‘I see. What particular form of initiative?’
‘Oh, to get the money back. They were quite specific on the point.’
‘To get it back from Stephen who they thought must have it?’
‘They were sure, Mr Treasure. That is, they put two and two together. They believed Stephen and Everard had the money between them.’ There was an audible sigh. ‘And they were right. Mission accomplished.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘That was the last signal. Mr Gold tackled Everard at his home and the Major went to the airport on the off-chance, as it were. I was Staff HQ—for passing messages . . . signals, I mean. It was very efficient. There were fixed times for signalling and special things to say. I had to write them down to avoid misunderstanding . . . Roger . . . and over and upwards. Also the Major thought the police might have tapped this line, though I hardly think Constable Jones would have allowed . . .’
‘What happened, Miss Spotter? About the money?'
‘Oh, well, as I said, mission accomplished. They have it all. The Major signalled a few minutes ago from Gatwick.’
‘And what are they doing with the money?’
‘They’re bringing it to you, Mr Treasure, at your bank. They’ll be there around eleven. We all thought that best, I was to tell you.
‘I see. Well, message received, Miss Spotter. And—er—well done everybody.’
‘Oh—oh, thank you very much.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Over and . . . er . . .’
‘Roger and out,’ Treasure replied, chuckling.
‘Roger who?—oh, of course, yes. Goodbye, Mr Treasure,’ said Miss Spotter, reverting to civilian life.
CHAPTER 18
PAUSING ONLY TO CHECK THE NUMBER, Treasure dialled the Cruba home. He was glad it was Pierre who answered. ‘I’ve heard about your father. It’s good news.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m seeing him this afternoon. He’s going to be all right—I mean really all right. The knife pierced his liver but not his lung. It was kind of diverted by a rib at the back.’
Treasure had already heard the details from Miss Gaunt. ‘He was lucky.’
‘So was I, sir,’ the boy answered with feeling. ‘I’ve talked to him on the phone already. He says I’m not to blame myself. He’s not going to take it out on me.’
‘Then I should accept his word.’
‘He’s a terrific father, sir. I hadn’t realized how terrific.’ Treasure felt himself veering to the same view. ‘He says I should have been able to talk to him about my mother. And about the charity. He says if I felt I couldn’t, then it was his fault.’ There was a choke in the voice at this point. ‘Can you imagine that, sir? His fault.’
‘Yes, I can, and I think he probably meant it. Tell me, have you seen your stepmother this morning?’ Treasure put the enquiry lightly but he was anxious to hear another emotional broken fence had been mended.
‘I went to see her, sir. In her room.’ The boy had stumbled over his reply. The earlier contrition had gone from the voice. ‘I didn’t sleep much. I was up and dressed early. I wanted to say I was sorry. Thought she’d be awake.’
‘Oh dear. So you thoughtlessly disturbed her at dawn?’
‘At seven, actually. She was awake . . . Gérard was with her.’
‘I see.’ Ask a stupid question . . . the normally resourceful banker was momentarily at a loss. He knew he had to head off further possible revelations he had no wish to prompt or to hear.
‘They weren’t in bed together, sir.’
Treasure swallowed on the earthy frankness and chose to ignore the unspoken insinuation. ‘Gérard probably dropped by to make sure she was all right,’ he said. He supposed he had mouthed worse inanities in his time, but not many.
‘He said he was just leaving, sir. Going to see Papa in hospital. He’s asked me to play squash at ten,’ Pierre added a little sourly.
Treasure hoped Opac had been dressed to make the journey, though he had no intention of clearing the point: later it would have proved useful if he had.
‘Give your father my best wishes.’ He was conscious someone was moving across the office next door. He stood up and walked as far around the desk as the telephone cord allowed. ‘I’ve got to go now. Goodbye, Pierre.’
Mrs Miff entered the room before he had replaced the receiver. He realized who she was even before he noticed the dangling monocle. Both Jonkins and Benny Gold had remarked on the monocle.
