Nordberg started to come to his feet, staggered, and sat down again. Better sober up, he told himself sternly. When you can walk a straight line, then go home, take a hot bath, get some rest, and tomorrow, when you have all your wits about you, go down to Lindgren Castle and start the ball rolling. It was such an attractive thought that he decided to have one more drink on it...
Ringsted — April
The following day, Count Axel Poul Hemming-Westberg Lindgren was, indeed, home. He was in conference with his lawyer, and while the two men could not be said to be arguing — Axel Lindgren had learned early in his diplomatic career that arguing was counterproductive — it could be said they were having a serious discussion. The lawyer, Erik Trosborg, considered himself an old friend and felt he could speak freely.
“Axel,” he was saying, his voice pleading, “why can’t you seem to realize that the estate is entailed? It is not yours to dispose of when and as you wish! You know that as well as I do. You simply cannot go around selling off pictures, or statuary, or anything else. Why do you continually put me in the embarrassing position of rounding up these things and getting them back? I’m supposed to be a lawyer, not someone on a perpetual sort of scavenger hunt. When are you going to stop these stupidities?”
Count Lindgren shrugged. He was a handsome man in his late forties, with the build of an athlete, sharp clean features, a cleft chin, icy blue eyes, and a white streak down one side of his light brown hair that women found most attractive. He flicked ash from his thin cigar and smiled at his friend. It was a cold smile, but most things about Axel Lindgren were cold.
“I needed the money,” he said simply. “Blame it on inflation. Everyone else does.”
“Or gambling. Or women.”
“Now there you are being unfair,” Lindgren said a bit reprovingly. “My women do not cost me a krone.”
“Not in hard cash. Only a Mercedes for this one, a dress shop for that one! I wish,” Trosborg said fervently, “you would be smart enough to buy your women as you buy anything else. Or not to buy anything at all for a while. Axel, you simply cannot keep this up!”
“My dear Erik,” Lindgren said with no attempt at apology, “I honestly have no idea where the money goes. It just goes.” He glanced about a moment before returning his gaze to Trosborg’s face. “Erik, do you have any idea of how much it costs just to run this place? On the veriest shoestring, I assure you. A valet who also does duty when needed as chauffeur, or even butler, a cook and an assistant, five maids and a housekeeper?”
“I have a perfect idea,” Trosborg said dryly, “since I handle the bills.”
“Oh. Of course.” Lindgren was not in the least nonplussed. “Well, then, do you have any idea of what, say, a few new suits of clothes cost? Just the trip to London, alone, to visit the tailor—”
Trosborg shook his head in almost amused resignation.
“Axel, Axel! You have an income from this estate that would enable the most extravagant man in the world — no, since that’s you let’s make it the second-most extravagant man in the world — to live in absolute and total comfort. You simply must learn to live within that income. To begin with, legally you have no right to touch any part of the estate. It’s entailed and you could get into serious trouble by doing so. And secondly, if you had your way, in ten years there would be no estate at all, and then, my spendthrift friend, you would really have something to complain about!”
“All right, all right.” Lindgren smiled with amusement at the lawyer. “Don’t spank. I’ll try to be a good boy in the future. Now, how about lunch with me?”
“No, I have to get back to town. Handling the affairs of Count Axel Lindgren is a full-time job, believe me.” Trosborg came to his feet and shook his head as he looked down at his friend. All the lectures in the world would not change Axel, he knew. He only hoped the excesses could be kept within reasonable limits. “You know, Axel,” he added thoughtfully, “you might even consider working...”
Lindgren looked up, honestly surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
Trosborg laughed. “It’s not a crime, you know.”
“Well, it should be,” Lindgren said, and smiled.
Trosborg became serious. “I mean it, Axel. Not that you need it — you’d have ample money if you didn’t throw it around the way you do. But I’m serious. You’re considered an expert on art, aren’t you? I’m sure you could get quite a few very well-paying commissions, purchasing commissions, if you were to let people know you were interested—”
“And have all my friends realize the depths of my degradation?” Lindgren laughed. “Have everyone from Cannes to Hollywood know I was reduced to... to... labor?” He shook his head mockingly, but there was a touch of seriousness in the gesture as well. “François would begin serving me leftovers for lunch; Wilten would let my shoes go unpolished for a month. The maids would be afraid they wouldn’t be paid next week.”
Trosborg laughed. “What you mean, of course, is that honest labor might interfere with your traveling or with your spending time on the yachts of your poorer, but more practical, friends.” He held out his hand. “I don’t agree with your philosophy, but it’s your life. Take care.”
“I have you for that,” Lindgren said with a wry smile, and shook hands. He watched his friend leave the room and leaned back, his smile gone, his cigar smoldering forgotten in the ashtray at his side. This money thing, or the lack of it, was the very devil! He supposed in a way Erik was right. The income from the estate was a fair sum, and he could imagine there were people who could live on it. But not the way he liked to live; not and travel to the places he enjoyed visiting, or dress the way he liked to dress, or be with the type women he liked being with. And the saddest part of the whole business was that when at last he died, as even he, Axel Lindgren, had to eventually, the lovely Lindgren estates that Trosborg was so intent upon keeping intact, would not go to another Lindgren as entailed estates were supposed to go, handed down in their entirety in the blood line from father to son, but would undoubtedly end up with the government. A government, incidentally, who had fired him most unjustly for the small matter of sleeping with a lady. Who was he supposed to sleep with, for heaven’s sake? His first secretary? The military attaché? The only reason he had ever gone into the consular service had been for the women he could meet...
But the sad fact was that two marriages had not only failed to provide Axel Lindgren with any particular satisfaction, they also had not provided him with any progeny. And Lindgren had no intention of risking a third marriage simply to furnish an heir to inherit Lindgren Castle and all it contained, or its estates, or anything else. It would be a dirty trick, he thought with a rather sour smile, to place the burden of landed poverty onto another, as it had been placed upon him.
He crushed out his cigar and was about to go in to lunch, when his butler appeared, standing discreetly at the door. He was a large man, with cold unexpressive eyes. Lindgren looked at him inquiringly. “Yes, Wilten?”