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William was happier and more relaxed than he had been for some time and looked forward to joining the prosperous and peaceful era that Eisenhower had promised in his Inauguration.Teech.

As the first years of the new President's administration went by, William began to put Rosnovski's threats at the back of his mind and to think of them as a thing of the past. He informed Thaddeus Cohen that he believed they had heard the last of Abel Rosnovski. The lawyer made no comment.

He wasn't asked to.

William put all his efforts into building Lester's, both in size and reputation, increasingly aware that he was now doing it as much for his son as for himself. Some of his staff at the bank had already started referring to him as the 'old man'.

'It had to happen,' said Kate.

'Then why hasn't it happened to you?' replied William.

Kate looked up at William and smiled. 'Now I know the secret of how you have closed so many deals with vain men." William laughed. 'And one beautiful woman,' he added.

With Richard's twenty-first birthday only a year away, William revised the provisions of his will. He set aside five million dollars for Kate and two million for each of the girls, and left the rest of the family fortune to Richard, noting ruefully the bite that would go in estate tax. He also left one million dollars to Harvard.

Richard had been making good use of his four years at Harvard. At the start of his senior year, not only did he look set for a Summa Cum Laude, but he was also playing the cello in the university orchestra, and was a pitcher with the varsity baseball team, which even William had to admire. As Kate liked rhetorically to ask, how many students spent Saturday afternoon playing 'baseball for Harvard against Yale and Sunday evening playing the cello in the Lowell concert hall for the university string quartet?

The final year passed quickly and when Richard left Harvard, armed with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics, a cello and a baseball bat, all he required before reporting to the business school on the other side of the Charles River was a good holiday. He flew to Barbados with a girl called Mary Bigelow of whose existence Richard's parents were blissfully unaware.

Miss Bigelow had studied music, among other things, at Vasser, and when they returned two months later almost the game colour as the natives, Richard took her home to meet his parents. William approved of Miss Bigelow; after all, she was Alan Lloyd's great niece.

Richard returned. to the Harvard Business School on I October 1955 to start his graduate work. He took up resi dence in the Red House, threw out all William's cane furniture and removed the paisley wallpaper that Matthew Lester had once found so modern, and installed a wall-to wall carpet in the living room, an oak table in the dining room, a dishwasher in the kitchen and, more than occasionally, Miss Bigelow in the bedroom.

32

Abel returned from a trip to Istanbul in October 1952, immediately upon hearing the news of David Maxton's fatal heart attack. He attended the funeral in Chicago with George and Florentyna, and later told Mrs. Maxton that she could be a guest at any Baron in the world whenever she so pleased for the rest of her life. She could not understand why Abel had made such a generous gesture.

When Abel returned to New York the next day, he was delighted to find on the desk of his forty-second floor office a report from Henry Osborne indicating that the heat was now off. In Henry's opinion, the new Eisenhower administration was unlikely to pursue an enquiry into the Interstate Airways fiasco, especially as the stock had now held steady for nearly a year. There had, therefore, been no further incidents to renew any interest in the scandal. Eisenhower's Vice-President, Richard M. Nixon, seemed more involved in chasing the spectral communists whom Joe McCarthy missed.

Abel spent the next two years concentrating on building his hotels in Europe. He opened the Paris Baron in 1953 and the London Baron at the end of 1954. Barons were also in various stages of development for Brussels, Rome, Amsterdam, Geneva, Bonn, Edinburgh, Cannes and Stockholm in a ten-year expansion programme.

Abel became so overworked that he had little time to consider William Kane's continued prosperity. He had not made any attempt to buy shares in Lester's Bank or its subsidiary companies, although he held on to those he already possessed in the hope that another opportunity might be forthcoming to deal a blow against William Kane from which he would not recover so easily. The next time, Abel promised himself, he'd make sure he didn't unwittingly break the law.

