Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (6 page)

“Good morning, Bernie.”

“I thought I ought to let you know I spent
the evening with a friend at Oxford, and he may invest some money in the
company. The sum could be as high as $250,000.”

“Well done, keep up the good work. You’re
doing a great job, David.” Silverstein showed no surprise at David’s news, but
once back in his office he picked up the red telephone.

“Harvey?”

“Yes.”

“Kesler seems to have been the right choice.
He may have talked a friend of his to invest $250,000 in the company.”

“Good, now listen, brief my broker to put
forty thousand shares on the market at just over six dollars a share. If Kesler’s
friend does decide to invest in the company, mine will be the only shares
available.”

After a further day’s thought, Stephen
noticed that the shares of Discovery Oil had moved from $5.75 to $6.05 and
decided the time had come to invest in what he was now convinced was a winner.
He trusted David, and had been impressed by the geologist’s report. He rang
Kitcat & Aitken, a distinguished firm of stockbrokers in the City of
London, and instructed them to buy $250,000 worth of shares in Discovery Oil.
Harvey Metcalfe’s broker released 40,000 shares when Stephen’s request came
onto the floor of the market and the transaction was quickly completed. Stephen’s
purchase price of $6.10 included the dollar premium.

Stephen had invested everything he had and
over the next few days he happily watched the shares climb to seven dollars,
even before the expected announcement. Though Stephen didn’t realise it, it was
his own investment that had caused the shares to rise. He began to wonder what he
would spend his profit on even before he had made it. He decided he would not
sell immediately, but
hold
on, as David thought these
shares would reach twenty dollars.

At the same time, Harvey Metcalfe began to
release a few more shares onto the market, because of the interest created by
Stephen’s investment. He was beginning to agree with Silverstein that the
choice of David Kesler, young, honest, with all the enthusiasm of a man in his
first appointment, had been a good one. It was not the first time Harvey had
used this ploy, keeping himself well away from the action and placing the
responsibility on innocent shoulders.

Meanwhile Richard Elliott, acting as the
company spokesman, leaked stories to the press about large buyers coming into
the market, which in itself occasioned a flood of small investors.

One lesson a man learns in the Harvard
Business School is that an executive is only as good as his health. David didn’t
feel happy without a regular medical checkup: he rather enjoyed being told he
was in good shape, but perhaps should take things a little easier. Miss Rentoul
had therefore made an appointment for him with a Harley Street doctor.

Dr. Adrian Tryner was a very successful man.
Although thirty-seven, he was tall and handsome, with a head of dark hair that
looked as if it would never go bald. He had a classic strong face and a self
assurance that came from proven success. He still played squash twice a week,
which made him look enviably younger than his contemporaries. He had remained
fit since his Cambridge days, which had equipped him with a Rugby Blue and an
upper second-class degree. He had completed his medical training at St. Thomas’s,
where once again his rugby football rather than his medical skill brought him
into prominence. When he qualified, he went to work as an assistant to a highly
successful Harley Street practitioner, Dr. Eugene Moffat. Dr. Moffat was
successful not so much in curing the sick as in charming his patients,
especially middle-aged women, who came to see him again and again however
little was wrong with them.
At fifty guineas a time that had
to be regarded as success.

Moffat had chosen Adrian Tryner as his
assistant for exactly the qualities he had himself, which made him so sought
after. Adrian Tryner was good-looking, personable, well educated and just
clever enough. He settled in very well to Harley Street and the Moffat system,
and when the older man died suddenly in his early sixties, he took over his
mantle much as a crown prince would take over a throne. He continued to build
up the practice, losing none of Moffat’s ladies, except by natural causes, and
by the age of thirty-seven had done remarkably well for himself. He had a
comfortable country house just outside Newbury in Berkshire, a wife and two
sons, and considerable savings in blue-chip securities. He wasn’t complaining
at his good fortune and he enjoyed his lifestyle, but he was a bored man.
Occasionally he found the bland role of a sympathetic doctor almost intolerably
cloying. How would it be if he admitted that he neither knew nor cared just
what was causing the minute patches of dermatitis on Lady Fiona Fisher’s
diamond-studded hands? Would the heavens descend if he told the dreaded Mrs.
Page-Stanley that she was a malodorous old woman in need of nothing more
medically taxing than a new set of dentures? And would he be struck off the
list of the General Medical Council if he personally administered to the nubile
Miss Lydia de Villiers a good dose of what she so clearly indicated that she
wanted?

David Kesler arrived on time for his
appointment. He had been warned by Miss Rentoul that doctors and dentists
cancel if you are late and still charge you.

David stripped and lay on Adrian Tryner’s
couch. The doctor took his blood pressure, listened to his heart, and made him
put out his tongue (an organ that seldom stands up well to public scrutiny). As
he tapped and poked his way over David’s body, they chatted.

“What brings you to work in London, Mr.
Kesler?”

“I’m with an oil company in the City. I
expect you’ve heard of us–Discovery Oil?”

“No,” said Adrian.
“Can’t
say I have.
Bend your legs up, please.”

He hit David’s kneecaps smartly, one after
the other, with a patella hammer. The legs jumped wildly.

“Nothing wrong with those
reflexes.”

“You will, Dr. Tryner, you will. Things are
going very well for us. Look out for our name in the papers.”

“Why,” said Adrian, smiling, “struck oil
have you?”

“Yes,” said David quietly, pleased with the
impression he was creating, “we have done just that, as a matter of fact.”

Adrian prodded David’s abdomen for a few
seconds. Good muscular wall, no fat, no sign of an enlarged liver. The young
American was in good physical shape. Adrian left him in the examination room to
get dressed and thoughtfully wrote out a brief report on Kesler for his
records.
An oil strike.
Should he dig a little deeper?

