JONATHAN BLACK LAY TENSELY on his back as the doctor strapped on the electrodes. The doctor was a thin, severe-looking man, but he was known as an excellent cardiologist. Black had seen him monthly for five years, since his first myocardial infarction. Yet he somehow had never adjusted to the visits. They always made him tense.
“Just relax,” the doctor said. He was applying white paste to Black’s chest, and pushing on the suction electrodes. “You’ve certainly had this before.”
He finished, and stepped back. “There we go. Just breathe easily.”
He turned on the small machine, and watched as the paper began to roll out toward the floor. Black could see the black ink squiggles of the electrocardiogram. The doctor pressed buttons and turned dials on the machine. Then he stopped it, adjusted the electrodes, and started it again. He repeated this until he had covered all six V leads, and had a tracing on paper that was several feet long.
“Hmmm,” he said, studying the paper.
Black sat up, pulled off the electrodes, and picked up a gauze pad. He sponged off the paste.
“Something wrong?”
“No, nothing.”
Black held out his hand. “May I see it?”
The doctor turned away. “Something wrong with this damned machine,” he said. “I thought so all along. I’ve got to have it looked at. Come back next week?”
Black kept his hand out. “May I see the tracing?”
“It’s meaningless,” the doctor said, with a shrug. He folded it and slipped it into his desk. “Absolutely meaningless. Shows right ventricular hypertrophy and left axis deviation. No sense at all.”
Black sighed. “I’d like to see it anyway.”
“Jonathan,” said the doctor sternly, “you and I both know that it would just upset you. And you yourself have told me there are no symptoms.”
“Symptoms of what?”
“Right heart failure. Edema, epigastric impulse, distended neck veins.”
“No,” Black said. “None.”
“Well then? You’ve answered your own question.” He smiled reassuringly. “But while I’ve got you here, let’s do a chest film.”
“Why?”
“Just to complete the picture, of course,” the doctor said, consulting his file. “You haven’t had one in a year.”
“I haven’t needed one.”
“And you don’t need one now,” the doctor said, “strictly speaking. But you know the value of a yearly film. Especially in a smoker. You haven’t given it up, I take it?”
Black shook his head.
“They never do. Especially doctors. Think they’re invincible. How’s your angina been?”
“Not bad. I get it once or twice a month, with exertion.”
“Dyspnea? Orthopnea? PND?”
“No,” Black said.
“Good. You’ve been following your heart closely?”
“Very.”
“Any change?”
“No. Still grade two or thereabouts.”
“As long as you’re here, why don’t I have a listen,” he said, taking out his stethoscope. He clipped it around his neck and applied the bell to Black’s chest. He had a characteristic gesture, peculiar to cardiologists: whenever he shifted the bell on the chest, he made a little nod with his head, and closed his eyes.
After a moment he straightened, “No change, I think. I shouldn’t worry. Do the film now?”
“All right.”
They went into another room. A technician was there, a plain girl in a lead apron, standing beside her machine.
“I want an AP and lateral for Doctor Black, Cynthia,” the doctor said. He turned to Black and shook hands. “Call me in a week and we’ll do another EKG. And we can discuss the film at that time, though frankly I don’t expect any change from last year.”
“All right,” Black said.
“Cheers,” the doctor said, and returned to his office.
Cheers, hell, Black thought, as he got into his Aston and drove off. Nothing cheery about that bastard and his little games. Hiding the EKG, throwing off some cock and bull story about a broken machine. That was crap; he would have noticed it immediately, before he had finished the first three lead readings.
Black knew what was happening. The angina was getting worse, the pain coming more often, more sharply. It struck him once or twice a day now, and often so severely that he had to sit down and rest. He carried nitro with him wherever he went, in a small metal box, handy at his side.
He had noticed the changes. Before, he had carried the nitro with him, but had never bothered to take it into the operating room when he was doing experiments. Now, it went with him everywhere, even there.
One severe attack, doubling him over, forcing him to drop the scalpel to the floor, had been enough to change that.
He sighed and lit a cigarette, feeling guilty. He knew he shouldn’t smoke, just as he knew he should cut down on the rich foods. But he could not—denial, pure and simple, a classic denial reaction. But hell, he thought, half of England had suffered MI’s worse than his and were walking around into their eighties and nineties. His heart attack of a year ago had been relatively minor, so minor that he had not bothered to tell anyone about it. And it had damaged the papillary muscle, giving him a grade-two murmur, but a grade-two murmur was often unimportant. Functional. Lots of people had them.
Black shook his head. He disliked being sick, disliked thinking of himself as a sick man. He regarded it, despite his training and his rationalizations, as a sign of weakness and inferiority, and he had only contempt for the weak and the inferior. He had often thought he should have been born in an older, more ruthless age; he would have succeeded there. Modern man was too overlaid with rules and habits which disguised his essentially bestial nature.
