Noble House

  “Would after lunch be convenient? Sorry but I’m jammed till 3:20. I could see you then if that would be satisfactory.”

  “3:20 will be fine.”

  “I’ll send a car for you an—”

  “Oh there’s, er, there’s no need for that. We can find our way to your office.”

  “It’s no trouble. A car will call for you at 2:30.”

  Dunross replaced the phone, lost in thought.

  The clock chimed 8:45. A knock. Claudia opened the door. “Sir Luis Basilio, tai-pan.”

  Johnjohn at the Victoria Bank was shouting into the phone. “… I don’t give a sod what you bastards in London think, I’m telling you we’ve got the beginnings of a run here and it looks very smelly indeed. I … What? Speak up, man! We’ve got a rotten connection … What? … I couldn’t care less that it’s 1:30 in the morning—where the hell were you anyway—I’ve been trying to get you for four hours! … What? … Whose birthday? Christ almighty…” His sandy eyebrows soared and he held on to his temper. “Listen, just get down to the City and the Mint very first bloody thing and tell them … Hello? … Yes, tell them this whole bloody island may run out of money and … Hello? … Hello? … Oh for chrissake!” He started jiggling the plunger up and down. “Hello!” Then he slammed the receiver onto its cradle, cursed for a moment, then prodded the intercom button. “Miss Mills, I was cut off, please get him back quickly as you can.”

  “Certainly,” the cool, very English voice said. “Mr. Dunross’s here.” Johnjohn glanced at his watch and whitened. It was 9:33. “Oh Christ! Hold … yes, hold the call. I’ll…” Hurriedly he put the phone down, rushed to the door, composed himself and opened it with forced nonchalance. “My dear Ian, so sorry to keep you waiting. How’re things?”

  “Fine. And with you?”

  “Marvelous!”

  “Marvelous? That’s interesting. There must be six or seven hundred impatient customers queuing up outside already and you’re half an hour to opening time. There’re even a few outside Blacs.”

  “More than a few …” Johnjohn just caught himself in time. “Nothing to worry about, Ian. Would you like coffee or shall we go straight up to Paul’s office.”

  “Paul’s office.”

  “Good.” Johnjohn led the way along the thickly carpeted corridor. “No, there’s no problem at all, just a few superstitious Chinese—you know how they are, rumors and all that. Rotten about the fire. I hear Casey stripped and dived to the rescue. Were you at the track this morning? This rain’s grand, isn’t it?”

  Dunross’s unease increased. “Yes. I hear there’re queues outside almost every bank in the Colony. Except the Bank of China.”

  Johnjohn’s laugh sounded hollow. “Our Communist friends wouldn’t take kindly to a run on them at all. They’d send in the troops!”

  “So the run’s on?”

  “On the Ho-Pak, yes. On us? No. In any event we’re nowhere near as extended as Richard Kwang. I understand he really has made some very dangerous loans. I’m afraid the Ching Prosperity’s not in good shape either. Still, Smiler Ching deserves to take a drubbing after all his fiddling over the years in such dubious enterprises.”

  “Drugs?”

  “I really couldn’t say, Ian. Not officially. But the rumor’s strong.”

  “But you say the run won’t spread to you?”

  “Not really. If it does … well I’m sure everything will be quite all right.” Johnjohn went on down the wide paneled corridor, everything rich, solid and safe. He nodded at the elderly English secretary, went past her and opened the door marked PAUL HAVERGILL, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN. The office was large, oak paneled, the desk huge and clear of papers. The windows faced the square.

  “Ian, my dear fellow.” Havergill got up and extended his hand. “So sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday, and the party last night was hardly the place for business, eh? How’re you feeling?”

  “All right. I think. So far. You?”

  “I’ve got the trots slightly but Constance’s fine, thank God. Soon as we got home I gave us both a good dollop of good old Dr. Colicos’s Remedy.” It was an elixir invented during the Crimean War by Dr. Colicos to cure stomach disorders when tens of thousands of British soldiers were dying of typhoid and cholera and dysentery. The formula was still a guarded secret.

  “Terrific stuff! Dr. Tooley gave us some too.”