She was wearing a simple cotton dress in a grey and blue check pattern. She carried a grey cardigan and a large black leather handbag that matched her low-heeled shoes.
‘Mr Treasure, I presume. I am Clarence Miff’s wife.’
She was composed and purposeful, showing no trace of the shock she must have suffered little more than an hour before. For this much Treasure was relieved.
Clearly Mrs Miff had to be treated with the utmost compassion: common decency dictated this. Even so, he wished he could have been spared the meeting. The Miffs appeared to have masterminded a morally indefensible plot to liquidate the Rudyard Trust—something that hardly presaged an enduring warm relationship.
‘I’m most dreadfuly sorry about the accident. I’d never met your husband but . . .’
‘Please sit down, Mr Treasure,’ she interrupted abruptly. ‘I didn’t come for sympathy. Thank you all the same—and for your prompt action. I know you did all you could.’ She nodded in punctuation, indicating that they had come to the end of comment on her husband’s demise. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d be here still.’ There was no attempt to disguise the enigmatic significance of the comment. Mrs Miff sat: Treasure did the same. ‘I am known at the Rudyard Trust as Miss McSlope. Our marriage was not the subject of advertisement.’
‘Nor that . . .’
‘That I’m a Rudyard by descent? You know as much. I see you have my birth certificate before you.’
‘I’m sorry. When I started going through the files in the safe I hadn’t appreciated . . .’
‘We use it for keeping our own important papers? Our flat has no comparable safe place. It’s really of no consequence.’
Treasure began to feel less guarded. Mrs Miff’s composure was evidently genuine. He sensed she was not about to plead mitigation in the hour she was most entitled to expect some.
If this woman was given to tears it would be in private and not for effect. In an inexplicable way, too, her Lowland cadence and pedantic use of the language bolstered her credibility as well as her dignity.
‘Being the Blessed Marmaduke’s great-granddaughter—that might have affected your chances of getting a job here,’ he offered quietly, spurred to say what was on his mind, but feeling the way gently.
‘It would almost certainly have enhanced my chances, Mr Treasure.’
She was probably right, he thought. ‘I don’t know what your motives were, of course.’
‘The purest—at the start. I was also curious. Later I became bitter, but never personally avaricious nor dishonest.’
‘You’re very frank.’
‘The occasion is privileged, is it not?’
‘To a point,’ he said, immediately wishing he had conceded a broader indulgence. He laid his hands on the spread of documents before him. ‘You were trained as an accountant?’
‘I never qualified.’
‘The best ones often don’t. Your husband . . .’
‘Has no head for that kind of work.’
‘I see. So you’ve been responsible for the cost and budgetry control systems?’
‘Entirely. I put them in four years ago. Things were in a muddle before.’
‘I could name several private and public companies that jog along with a lot less financial information than you’ve been producing. It’s all pretty sophisticated.’
‘I’ve never cared for the slipshod, Mr Treasure.’
‘I can see that. Monthly, quarterly, annual projections. Target and actual income and expenditure analysis. The cost categories are admirably thorough.
The moving data, the weighting of the historical basis you’ve used for extrapolation—all uncannily accurate. You’ve even got a workable formula for estimating loss of income through . . . er . . .’
‘Deaths in membership, Mr Treasure? Not too difficult, given the use of past records—their only use, as it happens,’ she added disparagingly. ‘There was nothing more sinister involved.’
Treasure gave an embarrassed cough. ‘You used a computer from the start.’
‘An hour’s time bought regularly on somebody else’s computer.’ She shrugged. ‘We took advice from Grenwood, Phipps’—the first Treasure had heard of it. ‘Quite quickly we were able to reduce headquarters staff from four to two.’
‘Just you and your husband?’
She nodded. ‘There were also savings on administration at the clubs.’
‘And you’ve been projecting losses, knowingly and with remarkable accuracy for several years,’ with Jonkins possibly checking the computer print-outs. On second thoughts he believed the bank would be spared that ignominy: it was doubtful if Jonkins could read a computer print-out.
