It took Abel twelve months to build the new Baron with a large helping hand from Alderman Henry Osborne, who hurried through the permits required from City Hall in the shortest possible time. The building was opened in 1936 by the mayor of the city, Edward J. Kelly, who, after the death of Anton Cermak, had become the leader of the Democratic machine. In memory of Davis Leroy, the hotel had no seventeenth floor—a tradition Abel continued in every new Baron he built.
Both Illinois senators were also in attendance to address the two thousand assembled guests. The Chicago Baron was superb both in design and construction. Abel had eventually spent well over a million dollars on the hotel and it looked as though every penny had been put to good use. The public rooms were large and sumptuous, with high stucco ceilings and decorations in pastel shades of green, pleasant and relaxing; the carpets were thick. The dark green embossed B was discreet but ubiquitous, adorning everything from the flag that fluttered on the top of the forty-two-story building to the neat lapel of the most junior bellhop.
“This hotel already bears the hallmark of success,” said J. Hamilton Lewis, the senior senator from Illinois, “because, my friends, it is the man, not the building, who will always be known as ‘The Chicago Baron.’”
Abel beamed with undisguised pleasure as the two thousand guests roared their approval.
His reply of acknowledgment was well turned and confidently delivered and it earned him a standing ovation. He was beginning to feel very much at home among bigbusiness men and senior politicians. Zaphia hovered uncertainly in the background during the lavish celebration: the occasion was a little too much for her. She neither understood nor cared for success on Abel’s scale; and even though she could now afford the most expensive clothes, she still looked unfashionable and out of place and she was only too aware that this annoyed Abel. She stood by while Abel chatted with Henry Osborne.
“This must be the high point of your life,” Henry was saying, slapping Abel on the back.
“High point—I’ve just turned thirty,” said Abel. A camera flashed as he placed an arm around Henry’s shoulder. Abel beamed, realizing for the first time how pleasant it was to be treated as a public figure. “I’m going to put Baron hotels right across the globe,” he said, just loud enough for the eavesdropping reporter to hear. “I intend to be to America what César Ritz was to Europe. Stick with me, Henry, and you’ll enjoy the ride.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At breakfast the next morning, Kate pointed to a small item on page 17 of the Globe, reporting the opening of the Chicago Baron.
William smiled as he read the article. Kane and Cabot had been foolish not to listen when he had advised them to support the Richmond Group. It pleased him that his own judgment on Rosnovski had turned out to be right even though the bank had missed out on the deal. His smile broadened as he read the nickname “The Chicago Baron.” Then, suddenly, he felt sick. He examined the accompanying photograph more closely, but there was no mistake, and the caption confirmed his first impression: “Abel Rosnovski, the chairman of the Baron Group, talking with Mieczyslaw Szymczak, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, and Alderman Henry Osborne.”
William dropped the paper onto the breakfast table and thought for a moment. As soon as he arrived at his office, he called Thomas Cohen at Cohen, Cohen and Yablons.
“It’s been a long time, Mr. Kane” were Thomas Cohen’s first words. “I was very sorry to learn of the death of your friend, Matthew Lester. How are your wife and your son—Richard—isn’t that his name?”
William always admired Thomas Cohen’s instant recall of names and relationships.
“Yes, it is. They’re both well, thank you, Mr. Cohen.”
“What can I do for you this time, Mr. Kane?” Thomas Cohen also remembered that William could only manage about one sentence of small talk.
“I want to employ, through you, the services of a reliable investigator. I do not wish my name to be associated with this inquiry, but I need an update on Henry Osborne. Everything he’s done since he left Boston, and in particular whether there is any connection between him and Abel Rosnovski of the Baron Group.”
There was a pause before the lawyer said, “Yes.”
“Can you report to me in one week?”
“Two please, Mr. Kane, two,” said Mr. Cohen.
“Full report on my desk at the bank in two weeks, Mr. Cohen?”
“Two weeks, Mr. Kane.”
Thomas Cohen was as reliable as ever and a full report was on William’s desk on the fifteenth morning. William read the dossier with care. There appeared to be no formal business connections between Abel Rosnovski and Henry Osborne. Rosnovski, it seemed, found Osborne useful as a political contact but nothing more. Osborne himself had bounced from job to job since leaving Boston, ending up in the main office of the Great Western Casualty Insurance Company. In all probability, that was how Osborne had come in contact with Abel Rosnovski, as the old Chicago Richmond had always been insured by Great Western. When the hotel burned down, the insurance company had originally refused to pay the claim. A certain Desmond Pacey, the manager, had been sent to prison for ten years, after pleading guilty to arson, and there was some suspicion that Abel Rosnovski might himself have been involved. Nothing was proved and the insurance company settled later for threequarters of a million dollars. Osborne, the report went on, was now an alderman and full-time politician at City Hall, and it was common knowledge that he hoped to become a congressman for Chicago. He had not long ago married a Miss Marie Axton, the daughter of a wealthy drug manufacturer, and as yet they had no children.
