Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

'I'm not going,' Malory muttered savagely. 'Not yet, anyway.' He and Pilgrim, both by now feeling somewhat beleaguered, sat in Pilgrim's teak and steel office.

'Can't be Dikeston doing it,' Pilgrim said. 'You can't play Press campaigns from the grave.'

'No, no, no. It's the Sudbury chap,' Malory said.

'It's so damned unfair!' Pilgrim went on. 'We buy a painting - what the hell's wrong with buying a painting? Now we have to give it away - we can't even sell it!'

'Clever, though,' said Malory. 'You'll admit it's clever.'

Pilgrim gave him a long, hard look. He thumped both hands palm down on the desk and said with new determination, 'We're going to fight back, Horace. We have to. We start off with hundreds, it goes to thousands, then to hundreds of thousands - and now it's goddam millions] The next stage is tens of millions and after that it's hundreds and we're wiped out! How in hell did Dikeston get this thing going?'

'He had fifty thousand a year and a lot of time to think and plan,' Malory said. 'And at the moment, if I may remind you, we have no idea at all where the next packet of Dikeston's papers will be coming from. There were no instructions with the last batch.'

Pilgrim said, 'Look, we don't need the papers. We know what happened to the Romanovs. They were shot in a cellar in Ekaterinburg, right?'

'So it's said,' Malory said, scepticism in his voice.

'You don't believe it.'

too'It's problematical, Laurence. Some would disagree. There's a book I'll lend you -'

'I've read the damn books. The Reds shot the whole family.'

'Andso?'

'So what's to worry about?'

'We worry about the paper,' Malory said. 'To Zaharoff the secret of that paper was worth a fortune. Remember his choice of word. He warns of calamity.'

Again Pilgrim's flat hand thumped the desk. 'Calamity! The only calamity I see lies in carrying on round this obstacle course Dikeston set. He's got us paying on a geometrical progression. It'll ruin us!' He stood straight and fixed Malory with a hard eye. 'We come back to Zaharoff, don't we? Always back to him. Why does he matter so much? You knew him, Horace; you held him in high regard. You-'

'No.' Malory held up a hand to stop him. 'You're wrong, quite wrong.'

'What do you mean?'

'I held him in awe. I was terrified of him, Laurence!'

'I thought you liked the guy.'

'Like?' Malory gave what might have been a snort of amusement, I do not believe there was a man on earth who liked Basil Zaharoff. Not one. And only one woman. Respected, oh yes\ - he was respected!

He was feared, and with reason. He was listened to, he was courted as an ally. But not as a friend, I think.'

'Yet you still think his word is holy writ?'

'If you like.' Malory paused and pursed his lips. 'Tell me, have you ever played a ball game of any kind against a really good player?'

'A little squash once,' Pilgrim said, with a touch of pride. 'I had a knock-up once at the New York Racquet Club with Hashim Khan.'

'Then let me tell you what it was you noticed. First, he hit the ball both much harder and much straighter than you.

Secondly, he did not make mistakes. Thirdly, he could keep going at a very high level of performance far longer than you could. Agreed?'

'Oh, sure.' Pilgrim was smiling now at the recollection. 'But you left one out.'

'What's that?'

'Positional play. Anticipation, if you like. He was there and ready with the answer while you were still trying to set the question-' Pilgrim broke off, abruptly comprehending. Malory said, 'Precisely. All these things are games. Zaharoff's game was power, and he played it supremely well.'

Pilgrim crossed to the window and stood looking out, I realize you're convinced of it all, Horace. You know I'm not. Could you convince me?'

'Yes, I think I could.'

'I'm going to ask you to do it right now,' Pilgrim said. 'But first . . .' He pressed a button on his intercom and said, 'Come in, would you, Jacques.'

Graves came in immediately. 'What I want, Jacques,' Pilgrim said, 'and I'm afraid it will probably be one hell of a job, is a complete list of all regular payments made by Hillyard, Cleef which are or even may be pension payments. Up to and including - what year did Zaharoff die, Horace?'

'Nineteen thirty-six.'

'Okay, from, say, nineteen-fourteen to nineteen-thirty-six. Right?'

'Right.'

As Graves departed, Pilgrim settled into his chair. 'Convince me.'

'Have you ever been to Monte?' Malory enquired.

'Monte Carlo? Yes.'

'Did you visit the Casino?'

'Yes.'

'And play?'

'No, not me.'

'Nowadays, of course,' Malory said musingly, 'it's not what it was. There are casinos everywhere, even -' and his lip bent in distaste - 'here in London. But there was a time, Laurence, when Las Vegas did not exist, nor casinos in London and other cities. Rich men and women who wanted to play chemin de fer or roulette had to go to Monte. Know anything, do you, about Monaco's status?'

'It's a principality, isn't it? - What's the guy's name? Rainier?'

'The family name is Grimaldi. Hereditary rulers. Have been for centuries. Keep them in mind, will you, my dear chap, while I tell you something of Sir Basil. Oh - and the lady I believe I mentioned - she must have liked him. She waited forty years to marry him.

'Zaharoff was born in any number of places, and born poor in all of them, or so he said at different times. But effectively he started off in Constantinople as a fireman, of all things - this is the eighteen-sixties, mind, when fire brigades were perhaps a little less, er, technically minded than they are these days. Those chappies used to start a fire, then run round with their axes and chop their way into the surrounding property and see what was portable. You understand?

'He was Greek, Zaharoff was, and this was Turkey, with scrapping going on all over the place. He began to sell arms. Sold more and more. Worked for Nordenfelt, then heard about Maxim's new machine-gun, forced a merger between 'em and became the salesman for Maxim, Nordenfelt. And when I say salesman, as I'm sure you understand, Laurence, I do not mean that he drove a little Ford motor-car and made fifteen calls per day.'

Pilgrim smiled. 'What did he drive?'

Malory smiled back. 'Hard bargains. Took his commission, of course. Then came the day he sold a submarine for Vickers, I think it was to Queen Marie of Roumania, and rumour had it the deal was done à deux.Heard of Queen Marie, have you? Quite a lady she was! Well, never mind. Zaharoff quickly became Vickers' top figure. He was only a director, one among many, not chairman or anything, but his will determined everything. He started wars, armed both sides, that kind of thing. Kept the Balkans boiling for decades. When you talk about anticipation, mark this - no sooner had the Wright Brothers flown at Kittyhawk than Zaharoff set up chairs in aviation at three universities: Oxford, Paris and St Petersburg. There was a fella called Constantinescu who devised the gear which enabled machine-guns to fire through rotating propellers. He was Basil's, I seem to remember.

'But meantime, he fell in love. Oh yes, Zaharoff fell. Here comes the lady: Spanish grandee, Duchess of Villa-franca and much else besides. Married to a madman, the Duchess was, and powerfully Papist into the bargain, so -well, there couldn't be a divorce. Had to wait for the Grim Reaper. So they waited: forty-three years, I think it was. Then the Duke died and they got married. Are you still listening?'

'You have my attention, Horace, believe me.'

'So here's our poor boy from the slums of Constantinople. He's now among the richest men in the world and his wife is a duchess. Lloyd George, meantime, has given Basil a knighthood. He's quite the grandee himself. AH he lacks is a kingdom to lay at the feet of his bride.