'Not useless, no,' he said judiciously. 'We do the best we can, but we work despite our masters, not because of them. There is nothing unusual about that. Many Government departments feel the same. I think it might be a common condition of the civil servant. You find it all unsatisfactory?'
'I find it pathetic.'
'You could do better? Considering that Government policy is unlikely to change?'
'Listen,' I said. 'I work for a bank. It is a commercial operation which, in effect, buys and sells money. It is all I know, it has its weaknesses, but it works. If you want information – real information, not tittle-tattle – I am convinced you have to buy it. My arrangement with Virginie was organised on a purely commercial basis, for mutual profit. That is why it worked. Information is a commodity; it is traded like any other, and there is a market for it.'
'How would you go about it?'
'I would set up as a broker. Find people who wish to sell, and buy at a good price. And sell it on at a price as well.'
'And that is all?'
'In essence. The difference is that such an operation would need a substantial amount of money to get it going. You get what you pay for.'
'You speak like a businessman.'
'And you, I'm afraid, need to think like one. I'm not thinking about the cost of a battleship, you know.'
'Even small sums of money have to be accounted for. You would be surprised how well the Government likes to look after public funds. Still, perhaps something could be done. Would you do me the great favour of writing down – confidentially, of course – what your proposal is, and how you would proceed? I can then, perhaps, present it to some friends to ask their opinion.'
And so I became a writer of memoranda for governments. Do I bother to draw a contrast with the flights of fancy which illuminate the pages of our novelists? Do these heroes stay up at night penning budget proposals? Laying out routes for transferring money from one bank to another? Describing methods of accounting for sums disbursed?
That is what I did. I began by describing the problem – which was to ascertain the intentions of France (although any country could have been inserted at this point), and then pointed out that we lived in an age of industry. Governments could not order armies into the field on a whim. They have to be amassed, and equipped. This takes time. I estimated that between deciding to go to war and actually doing so at least nine months was required, and that this could be monitored by watching the order books of armaments companies, the schedules of the train companies, requisitions of horses and so on. Was the government putting in place new loan facilities with banks? Was it taking on increased powers to raise supplementary taxation? Which war was to be fought could also be estimated – was money going disproportionately to naval yards, or to the manufacturers of cannon? Technical details of how weapons worked (should such information be required) might also be better acquired by the commercial route rather than by trying to suborn officers in the armed forces. And what were the stockpiles of the opposing military forces? If they went to war, how long could they stay in the field?
Much of this information, I argued, could be bought at the right price. In addition, I realised that many politicians were susceptible to a certain amount of coercion through exposure of their finances; I also proposed that money and time should be spent on obtaining detailed information about the bribes and other inducements politicians were known to accept. This could then be used to constrain unfriendly action, or to obtain any more specific information that was required. Finally, I recommended that all the money involved be channelled through German banking houses to make it seem that it was they, not we, who were indulging in this activity.
It was, if I may say so, quite impressive. All but revolutionary in fact; however obvious all this might seem now, the application of commercial logic to what had up until then been a military and diplomatic enterprise caused some consternation. Of those who saw my note, some were outraged, others appalled and a few were intrigued. Many considered my arguments vulgar and distasteful – although most of those disapproved of any form of espionage at all.
And some people were prepared to fund the operation. I received instructions from Mr Wilkinson that friends would back me, and that I was to go to Paris, and that I was now to be a journalist working for
'Your chief investor,' Wilkinson said, waving at him. 'Potentially. He felt that before he put money into you, he should see if you are worth the effort.'
