The King's Commisar

CHAPTER ONE

His Debt goes Marching on

The car park, at thousands of pounds a square foot, was worth a fortune to any developer. In theory, it offered room for four large cars or half a dozen smaller ones to enter and turn, but in fact it contained only two regal spaces. The rest of the area had been made into a garden, blooms appropriate to the season being tended throughout the year by an elderly gardener with a green thumb and a very substantial appropriation of funds. An office building could easily have been constructed upon the site, and in the opinion of a great many people in the City of London should have been erected long ago. Such people were given to talk of assets unused, money going to waste, and ostentation. Car park and garden could be put to better, profitable purpose and in a City of London densely-packed with expensive office space the argument had its point. But this cavilling, though outwardly rational, though founded upon sound calculation and good husbandry, was in truth more emotional, its roots in envy. Proprietors, chairmen, senior partners, those men of substance who controlled great enterprises, were simply jealous. The car park belonged to, and adjoined, the private banking house of Hillyard, Cleef, at 6 Athelsgate. Its two celebrated parking spaces were used by the two most senior partners; and by no one else, ever. It was even rumoured in the City that when, at the time of some Royal Occasion at St Paul's Cathedral, close by, an informal request had been made from Buckingham Palace, a deaf ear had been turned. But then, rumours about Hillyard, Cleef had long abounded.

On that spring morning, as most mornings, the royal blue Bentley belonging to Sir Horace Malory halted for a moment in the street outside and his chauffeur got out to unlock the gold-painted chain which guarded the two parking spaces. The car was then driven through, and took its place beside an immense black Lincoln. Malory got out, grunting a little. 'You're to pick up Lady Malory at eleven, Horsfall,' he said. 'She's going to Harrods, I understand, then Burlington House.'

'Yes, Sir Horace. At five, here?'

'Not a minute later.' Sir Horace, at seventy-eight, liked to be back in Wilton Place, whisky in hand, by five-twenty, 'Daffodils are coming up well, are they not?'

'Wish mine were as good, sir. ' Horsfall climbed back into the Bentley, turned and drove out, pausing to refasten the chain.

Sir Horace lingered a minute or two, looking at the immaculate flower-beds. Snowdrops were fading, crocuses aglow, daffodils high and ready to burst, and tulips were marshalled to follow. He was no gardener, but appreciation of handsome surroundings came naturally to him. He gave a little sigh, surprising himself, and wondered for how many more years the flowers would be there. Young Pilgrim wouldn't actually override him, but at seventy-eight there couldn't be many more years left, and then Pilgrim wouldn't hesitate: there'd be builders stamping past the chain before the first spadeful of earth rattled on his coffin lid. Of course it wasn't the flowers themselves, no, no; he knew himself too well to believe that. Rather it was having the garden, here, in this place. The flowers were a symbol of eminence. Like the gold.

Swinging his stick a little, he walked out of the car park and round the corner, and stopped. Workmen were busy at the front door of Hillyard, Cleef.

To the man who appeared to be in charge, Malory said, What's all this?'

The man turned. 'What's it to you, mate?'

Mate, Malory thought. Mate\ Still, there was not much to be done about workmen's manners. He said mildly, 'I work here. Even sign some of the bills. Tell me.'

'You ought to know, then,' the man said aggressively.

My father, Malory thought with regret, would have broken his stick across this oaf's back. He looked at the opening and saw the old mahogany door was being taken from its hinges; and leaning against the wall a few feet away was a door-sized rectangle, wrapped in corrugated paper.

'Ah,' he said, 'I see. We're to have a new door.'

'Good morning, Sir Horace,' a girl he recognized as a secretary said, nipping past him in embarrassment, an hour late and as aware of it as he was.

' 'Morning. ' He touched his bowler hat to her, and found the workman looking hard at him.

'You the boss, then?'

'In a manner of speaking. Tell me about the door.'

'Thought you was an accounts clerk. Well, guv, that old door's coming out, that and the fanlight, and this one goes in.'

'Handsome, is it?' He moved towards the thing and ripped at the covering. Something shiny and coppery gleamed at him.

'Reflecting glass, that is, guv. Three-quarters of an inch thick. Weighs a bleedin' ton, I'll tell you.'

it would, yes. But what takes the place of the fanlight?' Like the old door, the fanlight was Georgian and exquisite.

'Door's curved at the top, see. Takes up the whole space. Smashing thing it is, all copper. You can see out, but no nosey bleeder can see in. And it's reinforced.'