  “Damnable about the others, what? Toxe’s wife, eh?”

  Johnjohn said gravely, “I heard they found her body under some pilings this morning. If I hadn’t had a pink ticket Mary and I’d’ve been there too.” A pink ticket meant that you had your wife’s permission to be out in the evening without her, out playing cards with friends, or at the Club, or on the town with visiting guests or wherever—but with her benevolent permission.

  “Oh?” Havergill smiled. “Who was the lucky lady?”

  “I was playing bridge with McBride at the Club.”

  Havergill laughed. “Well, discretion’s the better part of valor and we have the reputation of the bank to think of.”

  Dunross felt the tension in the room between the two men. He smiled politely, waiting.

  “What can I do for you, Ian?” Havergill asked.

  “I want an extra 100 million credit for thirty days.”

  There was a dead silence. Both men stared at him. Dunross thought he saw the flicker of a smile rush behind Havergill’s eyes. “Impossible!” he heard him say.

  “Gornt’s mounting an attack on us, that’s clear to anyone. You both know we’re solid, safe and in good shape. I need your open, massive backing, then he won’t dare proceed and I won’t actually need the money. But I do need the commitment. Now.”

  Another silence. Johnjohn waited and watched. Havergill lit a cigarette. “What’s the situation with the Par-Con deal, Ian?”

  Dunross told them. “Tuesday we sign.”

  “Can you trust the American?”

  “We’ve made a deal.”

  Another silence. Uneasily, Johnjohn broke it. “It’s a very good deal, Ian.”

  “Yes. With your open backing, Gornt and Blacs will withdraw their attack.”

  “But 100 million?” Havergill said. “That’s beyond possibility.”

  “I said I won’t need the full amount.”

  “That’s surmise, my dear fellow. We could become involved in a very big power play against our wish. I’ve heard rumors Quillan has outside financing, German backing. We couldn’t risk getting into a fight with a consortium of German banks. You are already over the limit of your revolving credit. And there’s the 500,000 shares you bought today which have to be paid for on Monday. Sorry no.”

  “Put it to the board.” Dunross knew that he had enough votes to carry it over Havergill’s opposition.

  Another silence. “Very well. I’ll certainly do that—at the next board meeting.”

  “No. That’s not for three weeks. Please call an emergency meeting.”

  “Sorry no.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have to explain my reasons to you, Ian,” Havergill said crisply. “Struan’s doesn’t own or control this institution, though you do have a large interest in us, as we have in you, and you are our valued customer. I’ll be glad to put it up at the next board meeting. Calling emergency meetings is within my control. Solely.”

  “I agree. So is the granting of the credit. You don’t need a meeting. You could do that now.”

  “I will be glad to put the request to the board at the next meeting. Was there anything else?”

  Dunross controlled his urge to wipe the barely concealed smugness off his enemy’s face. “I need the credit to support my stock. Now.”

  “Of course, and Bruce and I really do understand that the Par-Con down payment will give you the financing to complete your ship transactions and make a partial Orlin payment.” Havergill puffed his cigarette. “By the way, I understand Orlin won’t renew—you’ll have to pay them off totally within thirty days as per th
e contract.”

  Dunross flushed. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From the chairman, of course. I called him last night to ask if the—”

  “You what?”

  “Of course. My dear chap,” Havergill said, now openly enjoying Dunross’s and Johnjohn’s shock. “We have every right to inquire. After all, we’re Struan’s bankers and we need to know. Our equity’s also at risk if you are to fail, isn’t it?”

  “And you’ll help that happen?”

  Havergill stubbed out his cigarette with vast enjoyment. “It’s not to our interest for any big business to fail in the Colony, let alone the Noble House. Oh dear no! You needn’t worry. At the right time we’ll step in and buy your shares. We’ll never allow the Noble House to fail.”

  “When’s the right time?”

  “When the shares are at a value we consider correct.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’d have to look into it, Ian.”

  Dunross knew he was beaten but he showed none of it. “You’ll allow the stock to go down until they’re at giveaway prices and then you’ll buy control.”

