From the back of the House, by the heavy entrance doors of smoked oak, there now came the sound of scuffling. It was muffled at first, grew louder, a shout or two was heard and then, past the halberdiers guarding the doors, came Karl and Johannes. They burst right into the center of the chamber, stood stock-still for a moment, overcome by what they had done, and then turning to Mountjoy, whose look would have reduced them to ashes were that possible, Johannes shouted, his voice trembling with excitement:
"We've done it! We were right! We've struck oil!"
The Speaker banged with his gavel and ordered the two thrown out. The halberdiers came forward to evict them. They had Karl and Johannes by the arm and were about to effect their purpose when Mountjoy signaled them to desist.
"I ask the pardon of Your Grace, of you, Mr. Speaker, and of the honorable members of the House for this intrusion," he said. "These two young men, who were not on the drilling rig last night, have undoubtedly been overcome by the vindication of their views, so long mocked at by others, and of which they have just heard."
He turned to the two. "I have already informed the House that oil has been struck at Perne's Folly."
"But it has been—it really has been," said Karl. "It's flowing right now at the rate of thirty barrels an hour."
"It's the biggest strike of the century," said Johannes. "It's top-grade crude. And we are the two finest geologists in Switzerland." And ignoring the House in all its dignity, the pair started a jig together.
CHAPTER XVII
Mountjoy had been known to panic—or at least come close to panic—on but one occasion in his life. That was when, with an important ceremony before him, he discovered that there was not a single pair of black silk socks in his wardrobe to go with his striped pants. He solved the situation by borrowing those of his butler.
He came equally close to panic now, but in the confusion of the geologists doing their jig on the floor of the House, with the Speaker banging with his gavel to restore order and the halberdiers finally removing the triumphant duo from the chamber, he had time to recover his nerve.
He knew he must give no indication whatever of being troubled, particularly since that idiot Bentner opposite him was close to a nervous breakdown and actually had a rather grubby handkerchief clasped over his face as if he were crying. He glanced at Gloriana and was relieved to see that she was smiling, as if she had forgotten that it was her birthday and someone had reminded her with a present of a delightful cake. Actually what made her so happy was that Mountjoy hadn't had to tell a whopper and the armor of her knight was unsullied.
Order was eventually restored, though for a moment or two there came through the corridors the cry of Johannes and Karl, "We were right. We are the most famous geologists in Switzerland." Mountjoy still had the floor and now, fully in control of himself, though the devils of disaster flashed here and there in the back of his mind, spoke as smoothly as ever before.
"Once again may I request of Your Grace, you, Mr. Speaker, and you also, honorable members, that you overlook this scene of unpremeditated jubilation. It is perhaps not without significance that our two geologists, brilliant as they are, come from the French-speaking part of Switzerland and may then lack a certain self-control. Also they are young, and the exuberance of youth must be given its place, even in the august chamber of this, one of the world's oldest parliaments.
"You have heard from me, then, that we are the national possessors of a vast reservoir of oil. I find it my duty to announce this officially to you even before there was time to put before you for your consideration any well-developed government plan for the sale and disposal of this precious commodity.
"Before the recent interruption, I did, however, express the hope that through the exercise of prudence and wisdom we may be able to bring some reason back into the price at which oil is sold and the quantity in which it is supplied. I would like to know whether it is the sentiment of the House that we seek no profit from this oil, but regarding energy in the same way as we regard air—that is as a needed human resource—supply it to those requiring oil for the industrial health and progress of their nations, at a sum sufficient only to cover the costs of extraction, pumping and storage."
"Do you wish a vote taken upon this question?" the Speaker asked.
"An expression of sentiment—by voice," replied Mountjoy. "Not binding upon individuals but indicating their general wishes."
The vote was taken and the ayes were in the overwhelming majority. Indeed only Bentner voted no and that, as he explained later, was out of force of habit as Leader of the Opposition.
