Noble House

by James Clavell

  “He went away? He went where?”

  “To … to the Rain Country, then to the Golden Mountains. Now he has a restaurant and two sons.… He’s a businessman there and he came to see Father.… Father was dying then and he came as a dutiful son should come but then he went away and Mother wept and wept….”

  “How often did he visit his parents?”

  “Oh, it was only once, Lord, only that once. Now he lives so far away, in such a far place, such a far place but he came as a dutiful son should and then he left. It was just by chance I saw him, Lord. Mother had sent me to visit some relations in the next village but I was lonely and I came back early and saw him.… It was just before he left. The young Master left in a foreign devil car….”

  “Where did he get the motorcar? It was his?”

  “I don’t know, Lord. There was no car in Ning-tok. Even the village committee did not possess one, even Father who was the pharmacist in our village. Poor Father who died in such pain. He was a member of the committee.… They left us alone, Chairman Mao’s people, the Outsiders.… Yes they did because though Father was an intellectual and pharmacist he was always a secret Mao supporter though I never knew, Lord, I swear I never knew. Chairman Mao’s people left us alone, Lord.”

  “What was his name, the son of your Mistress? The man in the photo?” he had repeated, trying to shake her.

  “Chu-toy Wu, Lord, he was her second born.… I remember when he was sent from Ning-tok to … to this foul place, this Fragrant Harbor. He was five or six and he was sent to an uncle here and—”

  “What was the uncle’s name?”

  “I don’t know, Lord, I was never told, I only remember Mother weeping and weeping when Father sent him away to school.… Can I go home please now, I’m tired, please….”

  “When you tell us what we want to know. If you tell us the truth.”

  “Oh I tell you the truth, anything anything….”

  “He was sent to school in Hong Kong? Where?”

  “I don’t know, Lord, my Mistress never said, only to school and then she put him out of her mind and so did I, oh yes, it was better, because he was gone forever, you know always second sons must leave….”

  “When did Chu-toy Wu return to Ning-tok?”

  “It was some years ago when Father was dying. He only returned that once, it was only once, Lord, don’t you remember me saying, I remember saying that. Yes it was the once of the photo. Mother insisted on the photo and wept and begged him to have one taken with her.… Surely she felt the hand of death on her now that Father had gone and she was truly alone … Oh she wept and wept so Chu-toy let her have her way as a dutiful son should and my Mistress was so pleased….”

  “And the barbarian in the photo, who is he?” The man was half turned around, in the background, not easy to recognize if you did not know him, standing beside the car that was parked beside the pharmacy. He was a tall man, European, crumpled clothes and nondescript.

  “I don’t know, Lord. He was the driver and he drove Chu-toy away but the committee of the village and Chu-toy himself bowed many times to him and it was said he was very important. He was the first foreign devil I had ever seen, Lord….”

  “And the people in the other photograph? Who’re they?” This photograph was ancient, almost sepia and showed a self-conscious couple in ill-fitting wedding clothes staring bleakly at the camera.

  “Oh of course they’re Father and Mother, Lord. Don’t you remember me saying that? I told you many times. That’s Mother and Father. His name was Ting-top Wu and his tai-tai my Mistress was Fang-ling….”

  “And the cutting?”

  “I don’t know, Lord, it was just stuck to the photo so I left it there. Mother had stuck it there so I left it. What should I want with foreign devil nonsense or writing….”

  Robert Armstrong sighed. The yellowed clipping was from a Chinese newspaper of Hong Kong, dated July 16, 1937, that told of three Chinese youths who had done so well in their term examinations that they had been granted scholarships by the Hong Kong Government to an English public school. Kar-shun Kwok was the first named. Kar-shun was Brian Kwok’s formal Chinese name.

  “You did very well, Robert,” Crosse said, watching him.

  “Did I?” he replied through the fog of his misery.

  “Yes, very well. You came to me at once with the evidence, you’ve followed instructions perfectly and now our mole is safely asleep.” Crosse lit a cigarette and sat at the desk. “I’m glad you drank the right beer. Did he suspect anything?”

  “No. No I don’t think so.” Armstrong tried to get a hold on himself. “Would you excuse me, sir, please. I feel filthy. I’ve … I’ve got to get a shower. Sorry.”