'Charming,' said Malory gently. 'A fine match for the name-plate, there.' He glanced at the plate with distaste. For seventy years nothing but a small, silver square had indicated that this was the home of Hillyard, Cleef. Generations of women had worked on it with silver polish until the copperplate inscription had been worn almost away.

Pilgrim, typically, had moved at once to change it. The new one, in stainless steel, was inscribed in a modern lettering:

HILLYARD + CLEEF

And that, Malory thought, since there hadn't been a genuine Hillyard in the bank for a hundred years, or a Cleef either, was unnecessary and even misleading.

'And that's coming off, too, guv.'

'The plate - changing it again?'

'Yer. We got another. Want to see it?' The man fished out a small package from behind the new door, and slid out the new plate. 'Brushed stainless, guv.' The man held it for Malory's inspection. 'Somebody don't like that one there.'

Malory's distaste deepened. The lettering this time was modern-barbaric. It now read HILLYARD & CLEEF

and reminded him of the figures spewed out by their various computers.

'Like it, guv? I reckon it's great. Just like a record cover.'

Malory said, 'Certainly your description is apt. Thank you for showing me. Good morning.'

'S'okay. 'Ere, guv. You couldn't organize us some coffee, could you?'

Malory smiled bleakly, I expect so.'

He stepped past the old door, which now hung drunkenly from a single hinge, and paused for a moment, looking at the door's familiar numeral: the slender, cursive, brass figure six which for decades had been the colophon on the bank's stationery. A smaller version, finer and in gold, hung from Malory's watch-chain. He was thinking that the Almighty sometimes handed out talents in a seriously unbalanced way. Pilgrim was superlatively well-equipped as a banker: sensitive antennae, rapid mind, a good eye for the possible and an even better eye for the impracticable; toughness, skill in negotiation, the ability to think well on his feet. All that: yet in matters of taste Master Pilgrim would have made a very fine Goth. Slowly, thinking about Laurence Pilgrim, Sir Horace Malory ascended the stairs to the first floor. The day had already provided its first surprise, and there would be others. Pilgrim, six months in London after a meteoric rise in New York, was still engaged in a process he called 'getting acquainted with the total landscape'. When Malory once enquired what he meant, Pilgrim explained: 'I like to know all the flowers by name.' It meant Pilgrim was working a sixteen-hour day, prodding sticks into every corner.

'Oh, Sir Horace,' Mrs Frobisher said, 'I'm so glad you're here. Mr Pilgrim has called a meeting at eleven.' She stood waiting for his hat, coat and stick, and put them away in a wardrobe that was part of the furnishing of her office.

'Be surprised if he hadn't,' Malory said.

'Just time for some coffee, though.'

He sat at his desk, a little heavily. For a man his age, Malory was, and knew he was, quite unusually spry. The stairs took it out of him a bit nowadays, but it was a private point of honour to avoid the lift.

'Oh, Mrs Frobisher, that reminds me,' he said as she came in with the tray, set with two silver pots and a Crown Derby cup and saucer. 'There's a party of men downstairs. One of them asked me, now let me see: yes, he wanted to know could I organize some coffee?'

She gave her little laugh. Mrs Frobisher had been Malory's private secretary for two decades, and the laugh was her only real fault. 'You mean the workmen?'

'That what they are? I took them for Vandals.'

She missed the reference, and the laugh came again. 'I'll see to it, Sir Horace. It is a pity to move that door, though. So elegant, wasn't it?'

Sir Horace poured his own coffee, as he preferred to do, black this morning, glanced at his watch, and busied himself with his morning cigar, a Romeo No.3. He made a small ceremony of cutting and lighting, and settled himself to ten minutes of civilized enjoyment. Life, these days, he reflected, appeared to consist entirely of meetings, and damned dull a lot of them were. An hour and a half later, the morning's meeting having proved quite as tedious as usual, he was allowing the discussion to pass by him, and considering lunch. The food served in the partners' room was moderately good, but he knew from much recent sad experience that the meeting was certain to continue across the luncheon table. On the other hand, if he went to his club - well, things there weren't too inviting nowadays. The beef was usually all right, but beef wasn't on the menu every day . . . He realized Pilgrim was addressing him.

'I do beg your pardon, Laurence. What was that again?'

'There's this payment here, Horace. Fifty thousand pounds on the seventeenth of July every year to Zurich’s-bank. You know anything about that?'

He was instantly awake. 'I think I might.'

'Care to explain? This has been going on for years. Started nineteen-twenty, for God's sake! That's a heck of a time -'

Gently Malory interrupted. 'I'll have a word afterwards, Laurence.'

