Lady of Fortune

by Graham Masterton

Dougal said, ‘Supposing I remind you that your son is not your son, and warn you that if you persist with this scheme, I shall make that knowledge public? Supposing I reveal that for nearly thirty years you have kept secret from me the fact that Alisdair is my natural heir, for the sole purpose of ensuring that the major part of any inherited assets from Watson’s Bank passed to your side of the family, and not to mine, nor to Effie’s?’

  That’s preposterous!’ shouted Robert. His face was bright red, and he was sweating. ‘You can’t prove anything of the kind, and you know it!’

  ‘I don’t have to prove it,’ said Dougal. ‘All I have to do is announce that Alisdair is my natural son – a fact to which Effie is prepared to testify in a court of law.’

  Robert stared furiously at each of them in turn, and at last at Alisdair. ‘Is this the thanks I get for bringing you up? That you should side with these two lily-livered bunglers? Jesus God!’

  Effie said, in a quiet but penetrating voice, ‘You have a choice, Robert. Alisdair is quite prepared to continue to act publicly as your son; and to inherit and manage your interests on your behalf when you eventually have to retire, but only if you release his real father from this Poind Corporation arrangement. Thank you – neither of us missed the several significances of the word “poind”.’

  Robert was silent for a long time, gnawing at his lips and staring at them with unfocused hatred. ‘God, you’re incompetent,’ he said at last, and pushed back his chair. ‘God, you don’t even know what you’re doing! I created an empire out of this family – something that father couldn’t do and that neither of you could do. I built Watson’s Bank into one of the most important international banks in the whole world, second only to Chase. I laid everything down for the future, unselfishly, so that one day Watson’s Bank would tower over every other bank on Wall Street or in the City of London. What the hell does it matter whether Dougal fathered Alisdair or whether I did? What the hell does it matter? Watson’s Bank will be the greatest in the world one day; the richest bank since the great days of Rothschilds. You want to know why I tied Watson’s New York up into such knots? First, just to prove to you how weak and vulnerable you both were – you, bankers! – you would have swallowed that offer I made if it had naked hooks on it. All you were really interested in was sentiment and quick profits. ‘Oh, for the good old days, when Robert was with us, we used to make amazing money in those days.’ Of course you did! I worked for it and I worked hard, and I never would have let one of you elbow your way into my bank and persuade me to sign a contract which specifically states that the bank will arrange loans for stock purchases up to the value of £24 million, provided that each block of shares is purchased at not more than a twenty-point margin. It’s all in the contract, read it! You gave me carte-blanche to borrow money from whichever US corporations I chose, and lend the money out to brokers at eight or nine per cent, so that my European customers could get themselves in on the stock market! So far, I haven’t had one single word of complaint, either by mail or by telephone, to indicate that any of my customers are dissatisfied. In fact, on average, their shares have gone up by 21 points since they bought them only a short while ago! You’re getting commission on the loans, you’re getting commission from the brokers, you’ve got all the collateral you need. What else do you want?’

  There was a second’s pause, a second’s silence, and then Alisdair said, very clearly, ‘Loyalty, father, that’s what else. The respect that one member of a family ought to show to another. The right not to be used for commercial ends. The rights to have one’s sentiments respected.’

  He walked around the table, and stood beside Robert with an expression on his face of hurt, of regret, of sadness; but also of righteous anger. ‘You deliberately kept from me all of my life the fact that I was your brother’s son, and not yours. You stole me away for your own purposes, whatever they were, and whatever they still remain. My real father believes that you wanted to make sure that your descendants alone would inherit the bank’s assets. I don’t know whether he’s right or wrong. Aunt Effie doesn’t know either, even though she’s just as guilty of keeping my real parentage from me as you are. You betrayed my birthright for your own gain. You used me in a way which no real father ever would have done, and for that I deny your fatherhood, and I repudiate your right to call me your son.’

  He lifted his arm, and pointed across the table at Dougal. ‘That man is my father. He would have brought me up and educated me and trained me just as well as you, if he had ever been given the chance. More than that, he would have taught me some morality.’

