‘But if she won’t take it . . . ?’ began Benny gently.
‘A gift from an anonymous admirer. That’s what the note will say—the one we’ll send with the money. She’ll have to take it. There’ll be no one to give it back to.'
‘You don’t think she’ll guess?’ asked the Major slowly. ‘She might. It’s not likely.’ Pierre smiled, then added, ‘If she thinks it’s my father, I don’t believe she’ll ask him about it, sir.’
‘I think I understand, Roderick,’ said Benny pointedly.
‘Hmm.’ The Major looked from one to the other. ‘Pierre, our good cause is a worthy charity which you kindly volunteered to help. Did you have it in mind to help your mother as well from the beginning?’
‘No, sir. I got the idea later.’
‘I see. It’s true, of course, Mr Gold and I may eventually benefit from the Rudyard Trust but our main purpose is charitable.’
The boy looked down. ‘My good cause is my mother whom I love very much, sir. Honestly, I shan’t benefit at all.’
Benny shrugged his shoulders. ‘So it’s two good causes. If we’re helping one we have to help the other, Pierre. Is that right?’
This time the boy looked up into the faces of the two men. ‘I’ve already promised to help the Rudyard Trust.’
‘And you’ll honour that promise even if we don’t agree to help your mother?’ The Major’s voice was stern.
‘Yes, sir.’
All three were silent for a few moments, then Copper and Gold exchanged nods.
‘So now we’re helping your mother,’ said Benny with a resigned smile.
‘We’ve never discussed her, Pierre. Of course I know she lives in London. And all this . . . the kidnap plan . . . it’s because of her?’ Copper asked.
‘Only indirectly, sir. When you rang and asked whether my father might bail out the Rudyard Trust I knew he wouldn’t. Old people . . . er, older people aren’t his scene. We needed to put him under pressure.’
‘Which is why you suggested the kidnap.’
‘Yes, sir. For the Trust. I added the bit for my mother later. It’s quite safe. You see, she’s always helping other people, and it’s just stupid she won’t take money from my father—not when she knows it’s from him.’ The tone had become impassioned.
‘And she knows nothing about . . . about our plans?’ the Major enquired carefully.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘But what if your father tells her you’ve been kidnapped?’
‘He won’t, sir. She’s away till Tuesday night. I’ll be safe home by then. He won’t tell after the panic’s over—not ever. It’d look too much as if he or Yvonne haven’t been looking after me properly.’
There was a guileless expression in the boy’s eyes which the Major, for one, was inclined to discount. It seemed Pierre was well able to care for himself, and for the wants of others—including his mother and the members of the Rudyard Clubs.
Again there was a momentary silence broken by a sigh from Benny. He shrugged his shoulders, removed his beard and carefully pocketed it. ‘So while I’m sitting comfortably, can I hear the rest of the tape now?’
CHAPTER 8
THEY HAD PARKED THE CAB OUT OF SIGHT behind the disused lodge at Rudwold Park. The Major, Benny and Pierre had then made their way through the rhododendrons to the north end of the house. A low-silled, casement window to the studio was open in readiness. Pierre climbed in first.
‘Hoorah!’ cried Florence, jumping up from where she was seated at the desk. ‘Mission accomplished. Welcome to the intrepid three. Welcome Master Pierre Cruba.’ The boy bowed, shook hands, then, turning, gave another slight bow and said, ‘How do you do, sir.’ Neither Copper nor Gold had noticed the heavily built man who now rose from the sofa across the room. The Major gave a start: Benny made to return to the window.
‘Fear not,’ charged Miss Spotter, sounding like the Angel of the Lord, early for Christmas. ‘Allow me to introduce my long-lost nephew, Stephen Spotter.’
‘You’re not a policeman?’ Benny’s words came as more of a supplication than a question.
The big man gave a loud guffaw and strode forward, hand outstretched.
‘How d’you do.’ The Major had collected himself sufficiently to observe the formalities.
‘Don’t worry. Stephen’s on our side,’ volunteered Florence, which Benny, for one, considered was just as well in the circumstances. ‘I’ve been telling him about the whole jolly Rudyard problem and how you clever men are solving it. He’s absolutely behind us.’