  “Sit down a minute, please. Yes, you must be tired. Very tiring, these sort of things.”

  Christ, Armstrong wanted to shout in anguish, it’s all impossible! Impossible for Brian to be a deep-cover agent but it all fits. Why else would he have a completely different name, different birth certificate? Why else such a carefully constructed cover story—that his parents were killed in Canton during the war, murdered by Communists? Why else would he risk sneaking secretly back to Ning-tok, risking everything so carefully constructed over thirty years unless his own father was really dying? And if those facts are true then others automatically follow: That he must have been in continual contact with the Mainland to know about his father’s approaching death, that as a superintendent of H.K. Police he must be totally persona grata with the PRC to be allowed in secretly and allowed out secretly again. And if he was persona grata then he must be one of them, groomed over the years, nurtured over the years. “Christ,” he muttered, “he’d’ve become assistant commissioner easily, perhaps even commissioner … !”

  “What do you suggest now, Robert?” Crosse asked, his voice soft.

  Armstrong tore his mind into the present, his training overcoming his anguish. “Check backwards. We’ll find the link. Yes. His father was a tiny Commie cog but a Ning-tok cog nonetheless, so the Hong Kong relation he was sent to would be also. They’d’ve kept a tight rein on Brian in England, in Canada, here, wherever—so easy to do that, so easy to feed a hatred for quai lohs, so easy for a Chinese to hide such a hatred. Aren’t they the most patient and secretive people on earth? Yes, you check back and eventually you find the link and find the truth.”

  “Robert, you’re right again. But first you begin his interrogation.”

  Armstrong felt a chill of horror rush into his stomach. “Yes,” he said.

  “I’m delighted to tell you that that’s your honor.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll oversee the interrogation. No Chinese in this, just senior British agents. Except Wu, Spectacles Wu. Yes, he’ll be a help—just him, he’s good that fellow.”

  “I can’t … I won’t.”

  Crosse sighed and opened the large manila envelope he had brought with him. “What do you think of this?”

  Shakily Armstrong took the photograph. It was an eight-by-ten blowup of a tiny section of the Ning-tok photograph, the European’s head that was part of the background beside the car. The man’s face was half turned and blurred, the grain from the magnification dense. “I … I’d say he saw the camera and turned or was turning to avoid being photographed.”

  “My thought too. Do you recognize him?”

  Armstrong peered at the face, trying to clear his head. “No.”

  “Voranski? Our dead Soviet friend?”

  “Perhaps. No, no I don’t think so.”

  “How about Dunross, Ian Dunross?”

  More shaken, Armstrong took it to the light. “Possible but … improbable. If … if it’s Dunross then … you think he’s the Sevrin plant? Impossible.”

  “Improbable, not impossible. He’s very good friends with Brian.” Crosse took the photo back and looked at it. “Whoever he is he’s familiar, what you can see of him, but I can’t place the man or where I’ve seen him. Yet. Well, never mind. Brian will remem
ber. Yes.” His voice became silky. “Oh, don’t worry, Robert, I’ll set Brian up for you but you’re the one for the coup de grâce. I want to know who this fellow is very quickly, in fact I want to know everything Brian knows very, very quickly.”

  “No. Get someone els—”

  “Oh Robert, don’t be so bloody boring! Chu-toy Wu, alias Brian Kar-shun Kwok, is an enemy mole who’s eluded us for years, that’s all.” Crosse’s voice cut into Armstrong. “By the way, you’re on the 16/2 tonight at 6:30 and you’re also seconded to SI. I’ve already talked to the commissioner.”

  “No, and I can’t interrog—”

  “Oh but my dear fellow you can and you will. You’re the only one who can, Brian’s far too clever to be caught like an amateur. Of course I’m as astounded he’s the mole as you are, as the governor was!”