During Abel's increasingly frequent absences abroad George ran the Baron Group and Abel was hoping that Florentyna would join the board as soon as she left Radcliffe in June of 1955. He had already decided that she should take over responsibility for all the shops in the hotels and consolidate their buying, as they were fast becoming an empire in themselves.

Florentyna was very excited by the prospect but was insistent that she wanted some outside experience before joining her father's group. She did not consider her natural gifts for design, colour, and organisation were any substitute for experience. Abel suggested that she train in Switzerland under Monsieur Maurice at the famed ~cole H&eli~re in Lausanne. Florentyna baulked at the idea, explaining that she wanted to work for two years in a New York store before she would consider taking over the shops. She was determined to be worth employing, '... and not just as my father's daughter,' she informed him. Abel thoroughly approved.

'A New York store, that's done easily enough,' he said. 'I'll ring up Walter Hoving at Tiffany's and you can start at the top.

'No,' said Florentyna, revealing that she'd inherited her father's streak of stubbornness. 'What's the equivalent of a junior waiter at the Plaza Hotel?'

'A sales girl at a department store,' said Abel, laughing.

'Then that's exactly what I'm going to be,' she said.

Abel stopped laughing. 'Are you serious? With a degree from Radcliffe and all the experience and knowledge you've gained from your European trips, you want to be an anonymous sales girl?'

'Being an anonymous waiter at the Plaza didn't do you any harm when the time came to set up one of the most successful hotel groups in the world,' replied Florentyna.

Abel knew when he was beaten. He had only to look into the steel grey eyes of his beautiful daughter to realise she had made up her mind, and that no amount of persuasion, gentle or otherwise, was going to change her views.

After Florentyna had graduated from Radcliffe, she spent a month in Europe with her father, watching the progress of the latest Baron hotels.

She officially opened the Brussels Baron where she made a conquest of the handsome young French-speaking managing director, whom Abel accused of smelling of garlic. She had to give him up three days later when it reached the kissing stage, but she never admitted to her father that garlic had been the reason.

Florentyna returned to New York with her father and immediately applied for the vacant . position (the words used in the classified advertisement) of 'junior sales assistant' at Bloomingdale's. When she filled in the application form, she gave her name as Jessie Kovats, well aware that no one would leave her in peace if they ever thought she was the daughter of the Chicago Baron.

Despite protests from her father, she also left her suite in the Baron Hotel and started looking for her own place to live. Once again Abel gave in and presented Florentyna with a small but elegant co-operative flat on Fifty-seventh Street near the East River as a twenty-second birthday present.

Florentyna already knew her way around New York and enjoyed a full social life, but she had long ago resolved not to let her friends know that she was going to work at Bloomingdale's. She feared that they would want to come and visit her and, in days, her cleverly constructed cover would be blown, making it impossible to be treated as a normal trainee.

When her friends did inquire, she merely told them that she was helping to run the shops in her father's hotels. None of them gave her reply a second thought.

Jessie Kovats; - it took her some time to get used to the name - started in cosmetics. After six months, she was ready to run her own beauty shop. The girls in Bloomingdales worked in pairs, which Florentyna, immediately turned to her advantage by choosing to work with the laziest girl in the department. This arrangement suited both girls as Florentyna's choice was a gorgeous, unenlightened blonde called Maisie who had only two interests in life: the clock pointing to the hour of six p.m. and men. The former happened once a day, the latter all the time.

The two girls soon became comrades without exactly being friends.

Florentyna, learned a lot from her partner about how to avoid work without being spotted by the floor manager, and also how to get picked up by a man.

The cosmetic counter's profits were well up after their first six months together, despite the fact that Maisie spent most of her time trying out the products rather than selling them. She could take two hours repainting her finger nails alone. Florentyna, in contrast, had a natural gift for selling that could not have been picked up at night school. That combined with an ability to learn quickly made it seem to her employers, after only a few weeks, as if she had been around for years.

