to Cape Town Air Race he christened the Northrop ‘Gamma’ he flew Flyaway. It was one of the first of the all-metal aircraft.
The race was organized by a newspaper which beat the drum enthusiastically and announced that all entrants would be insured to the tune of £100,000 each in the case of a fatality. The race began. Billson put down in Algiers to refuel and then took off again, heading south. The plane was never seen again.
Billson’s wife, Helen, was naturally shocked and it was some weeks before she approached the newspaper about the insurance. The newspaper passed her on to the insurance company which dug in its heels and dithered. £100,000 was a lot of money in 1936. Finally it declared unequivocally that no payment would be forthcoming and Mrs Billson brought the case to court.
The courtroom was enlivened by a defence witness, a South African named Hendrik van Niekirk, who swore on oath that he had seen Billson, alive and well, in Durban four weeks after the race was over. It caused a sensation and no doubt the sales of the newspaper went up. The prosecution battered at van Niekirk but he stood up to it well. He had visited Canada and had met Billson there and he was in no doubt about his identification. Did he speak to Billson in Durban? No, he did not.
All very dicey.
The judge summed up and the case went to the jury which deliberated at length and then found for the insurance company. No £100,000 for Mrs Billson—who immediately appealed. The Appellate Court reversed the decision on a technicality—the trial judge had been a shade too precise in his instructions to the jury. The insurance company took it to the House of Lords who refused to have anything to do with it. Mrs Billson got her £100,000. Whether she lived happily ever after the writer of the article didn’t say.
So much for the subject matter—the tone was something else. Written by a skilled journalist, it was a very efficient hatchet job on the reputation of a man who could not answer back—dead or alive. It reeked of the envy of a small-minded man who got his kicks by pulling down men better than himself. If this was what Paul Billson had read then it wasn’t too surprising if he went off his trolley.
The article ended in a speculative vein. After pointing out that the insurance company had lost on a legal technicality, it went on:
The probability is very strong that Billson did survive the crash, if crash there was, and that Hendrik van Niekirk did see him in Durban. If this is so, and I think it is, then an enormous fraud was perpetrated. £100,000 is a lot of money anywhere and at any time. £100,000 in 1936 is equivalent to over £350,000 in our present-day debased currency.
If Peter Billson is still alive he will be 75 years old and will have lived a life of luxury. Rich men live long and the chances are that he is indeed still alive. Perhaps he will read these words. He might even conceive these words to be libellous. I am willing to risk it.
Flyaway Peter Billson, come back! Come back!
I was contemplating this bit of nastiness when Charlie Malleson came into the office. He said, ‘I’ve done a preliminary analysis of the consequences of losing the Whensley Group,’ and smiled sourly. ‘We’ll survive.’
‘Brinton,’ I said, and tilted my chair back. ‘He owns a quarter of our shares and accounts for a third of our business. We’ve got too many eggs in his basket. I’d like to know how much it would hurt if he cut loose from us completely.’ I paused, then added, ‘Or if we cut loose from him.’
Charlie looked alarmed. ‘Christ! it would be like having a leg cut off—without anaesthetic.’
‘It might happen.’
‘But why would you want to cut loose? The money he pumped in was the making of us.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But Brinton is a financial shark. Snapping up a profit is to him as mindless a reflex as when a real shark snaps up a tasty morsel. I think we’re vulnerable, Charlie.’
‘I don’t know why you’re getting so bloody hot under the collar all of a sudden,’ he said plaintively.
‘Don’t you?’ I leaned forward and the chair legs came down with a soft thud on to the thick pile carpet. ‘Last night, in a conversation lasting less than four minutes, we lost fifteen per cent of Brinton’s business. And why did we lose it? So that he can put the arm on Andrew McGovern who is apparently getting out of line. Or so Brinton says.’
‘Don’t you believe him?’
‘Whether he’s telling the truth or not isn’t the point. The point is that our business is being buggered in one of Brinton’s private schemes which has nothing to do with us.’
Charlie said slowly, ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
I stared at him. ‘Do you, Charlie? I don’t think so. Take a good long look at what happened yesterday. We were manipulated by a minority shareholder who twisted us around his little finger.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Max! If McGovern doesn’t want us there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.’
‘I know that, but we could have done something which we didn’t. We could have held the Whensley Group to their contract which has just under a year to run. Instead, we all agreed at the AGM to pull out in ten days. We were manoeuvred into that, Charlie; Brinton had us dancing on strings.’
Charlie was silent.
I said, ‘And you know why we let it happen? We were too damned scared of losing Brinton’s money. We could have outvoted him singly or jointly, but we didn’t.’
‘No,’ said Charlie sharply. ‘Your vote would have downed him—you have 51 per cent. But I have only 24 to his 25.’
I sighed. ‘Okay, Charlie; my fault. But as I lay in bed last night I felt scared. I was scared of what I hadn’t done. And the thing that scared me most of all was the thought of the kind of man I was becoming. I didn’t start this business to jerk to any man’s string, and that’s why I say we have to cut loose from Brinton if possible. That’s why I want you to look for alternative sources of finance. We’re big enough to get it now.’
‘There may be something in what you say,’ said Charlie. ‘But I still think you’re blowing a gasket without due cause. You’re over-reacting, Max.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, I’ll look for outside money if only to keep you from blowing your top.’ He glanced at the magazine cutting on my desk. ‘What’s that?’
‘A story about Paul Billson’s father. You know—the accountant who vanished from Franklin Engineering.’
‘What’s the score on that one?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. At first I had Paul Billson taped as being a little devalued in the intellect—running about eighty pence in the pound—but there are a couple of things which don’t add up.’
‘Well, you won’t have to worry about that now. Franklin is part of the Whensley Group.’
I looked up in surprise. ‘So it is.’ It had slipped my mind.
‘I’d hand over what you’ve got to Sir Andrew McGovern and wish him the best of British luck.’
I thought about that and shook my head. ‘No—Billson disappeared when we were in charge of security and there’s still a few days to the end of the month.’
‘Your sense of ethics is too strongly developed.’
‘I think I’ll follow up on this one myself,’ I said. ‘I started it so I might as well finish it. Jack Ellis can stand in for me. It’s time he was given more responsibility.’
Charlie nodded approvingly. ‘Do you think there’s anything in Billson’s disappearance—from the point of view of Franklin’s security, I mean?’
I grinned at him. ‘I’ll probably find that he’s eloped with someone’s wife—and I hope it’s Andrew McGovern’s.’