  “Struan’s is a public company now, however the various companies interlock,” Havergill said. “Perhaps it would have been wise to follow Alastair’s advice, and mine—we did point out the risks you’d take as a public company. And perhaps you should have consulted us before buying that massive quantity of shares. Clearly Quillan thinks he has you and you really are stretched a bit, old boy. Well, never fear, Ian, we will not allow the Noble House to fail.”

  Dunross laughed. He got up. “The Colony will be a much better place with you out of it.”

  “Oh?” Havergill snapped. “My term of office lasts until November 23. You may be out of the Colony before me!”

  “Don’t you think …” Johnjohn began, aghast at Havergill’s fury, but stopped as the deputy chairman turned on him.

  “Your term of office begins November 24. Providing the annual general meeting confirms the appointment. Until that time I run the Victoria.”

  Dunross laughed again. “Don’t be too sure of that.” He walked out.

  Angrily Johnjohn broke the silence. “You could easily call an emergency meeting. You could eas—”

  “The matter is closed! Do you understand? Closed!” Furiously Havergill lit another cigarette. “We’ve got problems of our own that have to be solved first. But if that bastard squeezes out of the vise this time I shall be very surprised. He’s in a dangerous position, very dangerous. We know nothing about this damned American and his girl friend. We do know Ian’s recalcitrant, arrogant and out of his depth. He’s the wrong man for the job.”

  “That’s not t—”

  “We’re a profit-making institution, not a charity, and the Dunrosses and Struans have had too much say in our affairs for too many years. If we can get control we become the Noble House of Asia—we do! We get his block of our stock back. We fire all the directors and put in new management at once, we double our money and I’d leave a lasting legacy to the bank forever. That’s what we’re here for—to make money for our bank and for our shareholders! I’ve always considered your friend Dunross a very high risk and now he’s going to the wall. And if I can help hang him I will!”

  The doctor was counting Fleur Marlowe’s pulse beats against his old-fashioned, gold fob watch. One hundred and three. Too many, he thought sadly. Her wrist was delicate. He laid it back on the bedcovers, his sensitive fingers aware of the fever. Peter Marlowe came out of the small bathroom of their apartment.

  “Not good, eh?” Tooley said gruffly.

  Peter Marlowe’s smile was weary. “Rather tedious actually. Just cramps and not much coming out, just a little liquid.” His eyes rested on his wife who lay wanly in the small double bed. “How’re you, pet?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Fine thank you, Peter.”

  The doctor reached for his old-fashioned bag and put his stethoscope away. “Was, er, was there any blood, Mr. Marlowe?”

  Peter Marlowe shook his head and sat tiredly. Neither he nor his wife had slept much. Their cramps had begun about 4:00 A.M. and had continued since then with ever-increasing strain. “No, at least not yet,” he said. “It feels rather like an ordinary bout of dysentery—cramps, a lot of palaver and very little to show for it.”

  “Ordinary? You’ve had dysentery? When? What kind of dysentery?”

  “I think it was enteric. I, I was a POW in Changi in ’45—actually between ’42 and ’45, partially in Java but mostly in Changi.”

  “Oh. Oh I see. Sorry about that.” Dr. Tooley remembered all the horror stories that came out of Asia after the war about the treatment of British and American troops by the Japanese Army. “I always felt betrayed in a curious way,” the doctor said sadly. “The Japanese’d always been our ally … they’re an island nation, so’re we. Good fighters. I was a doctor with the Chindits. Went in with Wingate twice.” Wingate was an eccentric British general who had devised a completely unorthodox battle plan to send highly mobile columns of marauding British soldiers, code name Chindits, from India into the jungles of Burma deep behind Japanese lines, supplying them by airdrop. “I was lucky—the whole Chindit operation was rather dicey,” he said. As he talked he was watching Fleur, weighing clues, sending his experience into her, trying to detect the disease now, trying to isolate the enemy among a myriad of possibilities before it harmed the fetus. “Bloody planes kept missing our drops.”

  “I met a couple of your fellows at Changi.” The younger man searched his memory. “In ’43 or ’44, I can’t remember when exactly. Or any names. They’d been sent down to Changi after they were captured.”