  Robert looked his adopted son up and down, and then said, ‘You realise what you’re sacrificing.’

  ‘I’m sacrificing nothing, except a directorship of Watson’s Bank. I’m still the oldest male heir, and nothing can ever take that away from me. You haven’t created an empire, father. You’ve done nothing but erect a financial temple to your own squalid vanity.’

  Robert was very calm now. He stood up, knocked back the last of his whisky, and snapped his fingers to Rousseau to bring him his coat and his hat.

  ‘I can see that I have landed, like some unfortunate sailor, among a community of raving fools.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Effie, sharply, ‘Return to the land of hideous hypocrites?’

  Robert stared at her ferociously. ‘You,’ he said, ‘should have been strangled at birth.’

  And without saying anything else, he snatched his hat from the butler, and stalked out of the house. Dougal, Effie, and Alisdair sat at the dining-table and looked at each other with caution and with sorrow. Dougal said, as the motor of Robert’s Rolls-Royce started up with a loud, over-confident roar, ‘He won’t let this pass, you know. He won’t forgive us for this.’

  ‘Do you want his forgiveness?’ asked Effie.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Alisdair. Then, ‘Perhaps. But I do feel free.’

  Dougal flipped a quarter between his fingers, over and over and over. ‘I’m afraid, Alisdair, that you’ll never be free. Great wealth brings with it great responsibility. Freedom from want brings captivity to work; freedom from hunger brings captivity to worry. Nobody in the whole world, except for idiots and women, can have it both ways.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Effie.

  ‘I’m excluding you,’ said Dougal. ‘I always do.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  All of them, of course, gravely underestimated the ferocity of Robert’s anger, or even understood why he was angry. They were meddling children, as far as he was concerned; and their attempts to blackmail him into altering the terms of his £24 million loan were muddle-headed and ludicrous. So they were threatening to deprive him of his heir? What did he care about that? The greater share of Watson’s Bank, when he died, would still go to Alisdair, and Alisdair had been educated to manage the bank’s money in the same quick and ruthless style in which Robert had always managed it.

  Effie and Dougal didn’t even begin to understand that he had set up the foreign investment arrangement to their own best advantage: that he had intended from the beginning to nursemaid them through the Hoover bull market and through the crash which he personally believed must inevitably follow it some day soon; that he was going to do nothing more than guide the destiny of Watson’s New York through good times and bad until it was strong enough to stand on its own, strong enough to be part of a worldwide Watson’s empire, under his, Robert’s, overall direction.

  He saw himself as a benign financial emperor; whose word was stern and whose sword was quick, but who had always kept the interests of the Watson family closest to his heart. He had only wanted to get Dougal out of Edinburgh all those years ago, because he had believed that Dougal was threatening the stability of the bank’s expansion, and making a mockery of its investment department. He only wanted to take over Watsons New York now because Dougal was so ill, and so befuddled. And after Watson’s New York, (thanks to Effie’s fear of him, and her successful move to
Los Angeles) there was the Commerce Bank of California to absorb, a ready-made headquarters on the West Coast. He had discussed the whole possibility with Caldwell, and Caldwell had seen the sense in it. Effie would be protected from her own madcap financial jiggery-pokery; Caldwell would act as Robert’s West Coast agent; and the whole worldwide Watson group would flourish and expand.

  Robert’s fury, as he was driven back to Manhattan, was fuelled not only by the disloyalty which he thought the whole family had shown to him; not even by Alisdair’s defection to Dougal; but by the sheer frustration of watching two experienced bankers like Dougal and Effie throwing up the chance of being part of his dream. They could have chosen family unity; security; and fabulous wealth. Instead, they had chosen to persecute him, to treat him like a fraud and a criminal.

