Many years ago, in a sci-fi anthology, I read a brilliant short story by, I think, Theodore Sturgeon, but I have since lost the book so I can't quote the title, but it has intrigued me ever since. It went something like this:
It is Florence in the 16th century, and banking, more or less as we know it, has only recently been invented. Into the 'Medici Bank' walks a middle-aged man, wearing strange looking clothes. He walks up to the counter and asks to see the Director of the bank. He tells the Director, in broken Italian, that he wishes to invest, as in 'lend the bank', the 3 gold coins he is holding in his hand, for the bank to use as it sees fit. He expects them to pay him 'interest' and they agree a rate of 5%. He then stipulates that the bank, and/or its successors, are to hold this money for 100 years, when someone will call to clear the account. The surprised bank manager is given a code word and a name, and asked to keep this carefully on file until then. The bank manager agrees.
One hundred years later the bank, which now has a different name, receives a visit from a middle-aged man in strange looking clothes who insists that they look up their old archives to find the details of a deposit made 100 years previously, and to pay out the accumulated funds against the code word he is providing. To the bank's surprise they find the records and, true enough, the account has been retained as 'live'. The original investment is now worth 320 times the original investment (as you know, if you divide 70 by the rate of interest, you get the number of years at compound interest that it takes for an investment to double in value, so it had so 7 times). Satisfied, the strange customer closes the account and takes the money.
A month or so later, the Bank of England receives a visit from a strange looking middle-aged man who wishes to make an unusual investment - fill in the rest.
This kind of thing repeats a few more times. Fast forward to the 20th century. We are in Wall Street, at a meeting of bankers and investment brokers, who have been called to a meeting by their biggest client, the world's richest man. (When the story was written the name the reader would conjure up was probably Howard Hughes. Nowadays it might be one Mr Gates.) There is total consternation at the meeting, for their client, who pretty much owns every major corporation in the world worth mentioning, insists that he wants to liquidate all his investments and turn them into cash. They carefully explain that this would destroy the world economy, and so on, but their client is adamant. Pressed hard, he explains that he has invented a time machine that he is certain will work, but it will take all his resources to build it. They have no choice but to comply, and the deed is done, with the anticipated consequences.
The date? 1929.
Can anyone please help me identify this short story, by title and/or author?
It is Florence in the 16th century, and banking, more or less as we know it, has only recently been invented. Into the 'Medici Bank' walks a middle-aged man, wearing strange looking clothes. He walks up to the counter and asks to see the Director of the bank. He tells the Director, in broken Italian, that he wishes to invest, as in 'lend the bank', the 3 gold coins he is holding in his hand, for the bank to use as it sees fit. He expects them to pay him 'interest' and they agree a rate of 5%. He then stipulates that the bank, and/or its successors, are to hold this money for 100 years, when someone will call to clear the account. The surprised bank manager is given a code word and a name, and asked to keep this carefully on file until then. The bank manager agrees.
One hundred years later the bank, which now has a different name, receives a visit from a middle-aged man in strange looking clothes who insists that they look up their old archives to find the details of a deposit made 100 years previously, and to pay out the accumulated funds against the code word he is providing. To the bank's surprise they find the records and, true enough, the account has been retained as 'live'. The original investment is now worth 320 times the original investment (as you know, if you divide 70 by the rate of interest, you get the number of years at compound interest that it takes for an investment to double in value, so it had so 7 times). Satisfied, the strange customer closes the account and takes the money.
A month or so later, the Bank of England receives a visit from a strange looking middle-aged man who wishes to make an unusual investment - fill in the rest.
This kind of thing repeats a few more times. Fast forward to the 20th century. We are in Wall Street, at a meeting of bankers and investment brokers, who have been called to a meeting by their biggest client, the world's richest man. (When the story was written the name the reader would conjure up was probably Howard Hughes. Nowadays it might be one Mr Gates.) There is total consternation at the meeting, for their client, who pretty much owns every major corporation in the world worth mentioning, insists that he wants to liquidate all his investments and turn them into cash. They carefully explain that this would destroy the world economy, and so on, but their client is adamant. Pressed hard, he explains that he has invented a time machine that he is certain will work, but it will take all his resources to build it. They have no choice but to comply, and the deed is done, with the anticipated consequences.
The date? 1929.
Can anyone please help me identify this short story, by title and/or author?
