”

Lidderdale glared, Revelstoke dreamed, and Goschen drummed his fingers on the table.

“Surely a rescue fund could be organised for Barings?” I asked, wondering whether it was my place to say anything at all.

“It could be,” Lidderdale said, “but banks will only subscribe if they are sure that they will not need reserves to defend their own position. And they won’t be able to do that unless the Bank of England can reassure them that it has the resources to maintain convertibility.”