  His father had given him a vision, and a duty. Solemnly, relentlessly he had tried to ensure throughout the thirty years of his banking career that the vision was fulfilled, and the duty observed. Now, Dougal and Effie were threatening him, threatening his father’s memory, and his father’s mission. As far as Robert was concerned, they were prima facie guilty of heresy. They were his mother’s children: frivolous and inconstant. Not to be trusted. His mother was lucky to have died at St Vigeans, instead of in gaol. He had been indulgent and understanding to them all. Hadn’t he cared for them? For Prudence, and for Alisdair? And look how they had repaid him. He would rather have had no thanks at all than a repayment like this.

  He went straight back to the Savoy-Plaza, to his five-roomed suite overlooking 58th Street. That night, he scarcely slept at all, and by six o’clock in the morning he was sitting at his desk in his dressing-gown, drinking whisky and talking to Dan Kress on the telephone. Dan Kress sounded sleeply and cautious.

  ‘You should be careful about selling yourself short,’ he advised. The market’s kind of sensitive at the moment.’

  ‘You listen to me, johnny,’ snapped Robert. ‘We’re going to bring down this bank and we’re going to bring it down quickly. Sell Poind at 128 sell Unidexter at 91; sell everything else at the market.’

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ said Dan Kress.

  ‘I know that I’m paying you more than you’re worth to do what you’re told,’ Robert retorted.

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Watson. I’ll unload these stocks just as soon as the market’s open for business.’

  Robert made two or three more telephone calls to business associates and brokers: then he picked up the phone and dialled a number on Long Island. It was Mariella’s personal line, in her dressing-room. The phone rang for almost three minutes before it was picked up, but then Mariella said, ‘Yes? Who is this?’

  ‘Your friend,’ said Robert.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Mariella asked him.

  ‘Of course I do, I’ve been up for most of the night.’

  ‘Well, can’t you call me later?’ Mariella asked him.

  ‘This is important.’

  ‘Dougal said that you had an argument yesterday.’

  ‘Mariella, this is it. This is the moment.’

  ‘You mean today?’

  ‘Today. Go down and do it as soon as you’re dressed.’

  ‘But, Bobby –’

  ‘He won’t be hurt, not seriously. But it will keep htm out of action for a day or so, which is all that I need. Now, will you do it?’

  Mariella was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I didn’t think that it would be so soon. I didn’t really think that you wanted me to do it at all.’

  ‘Will you do it? If you don’t, I’ll find some other way. And some other lady.’

  ‘Bobby, don’t say that.’

  ‘I mean it, Mariella. Will you do it?’

  ‘Another silence. Then, All right. But you’re sure he won’t be hurt?’

  ‘Not if you do what I told you.’

  ‘I hope I can remember it all.’

  ‘Damn it,’ snapped Robert. ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mariella, and hung up.

  Robert stared at the telephone for a moment, and then hung up, too. He sat motionless at his desk for over ten minutes before getting up and walking across to the window. Beneath him, in the street, a huge truck was parked with the name LIFE ENGINEERING stencilled on its canvas top. It was October in New York: time for changes, time for his own kind of banking apocalypse. Time for London and Wall Street to realise that Robert Watson was here, and that he was here to stay.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  On Monday, 21 October 1929, a huge block of shares in the Poind Corporation came on to the market as soon as it opened at 10 a.m., at what appeared to be bargain prices. They were quickly followed by cut-rate stocks in Unidexter, Scott, Milwaukee-Union, and five other major holding companies.

  The stock market had gradually been sliding for weeks. Steel was down, as was American Can and General Electric; and Radio was right down from 114 to 88 . The wholesale disposal of bargain-price stocks in Poind and Unidexter was enough to start the ticker chattering at high speed; and set off a murmur throughout the banking and investment community that by the close of business had become an hysterical babble. The market is breaking,’ were the words that went from broker to broker, from broker to bank, from bank to investor. ‘Poind just sold at 115. Unidexter’s down to 85 .’ The response from investors was immediate: ‘When the market re-opens in the morning, sell.’ ‘Sell.’ ‘Sell at the market, get what you can.’ ‘Sell.’

