Kane and Abel (Kane & Abel 1)

When he had left, William sat in Charles Lester's chair and whirled himself around in an uncharacteristic burst of sheer glee till he was di=y. 'nen he looked out of the window on to Wall Street, elated by the bustling crowds, enjoy~ ing the view of the other great banks and brokerage houses of America. He was part of all that now.

'And who, pray, are you?' said a female voice from behind him.

William swivelled round, and there standing in front of him was a middle - aged woman, primly dressed, looking very irate.

'Perhaps I may ask you the same question,' said William.

'I am the chairman's secretary,' said the woman stiffly.

'And I,'said William,'am the chairman.'

During the next few weeks William moved his family to New York where they found a house on East Sixty~eighth Street. Settling in took longer than they had originally anticipated pible. For the first three months William wished, as he ossi tried to extricate himself from Boston in order to carry out his job in New York, that every day had forty - eight hours in it, and he found the umbilical cord was hard to sever completely. Tony Sininions was most helpful, and William began to appreciate why Alan Lloyd had backed him to be chairman of Kane and Cabot, and for the first time was willing to admit Alan had been right.

Kate's life in New York was soon fully occupied. Virginia could already crawl across a room and get into William's study before Kate could turn her head, and Richard wanted a new windbreaker, like every other boy in New York. As. the wife of the chairman of a New York bank she regularly had to give cocktail parties and dinners, subtly making sure certain directors and major clients were always given the chance to catch the private ear of William to seek his advice or voice their own opinions.

Kate handled all situations with great charm, and William was eternally grateful to the liquir dation department of Kane and Cabot for supplying his greatest asset. When she informed William that she was going to have another baby, all he could ask was 'When did I find the timeT Virginia~ was thrilled by the news, not fully understanding why Mummy was getting so fat, and Richard refused to discuss it.

Within six months the clash with Peter Parfitt was a thing of the pas% and William had become the undisputed chairman of Lester's bank and a figure to be reckoned with in New York financial circles. Not many more months had passed before he. began to wonder in which direction he should start to set himself a new goal. He had achieved his life's ambition by becoming chairman of Lester's at the age of thirty - three although, unlike Alexander, he felt there were more worlds still to conquer, and he had neither the dme nor the inclination to sit down and weep.

Kate gave birth to their third child at the end of Willianes first year as chairman of Lestees, a second girl, whom they named Lucy. VVilliam taught Virginia, who was now walking, how to rock Lucy's cradle; while Richard, now almost five years old and due to enter kindergarten at T'he BucIdey School, used the new arrival as the opportunity to talk his father into a new baseball bat.

In William!& first year as chairman of Lester's the bank's profits were slightly up and he was forecasting a considerable improvement in his second year.

Then on I September 1939 Hitler marched into Poland.

One of WillianYs first reactions was to think of Abel Rosnovski and his new Baron on Park Avenue, already becoming the toast of New York. Quarterly reports from Thomas Cohen showed that Rosnovski went from strength to strength although his latest ideas for expansion to Europe looked as if they might be in for a slight delay. Cohen continued to find no direct association between Henry Osborne and Abel Rosnovski, but he admitted that it was becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain all the facts he required.

William never thought that America would involve herself in a European war, but nevertheless he kept the London branch of Lester's open to show clearly which side he was on and not for one moment did he consider selling his twelve thousand acres in Hampshire and Lincolnshire. Tony Simmons in Boston, on the other hand, informed William that he intended to close Kane and Caboes London branch. William used the problems created in London by the war as an excuse to visit his beloved Boston and have a meeting with Tony.

The two chairmen now met on extirmely easy and friendly terins since they no longer had any reason to see themselves as rivals. In fact, each had come to use the other as a springm board for new ideas. As Tony had predicted, Kane and Cabot had lost some of its more important clients when William became the chairman of Leste2s, but William always kept Tony fully informed whenever an old client expressed a desire to move his account and he never solicited a single one. When they sat down at the comer table of Locke - Ober's for lunch, Tony Simmons lost little time in repeating his intent to close the London branch of Kane and Cabot.