Treasure by Degrees

by David Williams

  Indeed, the conscientious head of that respectable establishment, in personally visiting each applicant body, often found himself in strange places and curious company. One such visit was to a self-styled commercial college near Euston Station, where the exclusively female student body appeared to have been recruited entirely from Thailand and which, while not licensed by the Greater London Council, seemed to be licensed for almost everything else. Thus it was that this disillusioned gentleman, on returning from that very expedition, had his flagging spirits renewed by the unexpected but welcome application from University College, Itchendever. Not only was the College known to him, but also he had a very healthy respect for its achievements. On a different day, he might have debated whether an establishment devoted entirely to instruction in the liberal arts was truly poised for diversification into agriculture. Being fresh or, more appositely, stale from Euston, no such doubts assailed him. At least Itchendever was in the country, and indeed sat in fifty acres of the worst-kept parkland in England, described in the letter of application as admirably fallow in all senses. He looked up the train times to Winchester and wrote to Pittsburgh without delay.

  CHAPTER II

  AMELIA HATCH and Irvine J. Witaker stared in silent surprise at the open cardboard hat box. It lay where Witaker had uncovered it on a table in Amelia’s suite at the Dorchester Hotel.

  ‘The gift wrapping was pretty fancy,’ Amelia was the first to speak, and in matter-of-fact tones, ‘but it sure as hell didn’t come from Harrods.’

  ‘It’s . . . it’s disgusting.’

  In Amelia’s view, middle-aged attorneys-at-law with Ivy League pretensions and solid corporate practices tended to inhabit the sheltered side of life.

  ‘No, Irv,’ she said, employing a contraction Witaker suffered only from those he could not afford to correct. ‘No, it’s not disgusting; I’d say it was an eight-month Shropshire Down that ain’t gonna see nine. Say, didn’t you have lamb for dinner last night:’

  The dead sheep’s head stared balefully at the two from inside the box. Witaker looked away. The blood-soaked wrappings gave the severed head a gruesome appearance unlike anything he had seen either in a butcher’s shop or mounted as a gun-room trophy. There was also the message.

  ‘Keep away from UOI.’ Amelia read this aloud from where it was hand-lettered in capitals on the inside of the box lid. ‘Irv, I’d say whoever wrote this is trying to tell us something.’

  Witaker found this piece of homespun levity distasteful and vulgar – a description that also happened to cover his opinion of Amelia Hatch. The three days he had already spent in his client’s company had proved an eternity; the contemplation of at least three more was something he tried to avoid. There were times when he consoled himself with the thought that when the old baggage was finally called to her reward – an event that surely to God could not be long delayed – his own temporal benefit would be substantial; this was such a time.

  ‘The question is, what are we going to do about it?’ he asked, staring at the telephone, not because he had made up his mind to use the instrument but rather because he found its presence comforting, and its appearance somehow more agreeable than that of Mrs Hatch or the contents of the box.

  ‘The sheep’s head? Well, I guess we could have it cooked. Mr Hatch always enjoyed a dish of sheep’s brains.’

  It had long been Witaker’s view that Mrs Hatch was quite as unhinged as her late husband – a person to whom she invariably referred in the formal style, even in conversation with one of her dear departed’s few intimates. Witaker found this habit irritating – and his irritation with Mrs Hatch was developing into a fixation. Her inane reply to his serious question was typical and infuriating. He was nevertheless wrong about his client’s state of mind, and, indeed, in most of his emotionally inspired judgements about her. Socially she embarrassed him; so had his own mother, and for roughly the same reasons.

  Amelia Hatch had been born and nurtured the daughter of a poor hill farmer in the Allegheny Mountains. The obligations inherent in a more affluent life-style she had sanctioned grudgingly at first, seeing them as scarcely justified against a code of Calvinistic frugality. The propriety of wearing shoes in the summertime she had conceded with ill grace at a fairly mature age. Possessions like houses in the plural, automobiles by the herd, and enough clothes to fill a mail order catalogue had been tolerated before they were enjoyed – and because they pleased Cyrus. Zeal was eventually tempered by a high-toned regard for the responsibility devolving from wealth – a common and convenient compromise – but Amelia remained a country girl at heart, and above all a faithful and loyal wife.

