Gloriana reluctantly agreed to the bicycle ride but was disappointed, for she had never seen a helicopter land. Still Mountjoy usually knew what he was doing so off she went. The Count had agreed with Bentner that he should withdraw from the tea to give Mountjoy time for a preliminary private interview with Birelli in which to sound him out about the object of his visit and take his measure. Bentner was very suspicious about this.
"No secret deals," he said. "Everything above board. That's the way it's got to be."
"Of course no secret deals," said Mountjoy, a trifle impatiently. "I have to sound this man out, privately, before we get down to any serious business. I'm not going to plunge into negotiations right away. Nobody ever does that. You must understand, Bentner, that a person-to-person talk, about a variety of subjects, all the details of which I shall conscientiously lay before you, is likely to bring out much more than if Birelli finds himself constantly in the presence of two people. It's a matter of …er…"
"Witnesses," said Bentner. "That's what it's a matter of."
"Precisely," said Mountjoy smoothly. "Nobody will reveal much of themselves and their aims in the presence of witnesses—particularly a man of the stature and power of Alfonso Birelli."
"I thought his name was Machiavelli," said Bentner.
"That's merely his nature," said Mountjoy. "Anyway I am sure you do understand, my dear Bentner, the need for the utmost privacy in the first stages. When in the course of our discussion we get down to more solid matters, be assured you will be fully informed and consulted. After all, there is nothing I can do as Prime Minister without the approval of the House of Freemen, where you, as you are well aware, have a powerful number of members on your side."
With that Bentner had to be satisfied. He excused himself after a reasonable interval and Mountjoy, who had been turning his charms on Miss Thompson, suggested to her that while he would be delighted to have her stay in the castle, she might be more comfortable in the Grey Goose tavern. "The castle rooms are very large with the result that they are also very cold at this time of the year—at any time of the year in fact. Also facilities for bathing are extremely limited, whereas at the Grey Goose, Mrs. Thatcher has a very snug room overlooking her rear garden and is quite used to arranging the personal facilities required."
Miss Thompson glanced at Birelli and saw him gently touch the right side of his face which signified an affirmative. So she said she would be delighted to stay at the inn and Bentner, who had not yet left, agreed to accompany her.
Miss Thompson had of course acquainted herself with all the facts concerning Grand Fenwick before arriving in the Duchy. She knew as much of Bentner's career as she did of Mountjoy and his ancestors, but her reading and inquiries had led her to believe that the Duchess was a person of no importance whatever, a pretty woman with a mind not much above that of an educated child.
She wanted to check this out, for a great part of her worth to Birelli lay in the fact that she checked out everything, not once but several times.
In the short walk from the castle to the inn she asked whether Her Grace was in the castle and Bentner said she had gone on her bicycle into France.
"She may bring back a gallon or two of petrol," said Bentner. "Daimler's been dry now for two days."
"On her bicycle?" said Miss Thompson, genuinely astonished. "To get some gasoline?"
"Oh, I don't know whether she will or not," said Bentner. "But she's got a good head on her and there's a gas station at Sauverne where they're quite friendly. Not all the French are as bad as people say. Just light-headed. You can't rely on them. Italians are worse, though," he added. Miss Thompson received this news in silence, wondering what would be the world reaction if it became known that the ruler of a small European nation had had to go to a foreign country on a bicycle to bring back two gallons of gasoline for her car.
"I understand that you are suffering acutely from the fuel shortage in Grand Fenwick," she said at length.
"Yes," said Bentner. "But I don't know that suffering is the right word. Just between you and me, Mountjoy's put out because he can't get a hot bath and some of the ladies that had washing machines are a bit miffed because they have to do their laundry by hand and hang the clothes out to dry on a line like in the old days.
"But it's an inconvenience really, that's all. If I had my way I'd ban the importation of any kind of foreign fuel into this country. Nothing wrong with wood fires.
