‘But I suppose he has English contacts as well?’ I asked.
‘You mean firms like Calboyds? Oh, rather. I tell you he’s a first-rate journalist and a very clever business man. He’s got a lovely place just outside Eastbourne. He’s realised something that so few journalists ever realise, and that is that journalism can be the gateway to money. I think you’ll find that he’ll have bought Calboyds quite heavily. You see, if you know the right people at the right time, you can’t help making money.’
I thanked him for what he had told me and took my leave. As I passed through the main office I heard a man who was running the tape through his hand exclaim, ‘Calboyds up another bob.’ Outside I turned left and walked to the taxi rank in Lothbury. And as I drove down Queen Victoria Street and along the Embankment to Whitehall, I began to consider where to cast about next. The time factor was the trouble. Given time, I might get somewhere. But already I had spent the better part of a day hunting round the City and had achieved nothing. Max Sedel had provided the only real interest of the day. I couldn’t help feeling what a useful man he would be to Germany. But though he intrigued me, he had not been able to help me. By the time I arrived at the Admiralty, I had decided that the morning had been wasted and that the only thing to do was to try and get some sort of line on Dorman or the other two big holders. Somewhere there must be a clue to the link-up between Calboyds and Germany.
After a wait of nearly half an hour I was able to have a few words with Forbes-Pallister. I explained to him half the truth — that a friend of mine was working on a new type of diesel engine and that it was fitted to the boat. He promised to see that the order was rescinded. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as he saw me to the door of his office. ‘I’ll fix it for you and I’ll give you a ring when it has gone through. What’s your number?’
‘Terminus 6795,’ I told him. ‘If I’m not in, have your people leave a message, would you.’
As I walked up Whitehall, considering what line to follow up next, I remembered a fat smiling little man of the name of Evelyn Ward. He was a half-commission man, who was not above a little business blackmail and whom I got out of a tight corner once. I went to the nearest call-box and looked up his address. Then I crossed the Strand to Duncannon Street and took a bus, for I wanted to think out the position before I reached Ward’s office.
Ward specialised in gossip. In good years he made a bit on half-commission. But gossip was his speciality. And he made money out of it. It was not blackmail in the ordinary sense. In the first place, it was never personal gossip that interested him. In the second place, he never demanded money. His knowledge of the shady side of the City was encyclopaedic. It had to be. His consumption of liquor must have been colossal, but then so was his girth. His danger lay in the fact that he was popular. He was generally known as The Slug, or Slugsy to those who knew him well. He was a fat genial fellow, with a great moon of a face in which two little eyes twinkled, half-buried in flesh. His chins were a really noble sight, and his head, being to his disgust practically bald, was almost invariably covered by a broad black hat.
His usual line was options. Lounging round the bars, he would pick up a piece of gossip, overhear a scrap of conversation or buy the confidence of a junior clerk with a few drinks. He would then learn all there was to learn about the deal, and in due course he would approach the interested party, suggest that the information he had might be of use to the other side and evince a desire for an option on some of the shares of the company involved. He had explained to me rather ruefully at the time when I was defending him that it never failed to work. On that one occasion, he had failed to check up on his information as thoroughly as he might have done and his proposition had fallen on honest and outraged ears. Nevertheless, he had known enough for me to convince the prosecution that it would be better to settle the matter out of court.
I arrived at the dingy little office at the top of a block in Drapers Gardens to find him out, and was directed to a well-known City club. He came out to meet me, a glass of whisky in his hand and his huge face glistening with sweat. His great podgy hand wrung mine and he took me into the club and bought me a drink. ‘Now, Mr Kilmartin,’ he said, as we sat down at a little table to ourselves, ‘do you want to know what to put your savings into?’ And his face screwed itself up into a great smile.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I know the answer to that. Calboyds is the thing to buy. Am I right?’
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘But don’t hold for too long.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
He shrugged his wide padded shoulders. ‘Tell you the truth, I dunno. Just a hunch I got.’
‘What I want to know,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking softly, ‘is who controls Calboyds?’
His eyes seemed to narrow slightly and he pushed his hat farther on to the back of his head. ‘There you’ve got me. If I knew, I might make a lot or I might — well, I might not. There’s Ronald Dorman, of course. And then there’s two other boys by the name of Burston and Cappock. Apart from old Calboyd, they’re the big holders.’
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But who is behind them? Dorman, for instance — did he have enough capital to take up all those shares his firm got stuck with?’
‘No, but he had the credit.’
‘Well, who financed him, then?’
‘I dunno. It’s the same with the other two. They’re just dummies. But who they’re playing dummy for I don’t know, and between you and me, old man, I’m not at all sure that I want to know.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why? Because if I knew, I might be tempted to do something rash. The sort of game I play is all right so long as the people are running a racket. But when it comes to big game like Calboyds — well, I don’t interest myself. That time you got me out of that mess scared me plenty and I’m much more cautious now, even though it is getting very difficult to make a living.’