The Strode Venturer

by Hammond Innes

  “Those remarks, Mr. Felden, would have been better addressed to me than to the body of the meeting.” Strode’s voice was calm, still apparently unperturbed. “What you have said is very much to the point and both I and my board are fully aware of the need to increase the profitability of the company and so improve the value of its shares. This will happen, never fear. The freight market is at times a very volatile one and for all you or I know the turn-round may happen this current year. But—and this I do ask you to consider very seriously—the dangers to which you refer, which in any other company might be very real, only confirm my view that it is not in the company’s interests for me to reveal our intentions or to make our policy public.”

  Felden nodded briefly. “Then perhaps, Mr. Chairman, you would answer this question: Have you, or have you not, received a bid for the company?”

  “I have not.” Strode said it with emphasis. And he added, “I am glad you put that question. A rumour has been circulated by people who have not the best interest of the company at heart and I welcome this opportunity of refuting it. There has been no take-over bid for your company. And I would add that, even if there had been, there is no chance of it succeeding.”

  “Because Strode & Company hold two million shares?” Felden asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “But that, sir, does not give Strode & Company absolute control. With four and a half million Strode Orient shares in issue, Strode & Company’s interest is just under forty-four per cent.”

  “Quite enough, Mr. Felden, to ensure that any attempt to take over our company is doomed to failure. And to settle this matter once and for all I will now call on my brother Henry to make the position of Strode & Company in this matter quite clear.” He turned to the rest of us. “As you know, gentlemen, besides being a director of your company, Henry Strode is also chairman of Strode & Company.” He nodded to his brother and sat down.

  Henry Strode was a more polished, less aggressive man. But his languid, almost condescending manner was, I thought, a question of schooling rather than breeding. He was slightly stooped at the shoulders and he wore glasses which caught the light as he turned to face the audience. Perhaps it was this that gave him a slightly foxy look. “Mr. Felden. Gentlemen. Most of you here know very well that Strode & Company is essentially a family business.” He stood with his head thrown slightly back and his legs straddled and I was certain that this was not a natural stance but something he had copied from his father. Here was the manner without the substance. “As chairman of that company I can assure you there’s no question of our relinquishing control of Strode Orient, absolutely none at all.” His eyes shifted behind their glasses. He stared at Felden. “I trust that statement is categorical enough to satisfy you, sir—and anyone else who may be interested.” And he started to sit down.

  But Felden stopped him. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Strode.”

  “How do you mean? Do you doubt my word?”

  “No, only that I’m not convinced——”

  Strode cut him short. “Then you should be, sir, for I have given you my absolute assurance.” Outwardly he was unruffled, but I thought I detected a tremor in his voice as he added, “These rumours—I don’t know who has been putting them about, but they’re quite without foundation. There is no possibility whatsoever of a take-over bid for Strode Orient being successful—not so long as I am chairman of the parent company.”

  “Quite so. But I have been examining the share register of your company——”

  “So I was informed, Mr. Felden. But I fail to see the point.”

  “No? Then let me say that I am less concerned about Strode Orient than I am about the vulnerability to a takeover of your own company.”

  “Are you suggesting that the family——”

  But Felden held up his hand. “Allow me to finish, if you will be so kind. You fail to see why I took the trouble to examine the share register of Strode & Company? I will tell you. Strode & Company can be taken over to-morrow and there’s nothing you or the rest of your directors could do about it.”

  “That’s a lie.” George Strode had leapt to his feet. “Kindly sit down, sir. You are not in order in discussing the affairs of Strode & Company here. This is a meeting of the Strode Orient Line and I must insist that we deal only with the affairs of that company.” And with a return to something of his previous bland manner he motioned his brother to resume his seat and said, “Well now, if there are no further questions …”

  But Felden was still standing, refusing to be silenced. “Let us by all means deal with the affairs of our own company.” He smiled thinly. “I was under the impression I was doing that in any case. However …” He gave a little shrug and reached into his brief-case, producing another sheet of paper. “I have here—” he put his glasses on again to peer at it—“a list of the shareholdings of Strode & Company.”

  But George Strode’s voice over-rode him, echoing through the hall as he said, “I must ask you to sit down and let us get on with the business in hand. You have my own and my brother’s assurance that a take-over bid is out of the question. The matter is closed.”

  “But if a member of the family were to sell Strode & Company shares——”

  It was Henry Strode who answered that. “None of the family will sell. It is contrary to family policy.”

  “Is it?” And Felden added, “I’m sorry, I cannot accept that. It certainly isn’t true in the case of Strode Orient. You yourself have reduced your holding of Strode Orient from two hundred thousand shares at the time of your father’s death to a mere five thousand. And the chairman of the company did precisely the same.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Strode snapped. “I’m buying now, when I can afford it.”

