Enter Certain Murderers, page 14
CHAPTER 8
It was a long story by now, and a complicated one, and because Sir Nicholas was in one of his more captious moods it wasn’t told without interruptions. When the narrative was finished, he eyed his nephew in silence for a while. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” he said at last, and still amiably enough to make Antony glance at him uneasily.
“I did. At least, I tried to. And all you would do,” he added, his sense of grievance overcoming his discretion, “was draw incendiary-minded ducks on the blotter, and burble about dried eggs and out-of-the-way religious ceremonies.”
Sir Nicholas waved this aside. “Do I understand you? If an arrest is made, Horton proposes to offer me the brief?”
“Yes.” He did not add that Geoffrey had telephoned him in a panic the previous day, after the session at Scotland Yard; or that he had more or less guaranteed his learned relative’s compliance. But it is probable that Sir Nicholas found this simple agreement sufficiently informative.
“And you intend to—er—associate yourself with the defence. Am I expected to welcome your participation?” he asked, coldly.
“I know what you’re thinking, sir.”
“I doubt it.” The dry tone had its effect. Antony grinned reluctantly.
“You’ve complained before of my meddling, Uncle Nick.”
“On that point I find myself almost in sympathy with the police,” Sir Nicholas admitted.
“Well, I can’t help wondering if I’ve just made things worse.”
“Something’s got to be done about Meg,” said his uncle, with authority.
“That’s what I think, sir.” He paused, and then added in a worried tone: “You see, I don’t know what to do.”
“You’d better tell me what the trouble is.”
Antony looked at him warily; but the sympathy sounded genuine, and he badly needed advice. “Sykes said Meg might be charged as an accessory—”
“So you have informed me.”
“Yes, but . . . don’t you see, it’s a thousand to one against their going as far as that if they had a confession . . . a full confession that exonerated her.”
You’re probably right about that,” said Sir Nicholas thoughtfully, “but as Farrell denies that he killed Grainger—”
“If I put it to him like that, I think he’d admit it. And even with the evidence of premeditation, he might get off fairly lightly when the full tale was told.”
“Are you telling me he’s guilty?”
“No, I . . . the thing is, I don’t know. If he is, that’d be the best advice I could give him, both for his own sake and Meg’s. But if he isn’t—”
“He’ll persist in his denial . . . surely?”
“I don’t know if he would, sir. He’s fond of Meg, I’m pretty sure of that; and there’s this weird idea he’s got about poetic justice. At the moment he thinks the only way to defend Meg is to defend himself, but if it weren’t for that I don’t know what he’d do.”
“I see. And whatever you decide you run the risk of being unfair to one of them.”
“What shall I do, Uncle Nick?”
“I think you must first make up your mind as to his guilt or innocence.”
“How can I, for sure?”
“It isn’t just Grainger’s murder now,” Sir Nicholas pointed out. “If it were, I might possibly agree to act. But the kind of callousness that results in last night’s slaughter—”
“That’s one thing I’m certain about, sir. Roger wasn’t responsible for the deaths of those two policemen.”
“But you agree there’s some connection?”
“Yes. I’ve got to.”
“And that James Farrell was implicated in some way in these bullion robberies?”
“That would have been a motive for blackmail, wouldn’t it, if Grainger had found out? And I suppose it’s the sort of thing he might have discussed with a confederate in a place he felt secure. And it must have been Farrell’s diaries our burglar was looking for, however stupid it seems.”
Sir Nicholas was eyeing him in silence . . . not a tranquil silence. “My study,” he said at last, bitterly. “My engagement book. I suppose I must be thankful I’d made very little use of it.”
“Well, someone who just knew my address,” said Antony, “might easily have made the mistake.”
“Yes, indeed. But I don’t find the reflection at all comforting,” his uncle told him. “You’ve looked at the diaries, I suppose. Do they tell you anything?”
“Nothing at all. I did wonder whether the months immediately before the blackmail started might give some clue. After all, Grainger must have got the goods on Farrell during that period. If anything at all unusual had happened” He broke off to glance at his uncle, who had closed his eyes and seemed to be praying. “But it didn’t,” he added despondently.
Sir Nicholas opened his eyes. “I don’t see how any of this convinces you of Roger Farrell’s innocence,” he said.
“If it’s just a matter of shooting Grainger,” Antony told him, wisely refraining from argument, “you couldn’t possibly object to that.”
