Stone's Fall

Then there was the issue of wresting control from his creditors who, I was sure, had a better notion of his machine's financial potential than he did. They would not give it up for a paltry sum, and I did not wish to pay high. The whole point of the game is to get a bargain. Anyone can pay a full price.

How was this to be done? First, know your opponent and here, much to my surprise, my landlady proved to be a fount of useful information. Ambrosian, the head of the bank that had made the loan, was, she told me, highly respected as a man who had stayed in Venice during the Austrian occupation, but who had refused to have many dealings with Vienna. He had done most of his business with Venetians, and forged contacts with banking families in Italy, France – anywhere but Austria. Like most patriotic citizens, he had refused all invitations to official functions, refused to go to the theatre or opera, refused to sit in a café where an Austrian was sitting and (so it was said) subsidised forbidden groups of nationalists to annoy the foreign oppressors. He was something of a hero; whether he was any good as a banker was another matter entirely. Such information as I could gather from newspapers suggested a well-bottomed, but somewhat unimaginative, operation, which was good. Such people do not like risks. But newspapers are often wrong.

I did wish communications were better. I had sent off a letter to Cardano shortly after I arrived, and had mentioned Macintyre and also Cort, but had received no reply – even going by express mail, it would take a week for a letter to arrive in London, a week for the reply to come back. Better than it had been only a few years previously, no doubt, but in London I could have found all the information I needed in a morning. Now the telegraph criss-crosses the world, telephones are becoming common, and people take instantaneous communication for granted. They should try to imagine a world where a letter – to California, or Australia or India – could take up to a month, even at speed.

CHAPTER 9

The next day was a dream of such perfection that I have never approached the like again. It was, of course, all illusion, but I like to think of it still in isolation from what came after, as a moment of bliss, one of those days when one is no longer oneself, but becomes bigger, and better, able to overcome the normal preoccupations of life and breathe more freely.

Should anyone read this who knows me only from my reputation, I have no doubt that this narrative of idleness and dreaminess will occasion nothing but incredulity. If business and romance do not mix, how very much more incompatible are finance and passion? One requires a personality that is purely cold and rational, the other must give way to the impetuous. Such feelings cannot co-exist in the same individual.

To which I must reply that anyone who thinks this knows nothing of money. Finance is every bit as much an art as painting or music. It is very similar to musical performance, for while much does depend on skill – a musician who cannot play is not a musician; a financier who cannot understand a balance sheet will soon be a beggar – skill can only take you so far. Beyond that point lies poetry. Many find this difficult to believe, but it is true. Some people are so much in tune with the markets that they do not need to manipulate a stock price or break a law to profit. They can feel the ebbs and flows of capital in the way a horse rider understands his steed, and can make it obey him without use of whip or stirrup.

Money is merely another term for people, a representation of their desires and personalities. If you do not understand one, you cannot hope to understand the other. Take the matter of giving an inducement to win a contract. This is frowned on, called bribery and in some cases is even considered criminal. But it is an area in which rational calculation and emotional empathy are the most perfectly fused. It is an art form; a Russian expects an envelope full of money; an English civil servant would be outraged at the idea, but is no less corrupt or greedy. He desires employment for his nephew – which is often a more generous gift. It is diplomacy carried over to the world of affairs, and both require delicacy and judgement. I acknowledge no equal in the art – not even Mr Xanthos, for he is too cynical, too ready to hold the person he persuades in contempt. As I write, I have before me a sheet of paper listing the shares in my companies owned by some of the greatest politicians in England. I arranged it all some six years ago as a precaution and have never asked for anything in return. Nor will I; but these people will, in due course, do what is necessary in their own interests, and mine. Not that anyone else knows of this; it is why my managers are becoming nervous and are unable to understand my calm belief that all will be well. They fear I have lost my touch.