‘You bet,’ said Spotter with another guffaw. He let go Copper’s numbed hand and grasped Benny’s in the same vice-like way so that the little man nearly cried out. Then the stranger turned to the boy. ‘So you’re Pierre. Met your father once. Great guy and tough with it.’ The accent and idiom were adopted American. ‘I guess you’re a chip off the same block. Gather you set up this whole deal.’
Stephen Spotter was bronzed, fortyish, well over six feet, and good-looking in a rugged sort of way. The Major thought he could easily be a film actor—the kind that wins through in epic war dramas, surviving to get the girl against appalling odds and worse scripts.
‘Well here I am. Ready to help you good people any way I can.’ The man was scoring well for dialogue in the context of Copper’s speculation. ‘There’s just one technicality, I’ve explained to my aunt here. For business reasons my being in England has to stay under wraps for a while.’ He looked grave.
‘Isn’t it exciting Stephen flying to our aid?’ Florence was doing her best to enthuse the others, who so far seemed less than buoyed up by the unexpected event. ‘We’re quite safe, by the way. Prudence is poorly. Spending the day in bed. She’s thoroughly chuffed, though, at seeing Stephen. Do sit down everyone.’
‘A fine age. A fine old lady.’
‘Yes, Mr Spotter, but unfortunately not ready to help like you,’ said the Major pointedly. He purposely chose a straight-backed chair, high enough to lend dominance.
A still disquieted Benny joined Stephen on the long, low sofa but at the opposite end, and perched on the edge of the seat. Pierre remained standing: he was studying Florence’s paintings.
‘I take it Mr Miff tracked you down at last.’
‘That’s right, Major. In Houston, Texas. Letter got there with more forwarding addresses than an alimony writ. Must have been following me about best part of a year.’
‘You move around in your . . . in your business?’
‘Oil’s my business, sir. The funding of oil exploration. Kind of keeps you moving.’
‘Stephen puts up the money to dig oil wells,’ said Florence with pride.
‘Not exactly, Aunt,’ but the disclaimer scented more of modesty than protest. ‘I’m what you’d call a Mr Fixit. I organize Finance groups—consortia, and I do it fast.’
‘I always thought oil exploration was in the hands of big international companies.’
‘That’s what most people think, Major. Not so. There’re a whole lot of individuals and small outfits involved too. Ad hoc groups cobbled together when somebody gets a geological hint there’s oil under his back yard.’ The big man smiled expansively. ‘That’s where I come in. I’m the cobbler. But you have to be fast to stay ahead of those multinationals . . .’
‘Who perhaps can’t move as quickly . . .’
‘As Johnnie who gets to the spot with the right connections and know-how. You’ve got it, Major. That’s me. So long as there’s oil for the finding, I’ll be there.’
‘It’s estimated the calorific value of the world’s known deposits of peat equals the world’s known deposits of oil. I think,’ Benny chipped in bravely.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Fancy ’ said Florence uncertainly.
‘You don’t say?’ Spotter eyed his sofa companion quizzically. ‘Peat,’ he paused again. ‘You Irish?’
Benjamin Gold shook his head. ‘It was on the wireless. The Open University.’
‘So you’ve been difficult to reach, Mr Spotter,’ the Major offered quickly to head off any more learned irrelevancies. ‘No fixed address,’ he added lightly, before regretting he had used a phrase most commonly applied to vagrants in the criminal courts.
‘That’s about it. Guess I’ve been a bad boy not keeping in touch. Aunt Florence said my last known address was the Bank in Hong Kong. Jeez, I left them fifteen, sixteen years ago. Since then it’s been Indonesia, Australia, the US, Mexico, South America, Africa, the Mid-East. You name it.’
‘But he dropped everything to get here when the letter arrived,’ Florence affirmed indulgently.
‘Caught the first plane. Came straight over from Heathrow an hour ago. Took a chance there’d still be family living here. But that’s what I mean. A cry for help’s like somebody smells oil. Either way Steve Spotter gets travelling.’