“Perhaps not. Though I think you might have phrased it more happily. It wouldn’t be at all difficult to frame a defence if he would admit what he has done, though how far it would be successful is another matter again. But if he persists in his denials—”
“I admit the case against him is . . . almost overwhelming, sir.”
“Almost?” said Sir Nicholas, scornfully. “He was the only person in a position to know where Grainger would be that afternoon. He obtained this information by means of a subterfuge, which won’t sound well in court. He is known to have been at the scene of the murder; he could have searched the body for identifying papers and ’phoned an accomplice to arrange the burglary in Copthall Court, before he reported to the police. In fact, he admits having recovered the envelope with the diamond from Grainger’s pocket. As for his motive—”
“I’m not arguing about the strength of the case, sir.”
Sir Nicholas swept the interruption aside. “His motive is undeniable,” he stated, “and completely convincing to any normal person. While if you attempt to demonstrate his innocence you are left with a murderer who must have known Grainger’s identity already, as—on Farrell’s own showing—he had no opportunity to search the body”
“And who had at least one accomplice, an expert safe-blower.”
“That applies, whoever committed the crime. But this hypothetical murderer of yours must also have been in a position to see Meg’s note about the appointment, and to recognise it for what it was. From which we may make two further deductions: that he was one of the men who went home with Roger Farrell after his mother’s funeral, and that he had probably been blackmailed at least once by Grainger, and made payment by the same method as was demanded of Mrs. Farrell.” He paused, and fixed Antony with a cold eye. “Do you think it at all likely that such a man exists?” he demanded.
“Well, sir . . . since you ask me . . . yes, I do.”
“Then all I can say—”
“I know, Uncle Nick, but . . . don’t! You’re going to tell me I want Roger to be innocent, and in a way that’s true. But it isn’t only that.”
Sir Nicholas compressed his lips. “This . . . this creature of your imagination,” he said, “must also have been ruthless enough to see his own safety in framing Roger Farrell.” He sounded anything but convinced.
“That brings us round full circle, sir. If he’s one of the gang, we know he’s ruthless,” said Antony, with an air of reasonableness that made his uncle’s head spin. “But I’ve got a sort of feeling that wasn’t the reason for the blackmail; I mean, if Grainger had known James Farrell had all the resources of a gang at his disposal, do you think he’d have risked it?”
“The connection has been demonstrated.”
“Yes, but not necessarily that connection. Oh, I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense, any of it,” he added in a dissatisfied tone. “It’s getting on my nerves, and I’m not really thinking straight.”
“But if you encourage Roger Farrell to confess, you’ll always wonder if you did him an injustice,” said Sir Nicholas, shrewdly.
“And if I don’t, I may be unfair to Meg. What would you do, sir?”
“A few more facts—” his uncle suggested.
“Yes, of course. But by the time I’ve got them it may be too late.”
They were still arguing the matter at the luncheon table, and neither had succeeded in moving the other a jot from his original position when Jenny went out to fetch the car. Sir Nicholas accompanied his nephew to the front steps to wait for her, and was still delivering an impassioned speech to an invisible jury when Antony left him.
The depressing thing was, he seemed to have forgotten the role for which he was cast, and to be summing up for the prosecution.
*
Sam Reade lived in a rambling old house near the river at Twickenham, which took a bit of finding even though they followed Roger’s instructions (they thought) to the letter. Obviously there was a large, disorderly family; Antony, remembering what he had been told of Reade’s financial position, looked about him with interest. What the establishment lacked in elegance it gained, perhaps, in comfort; the differences might be due to personal taste, or simply to less ample funds than were at Denning’s disposal.
He was admitted by a fair boy of about eighteen, who weaved his way in a practised manner through a sort of obstacle course of golf clubs and tennis racquets to a door at the back of the hall. He flung this open, made a sweeping gesture of invitation, grinned, and disappeared. Antony went in, and found a man in his late fifties heaving himself up from a chair near the window. Two small girls, who bore him a strong resemblance, were arguing over a jigsaw puzzle at the table in the centre of the room; but they disappeared obediently enough on the laconic command, “Out!” Antony stood aside to let them pass, and the taller of the two sidled by with an air of apology; but the little one gave him a stare of unabashed curiosity, and a friendly grin.
