The Palliser.’
‘Well, you go back to your room and think it over.’ He got to his feet. ‘Take the report with you. Read it. If there’s anything you want to know give me a ring.’
He paused and then said, ‘I would only add one other thing. Roger Fergus met the cost of that survey out of his own pocket. You owe him nothing on that score, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think you will agree that it’s in everyone’s interests that the deal goes through.’ He pressed the bell-push on his desk. ‘Come and see me about five.’
The secretary showed me out. As I made for the stairs I checked at the sight of the door opposite me. The Roger Fergus Oil Development Company. On a sudden impulse I opened the door and went in. There was a counter and beyond the counter a rather stuffy office with one typewriter and the walls massed with files. There was an electric fire and some unwashed cups on a dusty desk. A door led off it with the name Roger Fergus on it. The door was open and I got a view of a bare desk and a table on which stood nothing but a telephone. The door of the neighbouring office slammed and a girl’s voice behind me said, ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Mr Fergus,’ I explained.
‘Old Mr Fergus?’ She shook her head. ‘He hasn’t been coming to the office for a long time now. He’s been ill.’
‘Oh.’ I hesitated.
‘Is your business urgent? Because his son, Mr Henry Fergus-’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t really business — more a social call. He was a great friend of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell.’
Her eyes lit up in her rather pale face. ‘I met Mr Campbell once.’ She smiled. ‘He was a wonderful old man — quite a character. There was an awful lot about him in the papers when he died.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I’ll ring Mr Fergus’ home. I’m sure he’d like to see you if he’s well enough. He had a stroke, you know. He’s paralysed all down one side and he tires very easily.’
But apparently it was all right. He would see me if I went straight over. ‘But the nurse says you’re not to stay more than five minutes. The Fergus Farm is a little way out of town on the far side of the Bow River. The cab drivers all know it.’
I thanked her and went down the stairs, past the photographs of oil wells and the clatter of the ticker tape and the typewriters on the second floor. The notice board at the entrance, listing the companies occupying the building, caught my eye. The second floor was occupied by Henry Fergus, Stockbrokers. I wondered vaguely how the Calgary stock exchange was able to support a business that appeared to be as large as most London stockbroker’s offices.
The Fergus home was a low, sprawling ranch-house building. As we swung up past the stables I saw several fine blacks being taken out for exercise, their blankets marked with the monogram RF. What appeared to be a small covered wagon stood in the yard, its canopy bearing the name The RF Ranch. ‘That’s the old man’s chuck wagon,’ my driver said. ‘Always enters a team for the chuck wagon races at the Stampede. He’s got a big ranch down in the Porcupine Hills. He started in when the Turney Valley field was opening up. Been making dough ever since.’ The corners of his mouth turned down and he grinned. ‘Still, we all come to the same end, I guess. They say he won’t last much longer.’
It was a manservant who let me in and I was taken through into a great lounge hall full of trophies, prizes taken by cattle and horses at shows up and down the country. A nurse took charge of me and I was shown into a sombre study with the temperature of a hothouse. There were a few books. The walls were lined with photographs — photographs of oil rigs, drilling crews, oil fires, a panorama of snow-covered mountains, horses, cattle, cowhands, chuck wagon races, cattle shows. And there were drilling bits, odd pieces of metal, trophies of a dozen different money-making discoveries. All these I took in at a glance and then my gaze came to rest on the man seated in a wheel chair. He was a big man, broad shouldered with massive, gnarled hands and a great shock of white hair. He had a fine face with bushy, tufty eyebrows and a way of craning his neck forward like a bird. His skin had been tanned and wrinkled by weather, but now transparency was evident in the tan and the effect was of dry, wrinkled parchment. ‘So you’re Stuart’s grandson.’ He spoke out of one corner of his mouth; the other twisted by paralysis. ‘Sit down. He often spoke of you. Had great hopes that one day you’d be managing an oilfield for him. Damned old fool.’ His voice was surprisingly gentle.
‘Five minutes, that’s all,’ the nurse said and went out.
‘Like a drink?’ He reached down with his long arm to a cupboard under the nearest pedestal of the desk. ‘She doesn’t know I’ve got it,’ he said, nodding towards the door through which the nurse had passed. ‘Not supposed to have it. Henry smuggles it in for me. That’s my son. Hopes it’ll kill me off,’ he added with a malicious twinkle. He poured out two Scotches neat. ‘Your health, young feller.’
‘And yours, sir,’ I said.
‘I haven’t got any.’ He waved his left hand vaguely. ‘They’re all hanging around waiting for me to die. That’s what happens when you’ve made a fortune.’ He craned forward, peering at me from under his eyebrows. ‘You’re from the Old Country, aren’t you? What brought you out to Canada? Think you’re going to drill a discovery well up in the Kingdom?’
‘There doesn’t seem much chance of that,’ I said. ‘Acheson just showed me the report on that survey.’
‘Ah, yes. A pity. And Bladen was so enthusiastic. Good boy, Bladen. Fine pilot. Half Indian, you know. Seems he’s not so good as a surveyor.’ His voice had dropped almost to a mutter. But he rallied himself and said, ‘Well now, what’s the purpose of this visit?’
‘You were a friend of my grandfather’s,’ I said. ‘I wanted to meet you.’
‘Fine.’ He peered at me. ‘Any financial propositions up your sleeve?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It never occurred to me-’
‘That’s okay.’ He gave me a twisted smile. ‘When you’re old and rich you get kinda suspicious about people’s motives. Now then, tell me about yourself.’
I started to tell him about Fothergill’s visit to my digs in London, and then suddenly I was telling him the whole story, about Maclean-Harvey’s verdict and my decision to emigrate. When I had finished his eyes, which had been closed, flicked open. ‘Fine pair we are,’ he said and he managed a contorted grin that somehow made me realise that he was still something of a boy at heart. ‘So now they’re going to drown the Kingdom and you’re here to attend to obsequies. Well, maybe it’s for the best. It brought Stuart nothing but trouble.’ He gave a little sigh and closed his eyes.
I liked him and because of that I felt I had to get the financial obligations settled. ‘I’ve seen Acheson,’ I said. ‘He’ll settle up with you for the amount you advanced to the company. But I’m afraid the purchase price they’re prepared to pay won’t cover the survey.’
He fixed his grey eyes on me. ‘I thought this wasn’t a business visit,’ he barked. ‘To hell with the money. You don’t have to worry about that. You’re under no obligation as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand? If you want to throw good money after bad and drill a well, you can go ahead.’