‘That’s true,’ agreed Smith. ‘I can tell you something, though. If ever I do get to be in charge, I’m going to have the security on this place tightened up. It was sinful to see how easy it was to break in.’
‘To be fair,’ said Jack, ‘we didn’t exactly break in. You simply opened the main door with your key.’
‘We had to break in here, didn’t we? If we were caught fooling around in Mr Hunt’s office, the fat really would be in the fire.’
‘I wouldn’t call it breaking in,’ said the Scotland Yard expert. He was a short, stout man with a drooping moustache and lugubrious face who, with his bowler hat, black coat and striped trousers resembled a bank manager who was, albeit regretfully, about to foreclose on the mortgage.
Bill had introduced him as one of the best men with a lock in London. Jack, who had expected a reformed old lag, had been rather overawed by his intense respectability. His name was Hubert Brockbridge and he had, until his retirement, installed safes in the City of London.
‘Breaking in means there’s been something broken. A blindfolded child with a stick of Plasticine could have opened that door. I hope, sirs, you will be able to produce something more worthy of my talents.’
‘We’ll see what we can do,’ promised Jack. ‘Merry, don’t waste time fooling around with the desk. Whatever we’re after won’t be so easy to find. My guess is that Frederick Hunt has a private safe hidden somewhere in this room.’
He looked along the wall, then peered behind an oleograph. It showed an idealized picture of the factory entitled Hunt Coffee, Limited; The New Model Works At Southwark, which had appeared, in miniature, on millions of bottles of Royale Coffee. ‘Nothing there.’
Mr Brockbridge stood expectantly in the centre of the room, rather like a stout fox-terrier trying to locate a scent. Then he dropped to his knees and rolled back the carpet which covered the middle of the floor, exposing a rectangle of wood with two recessed handles, flush with the oilcloth-covered floorboards.
Mr Brockbridge lifted out the rectangle. Underneath was a safe. ‘Here you are, gentlemen.’ The moustache lifted in a mournful smile. ‘Now this is very nice indeed. The gentleman obviously spent some money having it fitted.’ He stroked his moustache. ‘It’s a Hobbs and Hart ten-lever protector. A lovely lock.’
‘Can you open it?’ asked Jack.
Mr Brockbridge didn’t deign to answer, but, taking off his coat and laying it carefully on a chair, set to work. Metal scraped on metal; a tiny sound, but huge in that quiet room. After seven and a half minutes, Mr Brockbridge gave a sigh of satisfaction and turned the sunken handle of the safe. Without a sound from the well-oiled hinges, he swung back the door. Then, with the contented air of a job well done, he stood to one side.
The contents of the safe didn’t, at first glance, seem very exciting. There was a bank book in the name of Clive Harwell for the Banco do Commercio, São Paulo, Brazil, and another, also in the name of Clive Harwell, for the Capital and Shires, Lombard Street, London. A thin file of bank statements lay underneath and beside them were a number of letters, all with Brazilian stamps. An account book and a sales ledger lay in a separate compartment.
Meredith Smith picked up the books and took them to the desk, carefully staying out of sight both of the window and the door. After a few minutes, he gave a grunt of surprise and quickly picked up the letters, skimming through them until he found the one he wanted. He read it quickly, then referred back first to the sales ledger, then to the account book.
‘What’ve you found?’ asked Jack, unable to keep quiet any longer.
Smith waved him silent, running his finger down the accounts. He shut the book with great deliberation and steepled his fingers in front of him. ‘Swine,’ he said softly. ‘What a thieving swine.’
‘It’s a very simple but effective fraud,’ Meredith Smith said to Bill.
They had carefully replaced everything back in the hidden safe and were now in Bill’s office. They had Hubert Brockbridge’s assurance that no one could tell the safe had been opened.
‘It would need meticulous stocktaking to discover the fraud,’ continued Smith, ‘and even then it could probably be disguised as being due to the vagaries of the Brazilian commodity exchange.’
‘How does it work?’ asked Bill.
‘Like this. Hunt Coffee, London, pay the manager of the plantation in Branca Preto a fixed sum for coffee. For the last eighteen months it’s stood at one hundred and fifty-four shillings a hundredweight. If you tried to buy coffee of that quality on the open market you’d be looking at a price of around one hundred and seventy-one shillings a hundredweight, so the saving seems obvious. However, in a way we’re victims of our own success. The plantation doesn’t produce anything like enough to meet our needs, so we’re forced to use the plantation coffee as the main supply and bulk it up by buying coffee on the Brazilian commodity exchange, supplemented by occasional purchases from the London spot market. That is, naturally, more expensive. Now the London purchases are handled in London, but the additional Brazilian purchases are met by the sending of an additional monthly sum to Brazil which, to get the quality we were after, and disallowing the processing and shipping charges, usually works out about one hundred and fifty-nine shillings the hundredweight.’
