Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street

‘Do you think we could start this particular story at the beginning?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Father had been involved in several business deals which had gone bad,’ Harold said. ‘Holt and Co managed to emerge with a decent profit, but several of our partners in those businesses — including Edward Knox — ended up in the bankruptcy court.’

‘Their own fault entirely,’ George said. ‘In the business world, you need to learn to be a strong swimmer pretty damn quickly, especially when the current keeps changing. Those men didn’t learn — and so they went under.’

‘Father received several anonymous death threats after the companies collapsed, and Inspector Manson said-’

‘Manson was our pet policeman,’ George interrupted. ‘We paid him a retainer of a thousand dollars a year — not that I could see he ever did anything to earn even a single cent of it!’

‘. . Inspector Manson said that as the threats seemed to have come from more than one source, Father might be wise to stay away from the office until everybody had cooled down a little.’

‘And your father agreed to do that?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Yes, he did, but Knox came to our house on Fifth Avenue, late one night. The doors were all locked, but he’d bribed Father’s secretary, Margaret Wilkins, to let him in.’

George laughed. ‘Father trusted her, you see, even if she was little more than a servant. Well, he’s never made that kind of mistake again!’

‘He was too rigid about how he reacted to the whole incident — at least in that way,’ Harold said.

‘Would you mind explaining that, sir?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Just because one person has let you down, that doesn’t mean everyone else will — and by refusing to see anyone other than us and a couple of servants, he’s only been punishing himself.’

‘Anyway, as I said earlier,’ George continued, ‘it was a botched attempt at murder by a weedy little man who was in police custody half an hour later — but it was still enough to make Father lose his nerve.’

‘I don’t think that was when Father lost his nerve,’ Harold said firmly. ‘The experience unnerved him, certainly. It would have unnerved anyone. .’

‘Unnerved anyone,’ George echoed, contemptuously.

‘. . but I think it was what happened to Arthur Rudge which really frightened him.’

‘Who’s Arthur Rudge?’ Meade asked.

‘He was Father’s head bookkeeper,’ Harold replied darkly. ‘He was murdered a few days after Knox tried to kill Father.’

‘He wasn’t murdered,’ George said, again dismissively. He turned to Meade. ‘Rudge died in a fire at his apartment. It started in his bedroom, and, if you ask me, what caused it was one of those cheap cigars he was always smoking.’

‘The police never ruled out murder,’ Harold said.

‘Well, of course they didn’t!’ George replied exasperatedly. ‘Crime is their business — no crime, no jobs — so they’re always going to find suspicious circumstances, aren’t they?’

‘Father didn’t rule it out either,’ Harold said firmly. ‘He’s never openly admitted it, but I’m convinced he truly believes that Rudge was murdered — and that’s what tipped him over the edge.’

‘Tipped him over the edge!’ said his brother.

George seemed to believe that the best way to counter any statement was not to argue against it but to repeat it in an incredulous voice, Blackstone thought.

Well, perhaps he was right — it certainly seemed to work for a lot of politicians he had heard speak.

‘It had always been Father’s belief, up to that point, that everyone he did business with was absolutely terrified of him,’ Harold explained to Blackstone. ‘What Knox did shook his faith in that belief a little, but I think he convinced himself that it was no more than an aberration.’

‘A what?’ George asked.

‘But he couldn’t continue to convince himself of that once his bookkeeper was killed,’ Harold ploughed on. ‘If his enemies were brave enough to murder someone as important to the company as Rudge-’

‘He wasn’t important to the company!’ George interrupted. ‘Hell, we’ve managed well enough without him, haven’t we?’

‘We’ve certainly managed ,’ Harold agreed cautiously. ‘But it wasn’t that easy at first. We made mistakes which cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars — mistakes which we’d never have made if we’d had Rudge to advise us.’

‘Poppycock!’

‘Do you see what I’m getting at, Inspector?’ Harold asked.

‘I think so,’ Blackstone said. ‘It wasn’t so much that Rudge was important in himself , as that he was important as a symbol of your father’s power . He was under your father’s protection — and if he was killed, then that protection didn’t seem to be worth much. In other words, if they dared kill Rudge, they’d find it just as easy to kill his boss.’

‘Hogwash!’ George said.

‘So you don’t think your father should have been worried, sir?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Of course he shouldn’t! The pathetic little men he ruined — and who he was hiding from — aren’t responsible for the kidnapping. That was the work of professional criminals.’

‘How can you say that Father was cowardly to take the precautions he did?’ Harold demanded angrily. ‘And that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it — calling him a coward?’

George’s expression softened. ‘I never used that word, little brother,’ he said, in a much gentler voice. ‘What he did was weak, rather than cowardly. But whatever you call it, he must take part of the responsibility for the events of last night — because if he hadn’t acted as he did, it would never have happened.’

‘You know nothing about him!’ Harold protested.

‘And you know nothing about hunting,’ George countered.

‘What are you talking about?’ Harold asked.

‘It’s almost unheard of for the leader of a wolf pack to be challenged,’ George said. ‘If other members of that pack start to find his leadership unbearable, they go off and form new packs of their own, and-’

‘So now you’re calling Father a wolf?’

‘Well, of course I am! Up until Arthur Rudge’s death, he was one of the biggest wolves on Wall Street — and you know it.’

‘But he. .’ Harold began.

And then he fell silent, as if he had realized that he had nothing with which to counter his brother’s argument.

‘Go on with your point, sir,’ Blackstone said.

‘As I said, challenges to the leader of the pack are rare. But if something happens to that leader — if his leg is damaged in a trap, or he’s wounded by a hunter — the other wolves will have no hesitation in killing him. And that’s what happened to Father — he showed himself to be weak in the eyes of the criminal fraternity — and now he’s paying the price.’

‘You’re being unspeakable!’ Harold said hotly.

‘I’m being realistic ,’ George replied. ‘But what’s happened in the past is neither here nor there. Father has been kidnapped, and soon his kidnappers will contact us and demand a ransom.’ He turned to Meade again. ‘The New York Police Department will not try to stop us paying it, will they?’

‘No, sir, but we would request that you allow one of our men to deliver it,’ Meade said.

George nodded. ‘Of course. I’d be more than happy to leave it in the hands of the professionals. But there is something we must decide before we get the ransom demand, Harry,’ he continued, speaking to his brother, ‘and that is how much we’re prepared to pay.’