  Just after lunch on Monday, Walter Kuntz rang Dougal from Watson’s Banlç and told him that there could be serious trouble brewing. Poind and Unidexter had been selling short, and the brokers had been demanding more margin. Dougal tried to call Robert several times before he left Long Island, but there was no answer either from Robert’s hotel or from Robert’s office. The market was collapsing and Watson’s New York were being pressed to take over loans that by the close of business would amount to nearly eight million dollars.

  ‘It’s Robert,’ said Effie, as Dougal shrugged himself into his overcoat and prepared to drive back to the city. ‘He’s going to ruin us.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ asked Dougal. ‘Well, maybe he is. But maybe he’s only trying to frighten us. Maybe he’ll start buying back his own stock tomorrow, and calm the market down again.’

  Effie walked out into the cold, dank afternoon air with him. His long green Cadillac tourer was waiting; its engine mumbling, its twill top tightly fastened. He usually drove himself into the city these days. He liked the solitary drive through the suburbs; through the neat doll’s-house streets of Nassau and Queens; and he was always impressed by the skyline of downtown Manhattan. He kissed Effie on the cheek, and said, ‘I’ll be back by nine o’clock. Let’s have dinner and work out a plan of action.’

  Effie watched the Cadillac burble away down the drive. Alisdair was standing by the door, his hands in his pocket, looking uncomfortable. ‘I seem to have caused something of a disturbance,’ he said, as Effie climbed the steps again.

  Effie took his arm. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I admired what you said yesterday. None of us had any right to conceal your true parentage from you; and if we’re paying a price for it now, then it’s all our fault. I can only plead that I thought I was doing it all for the best.’

  They went back into the house. Mariella was in the living-room, by the fire, reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice.

  ‘You’re looking tired, Mariella,’ said Effie. ‘We’re not proving too much for you, are we?’

  Mariella, lips closed tight, gave Effie a quick shake of her head. The fire spat sparks and lurched in its wronght-iron basket.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Almost exactly half way between Riverhead and Ridge, only a few miles west of Dougal’s mansion, there was a long downhill curve in the road, starting on the brow of a brush-covered hill, and ending deep between the pines of a shadowy wood. There had been a fine mist all day, and as Dougal reached the top of the hill, and started
his descent, the tyres of his Cadillac tourer sizzled on the wet road-surface.

  By the time he was a third of the distance down the hill, he had picked up an extra 20 m.p.h. and by the time he flashed past the first few trees of the woods, he was going at seventy. He enjoyed driving fast: it gave him a sense of daring and virility which he had lacked for years and years, especially since he had tried to mutilate himself. He steered the Cadillac around the left-hand bend with all the exaggerated flourish of a racing-driver in the movies, and he nudged the gas pedal once or twice until he was well past eighty.

  He hummed, as he drove, ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas!’

  The Highway Patrol, relying on the only eye-witness they could find, an elderly woman who had been walking back to her house after making a telephone call at the High Ridge General Store to her nephew in Teaneck, New Jersey, said that the indisputable cause of the accident was ‘excessive speed’. The elderly woman had told them, ‘That automobile whizzed right past me like something out of hell, and then it was gone into the trees. Then, whoomph.’

  There was no way of proving different. The Cadillac had left the road on the tightest section of the downhill curve, flying sixty-two feet before it hit the first tree-trunk; then it had buried itself in a small tight growth of pines and exploded. The car itself was burned down to the framework; the driver had been found entangled in the frame of the windshield, roasted so fiercely by the fire that all the moisture in his body had evaporated and all his body fats had been reduced. He looked like a cinder-child, a little burned-up monkey.

  At seven-after five that evening the Highway Patrol called at Dougal’s mansion and informed Mariella that Dougal was dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  At 10 a.m. the following morning, on a cool and cloudy Tuesday, the stock market began to slide in earnest. Twenty thousand shares of Kennecott Cooper were unloaded at 78; 20,000 shares in General Motors at 56 . US Streel fell from 261 to 193 ;Radio fell to 44 . The small trickles of selling which Robert had started in his attempt to ruin Watson’s New York became a Niagara.