‘Did the letter explain we need more of Marmaduke Rudyard’s descendants to help stop the closure of the Clubs?’
‘Sure thing, Major. No problem. Why, I figured to balance the books myself . . .’
‘Oh good,’ Benny exclaimed.
‘. . .if necessary, that was. Seems to me, though, you fellows have the immediate problem well in hand . . .’
‘We could easily cancel . . .’
‘No, no, Mr Gold. We press on with your plan. Then when we have the—er—the contribution from Pierre’s father in the bag, that’s when Aunt Florence and I mount our offensive. Shouldn’t be rushed.’
There was another moment’s silence.
‘You married, Mr Spotter?’ asked Benny in the hope a prolific union might have added a string of charitable progeny ready to support father in the cause.
‘Not right now,’ and as if following the questioner’s line of thought Spotter added. ‘No kids either. Not that I know of.’ He finished with what Copper considered a wicked leer.
The spinster aunt accepted these intelligences with a smile both coy and forbearing. ‘Stephen means to shame Everard over to our side.’ Perhaps this made up for the lack of legitimate progeny as well as the shameless uncertainty about there being any of the other sort. Even so, the assertion hardly matched Florence’s earlier view on the enduring quality of Crow-Patcher obduracy. ‘He even has hopes about Pru. She’s certainly fallen for him.’ Perhaps Pru was not the only one, thought the Major. ‘You’re aware how we intend to extract—er—collect what you call the contribution from Pierre’s family?’ It had crossed his mind that Miss Spotter might have been more circumspect than appearances suggested.
‘A harmless case of kidnapping?’ Appearances had been right after all. ‘Well, since Pierre here is in on the act I guess everything’s kosher.’ Benny winced as Stephen continued: ‘Got a conscience about how your old man put together his loot, Pierre? Feel it ought to be shared out with the more deserving? Does you credit, son.’
‘Not quite, sir.’ Pierre’s tone was polite, but he was evidently angry. ‘My father is an honest man . . .’
‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me . . .’
‘We couldn’t be sure he’d want to help with the Rudyard Trust. He gives to a lot of other causes.’ The boy had ignored Spotter’s interjection. ‘This way’s certain.’ He paused. ‘Of course he can afford the money.’ He glanced from Copper to Gold. ‘Also there’s another smaller money matter we’re dealing with. You say you know my father, sir?’
‘We ran into each other years ago in New York. Briefly.’ There seemed to be little inclination to enlarge on this.
‘And my mother?’
‘No, I don’t believe I had that pleasure.’
‘Even though Pierre’s co-operating most magnificently, Mr Gold and I are at some risk—with the law, I mean, and so on.’ The Major changed the tack of the conversation. ‘If you could still see your way to rescuing The Trust yourself, Mr Spotter, we’d be happy to cancel . . .’ Ever since Pierre had introduced the business of the £50,000 for his mother the dangers in Exercise Rudy seemed to loom larger by the minute.
Stephen looked grave. ‘I’d like to do it. Fact is, untying more than a million dollars right now would be complicated for me. Oh, I know it’s chicken feed.’ Benny found himself nodding in agreement though he couldn’t have said why. ‘It’s a matter of interlocking funds. Difficult to extricate ready cash without rocking other people’s boats. All a question of confidence, if you see what I mean.’
Benny steeled himself into admitting he didn’t see at all. ‘I think Mr Miff, he’s the Director, said the Trust’s loss wouldn’t be more than forty thousand this year. If we could find that much straight away . . .’ He looked appealingly at Copper.
‘Mr Gold’s right,’ the Major took over. ‘The half million was intended as long-term capital—to earn interest. If you and Miss Spotter, and perhaps the other descendants, if you agree to get the terms of the Trust altered we’d only need enough to balance the books now—to tide the Trust over till it can sell land . . .’
‘Wish I could help.’ Spotter looked deeply disappointed. ‘Fact is, I just have to keep my being here a total secret for a while—for a few weeks at least, maybe a month or so. A call on any one of my banks, even for forty thousand pounds, that could give the whole game away. You have to know the oil business to understand, fellows.’ He shook his head sagely. ‘For Steve Spotter to lay out nearly a hundred grand, in dollars that is, in London. Wow! If that leaked there’s at least ten people who’d figure they were being double-crossed. Cut out of something. Sorry.’