William went over the report again to be sure that he had not missed anything however inconsequential. Although there did not seem to be a great deal to connect the two men, he couldn’t help feeling that the association between Abel Rosnovski and Henry Osborne, both of whom hated him, for totally disparate reasons, was potentially dangerous to him. He mailed a check to Thomas Cohen and requested that he update the file every quarter, but as the months passed, and the quarterly reports revealed nothing new, he began to stop worrying, thinking perhaps he had overreacted to the photograph in the Boston Globe.
Kate presented her husband with a daughter in the spring of 1937; they christened her Virginia. William started changing diapers again, and such was his fascination for “the little lady” that Kate had to rescue the child each night for fear she would never get any sleep. Richard, now two and a half, didn’t care too much for the new arrival to begin with, but time and a set of wooden soldiers combined to allay his jealousy.
By the end of the year William’s department at Kane and Cabot had made a handsome profit for the bank. He had emerged from the lethargy that had overcome him on Matthew’s death and was fast regaining his reputation as a shrewd investor in the stock market, not least when Sell’em Short Smith admitted he had only perfected a technique developed by William Kane of Boston. Even Tony Simmons’s direction had become less irksome. Nevertheless, William was secretly worried by the prospect that he could not become chairman of Kane and Cabot until Simmons retired in seventeen years’ time, and he began to consider looking around for employment in another bank.
William and Kate had taken to visiting Charles Lester in New York about once a month on weekends. The great man had grown very old over the three years since Matthew’s death, and rumors in financial circles were that he had lost all interest in his work and was rarely seen at the bank. William was beginning to wonder how much longer the old man would live, and then a few weeks later he died. The Kanes traveled down to the funeral in New York. Everyone seemed to be there including the Vice President of the United States, John Nance Garner. After the funeral William and Kate took the train back to Boston, numbly conscious that they had lost their last real link with the Lester family.
It was some six months later that William received a communication from Sullivan and Cromwell, the distinguished New York lawyers, asking him if he would be kind enough to attend the
reading of the will of the late Charles Lester at their offices in Wall Street. William went to the reading, more from loyalty to the Lester family than from any curiosity to know what Charles Lester had left him. He hoped for a small memento that would remind him of Matthew and would join the “Harvard Oar” that still hung on the wall of the guest room of the Red House. He also looked forward to the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with many members of the Lester family whom he had come to know during school and college holidays spent with Matthew.
William drove down to New York in his newly acquired Daimler the night before the reading and stayed at the Harvard Club. The will was to be read at ten o‘clock the following morning, and William was surprised to find on his arrival in the offices of Sullivan and Cromwell that more than fifty people were already present. Many of them glanced up at William as he entered the room, and he greeted several of Matthew’s cousins and aunts, looking rather older than he remembered them; he could only conclude that they must be thinking the same about him. His eyes searched for Matthew’s sister, Susan, but he couldn’t find her. At ten o’clock precisely Mr. Arthur Cromwell entered the room, accompanied by an assistant carrying a brown leather folder. Everyone fell silent in hopeful expectation. The lawyer began by explaining to the assembled would-be beneficiaries that the contents of the will had not been disclosed until six months after Charles Lester’s death at Mr. Lester’s specific instruction: having no son to whom to leave his fortune, he had wanted the dust to settle after his death before his final intentions were made clear.
William looked around the room at the faces intent on every syllable issuing from the lawyer’s mouth. Arthur Cromwell took nearly an hour to read the will. After reciting the usual bequests to family retainers, charities and Harvard University, Cromwell went on to reveal that Charles Lester had divided his personal fortune among all his relatives, treating them more or less according to their degree of kinship. His daughter, Susan, received the largest share of the estate, while the five nephews and three nieces each received an equal portion of the remainder. All their money and stock were to be held in trust by the bank until they were thirty. Several other cousins, aunts and distant relatives were given immediate cash payments.
William was surprised when Mr. Cromwell announced: “That disposes of all the known assets of the late Charles Lester.”
People began to shuffle around in their seats as a murmur of nervous conversation broke out.
“That is not, however, the end of Mr. Charles Lester’s Last Will and Testament,” said the imperturbable lawyer, and everyone sat still again, fearful of some late and unwelcome thunderbolt.
Mr. Cromwell went on. “I shall now continue in Mr. Charles Lester’s own words: ‘I have always considered that a bank and its reputation are only as good as the people who serve it. It was well known that I had hoped my son Matthew would succeed me as chairman of Lester’s, but his tragic and untimely death has intervened. Until now, I have never divulged my choice of a successor for Lester’s Bank. I therefore wish it be known that I desire William Lowell Kane, son of one of my dearest friends, the late Richard Lowell Kane, and at present the vice chairman of Kane and Cabot, be appointed chairman of Lester’s Bank and Trust Company following the next full board meeting.’”
There was an immediate uproar. Everyone looked around the room for the mysterious William Lowell Kane, of whom few but the immediate Lester family had ever heard.