Laurence Pilgrim's evident exasperation did not surprise Malory. 'Look, Horace, we ought to get this thing out in the sunlight.'

Malory said mildly, 'A point or two for your private ear, no more. Better, I think.'

'Well, okay.'

With the meeting at an end, or at any rate adjourned while the participants washed prior to resumption over food, Malory followed Pilgrim through to the rosewood-and-chrome of the newly-furnished office.

"Have you the file, or just a note of the payment?'

'The file. Right here.' Pilgrim held it up. 'Fifty thousand for sixty years, Horace. That's three million before we even start computing interest. What in hell's going on?'

'May I see?' Malory opened the folder. It contained merely a single typed sheet of paper, on which were set out instructions for payment. At the bottom were a few handwritten words. 'It says, "See Senior Partner's note,"' Malory said. 'Did you check up on that?'

'No.'

'Then perhaps you should.'

Pilgrim said, 'What's a Senior Partner's note?'

'Well, when things last a long time, like this,' Malory said, 'sometimes they go on well beyond the lifetimes of the people originally concerned. And sometimes matters of discretion are involved also. You see?'

'I suppose. But sixty years!'

'I'll have the Senior Partner's Notes sent up.' Malory picked up the telephone and gave instructions to Mrs Frobisher. 'They're kept for safety in the basement safe,' he explained to Pilgrim. 'Most remiss of me not to have mentioned it to you before. Supposed to be my job to introduce you to our curious ways, after all -'

'Horace.'

'Er, yes.' Malory stopped burbling.

'We're talking about fifty thousand pounds a year, right? For sixty years, right? Horace, how long were you Senior Partner?'

'Thirty years, or so, I think. Yes, thirty-two.'

'You never questioned a sum like that - never?"

'Not me, no.'

A tap on the door heralded Mrs Frobisher, accompanied by a member of the security staff carrying an old, oaken, brass-bound box.

'M'key's on my watch-chain,' Malory said. 'The other's in your safe, I do believe.'

They fumbled with the keys, finally lifting the lid. 'It's like Captain Kidd's treasure's in this thing,' Pilgrim said. 'Why the melodramatics? What's wrong with a security file in a strong safe? No, don't say it - it's traditional.'

'There'll be a number on the paper,' said Malory.

Pilgrim looked. 'Twenty-eight.'

'Ah. Just a moment. Yes, here we are.' He extracted an envelope, glanced at it. 'Addressed to the Senior Partner. That's you now, old chap.'

Pilgrim took a stainless steel paper-knife from his desk, slit the envelope and removed a sheet of paper. He read it, then laughed sharply.

'Humorous, is it,' Malory said. 'That's unusual.'

'Don't know about that. It sure is melodramatic' Pilgrim handed him the paper. Malory took his half-lens spectacles from the top pocket of his jacket. 'Well, now, let me see.' He read the note and handed it back. 'Clear enough, I should have thought.' He removed his spectacles.

'Clear?' Pilgrim looked at Malory as though he might be mad. 'Let's have it again -'

He read aloud: '"At no time must this payment be missed. Nor is it to be questioned at any time, for any reason. Whatever the future circumstances of the bank, the payment must have priority. Failure to follow this instruction would have extremely severe consequences." Initialled with two Zs,' said Pilgrim, 'and undated. Who was that with the Zs?'

'Sir Basil,' said Malory.

'Who?'

'Zaharoff.'

Pilgrim's fingers drummed for a moment on the red leather of his blotter. 'Look, Horace, I've heard of him. Sure I have. I know he was important and able and tricky and mysterious and all that, but hell - he's been dead fifty years!'

'Forty-four,' Malory corrected. 'The twenty-seventh of November, nineteen-thirty-six. And do you know, Laurence, sometimes I still find it rather hard to believe. His soul, such as it was, goes marching on.'

'Sure does, and damned costly it is! Horace, why did he leave that instruction?'

Malory shrugged. He looked benign and unconcerned. There must have been a good reason. A very good reason.'

'And we -' Pilgrim's exasperation was mounting-'aren't even allowed to know about it. Not permitted to

- look what it says: "Nor is it to be questioned at any time, for any reason." Horace, it makes no sense at all! Even you must-'

"Evenme?' Malory enquired with soft malevolence.

Pilgrim at once raised an apologetic hand. 'I'm sorry, Horace. You worked for the guy, I know that. But it's the hell of a legacy, you'll allow, to commit your heirs and successors to payments like this without any explanation at all?