  Hard-working almost to a fault, when the Funny Farms organization had consisted of two people operating in a single back room, it was Amelia who had laboured hardest – assembling, packing, despatching, keeping the accounts, giving no quarter to debtors, and holding the creditors at bay. Long after it was strictly necessary, she had continued to exercise or supervise, many of these functions.

  There were few people who appreciated how much Cyrus Hatch had owed his early success to the diligence of his wife, but Cyrus himself had harboured no doubts in the matter. Amelia had never embarrassed him with her country ways, even though she invariably projected the impression of having just stepped off the buck-board of a covered wagon, good and ready to boil the beans.

  Witaker didn’t care for beans, nor for this superannuated, wizened frontierswoman with a penchant for chewing tobacco – in public. If, like Cyrus and Amelia, he had ever supped off sheep’s head, it was something best forgotten. ‘I think we should inform the police,’ he said, still looking at the telephone.

  ‘What, and have ’em laugh in our faces?’ Amelia absently fingered one of the sheep’s ears. ‘Butchering a sheep’s no federal offence in the States, and the English have been doing it for years.’

  ‘Sending someone an obscene object with a threatening message is most certainly an offence in a civilized country.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Irv; the whole thing’s most probably a practical joke – some student at this college place, who’s read about the trip, doesn’t want our dough – and he’s sure picked a colourful way of saying so.’

  The news that the Funny Farms Foundation might be endowing University College, Itchendever, had appeared in several daily newspapers the day before. Its release had not been sanctioned by Witaker, and Grenwood, Phipps had stoutly denied making any announcement. The newspapers involved had refused to disclose the source but their information had been singularly accurate. They had even been told where to reach Mrs Hatch for confirmation – something she had gladly supplied, in detail, to all callers since she saw no reason for secrecy, and every cause for advertising the likely achievement of her late husband’s chief ambition. She had not thought to consult Witaker in the matter, and in any case he had been sleeping off his jet-lag at the time Amelia had conducted what nearly amounted to a full-dress press conference. Witaker had been vexed by the event, and this irritation was renewed by the suggestion that it was spawning thoroughly undesirable repercussions.

  The lawyer glanced briefly at the parcel. ‘At least we can find out how the wretched thing got here. It didn’t come by mail, so it must have been delivered by a messenger or a delivery service . . .’

  ‘Quite the Sherlock Holmes, ain’t you, Irv,’ chided Amelia. ‘Well, why don’t you ask the hall porter when we go down – and, say, shouldn’t we be on our way?’ She climbed into an ancient, voluminous mink coat and crammed on a black straw hat. ‘How do I look?’ He thought she looked as though she had shot the pelts herself, and woven the hat from corn stubble. ‘I’ve never had lunch at a merchant bank before, and I’m sure not going to be late,’ Amelia continued. ‘D’you suppose they wear aprons like grain merchants — and maybe trade money by weight?’

  Witaker was not amused.

  Mark Treasure was finding Mrs Hatch fascinating – quaint, but powerfully fascinating: like an early steam locomotive in worki
ng order. She had shown a lively and insatiable interest in the functions of the British merchant banking system, enquired intelligently about the law and process governing the flotation of companies, improved Treasure’s own knowledge of the American Securities and Exchange Commission, and sensibly eschewed a visit to the computer with the dismissive comment, ‘Ain’t seen one yet that could tell a joke. Remember that, Mr Treasure, computers can’t laugh. That’s what Mr Hatch used to say.’

  In response to Treasure’s very tentative offer of a drink before lunch, Amelia had, with alacrity, demanded rum and water in equal quantities. Having consumed this refreshment, she commended its medicinal and body-warming properties with such enthusiasm as to make her refusal of a second libation seem almost churlish. ‘One’s drinking; two’s stinking – that’s a good motto, Mr Treasure,’ she had said with a laugh as she put down her empty glass.

  Amelia was now waving a grouse leg at the banker and to the extreme discomfort of Witaker who was sitting on the other side of Treasure in the bank’s dining-room. The chef had been advised tactfully to avoid foodstuffs commonly subjected to artificial improvement. It was coincidental that he had chosen dishes the consumption of which permitted the employment of fingers rather more than implements.

