The Empty House

by Michael Gilbert

  “It crossed my mind that he might have come to Exeter with the idea of calling on his solicitor.”

  There was a long silence. Then Mr. Highsmith said, “I’d like you to take a look at what’s on the wall to the left of the door.”

  Peter climbed obediently to his feet and walked over. It was a framed document.

  “As you will see,” said Mr. Highsmith coldly, “that is the certificate permitting me to practice as a solicitor. In other words, as an officer of the court. If you are seriously suggesting that I should allow myself to be party to a fraud on an insurance company, then I can only suggest that you repeat the allegation in writing and I shall know what to do about it.”

  Peter came back slowly and sat down. He had not been many years at his job, but he had had occasion to interview a great many people, some of whom he had suspected, and one or two of whom he had actually accused of fraud. He was beginning to be a connoisseur of their reactions. Mr. Highsmith, he was reasonably certain, was acting out a sham of anger. He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that he got here. I said it might have been in his mind to call on you. But then he, too, would have realised that he couldn’t involve you in anything dishonest. If that was his conclusion, then he’d have gone to London, or maybe directly to Portsmouth or Plymouth to catch a boat.”

  “If he had been stupid enough to come here,” said Mr. Highsmith, “he’d have been unlucky. According to your ingenious timetable, he’d have arrived here – let me see – on the Friday morning.” He was turning the pages of his appointment diary as he spoke. “On that particular day I went straight from my house to Taunton and was busy in the County Court all day. I’ve no objection to your checking that with my staff if you wish.”

  Peter go up. He said, “Certainly not, sir. I’m totally prepared to take your word for it. And I apologise once more for a stupid and ill-considered remark.”

  Mr. Highsmith, who had also got up, said, “There’s one thing I’d like to know. Am I to take it that your company proposes to dispute the validity of Miss Wolfe’s claim under the policy?”

  “On the basis of anything I have discovered so far,” said Peter, “I very much doubt whether they could dispute it, don’t you?”

  “I don’t believe any court would listen to you.”

  “In fact, the only thing which would convince them would be the production of Dr. Wolfe in person.”

  “I agree,” said Mr. Highsmith. He seemed to have recovered his good temper, and shook Peter’s hand warmly as he showed him out.

  After Peter had gone, Mr. Highsmith stood for a few moments in the middle of the room, listening.

  When he heard the street door close, he walked across to his desk, opened his left hand, and dropped something into the wastepaper basket. Then he rang the bell to summon his head clerk and gave him instructions which, used as he was to Mr. Highsmith’s idiosyncrasies, startled that elderly man.

  10

  Once clear of the outskirts of Exeter, Peter pulled his car off the road. He needed to do some thinking, and he wanted to do it while the events of the past hour were fresh in his mind.

  One of his gifts was an acute perception of the moods of people he was talking to. He was able to measure the tightening and relaxing of tension with almost mechanical accuracy. Arthur Troyte had once described him as a walking lie-detector.

  During the time he had spent with Roland Highsmith there had been two perceptible changes of gear.

  At the onset the solicitor had been easy. He had produced the line of patter appropriate to a conference with a fellow professional. The first change had not been unexpected. It had occurred when Peter had suggested that Dr. Wolfe might have faked the accident. No more cordiality. A succession of brief and uncompromising questions. Behind it, anxiety concealed by occasional splutters of anger. All natural enough.

  It had been the second switch which had been so interesting. It had occurred – yes, that was the point – it had occurred when Mr. Highsmith had forced Peter to get up and walk across to examine the framed certificate. From that point on he had been no kinder, but he had recovered his confidence.

  So what had he been up to while Peter’s back was turned?

  One point was clear: he had not moved out of his chair. Therefore, whatever he had done was somehow connected with his desk. If he had opened and closed one of the drawers, Peter felt certain he would have caught some hint of the movement. Deduction from that? It was something actually on his desk.

  Visualise the desk.

  An appointment diary; a matching pen-and-pencil set; a cylindrical black ruler; a blotting pad with clean pink blotting paper in it; a small silver frame containing a photograph of a woman and two tough kids; three telephones; beside the telephones a pad used for making notes.

  Something on top of the desk had been changed while Peter’s back was turned, and he was becoming more and more certain what it was. When he had first seen it, there had been a number of jottings on the pad. By the time he got back to the desk, the pad was clear. Therefore, Mr. Highsmith had tom off the top sheet and disposed of it, probably in the wastepaper basket. And once it was gone, his self-confidence had miraculously returned.

  Interesting. Very interesting indeed.

  Visualise the pad.

  Peter had been sitting beside the desk, the pad had been under his eye for some time. Subconsciously he must have photographed what was on it more than once. Three entries, all in black ink, no doubt made with the pen of the pen set. The top one was a reminder to telephone either Mary or Maria (the final letters were confused). The second was a note: “Confirm appt. Jul. 9.” Nothing suspicious about that, surely? The third one was a number, preceded by two letters. No difficulty about the number: 16384. To a mathematician the appearance of a prime number raised to the power of fourteen was as memorable as a rufous warbler to an ornithologist. It was the letters which he was finding it difficult to fix. The first one had been D. That was for sure. But what was the second one?