Malory had strolled to the window and was looking out towards the dome of St Paul's. After a moment he said, 'I suppose I can appreciate your feelings. But then you didn't know him.'

'He died six years before I was even born!'

'Quite. But I did, you see. And he was a most remarkable man. Oh, most remarkable. He was gifted with extraordinary foresight, you know, among many other things. Almost never wrong.' He turned. 'I tell you, Laurence, even now it would never cross my mind to countermand one of his instructions.'

Pilgrim was staring at Malory in clear puzzlement. 'Not after forty-four years!'

'No.'

'I'm sorry, Horace, but it certainly does occur to me.'

'So I see.' Malory pursed his lips. 'I can only advise against it. That's my role now, is it not, to advise? Well, I would suggest this sleeping dog be allowed to lie.'

But Pilgrim had the bone between his teeth. Everything in him : the poverty of his youth, the summa cum laude from the Harvard Business School, the years on Wall Street, dictated that no sum of this magnitude, indeed of any magnitude, or for that matter any sum at all, should be paid over to anyone without explanation. Not on anybody's say-so, and certainly not on the instructions of some long-dead mystery man.

'I'm sorry, Horace, but that way I can't work. We have to find out something.'

'I remind you,' Malory said with the utmost seriousness, 'of Sir Basil's instruction. '

'And I hear you. But the decision has to be mine, now.' Pilgrim paused. 'Look, Horace, I'll meet you half way. We'll keep it close and quiet, right?' He pressed the intercom button. 'Get Graves in here, will you, please.'

With a sigh, Malory sank into a chair. They waited in .silence for a few moments. A tap came on the door, and Jacques Graves entered.

'Just once more,' Malory said. 'Don't.'

Pilgrim ignored him. 'Sit down, Jacques. We have a little problem here.'

Graves sat obediently. He was a man of a little over forty, dark-haired, lightly-tanned, and he moved with easy, athletic grace. He had fluent command of several languages, and a wide understanding of finance and of people. Pilgrim, introducing him into Hillyard, Cleef, had described him as 'a high-grade troubleshooter'. Graves came originally from New Orleans French stock, but he was, in another of Pilgrim's phrases, 'International Man'.

He nodded to Malory. 'Sir Horace.' Even the accent was neutral.

'We have a payment situation here,' Pilgrim said, 'which makes no sense, at least to me. For sixty years Hillyard, Cleef has been paying fifty thousand pounds a year to a bank in Switzerland. There is no explanation. All there is-well, we have a kind of hereditary note to the Senior Partner that the payment must continue. Further, Jacques, it must not be queried.'

'Ouch,' said Jacques Graves.

'Ouch is right. Now, the instruction was given by Sir Basil Zaharoff one hell of a long time back - he died in 1936. Sir Horace has continued to, well, to honour that instruction. That was his privilege. I feel now, though, that maybe the time has come to ask a few discreet questions.'

'Three million paid,' Graves said.

'Right. So what we'll do is this. You're going to Switzerland, Jacques, first available plane. And what you do there is you go to the bank in question, the Ziirichsbank, and you ask them, very discreetly, whose account this goddam money goes into. Maybe they won't tell you, we all know it's against Swiss law to let these things out. But you do your best, Jacques. Understand?'

'Yes.'

'Your best best.'

'Sure.'

'But don't stir up any mud. I mean it. The word here is discretion. If the bank won't play, maybe there's some guy works there likes champagne or girls or motor-cars.'

'I'll be there in the morning. First thing,' Graves said.

When he'd gone, Malory tried once more. 'I really do wish you wouldn't.'

'Sure,' said Pilgrim, I appreciate that. But -' he shrugged - 'different people take different views. You coming in to lunch?'

Malory took the gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket. 'I think perhaps not. There's a man I must see at my club.'

In fact he ate alone, chewing lengthily at some overroasted saddle of mutton, and afterward sat for an hour with a half-bottle of claret. He was filled with foreboding. Jacques Graves took the afternoon plane. That night he stayed at The Palace Hotel in Zurich. The following morning at ten o'clock he telephoned the Ziirichsbank and spoke first to a telephonist, and then briefly to a Mr Kleiber. He introduced himself as a representative of Hillyard, Cleef, and arranged an appointment with Kleiber for eleven-thirty. By eleven-forty his conversation with Kleiber was ended, and he was waiting, in a room with a locked door, for 'something we have for you'. Kleiber had been unforthcoming. Graves's first sight of him had not been encouraging: Kleiber was in his thirties, fair hair cut en brosse, a man of medium height whose forehead, above heavy-framed glasses, still bore the residual marks left by ancient pustules of adolescent acne. He was dressed in grey, and it matched his eyes. He was a grey-looking man altogether, who did not offer to shake hands, merely gesturing to the chair which stood on Graves's side of the table. He then waited for his visitor to speak. Graves looked at him for a moment, familiar with the ploy. Without the lubrication of conventional politeness, any opening acquired a harsh quality. So he began with deliberate triteness. He said, 'You know Hillyard, Cleef, of course.'

