Kane and Abel (Kane & Abel 1)

'I believe you. I just don't want to be the one to tell Susan. She still thinks you're the only man in the world.'

William laughed. It had never crossed his mind.

'ne little pile of letters from Kate, which had been growing weekly, lay in the locked drawer of William's bureau in the Red House. He read them over again and again and soon knew them all virtually by heart. At last the one he had been waiting for came, appropriately dated.

Buckhurst Park 14 February 1930 Dearest William, Finally I have packed up, sold off, given away or otherwise disposed of everything left here and I shall be coming up to Boston in a tea chest on the nineteenth. I am almost frightened at the thought of seeing you again. What if this whole marvellous enchantment bursts like a bubble in the cold of a winter on the Eastern seaboard? Dear God, I hope not. I can't be sure how I would have gotten through these lonely months but for you.

With love, Kate The night before Kate was due to arrive, William promised himself that he would not rush her into anything that either of them might later regret. It was impossible for him to assess to what extent her feelings had developed in a transient state of mind engendered by her husband's death, as he told Matthew.

'Stop being so pathetic,'said Matthew.'You're inlove, and you may as well face the fact.'

When he first spotted Kate at the station, William almost abandoned his cautious intentions there and then in the joy of watching that simple smile light up her face. He pushed towards her through the throng of travellers and clasped her so firmly in his arms that she could barely breathe.

'Welcome home, Kate.'

William was about to kiss hvr when she drew away. He was a little surprised.

'William, I don't think you've met my parents!

That night William dined with Kate's family and then saw her every day that he could escape from the bank's problems and Matthew's tennis racquet, even if only for a couple of hours. After Matthew had met Kate for the first time, he offered William all his gold shares in exchange for one Kate.

'I never undersell,' replied William.

'Then I insist you tell me,' demanded Matthew, 'where you find someone as valuable as Kate?'

'In the hquidation department, where else?' replied William.

'Turn her into an asset, William, quickly, because if you don't, you can be sure I will.'

Kane and Cabot's net loss from the 1929 crash came out at over seven million dollars, which turned out to be about average for a bank their size. Many not much smaller banks had gone under, and William found himself conducting a sustained holding operation through 1930 which kept him under constant pressure.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the Uni ' ted States on a ticket of relief, recovery and reform, Wil liam feared that the New Deal would have little to offer Kane and Cabot. - Business picked up very slowly, and Wil liam found himself planning only tentatively for expansion.

Meanwhile Tony Simmons, still running the London office, had broadened the scope of its activities and made a respectable profit for Kane and Cabot during his first two years. His results looked all the better against those of William, who had barely been able to break even during the same period.

Late in 1932, Alan Lloyd recalled Tony Simmons to Boston to make a full report to the board on the bank's activities in London. No sooner had Simmons reappeared than he announced his intention of running for the chairmanship when Alan Lloyd retired in fifteen man ths' time. William was completely taken by surprise, for he had dismissed Simmons' chances wl~,cn he had disappeared to London under a small cloud. It seemed to William unfair that that cloud had been dispelled, not by Simmons' acuity, but simply by dint of the fact that the English economy had some bright spots and was a little less paralysed than American business during the same period.

Tony Simmons returned to London far a further succesful year and addressed the first board meeting, after his return, in a blaze of glory, with the announcement that the final third year's fif,,ures for the London office would show a profit of ov(~r a million dollars, a new record. William had to announce a considerably smaller profit for the same period. The abruptness of Tony Simmons' return to favour left William with only a few months in which to persuade the board that they should support him before his opponent's momentum became unstoppable.

Kate listened for hours to William's prob!cms, occasionally offering an understanding comment, a sympathetic reply or chastisinq him for being over drainatic. Matthew, acting as William's eyes and cars, reported that the voting would fall, as far as was ascertainable, fifty - fifty, split between those who consi&_~red that William was too young to hold such a responsible post and those who still held Tony Simmons to blame for the extent of the bank's losses in 1929. It seemed that most of the non - executive members of the board, who had not worked directly with William, would be more influenced by the age difference between the two contendert than any of the single factors. Again and again Matthew heard: 'William's time will come.' Once, tentatively, he played the role of Satan the tempter to William: 'With your holdings in the bank, William, you could remove the entire board, replace them with men of your own choosing and get yourself elected chairman!