  A lorry rushed past with a clatter and a cloud of diesel smoke.

  Think.

  Ten minutes later Peter opened his eyes, looked at his watch, and shivered. A lengthy effort of concentration seemed to leave him as tired as if he had packed a day’s work into half an hour. He sat staring at the road. The long drive back over moor roads to Bridgetown seemed unattractive. Also, he had a lot of telephoning to do and he remembered the small and awkward telephone booth at the Doone Valley Hotel. Once inside, it was impossible to shut the door. The calls he had to make demanded total privacy and quiet.

  There was a signpost a few yards ahead of him. The sight of it made his mind up for him. He had his night bag in the back of the car. The Stanhope Arms in Riverton was exactly what he wanted. He hoped that old Knight would still be in charge. When his father had come down to see him at Blundell’s, he had made a point of staying at the Stanhope Arms and had had endless arguments with his host about the morality of stag-hunting. Curiously, it was Knight, the countryman, who had opposed it and Peter’s father who had supported it. Sometimes they had forgotten young Peter, sitting solemnly in a corner, and had nearly come to blows. But the evenings had always ended in alcoholic amity.

  Mr. Knight was there, and recognised Peter. “You’ve filled out a bit,” he said. “How’s your father? I hope he’s keeping well.”

  “I’m afraid not. He died last year.”

  “Did he, now? I’m sorry about that. We’ll all come to it sooner or later.”

  “I was wondering if you could fix me up with a room.”

  Mr. Knight looked doubtful and ran his finger down the register. He said, “It’s the County Agricultural. We’re all very full. However, you’re in luck. Here’s one room. Last-minute cancellation. Thirty-four. It’s in the annexe. If you wouldn’t mind looking after yourself? I’m a bit short-handed.”

  Half an hour later Peter was strolling down the High Street toward the bridge at the bottom. On his right was the flat Elizabethan frontage of Ol
d Blundell’s, with the octagonal light on the top and the letters P. B. in stone outside the gates.

  Here John Ridd had passed his schooldays, studying with reluctance, fighting with uncommon determination. Here generations of West Country worthies had sent their sons, to learn to stand up for themselves in a country which respected physical courage as the queen of all virtues. Could it be true, as the Professor had suggested, that boarding schools had gone soft and were producing boys of first-class intellectual accomplishments and no guts? Was that why the real leadership of the country was falling into the hands of men who had fought their way through the jungle of rough, ill-equipped secondary day-schools? “If the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”

  A girl passing on the pavement looked at him curiously, and he realised that he must have spoken out loud. He turned quickly to the left and hurried down the well-remembered stretch of road which led out of the town toward the new school, a mile out on the Halberton road.

  The first person he saw when he got there was a large young man who grinned, seized him by the hand, and said, “Manciple, my ex-master.”

  “Good God,” said Peter. He looked again and saw that it was not a young man but a very large and well-constructed boy. “Key Three.”

  “The very same.

  “I can’t say I should have recognised you.”

  “Well, I expect I have grown a bit in the last five years. You look almost exactly the same.”

  “I know,” said Peter. “Thin, dopey, and untidy. Your brother told me. I ran into him at Bridgetown.”

  “He said he’d met you. Come and have a word with F. B. He’s always talking about you. He says you are the only natural mathematician the school has ever turned out.”

  “He won’t want to be bothered. He’s probably up to the eyes in end-of-term reports.”

  “Nonsense,” said the boy. “He’ll never forgive me if I let you slide off without seeing him.”

  He steered Peter under the red stone tower and down the passage, through a crowd of boys who stood aside respectfully to let them through; the respect, Peter guessed, being more for his guide than for himself.

  They found Mr. French-Bisset in a deck chair on the lawn. He was completing the Guardian crossword puzzle and seemed untroubled by end-of-term reports or by anything else.

  Peter had always got on well with his housemaster, an angular bachelor with red hair, a sharp tongue, and an educated taste in claret. He jumped up, shook Peter by the hand, and said, “Now, isn’t that a nice surprise! You’ll stay to supper.”

  “Well—”

  “Of course you will. The house monitors are all having supper with me. You remember? It’s an ordeal I subject them to at the end of each summer term for the good of their characters. You’ll be able to meet them and decide how far they’ve gone downhill since your time. Bring your car round and park it in the drive.”

  “Actually, I walked up.”

  “Then you won’t want to walk all the way back again after supper. I can easily give you a bed for the night.”

  “I haven’t any things with me.”

  “My dear Peter, you’re talking to an experienced bachelor. I always keep a spare pair of pyjamas and shaving kit for people who drop in.”

  “Well—” said Peter. It was an attractive and a nostalgic idea. Also, he remembered the annexe of the Stanhope Arms, which was on the corner of the High Street and caught the full blast of the through traffic. “It’s very good of you. I shall have to do some telephoning.”

  “My study is at your disposal.”

  The first person Peter spoke to was Mr. Knight. The landlord seemed more relieved than disappointed. He said, “I’ve had two applications for that same room since you left and the third just come in. A commercial gentleman. I’ll tell him he’s lucky. No, that’s quite all right. We’ll keep an eye on your car for you. You can come and pick it up in the morning.”