  At the sight of the moules marinières Amelia had pinned her napkin to the cameo brooch at her throat and tucked in with enormous gusto. Grouse she declared to be a new experience, but clearly it was one she enjoyed. She had picked the tiny main carcase clean – to Witaker’s great relief with her knife and fork – before applying herself to the manual dismemberment of what remained, ‘Before I die, Mr Treasure; that’s the point. Mr Hatch – rest his soul – wouldn’t trust another living person to give away the fruits of his labour. Ain’t that so, Irv?’ Amelia directed an accusing glance at Witaker before returning her attention to the leg bone.

  Witaker had been momentarily distracted – in both senses – by the reappearance of the butler carrying a bowl of walnuts. Amelia enjoyed cracking nuts with her bare hands; he thanked heaven there were none of a size she could tackle with her teeth, the soundness of which she had gratuitously advertised earlier. ‘That is so, Mr Treasure,’ he said, gathering his thoughts. ‘Mrs Hatch and I are the sole trustees of the Funny Farms Foundation, but, as you may know, unless the university faculty is arranged before her . . . er . . . her demise, the Foundation will be liquidated and the funds dispersed.’

  Treasure had been made aware of all these facts — indeed they had been included in the newspaper reports – but the significance of the last detail was only now becoming clear to him.

  ‘What Irv means is, if I kick the bucket before we get this show on the road, the money gets divided up between a bunch of great-nieces and nephews – worst thing that could happen to ’em. Andrew Carnegie said that; he was right too. Inherited wealth’s the most corrupting thing on earth. Don’t misunderstand me, Mr Treasure; I ain’t no Commie, no sir, but wealth’s a privilege that needs to be earned to be appreciated.’

  Treasure did not find himself entirely out of sympathy with this sincerely pronounced philosophy. However, he was concentrating upon it less than upon the thought that the business in hand was dependent on the survival of a lady he judged to be in her mid-seventies.

  Amelia guessed at this speculation. ‘You’re thinking this old bird – and I don’t mean the grouse – is about ready for the scrap heap, Mr Treasure, so you’d better get a move on. You’re right too. But you maybe won’t find Irv so anxious; can’t blame him though – y’see, his daughter’s married to one of Mr Hatch’s great-nephews.’ Treasure doubted that Witaker could let this last intelligence pass without comment. He was right; the lawyer cut in quickly. ‘It was a measure of the late Mr Hatch’s faith in my objectivity that he asked me . . . indeed, he insisted on my accepting the trusteeship with Mrs Hatch after my daughter’s marriage.’ Witaker had said his piece dispassionately, but Treasure detected a hint of unsureness in the tone.

  ‘Then Mr Hatch evidently had very great faith in your judgement,’ said the banker, and he meant it.

  ‘Oh shoot, of course he did,’ put in Amelia. ‘I was only kidding Irv. Fact remains, Mr Treasure, in three years we haven’t had an application for the endowment that’s worth a second look, let alone the trouble of me and Irv making the trip over – ’cepting this one we’re here about now.’

  ‘The terms are a little unusual,’ commented Treasure drily, and without indicating he considered them just short of ridiculous. ‘You are quite right, though, to be selective about the applications. So far as I know, University College, Itchendever, is an entirely worthy institution – how worthy you will have to judge for yourselves. To be honest, I find it a trifle embarrassing that we are the London correspondents of your bankers in Pittsburgh, in view of Lord Grenwood’s close connection with the College; no doubt he would express the same view if he were here.’

  In fact, all Treasure’s doubts lay in the opposite direction and he was glad to offer his last opinion without then having spoken to George Grenwood whose later enthusiastic reception of the proposition was entirely lacking in the lofty considerations of propriety credited to him by his circumspect colleague.

  ‘You come highly recommended, Mr Treasure,’ said Amelia, biting into a Cox’s Orange Pippin and chomping at it with a grace Witaker deemed worthy of a cart-horse. ‘I think Lord Grenwood’s connection with the place is one of the best things we’ve heard about it.’ She began sizing up the walnuts.

