The Fourth Estate

“But Monsieur Lacroix informed me that you had delivered the check personally, and he has a signed receipt to prove it.”

“Do you really believe that I spend my time in New York going around depositing checks?” Armstrong said, staring back at Sir Paul.

“Frankly, I have n

o idea what you get up to when you’re in New York—though I am bound to say that the explanation Peter Wakeham gave to last month’s meeting of how money withdrawn from the pension fund ended up in accounts at the Bank of New Amsterdam and the Manhattan Bank was just not credible.”

“What are you suggesting?” shouted Armstrong.

“Mr. Armstrong, we are both aware that the Manhattan is the bank which represents the print unions in New York, and that BNA were given instructions by you to purchase over $70 million of our shares during the past month—this despite the fact that Mark Tenby, our chief accountant, pointed out when he issued you with a pension fund checkbook that to purchase shares in one of our own companies was a criminal offense.”

“He said no such thing,” shouted Armstrong.

“Is that just another example of ‘a simple clerical error,’” said Sir Paul, “which can no doubt be solved by sacking the chief accountant?”

“This is absolutely preposterous,” said Armstrong. “BNA could have been purchasing those shares for any one of their customers.”

“Unfortunately not,” said Sir Paul, referring to another file. “The chief dealer, who was willing to return my call, confirmed that you had given clear instructions,” he glanced at his notes, “to ‘prop up’—in your words—the share price, because you couldn’t afford to let the stock fall any further. When the implications of such an action were pointed out to you, you apparently told him”—once again Sir Paul checked his notes—‘I don’t give a damn what it costs.’”

“It’s his word against mine,” said Armstrong. “If he repeats it, I’ll take out a writ for slander against him.” He paused. “In both countries.”

“That might not be a wise course of action,” said Sir Paul, “because every call which goes through to that department at BNA is recorded and logged, and I have requested that a transcript of the conversation should be sent to me.”

“Are you accusing me of lying?” shouted Armstrong.

“If I were to do so,” asked the chairman, “would you then issue a writ for slander against me?”

For a moment Armstrong was stunned.

“I can see that you have no intention of answering any of my questions candidly,” continued Sir Paul. “I am therefore left with no choice but to resign as chairman of the board.”

“No, no,” cried a few muted voices round the table.

Armstrong realized for the first time that he had overplayed his hand. If Sir Paul were to resign now, within days the whole world would become aware of the precarious state of the company’s finances. “I do hope you will find it possible to remain as chairman until the AGM in April,” he said quietly, “so that we can at least expedite an orderly handover.”

“I fear it has already gone too far for that,” said Sir Paul.

As he rose from his place, Armstrong looked up and said, “Do you expect me to beg?”

“No, sir, I do not. You are about as capable of that as you are of telling the truth.”

Armstrong immediately rose from his place, and the two men stared at each other for some time before Sir Paul turned and left the room, leaving his papers on the desk behind him.

Armstrong slipped across into the chairman’s place, but didn’t speak for some time as his eyes slowly scanned the table. “If there is anyone else who would care to join him,” he said finally, “now’s your chance.”

There was a little shuffling of papers, some scraping of chairs and the odd staring down at hands, but nobody attempted to leave.

“Good,” said Armstrong. “Now, as long as we all behave like grown-ups, it will soon become clear that Sir Paul was simply jumping to conclusions without any grasp of the real situation.”

Not everyone around the table looked convinced. Eric Chapman, the company secretary, was among those whose heads remained bowed.

“Item number two,” said Armstrong firmly. The circulation manager took some time explaining why the figures for the Citizen had fallen so sharply during the past month, which he said would have an immediate knock-on effect on the advertising revenue. “As the Globe has slashed its cover price to ten pence, I can only advise the board that we should follow suit.”

“But if we do that,” said Chapman, “we’ll just suffer an even greater loss of revenue.”

“True…” began the circulation manager.

“We just have to keep our nerve,” said Armstrong, “and see who blinks first. My bet is that Townsend won’t be around in a month’s time, and we’ll be left to pick up the pieces.”