She closed the door quietly.
William slept on a chair outside Matthew’s room for fear he might wake up in the night and try to leave. Kate woke him in the morning, before taking in some breakfast to Matthew.
‘What am I doing here, Kate?’ were his first words as she pulled open the curtains and he blinked in the morning light.
‘You came back with us after Andrew MacKenzie’s party last night,’ Kate replied rather feebly.
‘No, I didn’t. I went to the Revue Club with that awful girl, Patricia something or other, but luckily Jenny was there, not that she had to do much to earn her ten dollars. God, I feel lousy. Can I have a tomato juice? I don’t want to be unsociable, but the last thing I need is breakfast.’
‘Of course, Matthew,’ said Kate, removing the tray.
William came in. He and Matthew stared at each other in silence.
‘You know, don’t you?’ said Matthew finally.
‘Yes,’ said William. ‘I’ve been a fool, and I hope you’ll forgive me.’
‘Don’t cry, William. I haven’t seen you do that since you were twelve when Covington was beating you up and I had to drag him off you. Remember? I wonder what Covington’s up to now? Probably running a brothel in Tijuana; it’s about all he was fit for. Mind you, if Covington is running it, the place will be damned efficient, so lead me to it. Don’t cry, William. Grown men don’t cry. Nothing can be done. I’ve seen all the specialists from New York to Los Angeles to Zu rich, and there’s nothing they can do. Do you mind if I skip the office this morning? I still feel bloody awful. Kate can wake me up if I stay too long, or if I’m too much trouble, and I’ll find my own way home.’
‘This is your home now,’ said William.
Matthew’s voice changed. ‘Will you tell my father, William? I can’t face him. You’re an only son - you understand the problem.’
‘Yes,’ said William. ‘I’ll go down to New York tomorrow and let him know, if you’ll promise to stay here. I won’t stop you from getting drunk if that’s what you want to do, or from having as many women as you like, but you must stay here.’
‘Best offer I’ve had in weeks, William. Now I think I’ll sleep some more. I get so tired nowadays.’
William watched Matthew fall into a deep sleep, and removed the half-empty glass from his hand. A tomato juice stain was forming on the sheets.
‘Don’t die,’ he said quietly. ‘Please don’t die, Matthew. Have you forgotten that you and I are going to run the biggest bank in America?’
William went to New York the following morning to see Charles Lester. The great man shrank into his seat and seemed to age visibly at William’s news.
‘Thank you for coming, William, and telling me personally. I knew something had to be wrong when Matthew stopped visiting me, without warning. I’ll come up to Boston every weekend. I’m so glad he’s with you and Kate, and I’ll try not to make it too obvious how hard I took the news. God knows what he’s done to deserve this. Since his mother died, I’ve built everything for him, and now there’s no one to leave it to.’
‘Come to Boston whenever you want to, sir - you’ll always be most welcome.’
‘Thank you, William, for everything you’re doing for my son.’ The old man looked up at him. ‘I wish your father were alive to see how worthy his son is of the name Kane. If only I could change places with my son, and let him live …’
‘I ought to be getting back to him soon, sir.’
‘Yes, of course. Tell him I love him; tell him I took the news stoically. Don’t tell him anything different.’
Yes, sir.’
William travelled back to Boston that night to find that Matthew had stayed at home with Kate and was sitting on the veranda reading America’s latest bestseller, Gone With The Wind. He looked up as William came in.
‘How did the old man take it?’ were his first words when William entered the room.
‘He cried,’ said William.
‘The chairman of Lester’s Bank cried?’ said Matthew. ‘I hope no one tells the shareholders.’
Matthew stopped drinking, returned to work and worked as hard as he could right up until the last few days. William was amazed by his determination, and continually tried to make him slow down. But Matthew kept well on top of his work, and would tease William by checking his mail at the end of each day. In the evenings, before the theatre or dinner, Matthew would play tennis with Kate, or row against William on the Charles.
‘I’ll know I’m dead when I can’t beat you,’ he mocked.
Matthew never entered hospital, preferring to stay at the Red House. For William, the weeks went so slowly and yet so quickly, waking each morning and wondering if Matthew would still be alive.
Matthew died on a Thursday, forty pages still to read of Gone With The Wind.
