The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [75]
We ordered some more drinks.
‘Widmerpool opened a credit for me through a Turkish bank,’ said Duport. ‘I was to buy the ores myself and send a shipment as soon as I had enough. I sent one shipment, was getting to work good and proper on the second shipment, when, a week or two ago, do you know what happened?’
‘I’m floored.’
‘Widmerpool,’ said Duport slowly, ‘without informing me, cancelled the credit. He did that on his own responsibility, because he didn’t like the look of the European situation.’
‘Can’t you apply to Donners?’
‘He is in France, doing a tour of the Maginot Line or something of the sort – making French contacts and having a bit of a holiday at the same time. I was bloody well left holding the baby. The sellers were looking to me for payments impossible for me to make. Of course I shall see Donners the moment he returns. Even if he re-opens the credit, there’s been an irreparable balls-up.’
‘And you’d go back?’
‘If the international situation allows. It may not. I’ve no quarrel with Widmerpool about the likelihood of war. I quite agree. That is why Donners wants chromite. Widmerpool seems to have missed that small point.’
‘Why does Donners specially want chromite if there’s war?’
‘Corner the Turkish market. The more there is talk of war, the more Donners-Brebner will need chromite. Donners gives out that it is for some special process he is interested in. That was why Peter Templer was asked to Stourwater – so that he would gossip afterwards about that. Not a word of truth. Donners had quite other reasons. He is not going to give away his plans to a fool like Widmerpool, even when it suits his book to use Widmerpool. Widmerpool talks a lot of balls about “reducing the firm’s commitments”. He’s missed the whole bloody point.’
I was not sure that I saw the point myself. It presumably turned on whether or not there was a war – Sir Magnus thinking there would be, Widmerpool undecided how to act if there were. All that was clear was that Duport had been put into an unenviable position.
‘So you see,’ he said, ‘Widmerpool isn’t a great favourite with me at the moment.’
‘You were going to tell me why you left South America.’
‘I was,’ said Duport, speaking as if it were a relief to abandon the subject of Widmerpool and chromite. ‘Since you know Peter Templer, did you ever meet another ex-brother-in-law of mine, Jimmy Stripling, who was married to Peter’s other sister, Babs? He used to have quite a name as a racing driver.’
‘Stripling was at the Templers’ when I stayed there years ago. I met him once since.’
‘Jimmy and Babs got a divorce. Jimmy – who has always been pretty cracked in some ways – took up with a strange lady called Mrs Erdleigh, who tells fortunes. Incidentally, she sometimes came to the Bellevue to see your uncle. I remembered her. Looks as if she kept a high-class knocking-shop. There is another queer fish living at the Bellevue – old boy with a beard. He and Mrs Erdleigh and your late lamented uncle used sometimes to have tea together.’
‘I know about Mrs Erdleigh – and Dr Trelawney too.’
‘You do? Trelawney tried to bring off a touch last time we talked. I explained I was as broke as himself. No ill feeling. That’s beside the point. Also the fact that Myra Erdleigh milked Jimmy Stripling to quite a tune. All I want to know is: what did you think of Jimmy when you met him?’
‘Pretty awful – but I never knew him well. He may be all right.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Duport. ‘He is awful. Couldn’t be worse. Kept out of the war himself and ran away with Babs when her