  “It was in 1956, during the Suez crisis when there was a boom in shipping.” Felden gripped the back of the chair in front of him, leaning slightly forward. “You say,” he said, addressing Henry Strode, “that Strode & Company is essentially a family business. I would agree with this—with certain reservations. In your father’s day the public owned only forty per cent—two hundred thousand shares out of the issued capital of half a million. That has now risen to nearly fifty per cent and the shares held by the family have been correspondingly reduced. These are as follows.” He glanced down at the paper he held in his hand and in the same dry businesslike voice read out the list: “You yourself own forty thousand shares, so does your brother George Strode and also Mrs. Roche. Your sister, Jennifer de Witt, holds fifteen thousand, your other sister, Emily Strode, four thousand, and there’s over another five thousand in the names of your and your brother’s children. Add to this the holdings of the three outside directors and various friends and associates …” But by then both the brothers were on their feet and the two other directors as well, all shouting at him to sit down, that it was nothing to do with the business in hand. All around me men were talking, whispering, and through the pandemonium I heard Felden say, “A total of a hundred and fifty-six thousand, five hundred and twenty-three shares; less than thirty-one per cent.” He put his notes away and looked round at the shareholders, waiting. Quiet suddenly descended on the gathering. “There is one member of the family I have not mentioned.” He faced Henry Strode again. “I refer to your half-brother, Peter Strode. He holds one hundred and seventeen thousand shares and if he were to sell …” He left it at that, a slight lift of his eyebrows signifying that it was for Strode to answer the point.

  Henry Strode licked his lips. But apart from that he appeared perfectly at ease as he indicated to his brother that he would deal with the matter and turned to face the meeting. “Since Mr. Felden has taken such trouble to make public to you the family holdings in Strode & Company I think it right that you should know the full facts. It is perfectly true that my father made his son, Peter, heir to what remained of his holding in the company at the time of his death. But he did so with certain safeguards. Peter Strode cannot sell a single share without the permission of the chairm
an of Strode & Company. In other words, when I say that the family has no intention of disposing of any shares, I am speaking for Peter Strode as well as the others.” He paused and looked over the gathering. “I do assure you, quite categorically, that Strode & Company cannot be taken over without my acquiescence. And since I have no intention of letting that happen there is no possibility of outside interests gaining control of the Strode Orient Line and its vessels, by the back door as it were.”

  “Why is your half-brother not on the board?” This from a man on my left.

  “Because he knows nothing about the business.”

  “But surely with such a large shareholding——”

  “He not only knows nothing about the business,” Henry Strode snapped, “but he’s not interested. Never has been.” He hesitated and then added, “Perhaps I should explain. He has spent his life travelling, mostly in remote places. I may say that at this precise moment I’ve no idea where he is.”

  “Do you mean,” Felden asked, “that you do not even know whether he is alive or dead?”

  Again the slight hesitation. “That’s putting it rather strangely, Mr. Felden.” He smiled and with the smile the charm returned to soothe the ruffled gathering. “In reply to that I think I may say I have every confidence in Peter Strode’s ability to remain alive in the most outlandish places. And now——” He glanced at his brother.

  But before he could sit down Felden had produced another point. “I have also taken the trouble to check on the terms of your father’s will. The control you have so far been able to exercise …”

  “Please, Mr. Felden. The point I think you are going to raise is one I’m not prepared to discuss here. However …” He leaned down and whispered quickly to his brother, who nodded. “I think it only right in the circumstances—and my brother agrees with me—that I should inform you, in the strictest confidence of course, of a decision taken at a recent meeting of my board. At that meeting it was unanimously agreed that Mr. Peter Strode be invited to become a director of Strode & Company. I may say he has nothing to offer in the way of experience, but we felt—my brother and I—that it was the right thing to do in view of his very large holding in the company. I am sure it is what my father ultimately intended.” And he added, “A Press release of this information will be made as soon as we have been able to obtain his formal acceptance.”

  He sat down then to a murmur of approval. Felden, too, had resumed his seat. George Strode took over again, dealing rapidly with the remaining business. In five minutes it was over and the meeting broke up.

  “Well, that’s that, and the whole issue neatly side-tracked.” This from the man on my left who might have been a lawyer, his manner and voice were so neat and precise. “Have you been to one of these meetings before?”

  I shook my head. I was watching the directors filing out through a gap in the counter which enabled them to avoid the shareholders. All around us the meeting was splitting up into little groups, the buzz of speculation in the air. “Well, I can tell you this,” my companion said as we walked towards the door, “Felden got more out of them than I expected. But Strode, the clever fellow, never answered the question, did he?”

  “Which question?” I was thinking of Peter Strode, wondering how he would react to this.

  “He was on safe ground dealing with the Strode Orient take-over. But there’s a rumour that the family has been approached to sell their Strode shares.” We were in the press by the door then and as we passed through he added, “Do you think he really didn’t know where his half-brother was?”

  “Quite likely,” I said. “I’ve met Peter Strode and my impression was——”

  “Commander Bailey.” I felt a touch on my arm and turned to find George Strode’s assistant at my elbow. “Would you come this way, please? They’re waiting for you.”

  “They?”

  “The directors. They’ll be in the boardroom now.” Conscious that the attention of the man beside me had become suddenly riveted he plucked nervously at my sleeve. “If you’ll follow me, sir.”