Matthew’s funeral was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, and William and Kate stayed with Charles Lester. In the past few months he had become an old man, and as he stood by the graves of his wife and his only son, he told William he no longer saw any purpose in life. William said nothing; no words of his could help the grieving father.
William and Kate returned to Boston the following day. The Red House seemed strangely empty without Matthew. The past months had been at once the happiest and the unhappiest period in William’s life. Matthew’s illness had brought William closer to both him and Kate than normal life would ever have allowed.
When William returned to the bank he found it difficult to get back into any sort of normal routine. He would get up and start to head towards Matthew’s office for advice or a laugh, but Matthew was no longer there. It was weeks before William could accept that the room was empty.
Tony Simmons could not have been more understanding, but it didn’t help. William lost all interest in banking, even in Kane and Cabot, as he went through months of remorse over Matthew’s death. He had always taken it for granted that he and Matthew shared a common destiny, that they would grow old together. No one commented that William’s work was not up to its usual high standard, although Kate grew worried by the hours William would spend alone.
Then one morning she woke to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her. She blinked at him. ‘Is something wrong, darling?’
‘No. I’m just looking at my greatest asset, and making sure I never take it for granted.’
35
AT BREAKFAST the following morning, Kate pointed to a small item on page 17 of the Globe, reporting the opening of the Chicago Baron.
William smiled as he read the article. Kane and Cabot had been foolish not to listen when he had advised them to back the Richmond Group. It pleased him that his own judgement on Rosnovski had turned out to be right, even though the bank had missed out on the deal. His smile broadened as he read the nickname ‘The Chicago Baron’. Then, suddenly, he felt sick. He examined the photograph accompanying the article more closely, but there was no mistake, and the caption confirmed his worst fear: ‘Abel Rosnovski, the chairman of the Baron Group, talking with Mieczyslaw Szymczak, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, and Alderman Henry Osborne.’
William dropped the paper onto the breakfast table and didn’t finish his coffee. He left the house without another word. As soon as he arrived at his office, he called Thomas Cohen at Cohen, Cohen and Yablons.
‘It’s been a long time, Mr Kane,’ were Cohen’s first words. ‘I was very sorry to learn of the death of your friend, Mr Lester. How are your wife and your son - Richard - isn’t that his name?’
William always admired Cohen’s instant recall of names and relationships.
‘They’re both well, thank you, Mr Cohen. And how is Thaddeus?’
‘He’s just become a partner of the firm, and recently made me a grandfather. So what can I do for you, Mr Kane?’ Thomas Cohen also recalled that William could only manage about one sentence of small talk.
‘I want to employ, through you, the services of a reliable private investigator. I do not wish my name to be associated with the inquiry, but I need a full update on Henry Osborne, who, it seems, is now an alderman in Chicago. I want to know everything he’s done since he left Boston, and in particular whether there is any personal or professional connection between him and Abel Rosnovski, the president of the Baron Group.’
There was a pause before the lawyer said, ‘I understand.’
‘Can you report to me in one week?’
‘Two please, Mr Kane, two,’ said Cohen.
Thomas Cohen was as reliable as ever, and a full report appeared on William’s desk by the fifteenth morning. He read the dossier several times, underlining certain passages. There appeared to be no formal business relationship between Abel Rosnovski and Henry Osborne. Rosnovski, it seemed, found Osborne useful as a political fixer, but nothing more. Osborne had drifted from job to job since leaving Boston, ending up in the claims office of the Great Western Casualty Insurance Company. That was probably how he had come into contact with Rosnovski, as the old Chicago Richmond had been insured by Great Western. When the hotel was burned to the ground, the insurance company had originally refused to pay the claim. A certain Desmond Pacey, the former manager, had been sent to prison for ten years after pleading guilty to arson, and there had initially been some suspicion that Rosnovski might have been involved. But nothing was proved, and the insurance company settled for three-quarters of a million dollars. Osborne, the report went on, was now an alderman and a full-time politician at City Hall. It was common knowledge that he hoped to become the next congressman for Illinois. He had recently married a Miss Marie Axton, the daughter of a wealthy drug manufacturer, and as yet they had no children.
