Raven
didn't mind the chilly autumn wind as he walked back
across St. James park from White's. He did mind the
chaos awaiting him at home. He sought order, not confusion,
in his life. First, he heard pounding and shouting coming
from his upstairs sitting room. Then saw a canvas bag
of tools on the mahogany staircase. He then sensed Lane,
his aged butler, was apoplectic. And knew his wife was
gone. "Lady Diana left an hour ago for the country...."
Lane spluttered, always calling Raven's wife, the daughter
of Lord Tuttman, by her ancestral title. He added, "The
people from Christie's are upstairs. Lady Diana told
them to install the painting over the desk."
The hammering
suddenly stopped. A workman came down the stairs, picked
up his loose tool kit, and then was ushered out the
door by Lane.
Chris stood in her
stocking feet on the partner's desk in the Edwardian
sitting room, engrossed in adjusting the painting, She
wore a thin blue dress lashed to her taut frame with
a sash, with a fashionable slit up its side, exposing
the whiteness of her leg. The afternoon light hit her
like a spotlight. She did not hear Raven enter.
She spun around. "Sorry
I didn't hear you come in, Tony. What do you think?
Isn't it magnificent? Allen Julian, in my opinion, is
England's finest painter of castle art, and this may
be his best painting. The detail is incredible."
Raven, coming closer, could
see that the colors in the original were much richer
than in the copy in Lord Crude's library. The shooters
were far much more life-like, Achnacarry castle more
realistic, the dark sky more ominous. He could see that
the original contained something not in the copy: a
third shooter. He also knew why the third shooter had
been deliberately left out from the copies.
"It's looks perfect
there, Miss..." He resisted, as he had from the moment
he met her, calling her by name. He feared she already
had too much power over him.
"Castle art
of course is not everyone's cup of tea," she said, nimbly
climbing down from the desk. "But this painting has
a special meaning to you, doesn't it."
He looked up
sharply. How much did Nubar tell her, he wondered, "Dogs.
Grouse. Hunters. Moors. Castle? What's special about
that, Miss --- ?"
"Chris," she reminded. "Your wife
just told me she that she was actually there, at this
very shoot, at Achnacarry. "
"1928. Lady Diana was
just a child then, too young to really remember it."
"Quite the contrary. She vividly remembered the castle
had been scaled off from the public by round-the-clock
guards for a fortnight. Each day limousines arrived
with new guests. And each afternoon, while she and the
other children played, and the women took naps, the
men locked themselves away the library. She even knew
the shooters. She said they were all oil men, like her
father."
"We never really discussed the castle parties
she attended as a child," Raven said, trying to cut
off any further discussion.
"Look, there is an additional
shooter in this painting." Chris' face grew animated,
her cheeks puffing up like a squirrel. She pointed to
a squarely built man with a grouse in his game bag,
smoking a pipe. "There were only two shooters in the
one in the Lord Crude's library. None with a pipe."
Raven said " I think you are mixing it up..."
"Absolutely,
not. "Crude has two shooters, you have three. "That
Sir Henry Deterding, isn't it,"
"Yes," Raven acknowledged.
" Deterding owned Achnacarry Castle, where the shoot
took place."
"And lots of oil, I bet" "He was chairman
of Royal Dutch Shell. He was rich enough to afford the
shoot."
"And this shooter with the dead bird. He also
look suspiciously familiar," she pointed to the tall
aristocratic-looking man.
"That is Lord Cadman. As
I recall, he was Chairman of Anglo-Iranian Oil. The
third man, for your information, is Walter Teagle, the
head of he head of Rockefeller's Standard Oil trust.
They were all sportsmen who had come to Scotland to
shoot grouse. They shot 200 birds in a weekend, as I
understand it. That was it." Raven said, closing the
discussion by slicing his hand through the air.
"It
wasn't just sport, was it? Something else happened there,
didn't it. Something secret. Was the painting sent to
you as a reminder? Is that's why there are truncated
copies of this painting?" She smiled tauntingly.
"You have an over-active
imagination, young lady. Its getting late..."
"Is it getting late?"
Chris had a way of turning a statement into a question
when pressed. "That's what you were saying to Lord Crude
about Iran," she continued in her chirpy, teasing voice.
"I love secrets."
"Let me tell you are a story with a moral, young lady.
There once was wise man that saved a king from ruin.
The King told him, as a reward, he could have anything
he possessed. The wise man replied, give me anything
but your secrets. The moral?"
"It may be dangerous
to know a King's secret." Chris answered. "How exciting.
Would it be that dangerous for me to know your secret."
"My car can take you home, Miss. I appreciate..."
She
didn't want to go. He intrigued her, even attracted
her. "Nubar told me you were a man of mystery?"
Raven
brought his eyes were level with hers. You're the dangerous
one, he thought. You look into men's faces with your
bright eyes, not giving a damn how you play on their
weakness. He suddenly wanted her in his power. "OK,
young lady your secrets for mine? Fair exchange? I will
tell you whatever secret you want to know--two, if you
like if you'll do likewise. If you cannot answer both
truthfully, you'll have to pay a consequence. "
"I'll
go first," she accepted his challenge.. "What was really
going on at Achnacarry, other than birds being shot."
"Negotiations," he decided to be brutally honest. "The
men at the shoot represented seven companies that owned
the world's pool of crude. But it was inevitable new
pools of oil would be found. They had two choices: they
could compete for the new oil or they could make an
arrangement to share it. They choose an arrangement."
He didn't mind telling her, it was all history now.
"My turn. What question would you not answer truthfully
under any circumstances?
"That's easy," Chris
laughed, "I would never tell a man I was sexually attracted
to him. What does that old arrangement have to do with
that man, Moose-a-day, is that how you pronounce it."
"Without the oil in
Iran, the arrangement cannot work. Iran is now led by
a madman named Mossedeq. He runs around in back pajamas,
weeping. Hopefully, through an election, he will soon
be replaced by a saner man.," Raven hoped he had a benevolent
spin on what she had evidently over heard in the library.
"My turn," he continued,
"Are you sexually attracted to me?" "No, I mean..."
she hesitated, realizing that she had already logically
excluded a truthful answer. "You know I can't answer
that."
"Consequence, Chris," it was the first
time he had called her by name.
"What do I have to
do?" she asked, petting the finely-carved ebony camel,
across from the desk.
Raven left and returned with
a bottle of Kristal champagne on ice and two large crystal
glasses. He filled one glass and handed it to Chris.
"Is this my consequence?" Chris asked, then drained
it. She loved really bubbly, cold champagne.
"Not quite,"
he answered, refilling her glass.
Chris drank again.
She felt strangely light-headed and uninhibited. The
room seemed to wobble. She put her glass down. Raven,
touching her incredibly lightly under her elbow, guiding
her towards the Tang dynasty opium bed. It was covered
with cushions.
She lay back on the silky cushions,
looking at the three shooters in their plus-four tweeds,
their mangy dogs, their unhappy-looking beaters, murky
Achnacarry castle while Raven's grip on her was growing
firmer. She could feel his finger undoing her sash,
her buttons and all the other attachments that held
her clothes to her body. She made little effort at resisting,
things had gone too far. She had no exit strategy.
"The Consequence,"
he said, kissing her.
|