  “Please. I don—”

  “He betrayed Fong-fong, another friend of yours, eh? He must have leaked the AMG papers. It must be he who’s furnished all our dossiers to the enemy and all the other information. God knows what knowledge he’s had access to on the General Staff Course and all the other courses.” Crosse puffed his cigarette, his face ordinary. “In SI he has the highest security clearances and I certainly agree he was being groomed for high office—I was even going to make him my number two! So we’d better find out very quickly everything about him. Curious, we were looking for a Soviet mole and it turns out we have a PRC one instead.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I’ve ordered a Classification One interrogation on him to begin at once.”

  The color drained out of Armstrong’s face and he stared at Crosse, hating him openly. “You’re a bastard, a fucking rotten bastard.”

  Crosse laughed gently. “True.”

  “Are you a fag too?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps only occasionally and only when it pleases me. Perhaps.” Crosse watched him calmly. “Come now, Robert, do you really think I could be blackmailed? Me? Blackmailed? Really, Robert, don’t you understand life? I hear homosexuality is quite normal, even in high places.”

  “Is it?”

  “Nowadays, yes, quite normal, almost fashionable, for some. Oh yes, yes it is, my dear fellow, and it’s practiced, from time to time, by a most catholic grouping of VIPs everywhere. Even in Moscow.” Crosse lit another cigarette. “Of course, one should be discreet, selective and preferably uncommitted, but a penchant for the peculiar could have all sorts of advantages in our profession. Couldn’t it?”

  “So you justify any sort of evil, any sort of shit, murder, cheating, lying in the name of the bloody SI—is that it?”

  “Robert, I justify nothing, I know you’re distraught but I think that’s enough of that.”

  “You can’t force me into SI. I’ll resign.”

  Crosse laughed scornfully. “But my dear fellow, what about all your debts? What about the 40,000 by Monday?” He got up, his eyes granite. His voice was hardly changed but now there was a vicious edge to it. “We’re both over twenty-one, Robert. Break him, and do it very quickly.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  3:00 P.M.:

  The closing bell of the Stock Exchange rang but the sound was drowned in the fetid pandemonium of massed brokers desperately trying to complete their final transactions.

  For Struan’s, the day had been disastrous. Huge amounts of stock had been shoved onto the market to be bought tentatively, then hurled back again as rumors fed on more rumors and more stock was offered. The share price plummeted from 24.70 to 17.50 and there were still 300,000 shares on offer in the sell column. All bank shares were down, the market was reeling. Everyone expected the Ho-Pak to fail tomorrow—only Sir Luis Basilio suspending trading in bank shares at noon had saved the bank from going under then.

  “Jesus Christ, what a stinker!” someone said. “Screwed by the sodding bell.”

  “Look at the tai-pan!” another burst out. “Christ almighty, you’d think it was just another day and not the death knell of the Noble House!”

  “He’s got balls has our Ian, no doubt about that. Look at that smile on him. Christ, his stock goes from 24.70 to 17.50 in one day when it’s never been below 25 since the poor bugger went public and it’s as though nothing’s happened. Tomorrow Gornt has to get control!”

  “I agree—or the bank.”

  “The Vic? No, they’ve troubles of their own,” another said, joining the excited, sweating group.

  “Holy mackerel, you really think Gornt will do it? Gornt tai-pan of the new Noble House?”

  “Can’t imagine it!” another shouted over the din.

  “Better get used to it, old boy. But I agree, you’d never know Ian’s world’s crashing about his testicles …”

  “About bloody time!” someone else called out.

  “Oh come on, the tai-pan’s a good fellow, Gornt’s an arrogant bastard.”

  “They’re both bastards!” another said.

  “Oh I don’t know, But I agree Ian’s cold all right. Ian’s as cold as charity and that’s pretty chilly….”

  “But not as cold as poor old Willy, he’s dead poor bastard!”

  “Willy? Willy who?” someone asked amid the laughter. “Eh?”

  “Oh for chrissake, Charlie, it’s just a ditty, a poem! Willy rhymes with chilly, that’s all. How did you do on the day?”

  “I made a pile in commissions.”

  “I made a pile too.”

  “Fantastic. I unloaded 100 percent of all my own shares. I’m liquid now, thank God! It’ll be tough on some of my clients but easy come easy go and they can afford it!”

  “I’m still holding 58,000 Struan’s and no takers….”

  “Jesusschriiist!”

  “What’s up?”