"Wine and wool. That's our real riches and that nobody can take away from us. You don't suppose that Mr. Machiavelli would like to place an order—say a hundred bales of prime fleeces—before the price goes up in the autumn?"
"Birelli," said Miss Thompson. "I really don't know. He's not interested in textiles, so far. But you might talk to him about it."
"Probably make all of seven hundred pounds if he was to place an order now," said Bentner. "That's about one thousand four hundred dollars. Not to be sneezed at. Maybe more by summer shearing time—the way the dollar's going down."
Miss Thompson reflected that fourteen hundred dollars might provide her employer with a new suit, shoes and a shirt, and he owned more suits than he could count.
"Well, I'll talk to him if you like," she said in order to head the conversation into more informative areas. "May I ask you a question?" she continued. "Concerning the Duchess?"
"Oh," said Bentner, suddenly full of caution. "Well, I don't know that I can answer any questions about the Duchess. But what did you want to know?"
"I only ask as a woman," said Miss Thompson. "You know how interested we are in women's rights in the United States. I wanted to know whether she has any real say in the governing of the Duchy. Can she forbid things to be done, for instance, or order them to be done?"
"She can and she can't," said Bentner. "All bills passed by the Council of Freemen must be signed by the Duchess before they become law. Now if she were to refuse to sign a bill, then after a short period of time—usually three months, but there's differences depending on the bill—it can come before the Council again. And if the Council or House—they're the same, you know—passes it once more, then it becomes law whether the Duchess has signed it or not.
"So, like I said, she can and she can't. But I've never known her to refuse to sign a bill passed by the Council because she's got a great respect for what the people want and wouldn't ever hold her opinion superior to theirs.
"Now her father, he was of another mind altogether. Real terror, he was. When the Council passed a bill he didn't like, he'd come down and tell them off like they were a set of schoolboys. Made them feel that they'd been personally disloyal to him. Took Mountjoy all the cunning he had to change Duke Robert's mind."
"Mountjoy was Prime Minister in those days?" asked Miss Thompson, surprised. "Oh, yes," said Bentner. "Of course, there wasn't a Labor Party then—just Liberal. Like in England."
"So Her Grace doesn't actually have the final say in legislation?"
"Well, like I said, she does and she doesn't," said Bentner doggedly. "Laws are sort of made for men, if you know what I mean. Women are able to find a way around them. Nothing illegal, of course. Maybe what they call the feminine mystique. All I can say is that while she's been our sovereign, I can't think of a single thing that's happened in the Duchy that she hasn't agreed with and I can think of a lot of things that she maybe got started herself."
This gave Miss Thompson much on which to reflect. How conclusive would Mountjoy's talks with her employer be if they were strongly opposed by the Duchess? Had Mountjoy enough charm and mental agility to bring the Duchess around to whatever he himself decided should be done? They arrived at the Grey Goose and Bentner, having introduced Miss Thompson to Mrs. Thatcher, left. Mrs. Thatcher said she had the best bed-sitting-room in the house waiting for her and a nice fire lit.
"If you would be wanting a bath," she said, "give us an hour's notice so we can heat the water. It's the children's turn tonight but I am sure we can arrange everything. Don't be afr
aid to speak up."
Miss Thompson decided to forgo her bath that day and retired to her cheerful, warm room, her active mind still debating the problem of who was the person to be contended with in this strange little Duchy—the Count of Mountjoy or the somewhat mysterious Duchess Gloriana. She decided she would concentrate on the Duchess and leave Mountjoy to her employer, Birelli. As for Bentner, he could be dismissed. He was plainly a mental lightweight and not worthy of consideration.
CHAPTER XI
Birelli was two days in Grand Fenwick before, in a private meeting with Mountjoy, he got down to the business which had brought him there so urgently. He would have gotten down to it immediately, for that was his nature—the frontal attack backed by detailed planning. But Mountjoy was of another cast of mind, and saw to it that Birelli had no opportunity for a private talk of any importance until he had persuaded the Duchess, returning from her bicycle ride, to go for a week's vacation at Nice—in the worst season of the year.