The Swiss nodded once.

'We have not had many dealings with Zürichsbank over the years.'

'Please show proof of your identity.'

Patiently Graves showed him a letter which said, on Hillyard, Cleef stationery, 'Mr Jacques Graves is acting in my name and with my full authority.' Pilgrim had signed it. Kleiber examined it with ostentatious care, thumbnail picking at the embossed letters of the bank's name. 'Go on, please.'

Graves said, 'We have something of a mystery. You will be aware that every year on the seventeenth of July the sum of fifty thousand pounds is paid by Hillyard, Cleef into an account here.'

'Yes.'

Did this bastard speak only in monosyllables, Graves wondered. Kleiber was as opaque and uncommunicative as a concrete block.

'You may also know that these payments have been made every year since nineteen-twenty.'

Kleiber nodded.

'The mystery,' Graves said, 'is that the original authorization for these payments was made by a man now dead. At some point the record of their purpose has been mislaid. We continue to pay, naturally, because that is our obligation, but we would now like to know -' He stopped. A tiny smile twitched Kleiber's lips before he said, 'Unfortunate.'

'And expensive,' Graves agreed.

'Also careless.'

'As I say, we would simply like to know to whom the money is being paid, whether to the bank, or to an individual, or to a company. In complete confidence, of course.'

'Wait.' Kleiber rose and left the room. A lock clicked as the door closed. Graves, familiar with Swiss caution and precaution, was unsurprised.

A minute later Kleiber was back, resuming his seat across the table. He said, 'The payment goes into a numbered account.'

'Yes, I know. The number -'

Kleiber shook his head. 'It is a matter of law. I can give you no information.'

Graves said, 'We hoped you might be disposed to help us.'

'No. The law is specific, as are the bank's own regulations.'

Graves dangled his feeble carrot. 'It would be nice to think our two banks could find other ways to co-operate.'

Kleiber's face was stony. 'Mr Graves, it is impossible. You knew that before you came here.'

Graves shrugged. 'All right, Mr Kleiber.' He rose. 'The door's locked?'

Kleiber nodded, looking at Graves with pebbly eyes. Then he said, 'It is not unknown that people seeking illicit information about numbered accounts approach the staff of the bank. I should warn you that such approaches are pointless.'

'I have no intention -' Graves began.

He was interrupted a second time. 'Only a very few people here have access to numbered accounts,'

Kleiber said, 'and all of them, I promise you, will at once report any such approach to the police. The police would prosecute. The man who made the approach would go to prison. It is the law.'

'I understand. Perhaps you'll unlock the door now.'

'In a moment,' said Kleiber. Again came that twitching and superior smile. Briefly Graves wanted to hit the pudding face. 'You will not leave empty-handed, Mr Graves. There is something we have for you.'

'What?'

'Wait, please.'

Kleiber left the room; once more the lock clicked. He returned almost immediately holding an envelope, which he laid on the table. 'For your principal.'

'What is it?'

Kleiber's twitchy smile now became a small smirk. 'My bank holds an instruction that should any enquiry be made about deposits made in the account, that packet is to go to your principal.'

'Myprincipal?'

'The principal of the company, or other organization making the enquiry, Mr Graves. In this case Mr Laurence Pilgrim, since we are aware Sir Horace Malory is now standing aside.'

Graves picked up the envelope. It was not addressed.

'Follow instructions,' Kleiber said. 'It is for your principal. Do not be tempted to open it.'

Behind Graves the other door clicked open. He said, a little sardonically, 'Well, at least you're letting me out.'

'Good day, Mr Graves.'

He stood for a moment in the corridor outside the secure interview chamber, turning the bulky envelope in his hands. It was manila, sealed with red wax, in an image which appeared to be that of an eagle. A guard, in a grey uniform watched him from a desk at the end of the corridor. It occurred to Graves that the envelope was far from new: the shine from the paper-maker's calendar rollers had gone, though the strong paper remained pristine. How long, he wondered, had the envelope been here, in the Zurichsbank, awaiting the question?