It struck him as he turned back to the man again that he had an air of relief about him, as though he had just performed a trick he hadn’t been quite sure would come off. Reade was a squarish, middle-sized man, whose fair hair was faded and thinning. Perhaps to compensate for this he had grown a fierce, and unmistakably ginger moustache. He had grey eyes, and an air of alertness which at first glance seemed at variance with his rather shabby tweeds. For some reason Antony again recalled Roger Farrell’s remark about top hats, and made a mental note to remember to ask Jenny . . .
“I’ve been worried to death,” said Reade, “ever since Roger ’phoned me.” And for the moment he looked as if this might quite literally be true. He waved a hand to a chair near his own, and hospitably opened a box of cigarettes, which proved to be empty.
“He said he’d explained to you” said Antony, seating himself and letting the sentence trail off hopefully.
“Yes, he did. In a way.” The echo of Roger’s own phrasing must have been unconscious. “I don’t pretend I altogether understand the situation, but I gather it’s serious.”
“Very serious, I’m afraid.” Beyond the window, the garden was as rambling and untidy as the house itself, but peaceful enough in spite of the clouds which had gathered as the day wore on. Antony thought of the dead man in the lane the night before, and the harsh breathing of his companion who might, or might not, still be alive. Perhaps his tone was more grim than he had intended. Sam Reade said:
“Oh, dear!” And then, even more helplessly, “I’ve always been afraid he’d get into trouble one day.”
“Why?” asked Antony. The other man looked a little taken aback, and said vaguely :
“He’s headstrong . . . reckless—”
“Not the best attributes for a stockbroker, surely?”
“Ah, but he has judgment. No, I assure you, Mr. Maitland, I couldn’t wish for a more able partner; though sometimes I wonder whether his heart’s really in the business,” he added, wistfully.
“He entered it, I suppose, to join his father.”
“It was a good opening,” said Reade, almost defensively. “And not too easy for a man who’s been in the services to know what he wants to do when the war is over.”
“I suppose, too, he was upset at that time by the death of his wife.” (Now, why had he brought that up? Surely it was, of all things, the most irrelevant.)
“He told you about Alice?” Reade sounded surprised.
“Mr. Denning mentioned her to me.”
“Oh, I see. Well, frankly, I don’t know whether to agree with you or not. About his being upset, I mean.” He paused, and seemed for the moment a long way away, and his thoughts unhappy. “You know she was my niece,’ he said at last. “I never thought . . . but then, Roger isn’t one to let you know his feelings.”
“I didn’t know,” said Antony. He was wishing, with some impatience, that the other man would make up his mind whether he wanted to attack his partner, or defend him.
“She lived with us,” said Reade. “Like our own daughter, though we’d none of our own then. My wife always said Roger spoiled her, made her as stubborn as he is, as set on her own way. We didn’t want her to go into the W.R.N.S., you see; but he was in the Navy.”
They were very young,” said Antony; because some sort of comment seemed to be called for. And thought for a moment of Jenny, and that it was sometimes a good thing to be foolish.
“She wouldn’t have been killed, you see, if she’d been at home with us.” He paused again, and nodded as Antony murmured something, and then said more strongly, “But you’re not really interested in that.”
He was, and he wasn’t. If it helped him to understand Roger . . . “I was hoping to hear about James Farrell,” Maitland told him. When did you first get to know him?”
“James? Well . . . about 1930, I suppose.” Though he had invited this change of subject he seemed to find it a little bewildering. “He was on his own by then, of course, and I was working for the same firm he started with. Later we went into partnership; that must have been 1935, because my grandfather died the year before.”
A legacy, presumably. And why should the obvious questions be so hard to find words for? He’d been blunt enough with Denning, but after all he was a cynic, whereas Reade had an air of vulnerability, surprising in a business man. Aloud he said (and the pause had been barely perceptible), “Do you know how Farrell originally financed his operations?”
“I think he once said he’d built up his capital, bit by bit.”
“Not too easy, I should have thought.”
For the first time Sam Reade smiled. “Just possible,” he said, “for a man with a little money, a great deal of patience, and a real interest in what he was doing. He’d also need good advice in the beginning, and an instinct for the movements of the market . . . that’s something I can’t possibly explain.”
“Black magic,” said Antony, grinning in his turn. “I knew it!”
“Well, I know James had the qualities I’ve mentioned, which is why I always felt our association was a fortunate one for me. He had a lucky break over some mining stock a couple of years before we joined forces, and I think that’s what finally secured his position. The difference between comfort and affluence, you know.”
“I wonder . . . have you any particular reason for remembering that, Mr. Reade?”