"Bobo, what are you up to?" demanded Gloriana when he broached this plan to her. "You've never been so mysterious in all the years I've known you."
"Your Grace," said Mountjoy, "it is essential that you be abroad while Birelli is here. He is a man of tremendous power and tremendous influence. In any negotiation, he likes to be sure that he has all the cards in his hand. The only card I have is your absence—his inability to talk to you. I wish to make him feel a little nervous, a little uncertain. I am dealing from weakness against strength. I humbly ask Your Grace's help."
"But I don't see that even if he did talk with me he could achieve anything," said Gloriana. "You know very well I can't make decisions. And it's bound to be raining in Nice at this time of the year. There's nothing worse than standing under a palm tree and shivering in a downpour."
"People like Birelli are never convinced that someone in your position has no power," said Mountjoy. "In that they are quite correct, of course. Your Grace knows how deep is your influence with all your subjects. It would be better for us if you could not be reached, if, at the conclusion of our talks, Birelli was still not sure that he had achieved whatever it is he has in mind."
"What does he have in mind?" asked Gloriana.
Mountjoy gazed for a moment at his beautifully manicured fingernails and said, "I suspect that he intends to use what he thinks is the simpleminded Duchy of Grand Fenwick in his further manipulation of world oil prices. I, on the other hand, hope to use Birelli to strike a blow for mankind."
Gloriana didn't entirely understand this but agreed to spend a few days in rain-swept Nice, and enough gasoline was scraped together, by a bicycle relay to Sauverne, to drive the Daimler down to the airport in France.
With the Duchess out of the way, Mountjoy agreed to a private business session with Birelli, who had soon made the object of his visit clear.
"I have come on a matter of the greatest delicacy and the most critical importance," he said. "You and I, alone in this ancient castle, hold in our hands the future of the Government of the United States of America and the future of the whole economic complex of the Western world. I might add that it is you, rather than I, who are of the first importance in both these matters."
Mountjoy, despite himself, was impressed. Birelli, he decided, was more astute than he had given him credit for, recognizing, as he obviously did, Mountjoy's worth and potential to the world which had been so often ignored by others.
"You are in need of my advice?" he asked quietly. Birelli smiled warmly. This was going to be easier than he thought.
"Yes indeed," he replied. "I need your advice and your cooperation. You are the only man in Europe and America to whom I can come and lay bare my thinking and my planning. You are, I know, fully aware of the present energy crisis and you are aware that it is going to get a lot worse in the weeks ahead.
"You are aware too of the factors which have led to this situation—enormously increased oil consumption, limited production, rising costs of drilling, refining, distribution, marketing and so on, coupled with competitive bidding among the consuming nations.
"Saudi Arabia alone has tried to hold the price line at what might be regarded as reasonable. But the whole of the Persian Gulf production fields are now menaced by the Soviet Union, and the possibility—perhaps the probability—of a vast portion of the world's oil supply falling into communist hands now lies bleakly before us."
Mountjoy nodded. There was nothing new in all this for him and he had never forgotten that the publicly proclaimed aim of the Marxists was to bring about the economic collapse of the capitalist system, which could be most readily achieved by the seizure of its major sources of oil.
"You will also be aware that open warfare for the possession of the oilfields of the Persian Gulf must be avoided at all costs by the West. Warfare would result in the destruction of the very oilfields and refineries which both sides—East and West—would regard as the prize of war. It is my belief that the Soviet plan is to overthrow the various sheikdoms from within, to be replaced by rival sheikdoms favoring the communist cause."
At this point Mountjoy began to get a little bored. This, for him, was all elementary stuff. He objected to being lectured on international aims at the grade-school level.
"Yes," he said. "I quite understand all these matters. I have been following them for some time. So did my father."
"Your father?"