He recognized that nature, and allowed it to express itself. The weak pretended that man was good; only the strong could face the truth.
Lucienne, for instance. She was weak, deluding herself, playing elaborate games to disguise her own thoughts and fears. In many ways she reminded him of Evelyn, his first wife.
Dear Evelyn. She had become so boorish after a time. So infantile, nagging, irritating. She had made it easy for him to give her the rauwolfia alkaloid, dropping her blood pressure to practically zero in a matter of moments. The diagnosis, of course, had been a heart attack. No question of it. A bit unusual in a woman of thirty, but not impossible.
There had been no autopsy.
He smiled. And Lucienne was the same way. Only now there were new and better methods. Air guns, and unusual compounds, complex drugs that could not be traced after death.
It would be almost absurdly simple to dispose of Lucienne when it was all over. And it would, he knew, soon be over. First Richard—an easy mark, a problem so straightforward as to be almost tedious and boring.
And after Richard, a few changes in the will, and then Lucienne. Perhaps five or six years later. Something discreet and logical.
It was all going to be very, very simple.
When he arrived home, the butler said, “There was a call for you, sir. A Mr. Benton-Jones.”
“Oh?”
“He said it was urgent, sir, and asked that you phone up when you arrived.”
“All right. I’ll see to it.”
He went directly to his study and dialed the number, trying to control the excited, nervous flutter in his stomach. Benton-Jones was a member of the board of trustees at Barclay’s which administered the Pierce estate. He and Black were old friends, and Benton-Jones usually tried to notify Black if something was going on with the estate. Naturally, until Richard took over, the trustees were directly responsible to Lucienne. But Black, through Benton-Jones, managed to keep informed as well, and Benton-Jones, a primly proper man, found it agreeable because he knew Black advised Lucienne on nearly all financial matters, and because he knew that Lucienne without Black’s advice was often uncertain, hesitant, and difficult.
It was one of those peculiar relationships Black so enjoyed. Benton-Jones firmly believed that he was using Black to sway Lucienne around to the viewpoint of the board of trustees. That was why he did not mind reporting privately to Black the affairs of the estate—indeed, he felt it was his duty to do so. Black did everything he could to encourage Benton-Jones. He frequently backed the board, particularly on inconsequential matters. This pleased Benton-Jones, and cemented the relationship. And when Lucienne disagreed with the board, well, that was simply an occasional failure of Black’s powers of persuasion.
Benton-Jones accepted that.
He dialed the number swiftly. “Mr. Benton-Jones’ office.”
“This is Doctor Black calling.”
“Oh, yes, Doctor Black. I’ll put you through.”
A click, and then: “John?”
“Speaking.”
“Bad news, I’m afraid.” He sucked in his breath. “We’ve just received notification that Mitchell Mining, Incorporated, is selling its shares.”
“In the mines?”
“Yes.”
“How much do they have?”
“About a hundred thousand shares. That’s seventeen percent.”
“And they’re selling all of it?”
“So we are told.”
Black lit another cigarette. He was frowning, preparing his voice to be surprised. “This is dreadful. When?”
“Within the week. A lawyer is flying over to arrange it.”
“Christ,” Black said. “We can’t do anything in a week.”
“But there it is,” Benton-Jones said.
“What is the current price?”
“For the lot? It’s up to eight and a fraction a share, which works out to roughly eight hundred thousand, four hundred pounds.”
“Impossible,” Black said. “We couldn’t come near that figure.”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t need to. According to our calculations, Pierce Limited needs only five percent. That works out to about twenty-nine thousand shares.”
“How much money?”
“Two hundred and eighty thousand pounds,” Benton-Jones said.
“What about Horsten, Vaals, and Meister?”
“Our information is that they’re eager to buy all they can. We’ve suspected that, of course. In fact, there’s speculation that they initiated all this.”
“And they’re willing to buy at a higher prices?”
“Presumably.”
“How much higher?”
“Well, they may drive it up as high as ten a share. Perhaps more, though we doubt that. Of course, there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
“How much have the Belgians got now?”
“Thirteen percent. They won’t buy, but they’ll throw in with the Dutch if they’re able to pick up controlling interest.”
“So in fact, we need at least three hundred and forty thousand pounds. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes,” Benton-Jones said.
“And what is the advice of the board?”
“We met today to discuss the situation,” he said. “It is our feeling that the Darwin mines are a primary asset of Pierce Limited, and that controlling interest should be maintained, if this can be done without sacrificing diversity in other areas.”
Black frowned at the phone. “What, specifically, is the advice of the board?”
“Sale of minor holdings in four corporations may be safely sacrificed, including the Fiat shares. These sales will amount to something under two hundred thousand pounds.”
“And the rest? Borrowed?”
“Frankly, we feel this is a time for liquidation and consolidation, not extension. Interest rates are not favorable.”
“But there’s another hundred thousand pounds needed.”