  The next person he wanted was a man whom he addressed as Theo. He missed him at the British Museum, but caught him at home.

  “It’s odd about the trowels,” agreed Theo. “Are you certain?”

  “Quite certain. The ones I saw were all the same.”

  “Not welded?”

  “Not welded. Riveted. I happened to remember an article I read. It was in one of the Sunday colour supplements. Perhaps you remember it?”

  “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it was written by my boss at the B.M.”

  “It said that you had to have a special sort of trowel for archaeological work. If you used an ordinary gardening trowel, the rivets got worn flat in no time and the handle came off.”

  “If your Professor was an experienced man, it certainly sounds odd. Tell me more. What had he found?”

  “The usual sorts of things. There were a lot of pots, and some flint arrowheads – and oh, yes, archers’ wrist guards.”

  “Flat, square things with holes in the corners?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What period?”

  “I don’t know exactly what year it was. The site was thought to be a Roman magistrate’s villa with a small settlement round it.”

  “That makes it a bit difficult to understand the flint arrowheads, quite the wrong period. What about the pots?”

  “They looked genuine enough. They were a rather nice sort of orange colour with pictures on them. They were not exactly pictures. They were sort of stuck onto the clay.”

  “What were the pictures? Fights and banquets?”

  “That sort of thing.”

  “Did you happen to notice the name of the craftsman?”

  Peter thought about it. He said, “Yes. There were names on two of them. Part of a name on one. m. perren—. The rest was missing. And tigranis. That was inside a sort of wreath on the other.”

  “And you want to know if these are pots which could have been found in a West Country Roman settler’s villa?”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “I haven’t got the reference books here. I’ll have to look them up tomorrow morning. If it’s urgent, I’d better telephone you.”

  Peter gave Theo the number of the Stanhope Arms Hotel, rang off, and sat thinking for a few minutes. All right. Suppose Professor Petros was a fraud, was that fact of the least importance to his investigations? He felt, as he had done at the beginning of more routine assignments, that there were a number of uncertainties, some of which might be relevant; others would certainly be irrelevant. But the faster he cleared away their relevancies, the sharper would the truth appear.

  He dialled another number. Roger had reached his home and was relaxing with his pre-dinner drink. He listened in some astonishment to what Peter had to say.

  “Nutty as ever.”

  “Who?”

  “You are. Only you would ring me up with a question like that.”

  “It’s very important.”

  “I hope so. I charge double price for advice given out of hours. Say it again.”

  “DS 16384.”

  “It can’t be a motor-car number.”

  “I’d deduced that.”

  “Why do you suppose I’d be likely to know what it meant?”

  “Because you’re a solicitor. And I found it in a solicitor’s office.”

  “Then why didn’t you ask him what it meant?”

  “That wouldn’t have been practical.”

  “Up to your games again, are you?”

  Roger’s firm did a lot of work for Phelps, King and Troyte, and was resigned to being asked to undertake unusual investigations for them.

  “What it sounds most like,” said Roger at last, “is a Land Registry number. Where was this particular solicitor’s office?”

  “In Exeter.”

  “Well, that makes it even more likely. Because DS is the symbol for all registered titles in Devon and Somerset.”

  “Isn’t there some index, so that you can find out which property it refers to?”

  �
��There is an index. But it’s not open to the public. Only to the owner of the property and someone with legitimate reason for consulting it. An intending purchaser, someone like that.”

  “Couldn’t you pretend to be acting for a purchaser?”

  “Sooner or later you’re going to get me struck off the rolls.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage it somehow.”

  “It’ll mean someone going down to Tunbridge Wells. That’s where they keep the records.”

  “Send someone down tomorrow. Charge it to us, of course, and give me a ring at Riverton 496. It’s the Stanhope Arms. Before lunch if you can, but I’ll hang on as long as I have to.”

  “The Nelson touch,” said Roger. “Close with the enemy. Lose not an hour. And look where it got him. One arm, one eye, and a hero’s funeral.”

  Dinner that night was by candlelight. Afterward, Peter remembered the three boys who came down with Key by their appearances more than by their names. There was a big, fair boy, a small, swarthy, twinkling boy, and a thin, serious boy with glasses. To start with, they were quiet, formal rather than nervous, but a second glass of their housemaster’s claret loosened them up.

  A twist in the conversation brought it around to the question Peter had been asking himself that afternoon.

  “Softer?” said Mr. French-Bisset. “No, I don’t think that’s the right word. Boys nowadays work harder. They have to. There’s more competition for university places every year. And I think they play just as hard. The thing is, they don’t take it so seriously. When I was a boy here – that was in the forties – rugger was still a religion. Even if you weren’t good, you had to pretend to be very keen about it. Nowadays I don’t suppose a boy would actually be lynched if he said he thought it was a stupid game and he preferred something more intelligent—”

  “Like croquet,” suggested Key.

  “Croquet’s a terribly rough game,” said the dark boy. “My young sister once hit me with her mallet. I’ve still got the scar.”

  “What’s made the most difference between then and now,” said the fair boy, “is having a room to yourself.”