Gavin Lyall: All Honourable Men

On Tuesday nights the hotel had a violinist and a pianist in the parlour. This was odd because in every other way it was the sort of hotel where, if you asked for an extra blanket, you got told instead how warm a night it was. But the best musicians did not play in Gloucester Road hotels, and Lajos Gottlich had heard their small repertoire too often already, so he escaped to the dimly gas-lit lobby. To go out meant spending money, but he might manage to borrow an evening paper off the receptionist.

However, the receptionist was listening to some tale being spun by the out-of-work Irish chauffeur who had been there only a week (and had asked for “Danny Boy” on his first evening; he had got “In a Monastery Garden” for his impertinence). Lajos heard the receptionist say: “A Rolls-Royce ?” so he paused, half-hidden behind an aspidistra plant, and listened.

“Can you drive one?” the receptionist was asking.

“I can drive anything,” the Irishman said confidently. “Anyways, I did drive this one. Quite a nice motor-car, I’m thinking.”

“Gosh.” The receptionist imagined himself being able to describe a Rolls-Royce as “quite nice”. “And will he buy it?”

“If he listens to me. And if he don’t listen to me, why’d he hire me, then?”

“Oh, absolutely. Are you going to stay on here, now?”

“I’d not be knowing jest yet. Mind, I wouldn’t be saying no if he wanted me to move into the Savoy with him, close and convenient.” The Irishman cackled. He had a lean, dark piratical look – an old face on a younger loose-limbed body – and averaging the ages Lajos had reckoned he was little over thirty. But you had to be young to understand all these new mechanical toys that obsessed the world: motor-cars, air-ships, aeroplanes.

The Irishman – was his name Jarman? Gorman? Lajos wished he could remember – caught sight of him and waved cheerily. “And a very good evening to ye, Mr Gottlich.”

“He’s found a position,” the receptionist said.

“Excellent! May I offer my congratulations?”

“Ye can do more’n that: ye can come out and have a drink wid me.”

Gorman – he was pretty sure it was Gorman – was obviously going to be so insistent that Lajos could seem reluctant. “It is rather cold, is it not?”

“ ’Tis a lovely spring evening and I’ll not hear a word against it. Be getting yer coat, then.”

“If you wish.” A man who lived at the Savoy and sent a new-hired chauffeur to pick out a Rolls-Royce for him . . . Lajos would have walked naked through a snowstorm to hear more.

* * *

Mr Carstairs was not an impressive man, but Lajos had long ago learnt not to judge a man’s bank balance by his physique. Shortish – shorter than himself – a bit tubby, fair-haired and with a boyish, optimistic face (the rich, Lajos had observed, did things their own way, wearing young faces on old bodies). At home in his Savoy suite, Carstairs wore just waistcoat and trousers of very dark grey, with an old-fashioned wing collar and one of the dullest neckties in London. But the gold watch-chain across his stomach could have anchored a battleship.

They introduced themselves and Carstairs waved at a silver tray. “Help yourself to some coffee, it should still be hot. If not, I can-”

“I am sure it will be fine.” The room was big and warm and, being at the back of the hotel, quiet. A small writing-table by one window was piled with company reports and suchlike; today’s Financial Times lay on the floor.

Carstairs had been lighting a pipe. Now he asked abruptly: “How did you hear of me?”

“As I said in my letter, friends in the City mentioned that you had recently returned from South Africa-”

“Just over a week ago.”

“-and that you had been asking about investment opportunities in oil.”

“I was.” Carstairs sat back in his chair, puffed his pipe and looked critically at Lajos. But he hadn’t the face for strong expressions: everything came out boyishly innocent. “And are you looking for an opportunity to make some money out of me?”

“I certainly hope not to be the loser by our acquaintance,” Lajos said, unperturbed. “And I am not here on a charitable mission. But may I start with a warning?”

Carstairs nodded.

“You are too late. You should have begun ten years ago. Better still, twenty. Now, oil has become too big a business. With the invention of the motor-car, with navies building warships that run on oil, it is now a game of nations, of empires. Even the Rothschilds, so I understand, are pulling back.”

“Hm. Are you saying there’s no more oil to find?”

“No, no. Of course there is oil still to be found, but – are you a mining engineer, Mr Carstairs?”

“No, I made my little packet finding engineers who knew what they were doing and backing them – and managing them when they needed it.” He smiled. “Which was a bit more often than they expected.”

Lajos nodded approval. “That is a rarer talent than most people understand. And you like being your own boss?”

Carstairs puffed contentedly. “I’m spoiled that way.”

“Then you are looking for someone who can find, or has found, oil – and does not know what to do next?”

“Something like that.”

Lajos seemed about to go on, then paused. Finally he said: “One more warning, Mr Carstairs: oil needs both patience and reliable finance. Do you understand how much it can cost to drill one well in the deserts of the East? At least ?100,000.”

But Carstairs came through that test without batting an eyelid.

“And that is before you have paid all the baksheesh to the local sheikhs and government officials, before you must build a pipeline to get the oil out, perhaps also a refinery, charter ships . . . Shall I tell you what so often happens then, Mr Carstairs?”

“Go ahead.”

“You run out of money. Somehow, when you see a fortune within reach, the banks become reluctant. They have heard rumours, perhaps your concession is not legally so perfect, they fear a war in that area, shipping rates are going up . . . Ah, such rumours! And then, like the handsome prince in the fairy-story, there comes one of the big companies – Shell or Standard or Anglo-Persian – who saves you. That is, they buy you out for a fraction of what you have spent. And they live happily ever after.”

Carstairs took his pipe out of his mouth and squinted at Lajos. “Are you trying to scare me off?”

“No, I only want that you do not say you were not warned.”

“Then what do you advise?”

“ Start by thinking you will sell out to the big companies. Go only so far, spend only so much, to prove there is oil – and then sell. As long as they know you are not hungry, that you do not need to sell, then they will become hungry – and a big, hungry oil company is a wonderful sight. Even better, you may have a pack of them, bidding like wolves against each other for your well.

“But they will not buy just rumours, a concession to drill. They are offered a hundred every day. So you must spend some money to prove your strike.”

Carstairs got up and walked to the window, trailing thoughtful smoke-puffs. He stared down at the wind-scuffed brown Thames and a small steam-tug, foaming at the bows yet making almost no headway against the combined ebb and current.

“That sounds like good advice. Worth something in itself.” He swung around. “So what I’m looking for is someone with a good, likely concession to drill in – where? Mesopotamia? Persia?”

“Not Persia: Anglo-Persian is too powerful there. And Mesopotamia only if you trust the new Turkish Government . . . but I think first of the little sheikhdoms on the Persian Gulf.”