Briefly Graves debated what he should do. He had been well aware, before Kleiber told him, of the hazards of tampering with the employees of Swiss banks, but he had tampered before and would again, so Kleiber's clear threat didn't discourage him. But the envelope was unexpected; and since it was for his principal, it should be delivered at once. He could always come back. He collected his document case from the guard, placed the envelope inside it, and entered the lift. In the street outside he had to wait two or three minutes for a taxi. At the airport a disappointment awaited him: the British Airways flight had left and there was an engine fault on the Swissair flight to Heathrow. It was two hours before the jet took off. When he arrived by taxi at Hillyard, Cleef, he was unable to deliver the envelope to his principal. Pilgrim, was, by now, on the M4, being driven to Gloucestershire, and dinner with some Nigerians interested in the funding of a steel mill.

The envelope must wait until morning.

Sir Horace was counting. Two, three, four of the daffodils were showing yellow; a good many more seemed about to burst their buds. Even the tulips were swelling. Early, he thought. But then, the garden was well sheltered.

He strolled round the corner, wondering about Jacques Graves and when he would return. There was no doubt Graves was efficient, but something about the man put him off. Seemed to wear some kind of scent: one of those concoctions advertised for after a shave. Standing too near him once, Malory had caught a whiff of it and was instantly reminded of the interior of his new Bentley. Leather and wood, some such nonsense. Malory had not liked that smell, and he did not like the scent in his nostrils now. It was clear and he recognized it: the smell of danger.

He had quite forgotten the door. When he reached it he halted, appalled. In some way it caught the spring sunshine and reflected it back in dazzling, coppery sheen. God, he thought.

'Oh, Sir Horace, Mr Pilgrim was asking for you,' said Mrs Frobisher.

'Hardly unusual,' he murmured, easing off his coat.

'Yes, sir. He did say -'

'I'm sure he did. Is Mr Graves back?'

'Yes, Sir Horace.'

'Mm. Coffee first, I think.' It was more self-discipline than self-indulgence. Horace Malory, sipping his coffee and removing the hand from the Romeo No.3, positively burned to know how Graves had fared with the unforgiving Swiss. But he had learned long ago that violent curiosity was best allowed to subdue itself. He therefore drank a second cup.

There was a curious expression on Pilgrim's face when Malory entered the modernistic office: an expression he tried to analyse and couldn't quite place.

'Horace, I wanted to see you.' Excitement, perhaps?

'I hear Graves is back. How did he fare with the clockwork neutrals?'

'They wouldn't talk.'

'Hardly unexpected. Still, I must say I'm rather relieved.'

'But he did bring something back.'

'Significant, is it?' The scent was back in Malory's nostrils, stronger now.

'Like something out of a bad B-movie.' Briefly Pilgrim recounted what had occurred at the Zürichsbank.

'What was in the envelope?'

Pilgrim picked up a folder which lay beside his hand. 'Why don't you read it, Horace? We can talk about it later.'

'Very well.' He still found Pilgrim's expression elusive. 'Is it of vast import, Laurence?'

'I don't know,' Pilgrim said. 'Probably not.'

As he spoke, Malory suddenly divined the look that Pilgrim wore. He had not seen it before, on that confident face.

It was doubt.

The top sheet was a letter. Paperclipped behind it were a good many sheets of typescript. Malory polished his spectacles, and started on the letter. It was signed with a set of initials: H.G.D.

'Sir Basil would have known better than to approach Zürichsbank. Tempted, as he must have been, he would have thought long and hard, and then put temptation from him. You, whoever you may be, have not. The annual and presumably unexplained payment must have struck you as requiring an explanation, and since you demand it, it is forthcoming. Let me tell you how.

Attached to this letter, you will find the first page of a narrative. I assume you will read it, but in case your inclination is to throw it away before you reach the end, I must advise you not to do so. You will find that the first part of the narrative contains instructions for obtaining the second, the second for the third, and so on. There are seven parts altogether.

I believe you should find the narrative interesting, and I hope interest alone will direct you to pursue the other parts, even if, as you will, you find difficulties in your way. But I must add a warning. If, within three months, you have not obtained parts one to six, part seven will be directed into other hands. The arrangements are made, and there is no way in which you can alter or affect them. Should part seven fall into those other hands, I confidently predict that the consequences will be catastrophic. I choose the word with care. It is in no sense an overstatement.'