Harley Street doctors, although they
routinely keep private patients waiting for three quarters of an hour in a
gas-fired waiting room equipped with one out-of-date copy of
Punch,
never let them feel rushed once
they are in the consulting room. Adrian certainly didn’t want to rush David.

“There is very little wrong with you, Mr.
Kesler. Some signs of anaemia, which I suspect are caused by overwork and your
recent rushing about. I am going to give you some iron tablets, which should
take care of that. Take two a day, morning and night.” He scribbled an
illegible prescription for tablets, and handed it to David.

“Many thanks. It is kind of you to give me
so much of your time.”

“Not at all.
How do you like London?” said Adrian. “Very
different from America, I expect.”

“Sure–the pace is much slower. Once I have
mastered how long it takes to get something done here I will be halfway to
victory.”

“Do you have any friends in London?”

“No,” replied David, “I have one or two
buddies at Oxford from my Harvard days, but I have not yet made contact with
many people in London.”

Good, thought Adrian, here was a chance for
him to find out a bit more about this oil and to spend some time with someone
who made most of his patients look as if they had both feet in the grave. It
might even shake him out of his present lethargy. He continued, “Would you care
to join me for lunch later in the week? You might like to see one of our
antique London clubs.”

“How very kind of you.”

“Excellent. Will Friday suit you?”

“It certainly will.”

“Then make it one o’clock at the Athenaeum
Club in Pall Mall.”

David returned to his City desk, picking up
his tablets on the way. He took one immediately for luck. He was beginning to
enjoy his stay in London. Silverstein seemed pleased with him, Discovery Oil
was doing well and he was already meeting some interesting people. Yes, he felt
this was going to be a very happy period in his life.

He arrived at the Athenaeum on Friday at
twelve forty-five, a massive white building on the corner of Pall Mall,
overlooked by a statue of the Duke of Wellington. David was amazed by the vast
rooms and his commercial mind could not help wondering what price they might
fetch as office space. The place seemed to be full of moving waxworks, who
Adrian later assured him were distinguished generals and diplomats.

They lunched in the Coffee Room, dominated
by a Rubens of Charles I, and Adrian told David the famous Athenaeum story
about the man who walked into the club from the street and asked the head
porter if he could cash a cheque: “Are you a member of this club, sir?” asked
the porter. “No,” said the visitor. “Certainly, sir,” was the reply.

Over coffee in the Members’ Room, David
readily told Adrian the details of the geologist’s findings on the Discovery
Oil site. The shares were now at $7.15 on the Montreal Stock Exchange and were
still going up.

“Sounds like a good investment,” said
Adrian, “and as it’s your own company, it might be worth a risk.”

“I don’t think there is much risk,” said
David, “as long as the oil is actually there.”

“Well, I will certainly consider it most
seriously over the weekend.”

They parted after lunch, David to a
conference on the Energy Crisis organised by the
Financial Times,
Adrian to his home in Berkshire. His two young
sons were back from prep school for the weekend and he was looking forward to
seeing them again. How quickly they had passed from babies to toddlers to boys,
and how reassuring to know their future was secure.

One of the first calls David received on the
Monday morning was from Adrian.

“Did you read the article on ‘The North Sea
Oil Boom’ in
The Observer
this
weekend?”

“Yes,” replied David, “I certainly did.
Closely.”

“It did rather indicate that the smaller
companies might head the field in the search for oil. After all, when the
British government allocated the sections of the North Sea they were bound to
do it totally indiscriminately, as they were not to know where the oil was
themselves.”

“That’s right,” said David, “and I believe
we are one of the lucky ones. The North Sea is going to do Britain a lot of
good and I think you would do well to invest in us.”

“Yes,” said Adrian. “Well, I think it would
be a fairly substantial investment, but I will be pulling out long before they
reach twenty dollars. No need to be greedy.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s wise. You must come
and have lunch with me some time.”

“A very nice idea.
Keep in touch.”

Bernie Silverstein was pleased to hear of
the possibility of a further investment.

“Congratulations, my boy. We are going to
need a lot of capital to finance our pipe-laying operations, you know.
Pipe-laying can cost two million dollars per mile. Still, you are playing your
part. I have just had word from the head office that we are to give you a five
thousand dollar bonus for your efforts. Keep up the good work.”

David smiled. This was business in the
proper Harvard way. If you do the work, you get the rewards. No messing about.

“When is the announcement on the strike
being made?” he asked.

“Some time in the next few days.”

David left Silverstein’s office with a glow
of pride.

Silverstein immediately contacted Harvey
Metcalfe, who set the routine in motion again. Metcalfe’s brokers released onto
the market 35,000 shares at $7.23 and approximately 5,000 each day onto the
Open market, always being able to feel when the market had taken enough so that
the price remained steady. Once again, the shares climbed, because of Dr.
Tryner’s substantial investment, this time to $7.40, keeping David, Adrian and
Stephen all happy. They did not know that Harvey was releasing more shares each
day because of the interest they had caused, which had created a market of its
own.

David decided to spend some of his bonus on
a painting for his little flat in the Barbican, which he felt was rather grey.
About $2,000, he thought, something that was going to appreciate. David quite
enjoyed art for art’s sake, but he liked it even better for business’ sake. He
spent the Friday afternoon tramping round Bond Street, Cork Street and Bruton
Street, the home of the London art galleries. The Wildenstein was too expensive
for his pocket and the Marlborough too modern for his taste. The painting he
finally picked out was at the Lamanns Gallery in New Bond Street.