  Out of pure, personal curiosity, Treasure determined to bring the conversation back to a part of the business on which he considered he had been inadequately briefed. He addressed his question to Witaker. ‘In the event you don’t find a suitable establishment for the endowment, you say the Foundation funds can eventually be dispersed. Isn’t that difficult in law?’

  ‘Not in this particular case, Mr Treasure. I drew up the trust deed myself; in the circumstances you predicate, the trust fund becomes discretionary with the bank replacing Mrs Hatch as a second trustee. There would be a certain amount due in extra taxes, mostly covered by the income that’s accumulating.’

  ‘What Irv means,’ cut in Mrs Hatch, ‘is that Mr Hatch’s great-nieces and nephews would come in for a tidy sum each.’

  ‘How many of them are there?’ asked Treasure.

  ‘Nine that we know of,’ answered Amelia, and Treasure attached no particular significance to the qualification in her reply.

  Lunch concluded, Treasure had politely seen Mrs Hatch and Witaker to their hired Daimler before making towards his office. It had been agreed he would drive down to Itchendever independently to meet them there at noon on the following day. Amelia had expressed a desire to start early in order to ‘take in’ Winchester Cathedral on the way, as well as the village of Bishop’s Oak, near Eastleigh Airport, where Cyrus had been billeted for several months during 1917. Witaker did not share this desire, but he was not consulted.

  Miss Gaunt, Treasure’s invaluable secretary, was a maiden lady of sober habits with a disposition equal to coping with special crises as coolly as with normal business. Although she lacked the youth and beauty that could lure men into – or conceivably out of – burning buildings, her employer would have rescued her from any peril in gratitude for service rendered and in protection of more to come. It was thus the more surprising for Treasure to find Miss Gaunt taut, trembling, and tight-lipped in his outer office, facing an evidently bewildered Sergeant Smith, the Grenwood, Phipps’ uniformed senior doorman.

  The Sergeant was holding the lid of a long cardboard box of the type used by florists. The box itself lay open on Miss Gaunt’s desk.

  As he entered the room Treasure heard his secretary say, in uncharacteristic, emotional tones, ‘Well, if it was addressed to Lord Grenwood, his secretary should be dealing with it.’ She turned to Treasure, dabbing the side of her mouth with a linen handkerchief. ‘Please excuse me for a moment, Mr Treasure,’ she said, and hurried into the corridor clearly
in a state of high distress.

  ‘What’s up, Sergeant Smith?’ asked Treasure, closing the door behind the fleeing figure of his secretary.

  The Sergeant saluted smartly. ‘This ’ere box, sir, was delivered by a lad just after the dinner hour. I took it up to his Lordship’s secretary personal, sir. She ’ad a look at it and sent me on to you, sir.’

  Lord Grenwood’s successive secretaries were invariably glamorous, and usually incompetent. How long they stayed depended on how soon after their appointment Lady Grenwood visited her husband at the office, which in turn depended on how successful he was at persuading her he was somewhere else. Treasure, to his credit, could not recall whether the present incumbent was blonde or brunette – in either case it was safe to assume the girl would not know how to deal with a problem that had later defeated the resourceful Miss Gaunt. He took the box lid from the Sergeant. Written on it, in spidery capitals, was the message ‘Keep FFF off UCI’.

  Treasure moved to the desk, and gazed down upon the contents of the box – a rope of gristly, pinkish flesh on a gory bed of tissue paper. ‘What the devil is it, Sergeant?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, sir, as I was trying to explain to Miss Gaunt,’ replied Sergeant Smith, whose father had been a porter at Smithfield Market, ‘unless I’m mistaken, sir, that’s the . . . er . . . the . . . er . . .’ The Sergeant swallowed. ‘The private part of a bull, sir.’

  CHAPTER III

  ITCHENDEVER HALL – the home of University College – is Greek Revival running to seed. It was designed by William Wilkins in 1830 for a rich Southampton merchant much taken by the grandeur of The Grange, a house by the same architect a few miles to the north. Sadly, while The Grange – one of Wilkins’s early works – is much admired, commentators tend to dismiss the Hall as a trivial, decadent, dummy run for the National Gallery – a building they consider immensely more trivial (because it is bigger), created by Wilkins two years later.