“For one thing there was a lot of talk about it. Farrell’s luck, they were saying; he got out just in time.” He paused, and sighed. “Instinct, really,” he said, “not luck at all. But the other reason I remember is that I’d got a couple of hundred quid in it myself . . . which I couldn’t afford to lose.”
“You must have known him well.”
“Yes, of course.” He hesitated, and then said slowly: “Not that we shared much social life; an exchange of dinners around the Christmas season would about sum it up. He had more taste for luxury than I have . . . and was certainly better able to indulge it. And I had a great regard for Winifred, but she was rather . . . we didn’t quite hit it off. On the other hand, I’ve been down to that place of his on the coast, and, frankly, once was enough.”
“Did you know he was being blackmailed?”
“Roger told me. Before that I had no idea.”
“Now that you know of it, can you hazard a guess as to why?”
That brought a silence. At last Reade said, stiffly: “If I knew I would tell you. It had nothing to do with the firm’s activities, but I realise that’s difficult to prove.”
“Can you be sure of it? There must surely have been occasions when he acted on his own.”
“Oh, yes, of course, but . . . I’m satisfied, Mr. Maitland.”
“Could he have been carrying on any completely separate activity?”
“It would have been contrary to the terms of our agreement; but naturally not impossible.”
Antony was frowning. Long before this, Reade should have been protesting the complete faith he had always had in James Farrell’s probity. He said, feeling his way: “The opportunity for blackmail may have arisen from some deal in the past that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.” But Sam Reade must have been following his train of thought, because his answer cut across the careful phrasing of the question.
“In his dealings with me I always found him honest. But there was a streak of unscrupulousness as well; I can’t say where it might have led him.”
“That mining stock, for instance. You say it was worthless?”
“That’s the way it turned out. But the ore was there all right, nothing wrong with the survey; it was just that there was a problem of transportation which we’d none of us appreciated. Abukcheech Mine, I’ve never forgotten the name, even though it’s such an odd one. It was up in Northern Quebec somewhere, and quite uneconomic to get the stuff out. Well, two hundred quid was a lot of money to me in those days, but James had made a sizeable investment and the stock went up all right, and he sold out just about at the peak, I’d say. But there was nothing odd about that.”
It was a long story by now, and a complicated one, and because Sir Nicholas was in one of his more captious moods it wasn’t told without interruptions. When the narrative was finished, he eyed his nephew in silence for a while. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” he said at last, and still amiably enough to make Antony glance at him uneasily.
“I did. At least, I tried to. And all you would do,” he added, his sense of grievance overcoming his discretion, “was draw incendiary-minded ducks on the blotter, and burble about dried eggs and out-of-the-way religious ceremonies.”
Sir Nicholas waved this aside. “Do I understand you? If an arrest is made, Horton proposes to offer me the brief?”
“Yes.” He did not add that Geoffrey had telephoned him in a panic the previous day, after the session at Scotland Yard; or that he had more or less guaranteed his learned relative’s compliance. But it is probable that Sir Nicholas found this simple agreement sufficiently informative.
“And you intend to—er—associate yourself with the defence. Am I expected to welcome your participation?” he asked, coldly.
“I know what you’re thinking, sir.”
“I doubt it.” The dry tone had its effect. Antony grinned reluctantly.
“You’ve complained before of my meddling, Uncle Nick.”
“On that point I find myself almost in sympathy with the police,” Sir Nicholas admitted.
“Well, I can’t help wondering if I’ve just made things worse.”
“Something’s got to be done about Meg,” said his uncle, with authority.
“That’s what I think, sir.” He paused, and then added in a worried tone: “You see, I don’t know what to do.”
“You’d better tell me what the trouble is.”
Antony looked at him warily; but the sympathy sounded genuine, and he badly needed advice. “Sykes said Meg might be charged as an accessory—”
“So you have informed me.”
“Yes, but . . . don’t you see, it’s a thousand to one against their going as far as that if they had a confession . . . a full confession that exonerated her.”
You’re probably right about that,” said Sir Nicholas thoughtfully, “but as Farrell denies that he killed Grainger—”
“If I put it to him like that, I think he’d admit it. And even with the evidence of premeditation, he might get off fairly lightly when the full tale was told.”
“Are you telling me he’s guilty?”
“No, I . . . the thing is, I don’t know. If he is, that’d be the best advice I could give him, both for his own sake and Meg’s. But if he isn’t—”
“He’ll persist in his denial . . . surely?”