‘That’s true.’ There had been no hesitancy in her reply. ‘The shortfalls of income over expenditure were eminently predictable.
‘But avoidable? For instance, if fees had been raised?'
‘They were, with a consequent fall in new members.'
‘Because they were raised too high—and not at all in the case of existing members?’
‘The last contingency being expressly forbidden in Founder’s Rules. New member’s fees have had to incorporate an element of subsidy for old members. One can’t run institutions of this kind with varying standards of service depending on an individual’s financial contribution. It would be quite inequitable—and be seen to be so. They must all be treated alike.’
‘Costs might have been cut. Maintenance seems high. The food bills . . .’
Mrs Miff was shaking her head. ‘Victorian buildings, Mr Treasure. Our surveyors are a firm of the highest repute. My husband accepted their advice as, indeed, he was obliged to do under the Rules. As for the food—you are married of course? Perhaps you also have a London club and dine out at restaurants?’
‘I do, yes, and I’m very well aware that at home and everywhere else these days . . .’
‘The price of maintaining the culinary standards to which you are used have risen astronomically. The Rudyard Clubs also have standards, Mr Treasure. Not so high, but standards.’ She paused. ‘However, as an economic unit the whole operation has been doomed to collapse. It’s too small, while, paradoxically, being unwieldy. It’s an anachronism, better dissolved now than later.’
‘And this is what your husband would have argued?'
‘My husband would have stood by the account of his stewardship—and the Founder’s Rules.’
‘Am I to take it you’re suggesting the charity should be disbanded in its present form: that it should then be reconstituted?’
‘Precisely, Mr Treasure. With the family beneficiaries bought off.’
‘You mean for less than their absolute entitlement?’
‘A good deal less, wouldn’t you say? There’ll have to be a deal. You can’t foreclose on an old people’s charity without concessions, and with two of us sympathetic . . .'
‘A deal, as you say, would be better than coping with a righteous public outcry, and conceivably legal wrangling within the family.’
Mrs Miff responded buoyantly. ‘After that a true charitable intention can be realized. It will involve financial co-operation from club members, their families and others led, obviously, by myself, supported by Florence Spotter.’
‘Miss Spotter knows nothing of your plan?’
‘Not as yet, but her attitude is predictable.’ She paused. ‘The three clubs would need to be combined into one, of course.’
‘In new premises?’
‘A converted and perhaps extended old mansion. There are plenty of suitable places available—mostly Georgian going cheaply in unfashionable rural areas. I saw one quite recently.’
‘Forgive me, Mrs Miff. Your reasoning sounds admirable. Can you tell me why your husband didn’t put it forward earlier? Why you kept your own family connection—er—under wraps?’
‘Because the shortest route was to liquidate the Trust, settle with the graspers . . .’
‘Crow-Patcher? Prudence Rudyard?’
‘And Stephen Spotter. I had an idea he’d materialize when it came to sharing out the spoils. It’s quite purposeless attempting to stop that family from running to form. The way my mother was treated was abominable.’
For a few moments the knuckles of the hands clasping the bag on her lap showed white. Then she seemed to relax. Without emotion she explained how her putatively penitent mother—too putative in Treasure’s unspoken view—had been spumed by contemporary Rudyards, and how she herself had been not so much disowned as never owned at all by the same clan.
Slowly, with the unfolding, the banker came to realize the tortuous plot he had unearthed had to do with retribution for two women scorned.
He waited for her to finish her piece, then he asked, ‘So you don’t feel your plans were high-handed?’
‘Practical, Mr Treasure. The alternative of petitioning Parliament for a special Instrument would take years to prepare and push through—especially with more than half the residual beneficiaries opposed.’
‘And the gift from Mr Cruba? Of course, you only heard about it yesterday.’
‘In fact, on Saturday. Stephen Spotter told us. It would have made no difference if I’d heard of it last month, or last year. It offers no permanent solution. With the Trust constitution unchanged it would only put off the evil day. I assume it’s been withdrawn? Stephen Spotter said it would be and he must have had reason.’