Smith lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully for a couple of moments. ‘The production figures for the plantation were falsified, so it seemed to be growing far less than it actually was, and we supposedly bought in coffee from other producers at the higher price. In fact, a great deal of the coffee that was meant to have been purchased from other producers was grown on our own plantation. What was bought seems to have been pretty low-grade stuff compared to our premium coffees, and should only have attracted a gross price of one hundred and thirty-one shillings or thereabouts. Frederick Hunt sent the additional payments to the plantation and the plantation manager would be richly in pocket. The manager would keep a chunk of the extra money for himself – it works out at about thirty per cent – and pay the remaining seventy per cent into the bank account of one Clive Harwell in Brazil. Clive Harwell in turn transfers money to his account with the Capital and Shires of Lombard Street. I don’t need to tell you that Frederick Hunt and Clive Harwell are one and the same. It says as much in one of the letters.’
Bill whistled. ‘How come none of this has ever shown up in the official accounts?’
‘There’s nothing to show up in the accounts. All the coffee imported has been duly taxed and paid for. The fact the plantation’s purchase ledger has been falsified to record more purchases than were actually made isn’t something that you can work out from the amount of coffee received in London. The number of sacks received tallies with what the plantation says it dispatched. The fact that the provenance of the coffee in those sacks isn’t as officially recorded and they contain an inferior grade to what they purport to contain, isn’t something an accountant is going to find out. If Frederick Hunt, the Great White Chief, is happy with the quality, who’s going to contradict him? Meanwhile he’s got a thumping great sum of untaxed money in the bank. But Mark Helston was unhappy and so was H.R.H.’
Bill nodded. ‘Valdez would be a knowing partner, of course.’
‘Valdez and the current plantation manager, De Oliveria. There’s just a chance that Laurence Tyrell, when he looked after the place as John Marsden, might not have been in on it. He was only a caretaker manager, after all. Unless you can find evidence to the contrary, I think we’ll have to give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Yes . . . So old Mr Hunt was right. Frederick Hunt is a crook.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Smith. ‘Poor old H.R.H. obviously suspected him and paid the price. I think Jaggard might be innocent after all, Jack. If Valdez had pressed for more money and Helston rumbled it, Hunt could have seen them off too.’
‘This answers a lot of questions, that’s for sure,’ said Bill. ‘You’re certain everything in Frederick Hunt’s office is just as you found it?�
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‘Certain.’
‘Good. By the time Mr Hunt arrives at work tomorrow he should find an unpleasant surprise waiting for him.’ He laced his fingers together and cracked them with a noise that made Jack wince. ‘I must say I’m looking forward to this.’
Meredith Smith rose to his feet. ‘I won’t say I’m looking forward to it, but it’ll be a real challenge to get Hunt Coffee up to scratch again.’
Jack looked at Meredith and grinned. ‘D’you know, for a moment you looked exactly like H.R.H.’
‘Did I? There’s worse people in the world to take after. I’m going to get along now, Jack. Are you coming?’
‘No. I’m expecting a bloke from the Blue Star shipping line to pay a call.’ He looked at his watch. ‘He should be here soon. I left word he was to ask for you, Bill. Your name and title has a reassuringly official ring to it.’
A knock sounded at the door and a sergeant entered. ‘There’s a Mr Michael Lovell to see you, sir.’
Rackham got to his feet as a nervous-looking man was ushered into the room, twisting his cap in his hands. Jack swung himself off the window and advanced with a smile.
‘Mr Lovell? It’s very good of you to call. This is Inspector Rackham and I’m Major Haldean. We’re sorry to cut into your Sunday like this, but we’d appreciate your help. Won’t you sit down?’
Lovell shifted from foot to foot. ‘I had a message from the office that you wanted me. I hope you don’t think as I’ve done anything wrong.’
‘Not at all,’ Jack reassured him. ‘Mr Lovell, I’d like you to cast your mind back to January. You were a steward on board the S.S. Albion Star, weren’t you?’
Lovell relaxed and took the chair which Jack had pulled out for him. ‘Indeed I was, sir. I was on B deck.’
‘Good. Now, Mr Lovell, I know you had certain passengers to look after. Can you tell us if any of these men was among them?’
Lovell took the photographs Jack handed to him. ‘It’s some months ago now, sir. Mind you, you get to know the passengers quite well, especially on a long voyage . . . That’s him!’ He tapped the photograph on the desk. ‘That’s one of my gentlemen. Now, what was his name . . .’
Jack took the photographs back with a broad grin. ‘Don’t worry about the name, Mr Lovell. We’ll supply that. Thank you very much for coming. I’ll see you to the door.’