When this was done the Speaker adjourned the session, there being no more business to discuss, and Mountjoy took Bentner by the sleeve and asked him to meet immediately in the Count's study to discuss this catastrophic turn of events. He also asked Her Grace to join them and soon the three were seated before a nice wood fire, for the day had turned cold following the thunderstorms of the night before.
Mountjoy was himself again—not panicked, but exulting in the new problems and perhaps dangers which surrounded him. His ideas always flowed swiftly at such times and he gained a decisiveness which was (for him at least) exhilarating. Gloriana was happy. Bentner was muddled. He kept murmuring to himself and shaking his head and when Mountjoy, irritated, asked him to speak up and state plainly what was troubling him, Bentner, still muttering, raised his voice and demanded plaintively, "What are we going to do with all that oil?"
"Heavens," said Mountjoy, "if that is all that is bothering you, you may put your mind at rest immediately. I will obviously call Birelli and tell him to stop shipments. That will take care of a great deal of the problem. I fancy he'll be rather glad. Courageous man. He stood to lose billions in an audacious attempt to stabilize the world oil price. There is always, Your Grace, a high reward for courage, while the faint-hearted can expect nothing but disaster. You will pardon me?" He walked to his desk and picked up the old-fashioned telephone, jiggling the receiver. It was a minute or two before he got the girl on the exchange, who was knitting a pair of rompers for her younger sister's baby—due in three months. She didn't of course know whether to use blue or pink so she was using black.
"The stains won't show up so much," she explained practically.
"Mountjoy here," the Count said unnecessarily when he had at last gotten her attention. "I want you to get hold of Mr. Alfonso Birelli in Paris." He gave the number and added, "If he's not there ask Miss Thompson, his secretary, to find out where he is and have him call me immediately."
"Is she the one that was so friendly with Mr. Bentner?" said the exchange girl, whose name was Elise. "Never quite trusted her somehow. Too sweet. You know how it is."
"Yes," said Mountjoy heavily. "I know how it is. Please put my call through immediately. It is urgent."
"Haven't got a line open," said Elise.
"Well, sweep the board clean," cried the exasperated Count. "Disconnect everybody and connect me." It took forty-five minutes to get the call through to Paris. There were several disconnects and Mountjoy found himself talking to an angry operator in Lyons from whom he could not get disentangled, for every time he picked up the telephone, there she was. Eventually the connection was made and he had Birelli on the line.
"Mountjoy here," he said. "I have wonderful news for you. We've struck oil, an estimated twenty billion barrels of it, here in Grand Fenwick."
"The tank trucks arrived on time, eh?" said Birelli smoothly. "Great. They'll come rolling in every night now until you're floating on a sea of oil down there."
"My dear Birelli," said Mountjoy. "That's what I am trying to tell you. We are floating on a sea of oil down here. We have struck oil in Grand Fenwick."
"As we agreed," said Birelli.
"No. Not as we agreed. It actually happened. Real oil coming out of the ground."
"You're crazy."
"My dear Birelli, that is not a phrase used among gentlemen. I am not crazy. We have struck oil—an ocean of it.
I tire of the phrase. Here in Grand Fenwick. Please do not send any more. It's quite superfluous. Indeed embarrassing. There are only two automobiles here and a small power station and the thing for heating my bath. We just cannot absorb several hundreds of barrels a day."
"Look," said Birelli, in a kind of desperate and hoarse whisper as if he were having a heart attack. "Look. I've put every nickel of liquid cash I can find into the purchase of oil for this scheme. I've pledged the total assets and more of the vast conglomerate I control. I've blackmailed and bullied every banking institution in Europe and the United States into lending me the last penny they can come up with without going broke themselves.
"I've done it all to have enough oil at my disposal to tumble the price per barrel ten or fifteen dollars by pretending it all comes from Grand Fenwick. And now you tell me you have oil in Grand Fenwick. Do you know what that means? It means that I'm ruined. So is my whole financial empire. This time next week, I'll be lucky if I can raise enough credit to buy a cup of this lousy French coffee. You've betrayed me, God dammit. Betrayed me."