“I don’t know if he would, sir. He’s fond of Meg, I’m pretty sure of that; and there’s this weird idea he’s got about poetic justice. At the moment he thinks the only way to defend Meg is to defend himself, but if it weren’t for that I don’t know what he’d do.”
“I see. And whatever you decide you run the risk of being unfair to one of them.”
“What shall I do, Uncle Nick?”
“I think you must first make up your mind as to his guilt or innocence.”
“How can I, for sure?”
“It isn’t just Grainger’s murder now,” Sir Nicholas pointed out. “If it were, I might possibly agree to act. But the kind of callousness that results in last night’s slaughter—”
“That’s one thing I’m certain about, sir. Roger wasn’t responsible for the deaths of those two policemen.”
“But you agree there’s some connection?”
“Yes. I’ve got to.”
“And that James Farrell was implicated in some way in these bullion robberies?”
“That would have been a motive for blackmail, wouldn’t it, if Grainger had found out? And I suppose it’s the sort of thing he might have discussed with a confederate in a place he felt secure. And it must have been Farrell’s diaries our burglar was looking for, however stupid it seems.”
Sir Nicholas was eyeing him in silence . . . not a tranquil silence. “My study,” he said at last, bitterly. “My engagement book. I suppose I must be thankful I’d made very little use of it.”
“Well, someone who just knew my address,” said Antony, “might easily have made the mistake.”
“Yes, indeed. But I don’t find the reflection at all comforting,” his uncle told him. “You’ve looked at the diaries, I suppose. Do they tell you anything?”
“Nothing at all. I did wonder whether the months immediately before the blackmail started might give some clue. After all, Grainger must have got the goods on Farrell during that period. If anything at all unusual had happened” He broke off to glance at his uncle, who had closed his eyes and seemed to be praying. “But it didn’t,” he added despondently.
Sir Nicholas opened his eyes. “I don’t see how any of this convinces you of Roger Farrell’s innocence,” he said.
“If it’s just a matter of shooting Grainger,” Antony told him, wisely refraining from argument, “you couldn’t possibly object to that.”
“Perhaps not. Though I think you might have phrased it more happily. It wouldn’t be at all difficult to frame a defence if he would admit what he has done, though how far it would be successful is another matter again. But if he persists in his denials—”
“I admit the case against him is . . . almost overwhelming, sir.”
“Almost?” said Sir Nicholas, scornfully. “He was the only person in a position to know where Grainger would be that afternoon. He obtained this information by means of a subterfuge, which won’t sound well in court. He is known to have been at the scene of the murder; he could have searched the body for identifying papers and ’phoned an accomplice to arrange the burglary in Copthall Court, before he reported to the police. In fact, he admits having recovered the envelope with the diamond from Grainger’s pocket. As for his motive—”
“I’m not arguing about the strength of the case, sir.”
Sir Nicholas swept the interruption aside. “His motive is undeniable,” he stated, “and completely convincing to any normal person. While if you attempt to demonstrate his innocence you are left with a murderer who must have known Grainger’s identity already, as—on Farrell’s own showing—he had no opportunity to search the body”
“And who had at least one accomplice, an expert safe-blower.”
“That applies, whoever committed the crime. But this hypothetical murderer of yours must also have been in a position to see Meg’s note about the appointment, and to recognise it for what it was. From which we may make two further deductions: that he was one of the men who went home with Roger Farrell after his mother’s funeral, and that he had probably been blackmailed at least once by Grainger, and made payment by the same method as was demanded of Mrs. Farrell.” He paused, and fixed Antony with a cold eye. “Do you think it at all likely that such a man exists?” he demanded.
“Well, sir . . . since you ask me . . . yes, I do.”
“Then all I can say—”
“I know, Uncle Nick, but . . . don’t! You’re going to tell me I want Roger to be innocent, and in a way that’s true. But it isn’t only that.”
Sir Nicholas compressed his lips. “This . . . this creature of your imagination,” he said, “must also have been ruthless enough to see his own safety in framing Roger Farrell.” He sounded anything but convinced.
“That brings us round full circle, sir. If he’s one of the gang, we know he’s ruthless,” said Antony, with an air of reasonableness that made his uncle’s head spin. “But I’ve got a sort of feeling that wasn’t the reason for the blackmail; I mean, if Grainger had known James Farrell had all the resources of a gang at his disposal, do you think he’d have risked it?”