“Exactly. One has the alternative of releasing all holdings in Pierce Plastics or of liquidating Shore Industries.”
“I see. Pierce Plastics—”
“Is doing very well, yes. Extremely well. Projection figures are most promising.”
“So that leaves Shore Industries.”
“Yes,” Benton-Jones said. “It has not done well, but assets for the last fiscal year were listed in excess of seven hundred thousand pounds.”
“Debits?”
“Four hundred thousand. Perhaps a bit more by now.”
“All right,” Black said. He sighed, loudly, so Benton-Jones would hear. “What is the legal situation?”
“The corporation is entirely owned by Pierce Limited and may therefore be dealt with by the board as we see fit. Mrs. Pierce, of course—”
“I will discuss it with her.”
“And Mr. Richard Pierce—”
“I’ll discuss it with him, too.” He lit another cigarette. “I’ll call you back later. By the way, any idea why the Americans are selling?”
“Not the foggiest,” Benton-Jones said, and rang off.
Black asked his butler for a triple scotch and sat down, frowning at the phone. Everything was going perfectly, just according to schedule. The people at Mitchell had taken the bait brilliantly.
And they had acted brilliantly.
Normally, a company that planned to sell two million dollars’ worth of stock on short notice managed to leak rumors, premonitions, grumblings of dissatisfaction. But this was swift as a lightning bolt. Which only meant that word had been leaked elsewhere.
No doubt, Black thought, to Horsten, Vaals. They could be counted on to drive up the price. Without question, the trustees of Mitchell, Inc., believed that they were acting soundly. They could have no idea that the original impetus for the sale had come from Jonathan Black himself.
It was a peculiar situation, Black thought, and remarkable in its way. For the past five years, the Pierce empire had been regrouping and extending itself, pulling back from the earlier sources of income—rubber and tea—which had been nationalized, investing in plastics, machine tools, cosmetics, and electronics. Much of this had been financed, directly or indirectly, by the copper mines in Darwin, Australia. The mines had been a late acquisition of Herbert Pierce in the last years of his life; the company now owned 46 percent of the stock.
The Amsterdam holding company of Horsten, Vaals, and Meister had been eyeing the Darwin mine for several months. Loosely speaking, they could count on 21 percent of the stock, and the Belgian group would back them with an additional 13 percent. It was well known that Horsten, Vaals wanted to cut dividends and re-invest profits within the subsidiary company itself, Pierce Copper and Brass, Ltd. It was a reasonable idea, but it would sabotage the new and still-insecure Pierce expansion into new areas.
Until now, there had been no danger from the Dutch. The American mining company started by a Montana rancher named Jackson Mitchell had shown no interest in the Dutch plans, and apparently had been content to take dividends from the Darwin mine stock.
That is, until they heard from a discreet and confidential source that the impact of such a sale on Pierce finances would be disastrous. The Pierce empire was overextended, precarious, and dependent on the mines. Anything would be sacrificed to preserve those mines, and the income from them.
Which meant that, however high the Dutch bid, Pierce would bid higher. Pierce would have to bid higher.
With the Dutch wanting the controlling shares so badly, and with Pierce dependent on retaining control, the price of stocks would skyrocket. It would amount to a vast profit to Mitchell.
For that reason, Black had leaked his information through a New York law firm. He had no doubt that the trustees of the Mitchell fortune would recognize the implications of a sale at this time.
But it was not the implications of their sale that interested Black. It was the implications for the Pierce empire—with a half-dozen new, burgeoning companies, all doing well. Except for one: Shore Industries.
The logical sacrifice.
To make capital, to preserve the more successful subsidiaries of the Pierce empire.
Quite logical—Shore Industries had to go.
Black smiled as he considered the situation. Everything had gone perfectly. Mitchell had acted according to plan. The board of Pierce, Ltd., had acted according to plan. The Dutch could be counted on to follow through.
Lovely.
Richard was screwed. His dreams of a contract for the English Channel tunnel were ended.
And Richard would be furious.
There was only one last question, and that concerned the girl. It was imperative that the American girl show up for the transaction. That was, he knew, the weakest link in his plan. For any of a million reasons, she might not bother to come.
But if his information was correct, if she were really an unhappy, rich girl living in New York…
He called Lucienne and explained developments.
“What about the American girl?” Lucienne said. “Is she coming?”
“No information yet. But I will bet on it.”
“Good. I understand she’s quite attractive.”
“Yes,” Black said, “but one never knows.”
“Can you get Richard to kill her?”
“Probably.”
“Good,” Lucienne said. “What about Charles?”
“He will, of course, be involved.”
“Excellent. Proceed with the plan.”
Black hung up and called Benton-Jones. He told him to go through with the liquidation of Shore Industries, Ltd. Benton-Jones asked politely if this was agreeable to Mr. Richard Pierce.
Black said in a calm voice that Mr. Richard Pierce was not a consideration.