Leonie Read Online Free PDF Page B

situation is this. The Grunewald Steel Company is in bad financial shape. As you know, it’s family-owned and the younger members took charge three years ago on the death of its founder. It’s not so bad that it couldn’t be saved by installing firm management, but it can also be made worse by wrong advice.” He glanced at the report in his hand, prepared for him by Verronet. There was nothing he didn’t know about the company, not a secret or a single detail of their financial situation. He turned to a second report—the intimate details of Carl Grunewald’s life: his marriage, his children, his women, his losses at the casino and at the racetracks of Europe, and the amounts of his borrowings from the company. There was a younger brother who was fighting to keep the company together, but Carl was doing an excellent job of dissipating the capital.
    “Young Grunewald is a distant relative of my wife’s,” he continued. “I happened to meet him—not quite by chance,” he added with a smile, “in Baden-Baden a week or two ago. He confided some of his business problems to me and I offered to send him one of my men to advise him. I also promised to see what I could do to organize financial aid for the company—a loan, perhaps, from the Agence de Credit de Paris.” He smiled. The Agence de Credit de Paris was another of his companies. “Olivier,” he said, turning to the man on his left, “you are the best man for the job. In three months’ time they will be unable to pay the installments on their loan. In four months they will be desperate. I want you to leave next week. You know how to deal with the result.” He was smiling as he put the reports back on the table. “I estimate that it will take us no longer than five months to take over the Grunewald Steel Company.”
    It would be satisfying, he thought, to see his old rival finally succumb to his superior power, thanks to the worthless son. You couldn’t trust anyone in this world, least of all your children. He’d make sure to leave his estate so tied up that Gérard and Armand would never be able to destroy what he had built. The European Iron and Steel Company, with its vast foundries and sprawling factories churning out machines, girders, railway lines, and weapons suitable for any war anywhere in the world—he never discriminatedor took sides—would be his monument. He had more than added to the wealth left him by his father, his investments had been wise, he’d spread the tentacles of the de Courmont property holdings from Amiens to Aix and eastward into the Ruhr. No one could ever topple his empire. The next to tremble would be Krummer—he’d always hated the old man. It was his steel that had formed the weapons that had brought France to her knees in 1870, and that defeat was not something any Frenchman would ever forget.
    With a curt nod he strode from the room, leaving his executives standing nervously, each eagerly hoping to catch his eye, to glean a rare nod of recognition, a sign of approval. There was none. Gilles was already lost in his thoughts, planning his next moves, into his next game.
    The automobile, that new toy of a newly mechanized world, had claimed his interest in a way he had never experienced before. All this—the steel companies, the property interests, the diplomatic receptions, the political maneuverings—was like a series of exercises that he performed, keeping himself on his toes, one step ahead of the competition, beating companies at their own game, pulling contracts like trophies from under their noses. But the cars dazzled him with their mechanical beauty, the passion of their potential power. It was still only the beginning, but he, Gilles de Courmont, would be the man who would take France from its elaborate barouches and pony carts, its horse-drawn cabs and sporty fiacres into sleek, smooth steel more beautiful than the most desirable woman and powered with engines stronger than a dozen horses.
    He lunched