"Sir," said the Count. "You forget yourself. Nobody has ever said he was betrayed by a Mountjoy. I have not betrayed you. I have followed our agreement to the comma. What we pretended to expect, but didn't actually expect, has happened. We have been unfortunate enough to discover an ocean of oil—oh, hang the phrase—here in Grand Fenwick which makes your purchases, as far as I can see, unnecessary."
"What am I supposed to do about it?" Birelli demanded.
Mountjoy, who had lit a panatela to soothe his nerves during the bout with the telephone operator at Lyons, exhaled a thin stream of aromatic smoke over the glowing tip of the cigar.
"Go ahead as planned," he said calmly.
"Go ahead as planned?" exploded Birelli. "Do you realize that I have invested or pledged sixty billion dollars—I will repeat that figure—sixty billion dollars in two billion barrels of oil—and it was all absolutely unnecessary?"
"My good Birelli," said Mountjoy. "This is no time for either of us to lose our nerve. It is no time for either of us to change horses since we are in midstream. I strongly suggest that you suspend your oil shipments in view of the enormous production of our one well in Grand Fenwick. But I suggest that you stick to our original agreement and start selling your oil at, say, fifteen dollars a barrel as if it came from Grand Fenwick and continue to do so until we have gained our objective. At that price you will cut your losses in half. Remember our objective was to stabilize oil prices at some reasonable level and ensure continued and adequate world production."
"At fifteen dollars a barrel, I stand to lose thirty billion dollars—utterly unnecessarily," said Birelli. Mountjoy sighed. It was always the same. When some ivory-smooth and elegant plan had been arrived at by the unicorns for the saving of civilization, the lions started screaming about meat.
"You will not in the long run lose a cent," he said. "You may regard the whole of the Grand Fenwick reserve as yours, to be sold at cost of production plus a reasonable margin of profit. Let's see: twenty billion barrels at, say, fifteen dollars a barrel is three hundred billion dollars. What was that smaller sum you were talking about a little while ago?"
Over the long-distance line Mountjoy heard Birelli struggling to get his breath. Then he said in that same strangled whisper, "By God, Mountjoy, I've never met a man like you."
"There are few of us left indeed," said Mountjoy. "The important thing, as you know, is always to avoid being brought down by petty fears and anxieties."
Then he hung up.
CHAPTER XVIII
The news of the great Grand Fenwick oil strike was three weeks in being acknowledged by the world. The story was, of course, printed in the Grand Fenwick Times, sharing equal space with a rather nasty accident in which the wheel of a farm cart had come off, sped down the hill into the village, bounded over a stone wall, killed three geese and broken Ted Weathers' horse trough. Ted said the resulting ringing in his ears was so fierce he couldn't stand it and went off to the Grey Goose to apply the only remedy in which he put any faith.
Mountjoy was outraged at the oil strike's sharing equal space with an accident to a farm cart, but Stedforth, the editor of the paper and press secretary to Her Grace, said it was a matter of human interest.
"Sell more papers with cart wheels than you can with oil in these parts," he said. "This paper isn't The Wall Street Journal, you know. Different areas, different interests."
Stedforth had actually worked on The Wall Street Journal as a junior reporter, and decided to return to Grand Fenwick because he couldn't switch his field of vision from wine, wool, weather and cart wheels to toothpaste, plastics, tungsten and ball bearings.
Stedforth did, however, send out a very good press release on the oil strike and he forwarded it, marked "Personal," to the anchor men on the media news telecasts. It arrived, unfortunately, on a day when the Mayor of New York, Lester M. Mercer, had announced that the city had been close to bankruptcy for two years, that the federal and state governments had refused any aid, and that he was negotiating with a group of Dutch bankers for the resale of Manhattan Island to Holland. On top of this a garden hose had been found dripping in the grounds of the nuclear power station at San Onofre, California, two geranium plants lay dead nearby, and there was talk of evacuating a large area of the Southern California coast including portions of San Diego and Los Angeles.