Treasure nodded. It was not clear from the way she spoke if Mrs Miff had heard of the attack on François Cruba. ‘The ex-President’s been injured. He’s in hospital. The gift is . . . er . . . frozen for the moment.’
‘He was stabbed on the Duke of York steps. It said on the wireless this morning.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. ‘A political act, no doubt. I trust he continues to recover.’
Was her supposition about a political motive based on hope or belief, Treasure wondered. ‘He’s recovering. Tell me, your husband shared your views . . . ?’
‘My husband was a sick man,’ she interrupted. ‘I regret to say he was also a weak one.’
‘You married him . . .’
‘Out of pity, Mr Treasure, a not unworthy motive. He worried. Sometimes with reason, sometimes without—about his health, his drinking, his job, the rectitude of my plan for the Clubs. He preferred to ignore facts and to . . . romanticize: to dramatize situations—even to the point of playacting.’
‘He was playacting when he interviewed a Major Copper and a Mr Gold? Seems he alerted them to the situation in some detail. Spurred them into doing something to help.’
Mrs Miff looked momentarily surprised. ‘I see. I wondered if . . .’ She collected herself, resuming her original composure. ‘It was an ill-conceived precaution on my husband’s part. He had been insisting there should be evidence we had not been disguising the issue. I didn’t agree, nor did I know there would be two candidates that day. But we were so close to the financial year end . . .'
‘And the two looked such unlikely champions?’
She nodded. ‘For the sake of his peace of mind I didn’t interfere. There was so little that lessened his anxieties.’ She paused. ‘On that day, and on others, I was sorry for him—because of his past and the way he saw the future. Did you know he’d been obliged to give up his partnership in a private law practice before taking this job?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ He subdued any show of disquiet.
‘He had to make good some losses sustained by a client due to carelessness on his part—not dishonesty, I assure you. He was impoverished as a result. Fortunately it was a time of full employment for profess
ional people. The Trust was glad to accept him. At the salary offered, I understand he was the only applicant.’ Knowingly she added, ‘I’m sure your people were aware of his background.’
‘I know there was a misunderstanding here once— about joining fees.’ Treasure was careful to keep the tone dismissive.
‘Just before I came.’ She nodded. ‘He was innocent, of course, but accident prone.’ Her face clouded.
There was silence as they both marked the painful appropriateness of the allusion. He thought he saw tears forming in her eyes. She blinked and the impression was dispelled.
‘I’d hoped our becoming relatively well-off would give a basis for his building confidence in himself, Mr Treasure. His insecurity was largely to do with money.’ She dabbed her nose with a man’s size handkerchief. ‘So you see, my purposes in all this were not entirely altruistic. Now the money is not material, of course.’
Treasure smiled. ‘I’m glad we were able to talk. Your frankness is admirable and, if I may say so, brave—and timely. You’ve given me a great deal to think about. May we leave it there?’ She nodded. He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go anyway. I mean to take the Trust files with me. You’ve no objection?’
‘None. There’s one thing, Mr Treasure. You did telephone my husband at the flat last night about changing the time of your appointment this morning?’
‘No, I didn’t. Are you sure . . . ?’
‘I’m sure of very little about last evening. Clarence was beside himself with worry—over the Cruba gift.’
‘Which didn’t bother you?’
‘I believed Stephen.’ She caught the banker’s change of expression. ‘Who couldn’t have had anything to do with the attack on Mr Cruba.’
‘Otherwise he wouldn’t have risked being so forthright with you?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Your husband was at home last night?’
‘No, he wasn’t. But he didn’t attack Mr Cruba either.’ She forestalled Treasure’s tactful protest, continuing ‘He went out after supper, at about nine. He came back very late—I’d gone to bed. We sleep in separate rooms. I heard him come in. It was after twelve-thirty. Some time later the telephone rang. It woke me. I’m not sure at what time.’
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