  “The Ho-Pak’s finished! They’ve closed their doors.”

  “What!”

  “Every last bloody branch!”

  “Christ almighty are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure and they say the Vic won’t open tomorrow either, that the governor’ll declare tomorrow a bank holiday! I have it on the highest authority, old boy!”

  “Good sweet Christ, the Vic’s closing?”

  “Oh Christ we’re all ruined….”

  “Listen, I’ve just talked to Johnjohn. The run’s spread to them but he says they’ll be all right—not to worry….”

  “Thank God!”

  “He says there was a riot at Aberdeen half an hour ago when the Ho-Pak branch there failed but Richard Kwang’s just put out a press release. He’s ‘temporarily closed’ all their branches except Head Office in Central. There’s no need to worry, he’s got plenty of money and …”

  “Lying bastard!”

  “… and anyone with Ho-Pak funds has to go there with their passbook and they’ll get paid.”

  “What about their shares? When they liquidate how much do you think they’ll pay? Ten cents on the dollar?”

  “God knows! But thousands are going to lose their knickers in this crash!”

  “Hey, tai-pan! Are you going to let your stock plummet or are you going to buy?”

  “The Noble House’s strong as it ever was, old boy,” Dunross said easily. “My advice to you is to buy!”

  “How long can you wait, tai-pan?”

  “We’ll weather this slight problem, don’t worry.” Dunross continued to push through the crowd, heading for the exit, Linc Bartlett and Casey following, questions being fired at him. Most of them he dismissed with a pleasantry, a few he answered, then Gornt was in front of him and the two of them were in the middle of a great silence.

  “Ah, Quillan, how did you do on the day?” he asked politely.

  “Very good, thank you, Ian, very good. My partners and I are 3 or 4 million ahead.”

  “You have partners?”

  “Of course. One doesn’t mount an attack on Struan’s lightly—of course one must have very substantial financial backing.” Gornt smiled. “Fortunately, Struan’s’re roundly detested by lots of good people and have been for a centur
y or more. I’m delighted to tell you I’ve just acquired another 300,000 shares for sale first thing. That should just about bring your house atumbling down.”

  “We’re not Humpty-Dumpty. We’re the Noble House.”

  “Until tomorrow. Yes. Or perhaps the next day. Monday at the latest.” Gornt looked back at Bartlett. “Tuesday for dinner is still on?”

  “Yes.”

  Dunross smiled. “Quillan, a man can get burned selling short in such a volatile market.” He turned to Bartlett and Casey and said pleasantly, “Don’t you agree?”

  “It sure as hell isn’t like our New York exchange,” Bartlett replied to a general laugh. “What’s happening here today’d blow our whole economy to hell. Eh Casey?”

  “Yes,” Casey replied uneasily, feeling Gornt’s scrutiny. “Hello,” she said, glancing at him.

  “We’re honored to have you here,” Gornt said with great charm. “May I compliment you on your courage last night—both of you.”

  “I did nothing special,” Bartlett said.

  “Nor did I,” Casey said uncomfortably, very aware she was the only woman in the room and now the center of so much attention. “If it hadn’t been for Linc and Ian … for the tai-pan and you and the others, I’d’ve panicked.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t. Your dive was perfection,” Gornt said, to cheers.

  She said nothing but she was warmed by that thought, not for the first time. Somehow life had been different since she had taken off her clothes without thinking. Gavallan had called this morning to ask how she was. So had others. At the exchange she had felt the looks strongly. There had been lots of compliments. Many from strangers. She felt that Dunross and Gornt and Bartlett remembered because she had not failed them. Or herself. Yes, she thought, you gained great face before all the men. And increased the jealousy of all their women. Curious.

  “Are you selling short, Mr. Bartlett?” Gornt was saying.

  “Not personally,” Bartlett told him with a small smile. “Not yet.”

  “You should,” Gornt said agreeably. “There’s a great deal of money to be made in a falling market, as I’m sure you know. A great deal of money will change hands with control of Struan’s.” He put his eyes back onto Casey, excited by her courage and her body and by the thought that she would be coming sailing on Sunday alone. “And you, Ciranoush, are you in the market?” he asked.