Not a Penny More Not a Penny Less Read online

  “First game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by one game to love in the first set.”

  “Now, Harvey, I know you too well to expect this invitation to have been just for pleasure.”

  “What an evil mind you have, Jörg.”

  “In my profession I need it.”

  “I just wanted to check how my three accounts stand and brief you on my plans for the next few months.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by two games to love in the first set.”

  “Your No. 1 official account is a few thousand dollars in credit. Your numbered commodity account”—at this point Birrer unfolded a small piece of unidentifiable paper with a set of neat figures printed on it—“is short by $3,726,000, but you are holding 37,000 ounces of gold at today’s selling price of $135 an ounce.”

  “What’s your advice on that?”

  “Hold on, Harvey. I still think your President is either going to announce a new gold standard or allow your fellow countrymen to buy gold on the open market some time next year.”

  “That’s my view too, but I’m still convinced we want to sell a few weeks before the masses come in. I have a theory about that.”

  “I expect you’re right, as usual, Harvey.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by three games to love in the first set.”

  “What are your charges on my overdraft?”

  “1½ percent above interbank rate, which at present is 13.25, and therefore we’re charging you 14.75 percent per annum, while gold is rising in price at nearly 70 percent per annum. It can’t go on that way; but there are still a few months left in it.”

  “O.K.,” said Harvey, “hold on until November 1st and we’ll review the position again then. Coded telex as usual. I don’t know what the world would do without the Swiss.”

  “Just take care, Harvey. Do you know there are more specialists in our police force on fraud than there are for homicide?”

  “You worry about your end, Jörg, and I’ll worry about mine. The day I get uptight about a few underpaid bureaucrats from Zürich who haven’t got any balls, I’ll let you know. Now, enjoy your lunch and watch the game. We’ll have a talk about the other account later.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by four games to love in the first set.”

  “They’re very deep in conversation,” said Anne. “I can’t believe they’re enjoying the match.”

  “He’s probably trying to buy Wimbledon at cost price,” laughed James. “The trouble with seeing the man every day is that one begins to have a certain respect for him. He’s the most organized man I’ve ever come across. If he’s like this on holiday, what the hell is he like at work?”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Anne.

  “Game to Miss May. Mrs. King leads by four games to one in the first set.”

  “No wonder he’s so overweight. Just look at him stuffing that cake down.” James lifted his Zeiss binoculars. “Which reminds me to ask, darling, what have you brought for lunch?”

  Anne dug into her hamper and unpacked a crisp salad in French bread for James. She contented herself with nibbling a stick of celery.

  “Getting far too fat,” she explained. “I’ll never get into those winter clothes I’m supposed to be modeling next week.” She touched James’s knee and smiled. “It must be because I’m so happy.”

  “Well, don’t get too happy. I prefer you thin.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by five games to one in the first set.”

  “This is going to be a walkover,” said James. “It so often is in the opening match. People only come to see if the champion’s in good form, and I think she’ll be very hard to beat this year now she’s after Helen Moody’s record of eight Wimbledon championships.”

  “Game and first set to Mrs. King by six games to one. Mrs. King leads one set to love. New balls, please. Miss May to serve.”

  “Do we have to watch him all day?” asked Anne.

  “No, we must make sure he returns to the hotel and doesn’t change his plans suddenly or anything silly like that. If we miss our chance when he walks past Jean-Pierre’s gallery, we may not get another one.”

  “What do you do if he does decide to change his plans?”

  “God knows, or to be more accurate, Stephen knows—he’s the mastermind.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by one game to love in the second set.”

  “Poor Miss May, she’s about as successful as you are, James. How is the Jean-Pierre operation looking?”

  “Awful. Metcalfe hasn’t been anywhere near the gallery. He was within 30 yards of the window today and marched off in the opposite direction. Poor Jean-Pierre nearly had heart failure. But we’re more hopeful of tomorrow. So far he seems to have covered Piccadilly and the top end of Bond Street, and the one thing we can be sure of with Harvey Metcalfe is that he’s thorough. So he’s almost bound to cover our bit of territory at one time or another.”

  “You should all have taken out life insurance for $1 million, naming the other three as beneficiaries,” said Anne, “and then if one of you had a heart attack, the others would all get their money back.”

  “It’s no laughing matter, Anne. It’s bloody nerveracking while you’re hanging around, especially when you have to wait for him to make all the moves.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads by two games to love in the second set and by one set to love.”

  “How about your own plan?”

  “Nothing. Useless. And now we’ve started on the others I seem to have less time to concentrate on my own.”

  “Why don’t I seduce him?”

  “Not a bad idea, but you’d have to be pretty special to get £100,000 out of him, when he can hang around outside the Hilton or in Shepherd Market and get it for £30. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about that gentleman it’s that he expects value for money. At £30 a night it would take you just under fifteen years to repay my share, and I’m not sure the other three would be willing to wait that long. In fact, I’m not sure they’ll wait another fifteen days.”

  “We’ll think of something, don’t worry,” said Anne.

  “Game to Miss May. Mrs. King leads by two games to one and by one set to love.”

  “Well, well. Miss May has managed another game. Excellent lunch, Harvey.”

  “A Claridge’s special,” said Harvey, “so much better than getting caught up with the crowds in the restaurant where you can’t even watch the tennis.”

  “Billie Jean is making mincemeat of the poor girl.”

  “No more than I expected,” said Harvey. “Now, Jörg, to my second numbered account.”

  Once again the unidentifiable piece of paper that bore a few numbers appeared. It is this discretion of the Swiss that leads half the world, from heads of state to Arab sheiks, to trust them with their money. In return the Swiss maintain one of the healthiest economies in the world. The system works, so why go elsewhere? Birrer spent a few seconds studying the figures.

  “On April 1st—only you could have chosen that day, Harvey—you transferred $7,486,000 to your No. 2 account, which was already in credit $2,791,428. On April 2nd, on your instructions, we placed $1 million in the Banco do Minas Gerais in the names of Mr. Silverman and Mr. Elliott. We covered the bill with Reading & Bates for the hire of the rig for $420,000 and several other bills amounting to $104,112, leaving your present No. 2 account standing at $8,753,316.”

  “Game to Mrs. King. Mrs. King leads three games to one in the second set and by one set to love.”

  “Very good,” said Harvey.

  “The tennis or the money?” said Birrer.

  “Both. Now, Jörg, I anticipate needing about $2 million over the next six weeks. I want to purchase one or two pictures in London. I have seen a Klee that I quite like and there are still a few galleries I want to visit. If I’d known the Prospecta Oil venture was going to be such a success, I’d have outbid Armand Hammer at the Sotheby-Parke Bernet for t