  He led me quickly up the great staircase and as I passed my father’s portrait, wondering what the hell they wanted, I had a strange feeling that all my life had been leading up to this moment. I cannot explain it even now, this feeling of inevitability, the sudden certainty that my future was linked with the Strode Orient Line. All I can say is that it was in a mood of intense expectation that I walked into the boardroom to my first meeting with the directors. “Commander Bailey, gentlemen.” The doors closed behind me and George Strode came to greet me. “Nice of you to join us.” He shook my hand and led me by the arm to introduce me first to his brother and then to the other four men clustered round a tray of drinks at the end of the boardroom table—Julian le Fleming, Adrian Crane, Sir Miles Everett, Colonel Jacob Hinchcliffe. They all bore the stamp of a social strata that too often depends on inherited wealth rather than ability to place them in a position of authority and their acknowledgment of my presence was distant, almost chilling. “Well now, what can I get you? A Scotch?”

  I nodded and he poured it for me whilst the others stood in a tight little huddle. Clearly my arrival had interrupted a private discussion and now they were waiting—but for what? I looked at George Strode who said, “I gather you’re a shareholder in our company, eh?” He handed me my drink. “Very fortunate your coming to the meeting. That fool Elliot didn’t take a note of your address when you were here yesterday so we’d no means of contacting you.” An awkward silence followed as I sipped my drink and waited. “No doubt you’re wondering why we’ve asked you up here to join us.” His manner was that adopted by some senior officers to put juniors at their ease, a sort of avuncular bonhomie. It didn’t endear him to me. “You’re just out of the Navy, I believe?”

  I nodded, “On my way out.” I was trying to remember what I’d said in that letter.

  “How well do you know Peter?”

  So that was it and nothing to do with my name; probably they’d forgotten there ever had been a Bailey Oriental Line. “Depends what you mean,” I said. “Some men you can live with for years and never get to know. Others——” But I couldn’t explain to them what a night of talking could mean to two lonely men sitting under the stars on an island that was little more than a sandbank. “Well enough,” I said, “to know he’d never resign himself to working in a City office.”

  The two brothers exchanged glances. “We don’t expect that,” Henry Strode put in quickly. And George Strode said, “Anyway, you knew him sufficiently well to think he’d give you a job, eh? I read your letter, you see. Had to. No initials, just the name—it might have been for any one of us.” It was a lie, of course. I was certain he hadn’t known of the letter’s existence until that morning. And the favour to which I had referred concerned the shares, not a job. But he wasn’t to know that. “And we couldn’t forward it,” he added. “Didn’t know where the beggar was. Still don’t for that matter.” And then, looking directly at me, “I suppose you’ve no idea where he is at the present moment?”

  “None whatever,” I said.

  He nodded. “Quite. Otherwise you wouldn’t have addressed that letter to him here.”

  “When did you last see him?” Henry Strode asked.

  I didn’t answer that. No point in telling them it was six years ago when I didn’t have to.

  “Was it recently?” And when I still didn’t answer, he said, “Oh, come, we’re not trying to pry into his private life or anything like that. In fact, as you heard at the meeting, we want him on the board—nothing else.” He put his drink down carefully, a clink of glass on silver in the stillness. “You were in the Persian Gulf together?”

  “That’s where I met him.”

  “If our information is correct it’s some years since he was in that area. Have you been in touch since?”

  But I’d had enough of questions. “Suppose you tell me what this is all about?”

  Henry Strode started to say something, but hi
s brother stopped him. “Please, Henry.” He turned to me. “You don’t know where he is. But could you locate him for us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it shouldn’t be all that difficult.”

  “Ah, well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about.” He took my arm and walked me to the far end of the table out of hearing of the others. “This is my idea, so I’m handling it. Henry’s a more cautious bird.” He hesitated. Then he lifted his head, staring at me with those moist eyes that looked at close quarters like tiny oysters. “I’ll be frank with you,” he said. “My brother and I—we never got on very well with Peter. Different generations, different upbringing, schooling, everything—different mother, that was the main reason. Like you, I think I could find him if I tried. But I’d still have to put the proposition to him and—well, I don’t know—I think he’d probably tell us to go to hell. He’s like that, no business sense. None at all.” He smiled at me. “Well now, you’re just out of the Navy. Shopping around for a job, eh? I’ll make you a proposition. You find Peter and persuade him to come back to England and join the board and there’ll be a job for you in Strode Orient. How’s that?”

  I tried to pin him down, but he wouldn’t commit himself; all he said was, “We’ll find you something.” And whilst I was considering it I kept catching snatches of the conversation they had resumed at the other end of the room: “If he did, we’d be out—all of us.” And then Henry Strode’s voice was saying something about “nothing but bitter reproaches.” And later, Hinchcliffe I think: “Exactly. The fellow needs money. He’ll jump at it.”

  “Well?” George Strode was getting impatient.

  “I’ve still got to reach him,” I said. “And what I know of the man it means travelling to some distant part of the world.”