  “That’d be ’43.” The doctor was somber. “One whole column got caught and ambushed early on. Those jungles are unbelievable if you’ve never been in one. We didn’t know what the devil we were doing most of the time. Afraid not many of the lads survived to get to Changi.” Dr. Tooley was a fine old man with a big nose and sparse hair and warm hands, and he smiled down at Fleur. “So, young lady,” he said with his kind, gruff voice. “You’ve a slight fev—”

  “Oh … sorry, Doctor,” she said quickly, interrupting him, suddenly white, “I, I think …” She got out of bed and hurried awkwardly for the bathroom. The door closed behind her. There was a fleck of blood on the back of her nightdress.

  “Is she all right?” Marlowe asked, his face stark.

  “Temperature’s a hundred and three, heartbeat’s up. It could just be gastroenteritis….” The doctor looked at him.

  “Could it be hepatitis?”

  “No. Not this quickly. The incubation period’s six weeks to two months. I’m afraid that specter’s hanging over everyone’s head. Sorry.” A rain squall battered the windows. He glanced at them and frowned, remembering that he had not told Dunross and the Americans about the danger of hepatitis. Perhaps it’ll be better just to wait and see and be patient. Joss, he thought. “Two months, to be safe. You’ve both had all your shots so there shouldn’t be any problem about typhoid.”

  “And the baby?”

  “If the cramps get worse she may miscarry, Mr. Marlowe,” the doctor said softly. “Sorry, but it’s best to know. Either way it won’t be easy for her—God only knows what viruses and bacteria’re at Aberdeen. The place’s a public sewer and has been for a century. Shocking, but nothing we can do about it.” He rummaged in his pocket for his prescription pad. “You can’t change the Chinese or habits of centuries. Sorry.”

  “Joss,” Peter Marlowe said, feeling rotten. “Will everyone get sick? There must have been forty or fifty of us thrashing around in the water—impossible not to drink some of that muck.”

  The doctor hesitated. “Of fifty, perhaps five’ll be very sick, five’ll be untouched and the rest’ll be in between. Hong Kong yan—that’s Hong Kongites—they should be less affected than visitors. But, as you say, a lot of it’s joss.” He found his pad. “I’ll give you a prescription for a rather newfangled intestin
al antibiotic but continue with good old Dr. Colicos’s Remedy—that will settle your tummies. Watch her very carefully. Do you have a thermometer?”

  “Oh yes. With …” A spasm went through Peter Marlowe, shook him and went away. “Traveling with young kids you have to have a survival kit.” Both men were trying not to watch the bathroom door. They could half-hear her as her pain waxed and waned.

  “How old are your children?” Dr. Tooley asked absently, keeping the concern from his voice as he wrote. When he had come in he had noticed the happy chaos of the tiny second bedroom off the small drab living room—barely big enough for its two-tiered bunk, the toys scattered. “Mine are grown up now. I’ve three daughters.”

  “What? Oh, ours are four and eight. They’re … they’re both girls.”

  “Do you have an amah?”

  “Oh yes. Yes. With all the rain this morning she took the kids to school. They go across the harbor and pick up a bo-pi.” A bo-pi was an unlicensed taxi that was quite illegal but most everyone used them from time to time. “The school’s off Garden Road. Most days they insist on toddling off themselves. They’re perfectly safe.”

  “Oh yes. Yes of course.”

  Their ears were fine-tuned now to her torment. Each muted strain went through both men.

  “Well, don’t worry,” the doctor said hesitantly. “I’ll have the drugs sent up—there’s a pharmacy in the hotel. I’ll have it put on your bill. I’ll come back this evening at six, as near to six as I can. If there’s any problem …” He offered a prescription blank gently. “My phone number’s on this. Don’t hesitate to call, eh?”

  “Thanks. Now about your bill…”

  “No need to worry about that, Mr. Marlowe. The first order of business is to get you well.” Dr. Tooley was concentrating on the door. He was afraid to leave. “Were you army?”

  “No. Air force.”

  “Ah! My brother was one of the Few. He pranged in …” He stopped.

  Fleur Marlowe was calling out hesitantly through the door, “Doctor … cou … could you … please …”

  Tooley went to the door. “Yes, Mrs. Marlowe? Are you all right?”