Alan Procter

Alan Procter is a Bradford wholesale cloth merchant whose failing business and friendship with Gerald Fairley make him a crucial intermediary in Emma Harte’s campaign against the Fairley businesses. He sells Procter and Procter to the Emeremm Company, remains its chairman under a secrecy clause, and—through the information he passes to the company’s new managing director—helps Emma learn when Gerald is vulnerable. The arrangement’s consequences become explicit when Gerald discovers that Alan no longer owns the company he still trusts him to represent.

Identity and Circumstances

Procter owns Procter and Procter, a wholesale cloth warehouse in Bradford. The business has been run down and carries numerous creditors; Procter also has personal debts, many arising from his persistent gambling. The warehouse’s location gives it value beyond its troubled accounts: it occupies a sprawling, centrally situated site that Emma regards as a sound investment because the land is likely to appreciate. The company therefore offers her both a commercial asset and an opening into Gerald’s affairs.

Procter is Gerald’s crony and, in Gerald’s understanding, an old and trusted friend. That connection gives his position particular importance. He is not merely the owner of a distressed warehouse; he is linked to a Fairley heir whose business troubles and financial decisions Emma wants to know about. The evidence presents Procter’s weakness as a combination of commercial failure, personal debt, and gambling, circumstances that leave him receptive to a deal he might otherwise have resisted.

Sale and Continued Role

At first Procter is reluctant to sell, despite the company’s poor condition and his debts. Emeremm’s offer changes the balance. Emma sets a fair purchase price, avoiding an excessive sum that might arouse suspicion, and offers Procter a continuing position as chairman at a salary he cannot afford to dismiss. The terms address both his finances and his standing: he can keep running the business and preserve his face in Bradford while his debts and commercial problems are relieved.

The sale comes with a strict condition: Procter must not reveal that ownership has changed, or his employment contract will end immediately. He accepts the secrecy clause without questioning its necessity, welcoming the chance to remain at the helm while his personal and business debts are settled. In practice, however, his chairmanship does not mean he retains control. Emma describes him as a front and directs Ted Jones to place an Emeremm representative inside the company, with instructions to bind Procter’s authority and become his confidant. Procter’s apparent continuity at the company thus conceals a transfer of power.

An Information Channel

The arrangement supplies Emma with more than a warehouse and valuable land. Procter has a loose tongue, particularly during lunches with the new managing director, and information about his associates in Leeds and Bradford filters back to Emma. The reports include significant intelligence about the Fairleys. The narrative makes his usefulness depend less on deliberate scheming than on his position and talkativeness: the company has placed a trusted listener near him, and the confidences he shares become material for Emma’s business strategy.

Through this channel, Emma learns early in 1918 that Gerald is in serious difficulty with Thompson’s mill and wants to sell it. She orders Ted Jones to buy it as cheaply as possible. Acting through Procter and Procter, Emeremm acquires the mill; Gerald, believing he is selling to his old friend Alan, accepts only a quarter of its true value. Procter’s company is therefore the visible purchaser, while the concealed parent company—and Emma—are the actual beneficiaries. The episode turns his friendship with Gerald into the route by which Emma gains a major Fairley asset.

Exposure and Narrative Function

A later confrontation makes the separation between Procter’s title and actual ownership unmistakable. Gerald has sold the Fairley mill to the General Retail Trading Company, which he understands to be a division of Procter and Procter and ultimately Alan’s concern. Emma corrects him: Procter and Procter is a subsidiary of Emeremm, and Alan has been its employee for years rather than its owner. Gerald’s response confirms the extent of his misunderstanding: Alan never told him about the transfer. Emma then identifies herself as Emeremm’s owner and says that she controls Procter and Procter, General Retail Trading, and Deerfield Estates, as well as the Fairley mills and Fairley Hall.

Procter’s significance lies in the gap between the appearance of personal ownership and the reality of corporate control. His financial distress makes the original sale possible; his retained chairmanship helps preserve the appearance of continuity; and his disclosures let Emma act on Gerald’s troubles before Gerald understands who is behind the transactions. He is not shown directing the takeover himself. Instead, the plot uses him as a compromised intermediary whose nominal authority and trusted connections mask the transfer of power that enables Emma’s advance.