"Yes. The problem of the Persian Gulf has existed in one form or another for well over a century—far back into the time when the Arab nations were part of the Ottoman Empire. I hope you will pardon my saying that only the United States finds these problems new, not having had to be bothered with a foreign policy in the Near East until the late nineteen-thirties. But I interrupt. What solution do you see?"
Birelli was taken aback. Nobody had ever treated him in this manner before. He was used to lecturing while others listened—used to outlining plans which were not for discussion but rather were instructions which others must follow.
"Well," he said, "I presume that you are agreed with me that nobody dares go to war with the Arab nations since the prize sought would be destroyed in the course of warfare."
The conference was taking place in Mountjoy's study. Mountjoy got up and walked over to a lancet window and looked down a hundred feet into the courtyard below. There at the south end was the helicopter in which Birelli had arrived with Miss Thompson. "How far can those things fly?" he asked.
"What things?" asked Birelli, taken completely by surprise.
"Helicopters," said Mountjoy.
"I don't know," said Birelli, irritated. "I suppose, given gasoline, they can fly as far as anyone wants them to."
"What about that one there?"
"It has a cruising range of seven hundred miles."
"Interesting," said Mountjoy. "Interesting."
"We were talking about the impossibility of war over the Arab oilfields," said Birelli.
"So we were," said Mountjoy. "So we were. It is an interesting theory."
"It's more than a theory. It's a hard fact of warfare," Birelli insisted. "Now to get to the point, if I may. The real problem is to stabilize world oil prices. I frankly admit that more than any other man in the world perhaps, I have been responsible for their continuing rise. And I am not now about to attempt to stabilize prices for the benefit of my incompetent and shortsighted business rivals, who continue to push them up. Prices have gotten to the point where my own profits are being jeopardized. So are theirs, though they refuse to see it at the present time. The margin between purchase cost and sales price is uncomfortably small. The oil world thinks that all that is needed is to reduce supplies, cut down on the amount of gasoline and fuel oil available, and the sales price will automatically soar. To get a higher price for selling less is every businessman's dream. But I am the only man in the oil world who realizes that that dream can turn into a nightmare. It is about to turn into a nightmare."
Mountjoy was listening with but half a mind. He bec
ame aware that Birelli was silent and said, "I am not sure that I can see how it would become a nightmare." But he made the statement merely to draw Birelli on, for he had spent quite a while considering the significance of that letter which had been sent to him though intended for Birelli—the letter from the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Benjamin Rustin, containing the phrase "if there is anything you can do to make us look good as the crisis looms, we'll all be grateful."
The "us" in that letter was of course the present administration of the United States, headed by President John Miller. And Birelli, conferring with Mountjoy, was now in the process of making the administration look good—since it seemingly would serve his purpose to have the existing administration reelected.
"It can become a nightmare," said Birelli, "when the supplies of oil become so restricted that, irrespective of present profit to the oil world, they bring about the closing down of so many industries that we in effect are guilty of slaughtering our own customers. We are close, perilously close, to that position now—stockpiling oil at prices that industry cannot afford. And so I have come to you for advice and help."
"I am entirely at your service," said Mountjoy, who was not at that moment prepared to offer anything, for he had plans of his own.
"What I have in mind," said Birelli, "is the secret purchase of a vast quantity of oil—say two billion barrels—to be released on the world market at a price substantially lower than the existing price. The amount must be huge. I would not tremble at twenty billion barrels. The price differential must be significant. But the impression must be given that this oil comes from an entirely new source, outside of the Arabian fields—a source which is not interested in the amassing of vast quantities of money by the sale of oil, having nothing whatever to spend the money on. In short, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick."
Mountjoy caught his breath in sheer admiration for the man. Such a plan would never have occurred to him, imaginative and experienced as he was. It was a bold plan; perilous in the extreme. Yet handled with assurance and dash, it could scarcely fail.
The Mouse That Saved The West: ebook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 4) Page 8