Sir Horace removed his spectacles, laid them on his blotter, and stared for a while at the wall opposite. The letter frightened him, though less for what it said than for what he knew of Basil Zaharoff. A secret had been buried, long ago and at great cost. Sir Basil, who never undervalued a halfpenny in his calculations, would only have entered into such an agreement for the most pressing of reasons, and in extreme need. That was why he had advised letting the sleeping dog lie: because Malory's knowledge of Zaharoff made him wary of the consequence of other action. I should have insisted, he thought angrily. I should have prevented Pilgrim's asking.

But he hadn't. And this narrative, Malory now felt horribly sure, constituted an opening of Pandora's Box.

He came out of his chair, walked sharply to Pilgrim's office, and pushed the door open. Pilgrim stood by the window with two men, pointing out at something. One of the men held an elaborate camera and had a second hanging from his neck.

'Laurence, if I could have a word?'

Pilgrim turned, 'Horace, these two gentlemen are from Fortune magazine. Gentlemen, Sir Horace Malory.'

"Morning.' Malory nodded briefly.

'They're here,' Pilgrim said, 'to do a piece about the gold showing.'

The man without the cameras introduced himself. 'Jim Coverton, Sir Horace. And, say, we'd very much like you in the picture. Will that be okay?'

Malory glanced at him. 'Perhaps. But Laurence, I've just read-'

'They're doing some kind of profile on me,' Pilgrim said, with well-contrived modesty. 'Won't take too long for the pictures. You want to come down with us, Horace?'

Malory did not, but he went, walking fuming down the stairs, leaving the lift to the others, and wondering where Pilgrim got his extraordinary sense of priorities.

He succeeded in grasping Pilgrim's arm while they waited to enter the viewing room, far down in the basement. 'Laurence, I'm anxious about that letter. I think we have -'

Pilgrim said, 'Did you read the stuff that came with it?'

'Not yet.'

'Crap,' Pilgrim said decisively. 'Ancient history. No contemporary relevance at all. Stop worrying, Horace. Come and have your picture taken.'

Malory followed them inside. It was two minutes to eleven. On the hour, lighting appeared behind a blank glass wall, and a soft humming began. Through the glass an immense strong-room door became visible, opening slowly on a time clock. 'This vault,' Pilgrim was saying, 'is as safe as Fort Knox. And has to be. Gentlemen, the Hillyard, Cleef gold. Take your pictures, Mr Bauer. Quite a sight, isn't it?'

A huge pile of gold bars stood glowing in the middle of the vault.

'Jesus.' The photographer looked in awe for a moment, then took several pictures swiftly. Then: 'Could you stand right there, Mr Pilgrim. And you, sir.' He was excited, as visitors always were. Malory posed obediently.

'Now,' said Pilgrim, 'here's the second act. Just watch closely.' He sounded, Malory thought irritably, like a guide at some museum.

Inside the vault a mechanical hand rose from the floor behind the gold stack. Pilgrim said. 'The gold price dipped last week. We have to add a little more.' The mechanical hand dipped and reappeared with a bar of gleaming gold gripped securely in metal pincers coated with rubber; the gold bar was deposited on top of the stack. 'There'll be three this week, gentlemen,' Pilgrim said as the camera clicked frantically. 'The aim is that we have one hundred million in bullion here at the weekly showing.'

'That's dollars?' asked Coverton, his voice a trifle hoarse.

'We're in London,' Pilgrim said. 'It's pounds.'

The hand was depositing a second bar, returning for the third.

'Where's the new gold come from?'

'Sorry, gentlemen.'

'Okay, where's it go?'

'Same sorry. That's our secret.'

'Anybody ever try to bust the vault?'

Pilgrim turned to Malory. 'Have they, Horace?'

'Mmm?' Malory's attention was elsewhere. He'd seen the gold many times before and the letter drummed in his mind.

'Anybody ever try to steal it, sir?'

'Once I believe. Sometime in the 'forties,' Malory said.

'What happened?'

'It is protected in many ways,' Malory said. 'They died, if I remember, of electrocution. Two of them. Very foolish.'

Now the third bar was in position. Pilgrim regarded the stack with pleasure. 'It was a little short just a couple of minutes back. Now it's right up to par again. Take a look at a full hundred million.'

They looked reverently for long, silent moments, until the hum sounded and the strong-room door began to close. Pilgrim touched the glass. 'Glass can't be broken,' he said. 'Not with a hammer, not even with a jack-hammer. Too thick to cut. Any explosion strong enough to break it would bring the whole building down.' Silently, behind him, the great door closed. Wheels turned automatically on its face. It sat there, massive and invulnerable, its tungsten steel face gleaming, until abruptly the lights went off. Malory had watched Pilgrim play the confident showman. Where, he wondered, was the doubt he'd seen earlier?