The partnership with Maisie suited Florentyna ideally, and when they moved her to Better Dresses, by mutual agreement Maisie went along and passed her time by trying on new dresses all day while Florentyna sold them. Maisie could attract men - in tow with their wives or sweethearts - irrespective of the merchandise, simply by looking at them. Once they were ensnared, Florentyna could move in and sell something to them. It seemed hardly possible that the combination could work in Better Dresses, but Florentyna made Maisie's victims buy something, few escaping with untouched wallets.

The profits for that six months were up again, and the floor supervisor decided that the two girls obviously worked well together. Florentyna said nothing to contradict that impression. While other assistants in the shop were always complaining about how little work their partners did,

Florentyna continually praised Maisie as the ideal workmate, who had taught her so much about how a big store operated. She didn't mention the useful advice that Maisie also imparted, on how to deal with over-amorous men.

The greatest compliment an assistant can receive at Bloomingdale's is to be put on one of the counters facing the Lexington Avenue entrance, the first person to be seen by cystomers coming in through the main doors. To work on that counter was considered as a small promotion and it was rare for a girl to be invited to sell there until she had been with the store at least five years. Maisie had been with Bloomingdale's since she was seventeen, a full five years, while Florentyna had only just completed her first twelve months. But as their results had been so impressive, the manager decided to try the two girls out on the ground floor in the stationery department. Maisie was unable to derive any personal advantage from the stationery department~ as she didn't care too much for reading and even less for writing. Florentyna wasn't sure after a year with her that she could read or write. Nevertheless, her new position pleased Maisie greatly because she adored being the centre of attention. So the girls continued their perfect partnership.

Abel admitted to George that he had once sneaked into Bloomingdale's to watch Florentyna at work, and he had to confess that she was damned good.

He assured his vice-president that he was looking forward to her finishing the two years training, so that he could employ the girl himself. They had both agreed that when Florentyna left Bloomingdale's, she would be made a vice-president of the group, with special responsibility for the hotel stores. As Bloomingdale's was finding out, she was a chip off a formidable old block, and Abel had no doubt that Florentyna would have few problems taking on the responsibilities he was planning for her.

Florentyna spent her last six months at Bloomingdale's on the ground floor in charge of six counters with the new title of junior supervisor. Her duties now included stock checking, the cash desks and overall supervision of eighteen sales clerks. Bloomingdale's had already decided that Jessie Kovats was the ideal candidate to be a future buyer.

Florentyna had not yet informed her employers that she would be leaving shortly to join her father as a vice-president of the Baron Group. As the six months was drawing to its conclusion, she began to wonder what would happen to poor Maisie after she had left, Maisie assumed Jessie was at Bloomingdale's for life - wasn't everybody? - and never gave the question a second thought. Florentyna, thought she might even offer her a job in one of the shops in the New York Baron. As long as it was behind a counter at which men spent money, Maisie was a valuable asset.

One afternoon when Maisie was waiting on a customer -she was now in gloves, scarves and woolly hats - she pulled Florentyna aside and poizited to a young man who was loitering over the mittens.

'What do you think of him?' she asked, giggling.

Florentyna glanced up at Maisie's latest -desire with her customary disinterest, but on this occasion she had to admit to herself that he was rather attractive, and for once she was almost envious of Maisie.

'They only want one thing, Maisie!

'I know,' said Maisie, 'and he can have it.'

'I'm sure he'll be pleased to hear that,' said Florentyna, laughing as she turned to wait on a customer who was becoming impatient at Maisie's indifference to her presenm Maisi,e took advantage of Florentyna's move and rushed off to serve the gloveless young man. Florentyna watched them both out of the corner of her eye. She was amused that he kept glancing nervously towards her, checking that Maisie wasn't being spied on by her supervisor.

Maisie giggled away and the young man departed with a pair of dark blue leather gloves.

'Well, how did he measure up to your hopes?' asked Florentyna, conscious she felt a little jealous of Maisie's new conquest.

'He didn't,' replied Maisie. 'But I'm sure he'll be back again,' she added, grinning.

Maisie's prediction turned out to be correct, for the next day there he was, thumbing among the gloves and looking even more embarrassed.