“I have not yet finished,” said Arthur Cromwell quietly.
Silence fell once more as the members of the audience, anticipating another bombshell, exchanged fearful glances.
The lawyer continued: “All the above grants and divisions of stock in Lester and Company are expressly conditional upon the beneficiaries’ voting for Mr. Kane at the next annual general meeting and continuing to do so for at least the following five years, unless Mr. Kane himself indicates that he does not wish to accept the chairmanship.”
Uproar broke out again. William wished he were a million miles away, not sure whether to be deliriously happy or to concede that he must be the most detested person in that room.
“That concludes the Last Will and Testament of the late Charles Lester,” said Mr. Cromwell, but only the front row heard him. William looked up. The puppy fat had disappeared while the attractive freckles remained. Susan Lester was walking toward him. He smiled, but she walked straight past him, without even acknowledging his presence. William frowned.
Ignoring the babble, a tall, gray-haired man wearing a pin-striped suit and a silver tie moved quickly toward William.
“You are William Kane, are you not, sir?”
“Yes, I am,” said William nervously.
“My name is Peter Parfitt,” said the stranger.
“One of the bank’s vice chairmen,” said William.
“Correct, sir,” he said. “I do not know you, but I do know something of your reputation and I count myself lucky to have been acquainted with your distinguished father. If Charles Lester thought you were the right man to be chairman of his bank, that’s good enough for me.”
William had never been so relieved in his life.
“Where are you staying in New York?” continued Peter Parfitt before William could reply.
“At the Harvard Club.”
“Splendid. May I ask if you are free for dinner tonight by any chance?”
“I had intended to return to Boston this evening,” said William, “but I expect I’ll now have to stay in New York for a few days.”
“Good. Why don’t you come to my house for dinner, say about eight o’clock?”
The banker handed William his card with an address embossed in copperplate script. “I shall enjoy the opportunity of chatting with you in more convivial surroundings.”
“Thank you, sir,” said William, pocketing the card as others began crowding around him. Some stared at him in hostility; others waited to express their congratulations.
When William eventually managed to make his escape and return to the Harvard Club, the first thing he did was to call Kate and tell her the news.
She said very quietly, “How happy Matthew would be for you, darling.”
“I know,” said William.
“When are you coming home?”
“God knows. I’m dining tonight with a Mr. Peter Parfitt, a vice chairman of Lester’s. He’s being most considerate and cordial, which can make life much easier. I’ll spend the night here at the club and call you sometime tomorrow to let you know how things are working out.”
“All right, darling.”
“All quiet on the Eastern Seaboard?”
“Well, Virginia has cut a tooth and seems to think she deserves special attention, Richard was sent to bed early for being rude to Nanny, and we all miss you.”
William laughed. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Yes, please do. By the way, many congratulations. I approve of Charles Lester’s judgment even if I’m going to hate living in New York.”
It was the first time William had thought about living in New York.
William arrived at Peter Parfitt’s home on East Sixty-fourth Street at eight o’clock that night and was taken by surprise to find that his host had dressed for dinner. William felt slightly embarrassed and ill at ease in his dark banker’s suit. He quickly explained to his hostess that he had originally intended to return to Boston that evening. Diana Parfitt, who turned out to be Peter’s second wife, could not have been more charming to her guest and she seemed delighted that William was to be the next chairman of Lester’s. During an excellent dinner, William could not resist asking Peter Parfitt how he thought the rest of the board would react to Charles Lester’s wishes.
“They’ll all fall in line,” said Parfitt. “I’ve spoken to most of them already. There’s a full board meeting on Monday morning to confirm your appointment and I can only see one small cloud on the horizon.”
“What’s that?” said William, trying not to sound anxious.
“Well, between you and me, the other vice chairman, Ted Leach, was rather expecting to be appointed chairman himself. In fact, I think I would go as far as to say he anticipated it. We had all been informed that no nomination could be made until after the will had been read, but Charles Lester’s wishes must have come as rather a shock to Ted.”
“Will he put up a fight?” asked William.
“I’m afraid he might, but there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I don’t mind admitting,” said Diana Parfitt as she studied the rather flat soufflé in front of her, “that he has never been my favorite man.”
“Now, dear,” said Parfitt reprovingly, “we mustn’t say anything behind Ted’s back before Mr. Kane has had a chance to judge for himself. There is no doubt in my mind that the board will confirm Mr. Kane’s appointment at the meeting on Monday, and there’s even the possibility that Ted Leach will resign.”
“I don’t want anyone to feel he has to resign because of me,” said William.
“A very creditable sentiment,” said Parfitt. “But don’t bother yourself about a puff of wind. I’m confident that the whole matter is well under control. You go quietly back to Boston tomorrow and I’ll keep you informed on the lay of the land.”
“Perhaps it might be wise if I dropped in at the bank in the morning. Won’t your fellow officers find it a little curious if I make no attempt to meet any of them?”
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