With these catastrophes gladdening the nation, the Grand Fenwick release was lost. But Stedforth remembered a friend on The Wall Street Journal and sent him personally a copy of the release.
"There's about twenty billion barrels of oil under this Duchy," he wrote. "I know it sounds fantastic, but so does driving an automobile around on the moon, and that's been done. Please run at least an item about it and send someone to investigate. One well is already producing a hundred barrels a day and fifteen more are to be drilled in the near future.
"The oil is being sold at cost plus ten dollars a barrel. It may sell for less. The object is to bring down world oil prices. Anybody buying Grand Fenwick oil at that price and selling it for more—at the current market price, for instance—will be cut off from supplies.
"How did you make out with that blond waitress in the coffee shop on Tenth Street?
Best, your old friend,
Bill."
Alas, Pete Martin, to whom the letter was addressed, was on vacation and didn't get it for two weeks. He did make a few inquiries, which aroused his interest, and then turned in an item on the Grand Fenwick oil strike to his city editor.
Students of history may be interested to read the small news item in The Wall Street Journal which announced to a busy world that one of the greatest oil strikes in the history of the planet had been made in Grand Fenwick.
It read:
THE MOUSE THAT POURED
Grand Fenwick Announces Vast
Oil Strike in Neglected Valley
"Following a survey by two eminent Swiss geologists, drilling for oil was recently commenced in an area known as Perne's Folly in the tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick. In the face of worldwide disbelief, the two geologists insisted that there were oil-bearing marine strata under the pan of granite which is a geological feature of the area.
"The geologists, it is claimed, were proved right. After several weeks of drilling with diamond-headed bits, and at a depth of just over six thousand feet, oil of the highest quality was found. The reservoir is said to amount to twenty billion barrels, which would be enough oil to supply all the needs of the United States for close to three years at present rates of consumption.
"Of equal importance is the announcement of Grand Fenwick that they will put their oil on the world market at cost of production plus ten dollars a barrel in an effort to bring down world oil prices to a level at which neither industry nor the private consumer will be threatened.
"Further wells, it is said, are now being drilled in this field, which if the extent of the deposit is correct and the fis
cal policy governing marketing is carried out would drastically affect world prices and supplies.
"Representatives of OPEC nations however, contacted by this reporter, laughed at this announcement.
"Mr. Alfonso Birelli, President of Transcontinental Enterprises and owner of Pentex Oil, who in the past has expressed deep concern over the oil crisis, has for a long time been a firm believer in the prospect of oil being discovered in Grand Fenwick.
" 'We've knocked the top off the oil volcano,' he said. 'Now the artificial pressure will be released and business can go on as usual.' "
It was this story that finally made the world take notice. The Wall Street Journal was known to have a sense of humor but not on the subject of oil. Walter Cronkite put in a direct call to Grand Fenwick and having gotten as deeply embroiled with the telephone operator at Lyons as had Mountjoy finally reached the Count.
What Mountjoy told him, in calm and measured tones (having first inquired who he was), set Cronkite to calling Birelli and soon the newshounds had the trail. The Grand Fenwick switchboard was so inundated with calls that soon all work on the rompers for the unborn niece or nephew of Elise had to be put aside. New York called, Paris, Los Angeles, called. So did Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Moscow. To that might be added London, Madrid, Caracas, Tehran (Mountjoy charmed the Ayatollah with his Persian but declined to open an embassy for Grand Fenwick in Iran), Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Mexico City—in fact every part and portion of the world interested in oil production and sales called.
The telephone rang for hours and the questions were all the same. Was there really twenty billion barrels of oil in Grand Fenwick? Did the Duchy really intend to sell it at fifteen or so dollars a barrel below the world market price? And, these having been answered in the affirmative, was everybody in Grand Fenwick, including the Count of Mountjoy, mad? This was the only question to which a negative reply was given. In the end, it becoming quite impossible to have even a decent cup of tea without the telephone ringing all the time, Mountjoy went to the exchange and personally pulled out all the plugs.
The Mouse That Saved The West: ebook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 4) Page 13