“The connection has been demonstrated.”
“Yes, but not necessarily that connection. Oh, I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense, any of it,” he added in a dissatisfied tone. “It’s getting on my nerves, and I’m not really thinking straight.”
“But if you encourage Roger Farrell to confess, you’ll always wonder if you did him an injustice,” said Sir Nicholas, shrewdly.
“And if I don’t, I may be unfair to Meg. What would you do, sir?”
“A few more facts—” his uncle suggested.
“Yes, of course. But by the time I’ve got them it may be too late.”
They were still arguing the matter at the luncheon table, and neither had succeeded in moving the other a jot from his original position when Jenny went out to fetch the car. Sir Nicholas accompanied his nephew to the front steps to wait for her, and was still delivering an impassioned speech to an invisible jury when Antony left him.
The depressing thing was, he seemed to have forgotten the role for which he was cast, and to be summing up for the prosecution.
*
Sam Reade lived in a rambling old house near the river at Twickenham, which took a bit of finding even though they followed Roger’s instructions (they thought) to the letter. Obviously there was a large, disorderly family; Antony, remembering what he had been told of Reade’s financial position, looked about him with interest. What the establishment lacked in elegance it gained, perhaps, in comfort; the differences might be due to personal taste, or simply to less ample funds than were at Denning’s disposal.
He was admitted by a fair boy of about eighteen, who weaved his way in a practised manner through a sort of obstacle course of golf clubs and tennis racquets to a door at the back of the hall. He flung this open, made a sweeping gesture of invitation, grinned, and disappeared. Antony went in, and found a man in his late fifties heaving himself up from a chair near the window. Two small girls, who bore him a strong resemblance, were arguing over a jigsaw puzzle at the table in the centre of the room; but they disappeared obediently enough on the laconic command, “Out!” Antony stood aside to let them pass, and the taller of the two sidled by with an air of apology; but the little one gave him a stare of unabashed curiosity, and a friendly grin.
It struck him as he turned back to the man again that he had an air of relief about him, as though he had just performed a trick he hadn’t been quite sure would come off. Reade was a squarish, middle-sized man, whose fair hair was faded and thinning. Perhaps to compensate for this he had grown a fierce, and unmistakably ginger moustache. He had grey eyes, and an air of alertness which at first glance seemed at variance with his rather shabby tweeds. For some reason Antony again recalled Roger Farrell’s remark about top hats, and made a mental note to remember to ask Jenny . . .
“I’ve been worried to death,” said Reade, “ever since Roger ’phoned me.” And for the moment he looked as if this might quite literally be true. He waved a hand to a chair near his own, and hospitably opened a box of cigarettes, which proved to be empty.
“He said he’d explained to you” said Antony, seating himself and letting the sentence trail off hopefully.
“Yes, he did. In a way.” The echo of Roger’s own phrasing must have been unconscious. “I don’t pretend I altogether understand the situation, but I gather it’s serious.”
“Very serious, I’m afraid.” Beyond the window, the garden was as rambling and untidy as the house itself, but peaceful enough in spite of the clouds which had gathered as the day wore on. Antony thought of the dead man in the lane the night before, and the harsh breathing of his companion who might, or might not, still be alive. Perhaps his tone was more grim than he had intended. Sam Reade said:
“Oh, dear!” And then, even more helplessly, “I’ve always been afraid he’d get into trouble one day.”
“Why?” asked Antony. The other man looked a little taken aback, and said vaguely :
“He’s headstrong . . . reckless—”
“Not the best attributes for a stockbroker, surely?”
“Ah, but he has judgment. No, I assure you, Mr. Maitland, I couldn’t wish for a more able partner; though sometimes I wonder whether his heart’s really in the business,” he added, wistfully.
“He entered it, I suppose, to join his father.”
“It was a good opening,” said Reade, almost defensively. “And not too easy for a man who’s been in the services to know what he wants to do when the war is over.”
“I suppose, too, he was upset at that time by the death of his wife.” (Now, why had he brought that up? Surely it was, of all things, the most irrelevant.)
“He told you about Alice?” Reade sounded surprised.
“Mr. Denning mentioned her to me.”
“Oh, I see. Well, frankly, I don’t know whether to agree with you or not. About his being upset, I mean.” He paused, and seemed for the moment a long way away, and his thoughts unhappy. “You know she was my niece,’ he said at last. “I never thought . . . but then, Roger isn’t one to let you know his feelings.”