Pilgrim was saying, 'It's been there a long time. We've been showing it once a week since nineteen-twenty-five. School kids come, students, politicians looking for reassurance.' He laughed. That, gentlemen, is what made Hillyard, Cleef pre-eminent, and keeps us up there with Rothschild's and Lazard's. People have faith in a stack of gold. Not a bad hedge against inflation, either. Now come and have some coffee.'

'Before you do,' Malory said crisply, 'would you mind if I had a word with Mr Pilgrim?'

'Not at all, sir,' Coverton said politely. He thought Malory looked a nice old guy, veddy British, veddy British indeed. Kind of a relic, maybe.

As they left the viewing room, Malory seized Pilgrim's arm. 'I warned you,' he said. 'But you chose to ignore it. Do you realize what you've done? This is something that was buried; a thing Zaharoff himself intended should stay buried. And now it has been released!'

'Zaharoff himself?' Pilgrim said. 'Listen, Horace, you have to read that stuff. Some old guy's reminiscences -what harm can they do? Horace, the worms had Zaharoff forty-four years back.'

Malory shivered.

'You cold, Horace? The air-conditioning -'

'Not cold,' Malory said. 'But I have a feeling those worms you spoke of will soon be turning their attention to Number Six, Athelsgate.'

Pilgrim touched his shoulder. 'We just saw a hundred million. What can touch us?'

Malory stared at him. 'Something will, I'm sure of it. We must find out what it is.'

'So find out.'

Malory turned abruptly. 'I'll do that,' he said. 'If I can -before the catastrophe.'

Back in his own office, Malory poured himself a substantial bracer of Glenfiddich and sank into his chair with a thoughtful grunt.

Pilgrim, he thought. This fella Pilgrim . . .

Malory's senses, all five of them, remained sharp. Plenty of men in the City of London would have sworn he possessed a remarkable sixth, for business, and that it also was finely-honed. Conspicuously missing from his armoury, however, was anything resembling a sense of fair play. His willingness to look at a problem from different viewpoints sprang out of a determination never to overlook possible advantage, rather than from attachment to abstract concepts of justice.

But he was aware of the lack. When necessary, he took remedial steps; and with young Pilgrim, such steps were undoubtedly needed.

For he did not like Pilgrim. Malory was Edwardian by birth, Wykehamist by education; he was deeply conservative, a traditionalist, and massively self-confident. He liked to be surrounded by men of like background and attitude, men whose neck-ties he recognized and whose family ties he also knew, or knew about.

A few days earlier, paying a weekend visit to a crony, he had been put rather uncomfortably in mind of Pilgrim. At the time he was watching an aristocratic litter of three-month-old golden Labrador pups romping with a mongrel terrier which was appreciably quicker, more intelligent and more vital than any of them. Put the thing in canine terms, and yes, Pilgrim was the mongrel terrier, no question of it; Crufts wouldn't look at him above a moment, but quick and vital he certainly was. Yet if Hillyard, Cleef was, in its own way, a kind of Crufts, the mongrel was already in. Forced on him, Malory reflected. Well, not forced exactly: but all the same, Pilgrim was a product of change. Hillyard, Cleef had followed Lazard's and Rothschild's into Wall Street rather late, but the American offspring,

infattening rapidly, had quickly become the dominant part of the enterprise. On Wall Street, the partners felt that in Pilgrim they had what one described as 'a colt set to win the Derby' and the suggestion had been made that Pilgrim come to London and do a few hard exercise gallops beneath Malory's gaze, before he grew too big and hard-mouthed, and Malory too old, for the experience to be beneficial. And so here he was: a youngish man who had learned much, learned fast and learned well. Pilgrim was smart. To Malory's mind, he might be a little too smart, inclined to parade his gifts under the noses of men too old and too successful to enjoy it. A lifetime of manœuvre had developed in Malory the conviction that a banker, like an overcoat, should be comfortable and warming. And Pilgrim tended towards the prickly and chill.

What, Malory wondered, would Zaharoff have made of Pilgrim? Or Pilgrim of Zaharoff? It would be fascinating to see what Pilgrim did now in the face of events. Real and major danger threatened. Could Pilgrim handle it? It might well be the perfect test of his judgment. But he'd have to be watched carefully, by George! He'd made one bad blunder already.

Malory picked up the typescript. It began:

My name entire is Henry George Dikeston. In the early spring of 1918 I undertook a journey . . .