The offices of the Crédit Lyonnais lay just past the Palace Hotel. Rampling left Dikmen and Richard in the waiting room below and together with his secretary was shown up to the expensively appointed boardroom on the first floor. Awaiting him were the president of the bank in Syria, the manager of the Damascus branch, and a senior partner in the Imperial Ottoman Bank, which was largely under French control.
Armed with statistics provided by his secretary, Rampling spent two hours there, seeking by all means possible to allay the suspicions and quieten the fears of the French bankers. It was vital for his own interests and those he represented, both commercial and political, that French capital should be invested in the Baghdad Railway to an extent of 20 percent of the total holding. This would bring France to a parity with Britain and make them equal partners, and this in turn—and more important—would enable agreements to be reached about zones of influence in the territory traversed by the line. The grip of the Ottoman state on these territories was loosening from week to week.
He was given a courteous hearing, but it was no easy task that faced him. There was deep hostility to the railway on the part of certain French commercial interests. It was feared that this new line would divert traffic from the existing route across Europe, thus seriously reducing the importance of the port of Marseilles and involving significant losses to French railways. Then there was the question of silk exports, which Rampling had studied while still in Constantinople. The powerful and influential silk manufacturers of Lyons were afraid that since the concession was after all in German hands, whatever the source of the capital invested, the railway would bring about a rise of German economic power in Turkey and threaten the supply of cheap raw silk from Syria, practically the whole of which had hitherto been consumed in French mills.
These were serious objections, and Rampling took care to give them due weight, while reiterating the argument, which he felt to be his strongest card, that those who established a financial interest in the line would thereby establish claims on the territories the line passed through at a time when the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. There would, in short, be a day of reckoning, a division of the spoils.
Neither he nor the French mentioned the imminent threat of war, but it underlay everything that was said, as did the knowledge that their two nations were bound by treaty obligations and would be allies should war come about. To the victors would go the prizes, and the richest prize of all was Turkey in Asia, the wealth in minerals and fuel, largely untapped, the enormous potential for agricultural produce, the strategic importance for nations like their own that were seeking—naturally in a spirit of partnership and cooperation—an extension of colonial power.
How far he had succeeded it was not possible to tell from the impeccable courtesy of his hosts on parting. But he had spoken as an associate of the Morgan Grenfell group, which had close ties with French banking interests, and this would carry weight. He was, moreover, confident that his argument would carry the day, that his vision of the future was ultimately compelling: In this dangerous place that Europe had become, to protect your interests you must seek constantly to enlarge them; who held back, who played too safe, would fail and die, and the earth would cover him over.
He was some minutes late for his noon appointment, which was with Kruckman, one of the German directors of the railway company, who had been at their table the evening before and whom he had known for some years, though neither of them had given any indication of that in the course of the dinner, having made this arrangement to meet by telephone earlier in the day. An open-air meeting had been decided on, without any presence other than their own. There were in any case no formalities to go through, no papers, no signatures. Agreements in principle had already been made; it was no more than a chat really, a handshake, an expression of goodwill.
Very agreeable too, Rampling thought, with a certain sense of relief at there being no need to urge or persuade. The place they had chosen for their meeting was a small park between two of the gates in the old city walls, the Gate of Paradise and the Gate of Peace. The ground sloped upward gently, and from the summit of the mound they could look across to the dome and minarets of the Omayyid Mosque nearby and the gardens and orchards of Salihiyeh to the north. The midday sun was warm, and Rampling took off his jacket and gave it to Dikmen, walking some dozen yards behind them, to carry, having first asked him if his hands were clean.
Kruckman spoke passable English, and he was a friendly man, easy to talk to, combining joviality and cunning and a sort of cynical good-fellowship, qualities that Rampling always found congenial. In addition to being on the board of directors of the Baghdad Railway, he represented the Deutsche Bank in Syria and was a trusted associate of von Gwinner, the president of the bank.
Strolling together side by side in the spring sunshine, they said the necessary things, made the necessary assurances. Solidarity and common interest were what they both were concerned to express, sentiments somewhat forced on the German side, though naturally Kruckman gave no indication of this. Only the previous week, in London, his bank had finally been obliged to recognize southern Mesopotamia, as well as central and southern Persia, as exclusive fields of operation for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, in which the British government had a controlling interest. This had opened the way for the formation of an Anglo-German syndicate to organize the newly formed Turkish Petroleum Company for the exploitation of the vilayets of Mosul and Baghdad. The controlling interest in this would still be British, through the National Bank of Turkey, in which Rampling had a substantial holding, but a 25 percent share would be offered to the Deutsche Bank. Agreement on this, a united front, was essential if they were to succeed in obtaining a charter from the Ottoman government.
Rampling returned to his hotel convinced that this accord would hold. The Germans had little choice; they had come too late into the field to gain any more commanding position; they must see that the best interests of German industry would be served by securing this quarter share. The potential profits were huge, and they constituted a force for peace, as he had not failed to point out to Kruckman. For who would want to hazard benefits like these on the doubtful outcome of war?
So cheered and invigorated was he by these thoughts, by his restored hope in the workings of capital, that he had decided to get some girl brought in to take her clothes off and do what she was told. But the packet that had been delivered by courier in his absence brought an abrupt end to this mood of celebration. It contained the information that the geologist Elliott had been closely watched while in London, a fact that he already knew, as it had been done on his orders. But the watching, it seemed, had not been careful enough. Elliott had succeeded at least once in escaping it—a proof of guilt in itself. He had visited the German Embassy. A security guard there, beset by gambling debts and in fear of bodily harm from his creditors, had come forward belatedly—and at a price. He had seen a handshake, heard a name. A meeting with a secretary at the embassy and two others not employed there, both Germans. He would have thought nothing of it, but next morning he had heard the name again. A man had come and asked him questions about visitors, politely, not like a policeman. He had said nothing at the time, not knowing the purpose of these questions, but the man had left a card with an address, an office just off the Strand. After some days it had occurred to him that this might be something he could sell…