“I didn’t know,” said Antony. He was wishing, with some impatience, that the other man would make up his mind whether he wanted to attack his partner, or defend him.
“She lived with us,” said Reade. “Like our own daughter, though we’d none of our own then. My wife always said Roger spoiled her, made her as stubborn as he is, as set on her own way. We didn’t want her to go into the W.R.N.S., you see; but he was in the Navy.”
They were very young,” said Antony; because some sort of comment seemed to be called for. And thought for a moment of Jenny, and that it was sometimes a good thing to be foolish.
“She wouldn’t have been killed, you see, if she’d been at home with us.” He paused again, and nodded as Antony murmured something, and then said more strongly, “But you’re not really interested in that.”
He was, and he wasn’t. If it helped him to understand Roger . . . “I was hoping to hear about James Farrell,” Maitland told him. When did you first get to know him?”
“James? Well . . . about 1930, I suppose.” Though he had invited this change of subject he seemed to find it a little bewildering. “He was on his own by then, of course, and I was working for the same firm he started with. Later we went into partnership; that must have been 1935, because my grandfather died the year before.”
A legacy, presumably. And why should the obvious questions be so hard to find words for? He’d been blunt enough with Denning, but after all he was a cynic, whereas Reade had an air of vulnerability, surprising in a business man. Aloud he said (and the pause had been barely perceptible), “Do you know how Farrell originally financed his operations?”
“I think he once said he’d built up his capital, bit by bit.”
“Not too easy, I should have thought.”
For the first time Sam Reade smiled. “Just possible,” he said, “for a man with a little money, a great deal of patience, and a real interest in what he was doing. He’d also need good advice in the beginning, and an instinct for the movements of the market . . . that’s something I can’t possibly explain.”
“Black magic,” said Antony, grinning in his turn. “I knew it!”
“Well, I know James had the qualities I’ve mentioned, which is why I always felt our association was a fortunate one for me. He had a lucky break over some mining stock a couple of years before we joined forces, and I think that’s what finally secured his position. The difference between comfort and affluence, you know.”
“I wonder . . . have you any particular reason for remembering that, Mr. Reade?”
“For one thing there was a lot of talk about it. Farrell’s luck, they were saying; he got out just in time.” He paused, and sighed. “Instinct, really,” he said, “not luck at all. But the other reason I remember is that I’d got a couple of hundred quid in it myself . . . which I couldn’t afford to lose.”
“You must have known him well.”
“Yes, of course.” He hesitated, and then said slowly: “Not that we shared much social life; an exchange of dinners around the Christmas season would about sum it up. He had more taste for luxury than I have . . . and was certainly better able to indulge it. And I had a great regard for Winifred, but she was rather . . . we didn’t quite hit it off. On the other hand, I’ve been down to that place of his on the coast, and, frankly, once was enough.”
“Did you know he was being blackmailed?”
“Roger told me. Before that I had no idea.”
“Now that you know of it, can you hazard a guess as to why?”
That brought a silence. At last Reade said, stiffly: “If I knew I would tell you. It had nothing to do with the firm’s activities, but I realise that’s difficult to prove.”
“Can you be sure of it? There must surely have been occasions when he acted on his own.”
“Oh, yes, of course, but . . . I’m satisfied, Mr. Maitland.”
“Could he have been carrying on any completely separate activity?”
“It would have been contrary to the terms of our agreement; but naturally not impossible.”
Antony was frowning. Long before this, Reade should have been protesting the complete faith he had always had in James Farrell’s probity. He said, feeling his way: “The opportunity for blackmail may have arisen from some deal in the past that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.” But Sam Reade must have been following his train of thought, because his answer cut across the careful phrasing of the question.
“In his dealings with me I always found him honest. But there was a streak of unscrupulousness as well; I can’t say where it might have led him.”
“That mining stock, for instance. You say it was worthless?”
“That’s the way it turned out. But the ore was there all right, nothing wrong with the survey; it was just that there was a problem of transportation which we’d none of us appreciated. Abukcheech Mine, I’ve never forgotten the name, even though it’s such an odd one. It was up in Northern Quebec somewhere, and quite uneconomic to get the stuff out. Well, two hundred quid was a lot of money to me in those days, but James had made a sizeable investment and the stock went up all right, and he sold out just about at the peak, I’d say. But there was nothing odd about that.”
