And so it went on; I really was a broker, taking in information and selling it on. The good thing about information is that, unlike gold, it can be duplicated. One piece of information about shipbuilding in Britain, for example, could be traded for information from half a dozen different sources, and each of these could, in turn, multiply themselves many times over. So I supplied information about the new Vickers twelve-inch gun, and got in return detailed information about the German army's new howitzer, the Austrian army's requirement for horses, the Italian government's negotiating stance on North Africa and the French government's real policy towards British domination of the upper Nile. Details of the German howitzer were then traded for more information. The beauty of the system was that no individual was ever asked to provide information which would damage their own country – they were asked for material which on its own was harmless until blended with information from different sources, or which affected the security of a foreign rival. Spies are bureaucrats, by and large; they have masters to satisfy and must take that into account as they go about their lives; by supplying information I made their lives easier, and so they regarded me as a useful person to do business with. Of course, the utility of the system could only last as long as I had a monopoly of the method, otherwise the same information would have started reappearing time and again.
For a very small amount of start-up capital, so to speak, I began reaping handsome returns, and do not think that the similarities between what I was doing, and what Elizabeth was doing, escaped me. We were both trading in specialised goods, exploiting weaknesses in the market to sell the same thing to many different customers simultaneously. Success depended on each customer being unaware of the existence of the others. That was the danger which faced both of us.
So, in that period when I was trying to be fascinated by the Coal Exchange, my only real entertainment was provided by Elizabeth. I was curious about her shareholders. Not for any prurient reason, I hope, but for the sake of information only. Accordingly, when I returned to Paris I had Jules, my friendly, trained foot soldier, station himself nearby to watch comings and goings.
A useful lad, this Jules. He was the son of Roger Marchant, an ex-soldier with an incurable hostility to the discipline associated with either the army or any more normal paid work, who was employed on a part-time basis by Thomas Barclay.
'As you are going to do all the energetic work, you must have Roger to help you,' Barclay begged, although one look at the man – who was swaying slightly when we were introduced – forced me to say that I could not possibly deprive him of such a useful man. It was not Roger who was the main problem – although absolute reliability was not his watchword – but his wife and several children, whose demands for sustenance far outstripped the poor man's ability to provide for them. The petty-cash box of
It was a flash of genius on my part to solve the problem by employing their son to be my assistant, thus guaranteeing a flow of income into the hands of the mother that could not be diverted into slaking the father's thirst, and securing for myself the services of one of the most useful people I have ever known.
I do not usually spend time discoursing on the character of sixteen-year- olds, but as young Jules is now a grand man of influence throughout France, and, as I can claim some proud responsibility for this, I feel I should divert my story a while to give a proper account of him.
He was, as I have said, the son – the eldest son – of a poor family, the father a lazy drunkard of amiable disposition, the mother a worrying fusspot, living permanently in a haze of crisis and despair. In one small room lived parents and five children, some of whom were among the worst-behaved and most revolting infants I have ever encountered. That they did not all end up in gaol or worse was largely due to the efforts of Jules, who took on the burdens of parenthood which properly belonged to others. He was, in fact, an accomplished criminal by the age of twelve, expert at filching fruit or vegetables from market stalls, milk from dairies, sausages and meat from delivery vans, clothes from department stores. He was also perfecting a good line in picking pockets until I persuaded him that this was an unwise career development.