‘Must be jolly tricky being a tycoon,’ Florence put in: Copper and Gold exchanged dejected glances. ‘I’m sure Stephen will do what he can . . . in the circumstances.’ She applied smiles all round. ‘You mentioned something else, a small money matter you’re dealing with, Pierre. Perhaps Stephen can help with that?’
The two older men allowed Pierre to explain about the unscheduled call he was making on his family’s financial reserves. They assumed in advance that Spotter was as likely to help with this as he was to volunteer paying off the National Debt. They were right. After hearing his excuses they listened dully as Florence recited a sentiment only too dear to both of them—that collecting money from François Cruba in person invented unspeakable extra hazards.
Pierre went over the plan revealed on the tape-recording, convincingly defending its feasibility. As agreed with Copper and Gold, he did not go on to say exactly how the arrangements would be implemented: earlier, in the taxi, they had all thought it best to keep this to themselves. Spotter, like Florence, was thus deprived of the total confidence, but unlike his aunt showed no misgivings, praised Pierre’s ingenuity, and insisted on hearing the tape three times.
‘You’ll be staying here, Mr Spotter?’ the Major enquired later.
They had finished consuming coffee and homemade biscuits. Pierre had installed his effects in the room above. Stephen had returned from his second courtesy call on the ailing Prudence. It was nearly noon—the time it had been agreed to call the ex-President.
‘I wish you would stay, Stephen,’ Florence put in earnestly. ‘It’d be perfectly easy to make up a bed on that sofa, and when Pierre’s gone you could have . . .’
‘No, won’t hear of it, Aunt.’ The big man beamed. ‘You folks have enough on your plates without complicating things with an unexpected guest. If you’re sure I can borrow that car of yours for a few days . . .’
‘With pleasure, my dear. I have the bicycle, you see. The car’s not very grand. Not what you’ll be used to . . .'
‘Suits me fine. I can rent one of my own later. At this moment in time it’s better I don’t have to fill out rental documents. You’d be amazed how word gets out.’
Neither Benny nor the Major showed the least bit of amazement: both wondered why Stephen Spotter had risked coming to England at all if news of his presence was going to stand the whole oil industry on its head.
‘About a hotel . . .’ The Major was about to suggest the Paragon as guaranteeing anonymity if not much
else.
‘No problem.’ Spotter interrupted. ‘Fixed it already. Place at the airport. Don’t need regular identification for that. Used a phoney name. Sorry to sound so cloak and dagger. Believe me, it’s necessary.’
There was a general murmur of assent as the Major announced: ‘Time for Phase Two. That is the only telephone in the house, Miss Spotter?’ He pointed to the instrument on her desk.
‘Indeed, indeed. Pru won’t have one near her, but it’s so essential to my work. You see . . .’
‘Quite, so we’ll make the call, then Mr Gold and I’ll be off. Since we’re using Pierre’s recorded message I suppose we could have left earlier. Still, it’ll be good to know everything’s going as planned.’
‘Reassuring,’ said Benny, but with the look of a man who feared the worst.
‘That recording. It’s safe for length?’ asked Stephen. ‘It won’t give them time to trace the call? Don’t know how long it takes in this country.’
Pierre was attaching a small microphone to the telephone. He shook his head. ‘Longer than people think, sir,’ he answered with authority. ‘In any case, they’re going to be so surprised by this first call nobody’s going to think of things like that. The other taped messages we’ll be using are all short.’ He glanced at the Major. ‘OK to start, sir?’
‘Carry on, Pierre.’
The boy seated himself in the chair Florence had vacated, lifted the receiver and placed it on the desk with the voice-piece next to the cassette machine. He began dialling the number of his home.
The other four had stationed themselves near enough to catch both sides of the coming exchange. Pierre was ready to depress the switch on the machine.
The ringing tone sounded only once. A female voice— a recorded female voice—broke the silence in the room as dramatically as if it had been amplified several times.
Copper, Gold and Treasure Page 8