William went over the report once again to be sure he had not missed anything, however inconsequential. Although there did not seem to be a great deal to connect the two men, he couldn’t help feeling that the association between Abel Rosnovski and Henry Osborne, both of whom detested him, for totally different reasons, was potentially dangerous. He mailed a cheque to Thomas Cohen and requested that he update the file every quarter. But as the months passed, and the quarterly reports revealed nothing new, he began to stop worrying, thinking that perhaps he had overreacted to the photograph in the Boston Globe.
Kate presented William with a daughter in the spring of 1936; they christened her Virginia. William started changing diapers again, and such was his fascination with ‘the little lady’ that Kate had to rescue the child each night for fear she would never get any sleep. Richard, now three years old, didn’t care too much for the new arrival to begin with, but time and a new electric train set helped to allay his jealousy.
By the end of the year William’s department at Kane and Cabot had made a handsome profit for the bank. He had emerged from the lethargy that had overcome him following Matthew’s death, and was fast regaining his reputation as a shrewd investor in the stock market, not least when ‘Sell’em Short Smith’ admitted he had only perfected a technique developed by William Kane of Boston. Even Tony Simmons’s direction had become less irksome. Nevertheless, William was secretly frustrated by the knowledge that he could not hope to become chairman of Kane and Cabot until Simmons retired in fifteen years’ time, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.
36
CHARLES LESTER had grown very old in the three years since Matthew’s death, and it was rumoured in financial circles that he had lost all interest in his work, and was rarely seen at the bank. So it didn’t come entirely as a surprise when William read of the old man’s death in the New York Times.
The Kanes travelled down to New York for the funeral. Everyone seemed to be there, including John Nance Garner, the Vice President of the United States. After the funeral, William and Kate took the train back to Boston, numbly conscious that they had lost their last close link with the Lester family.
Three months later, William received a letter from Sullivan and Cromwell, the distinguished New York lawyers, asking him if he would be kind enough to attend the reading of the will of the late Charles Lester at their offices on Wall Street.
William decided to attend the reading, more out of loyalty to the Lester family than from any desire to find out what Charles Lester had left him. He hoped for a small memento that would remind him of Matthew and would join the ‘Harvard Oar’ that hung on the wall of his study at the Red House. He also looked forward to the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with so many members of the Lester family whom he had come to know during his school and college vacations.
He drove down to New York in his newly acquired Daimler the night before the reading and stayed at the Harvard Club. The will was to be read at ten o’clock the following morning, and he was surprised to find on his arrival at the offices of Sullivan and Cromwell that more than fifty people were already present. Many of them glanced up at him as he entered the room, and he greeted several of Matthew’s cousins and aunts, who looked rather older than he remembered them; he could only conclude they must be thinking the same about him. He searched the room for Matthew’s sister Susan, but couldn’t see her. He assumed that by now she must be married and have a brood of young children.
As ten o’clock struck, Mr Arthur Cromwell entered the room, accompanied by an assistant carrying a brown leather folder. Everyone fell silent in hopeful expectation. The lawyer began by explaining that the contents of the will had not been disclosed until now, three months after Charles Lester’s death, at Mr Lester’s specific instruction. Having no son to whom to leave his fortune, he had wanted the dust to settle following his death before his final intentions were made clear.
William looked around the room and studied the faces, many of which were clearly intent on every syllable coming from the lawyer’s mouth. Arthur Cromwell took nearly an hour to read the handwritten will. After reciting the usual bequests to family retainers, charities and a rather large donation to Harvard University, he went on to reveal that Charles Lester had divided the remainder of his fortune among his relations, treating them more or less according to their degree of kinship. His daughter Susan received the largest share of the estate, while his five nephews and three nieces each received an equal portion of the remainder. All their money and stock were to be held in trust by the bank until they were thirty. Several other cousins, aunts and distant relations were to receive cash payments.
William was surprised when Mr Cromwell announced, ‘That disposes of all the known assets of the late Charles Lester.’
People began to shuffle around in their seats, and a murmur of nervous conversation broke out.
‘It is not, however, the end of Mr Lester’s Last Will and Testament,’ said the imperturbable lawyer. Everyone stopped fidgeting, fearful of some late and unwelcome thunderbolt.
