Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,9

to documents?’

I agreed, of course, reflecting that I wouldn’t have expected the princess to ask me to wait so long just for that, but not protesting. Gerald Greening picked up a clipboard which had been lying on a coffee table, peeled a sheet of papers back over the clip and offered a pen to Roland de Brescou for him to sign the second page.

With a shaky flourish, the old man wrote his name beside a round red seal.

‘Now you, Mr Fielding.’ The pen and the clipboard came my way, and I signed where he asked, resting the board on my left forearm for support.

The whole two-page document, I noticed, was not typed, but handwritten in neat black script. Roland de Brescou’s name and mine were both in the same black ink. Gerald Greening’s address and occupation, when he added them at the bottom after his own signature, matched the handwriting of the text.

A rush job, I thought. Tomorrow could be too late.

‘There isn’t any necessity for you to know what’s in the document you signed,’ Greening said to me easily, ‘but Princess Casilia insists that I tell you.’

‘Sit down, Kit,’ the princess said, ‘it’ll take time.’

I sat in one of the leather armchairs and glanced at Roland de Brescou who was looking dubious, as if he thought telling me would be unproductive. He was no doubt right, I thought, but I was undeniably curious.

‘Put simply,’ Greening said, still on his feet, ‘the document states that notwithstanding any former arrangements to the contrary, Monsieur de Brescou may not make any business decisions without the knowledge, assent, and properly witnessed signatures of Princess Casilia, Prince Litsi’ – he gave him at least half his full name– ‘and Miss Danielle de Brescou.’

I listened in puzzlement. If there was nothing wrong with Roland de Brescou’s competence, why the haste for him to sign away his authority?

‘This is an interim measure,’ Gerald Greening went on. ‘A sandbag affair, one might say, to keep back the waters while we build the sea-wall.’ He looked pleased with the simile, and I had an impression he’d used it before.

‘And, er,’ I said, ‘does the tidal wave consist of anything in particular?’ But it had to, of course, to have upset the princess so much.

Gerald Greening took a turn around the room, hands, complete with clipboard, clasped behind his back. A restless mind in a restless body, I thought, and listened to details about the de Brescous that neither the princess nor her husband would ever have told me themselves.

‘You must understand,’ Greening said, impressing it upon me, ‘that Monsieur de Brescou is of the ancient regime, from before the revolution. His is a patrician family, even though he himself bears no title. It’s essential to understand that for him personal and family honour is of supreme importance.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand that.’

‘Kit’s own family,’ the princess said mildly, ‘stretches back through centuries of tradition.’

Gerald Greening looked slightly startled, and I thought in amusement that the Fielding tradition of pride and hate wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He adjusted my status in his eyes to include ancestors, however, and went on with the story.

‘In the mid-nineteenth century,’ he said, ‘Monsieur de Brescou’s great grandfather was offered an opportunity to contribute to the building of bridges and canals and, in consequence, without quite meaning to, he founded one of France’s great construction companies. He never worked in it himself – he was a landowner – but the business prospered hugely and with unusual resilience changed to fit the times. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather agreed to merge the family business with another construction company whose chief interest was roads, not canals. The great canal building era was ending, and cars, just appearing, needed better roads. Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather retained fifty per cent of the new company, an arrangement which gave neither partner outright control.’

Gerald Greening’s eyes gleamed with disapproval as he paced slowly round behind the chairs.

‘Monsieur de Brescou’s father was killed in the Second World War without inheriting the business. Monsieur de Brescou himself inherited it when his grandfather died, aged ninety, after the Second World War. Are you with me so far?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Good.’ He went on pacing, setting out his story lucidly, almost as if laying facts before a fairly dim jury. ‘The firm which had merged with that of Monsieur de Brescou’s grandfather was headed by a man called Henri Nanterre, who was also of aristocratic descent