When he stepped back into the room, he found Bill gazing at the photograph with satisfaction. ‘Got him,’ he breathed.
‘I hope so,’ said Jack.
At quarter to ten the next morning, Frederick Hunt’s chauffeur drove the great Wolseley through the gates of the factory, past the humble rows of bicycles outside the entrance to the works, round the corner of the office building and nosed the car into the six-foot by twelve-foot spot sacred to the director of this temple of industry. Parking the car, he stepped smartly round to the side and opened the door.
Frederick Hunt got out, briefcase and neatly furled umbrella in hand. ‘That will be all, Pearson. Please be here at . . .’
He stopped, dumbfounded. Agnes Clement, his confidential clerk, wild eyed and with hair escaping from her bun, rushed up to him and actually grabbed him by the arm.
‘Mr Hunt! Mr Hunt! The police! They’re in the building waiting for you, Mr Hunt! They’ve taken the papers from your private safe.’
She waited for reassurance, but with a jolt of horror saw his face crumple and change to become a mask of stark fear. ‘Mr Hunt? It’s all a mistake, isn’t it, Mr Hunt?’
He tried to speak, opening and shutting his mouth foolishly. Then he seized on the inessential. ‘How d’you know about my safe?’
‘I’ve seen you use it, sir. Mr Hunt! You must explain to them. Tell them it’s all a misunderstanding.’
She was standing between him and the car door. With a sweep of his arm he thrust her to one side and made a leap for the Wolseley. ‘Drive, Pearson, damn you, drive!’
Open mouthed, the chauffeur mechanically stepped towards the car, then stopped at the sight of Miss Clement, sprawling in the dirt.
Hunt shook him by the shoulder, his face inches away. ‘Never mind her! Drive, I tell you!’
There was the blast of a police whistle and round the corner came the sound of thudding feet. Agnes Clement set up a long, wailing shriek. ‘Mr Hunt! Stop!’
With a vicious jerk, he kicked away her grasping hands and, jumping over her body, ran towards the factory gates. There were policemen barring the exit. Hunt, hearing the sound of his pursuers close on his heels, veered off into the only bolthole left to him, the huge open doors of the factory itself.
Heart pounding, feet slipping on the tiled floor, he ran blindly into the bottling department.
Above the clang and clash of thousands of rattling bottles and great whooshes of steam from the sterilizing plant, he heard the repeated shriek of police whistles. A khaki-overalled figure reached out an arm. He lashed out with the umbrella he was still absurdly holding, sending the man crashing into a crate of stacked bottles.
They overturned in a deafening smash, sending loose bottles rolling over the tiles. Tripping and falling, he crawled along the floor, twisting out from under the clutching hands. Then he was on his feet once more, running with sweat filling his eyes, regardless of shouts and whistles, hitting out at everything in his way. He fell against the wall, and dimly saw a door a few yards away. With bursting lungs he staggered, then fell against it. It opened and he lunged through, slamming it shut behind him.
The corridor was oddly quiet. Leaning against the door, breath coming in huge gulps, he heard the shouts from the other side. A tiny flicker of thought took root in the blind panic that swamped him.
This corridor ran the length of the factory and then to the outside, didn’t it? His insides twisted as he remembered the policeman at the gate. There would be more men there now . . . Wait! Across the open yard at the back lay the warehouse.
If he could get in there, then he could make his way out of the back doors, onto the wharf where the barges unloaded. Perhaps he could escape along the towpath or even hide on a barge. They wouldn’t look for him on a barge. After that, all he had to do was to get back home, collect some money and his passport and get away to Brazil. He had money in Brazil . . . He’d squeeze something out of De Oliveria and he had his account in São Paulo. He’d do it yet.
Very cautiously, he started to walk forward. Then the door behind him was flung back, the noise of the factory swelled, and there was a cry of ‘He’s here!’
With a sob, he forced his aching muscles to run. The sun streamed through the door at the end. He made it, got out into the yard, dodging round buildings, intent on the black hole that was the warehouse doors in front of him. More whistles blew and he flung up his arm as if to ward off a physical blow.
He hurled himself into the warehouse, a dusty, aromatic place with sacks of coffee piled up on pallets to the roof.
He dived amongst the pallets, trying to find a way between the narrow alleys of brown jute walls. He could hear footsteps and voices. ‘He’s trapped now, good and proper,’ said one.
He shrank back behind a great mound of coffee sacks, creeping round until he was in the dark passage between the sacks and the wall. Trapped, was he? He put a hand to his mouth to shield his laboured breathing. He’d show them. Had they heard him? His gasping must give him away. The footsteps were getting closer. He was trapped. He looked round wildly.
The warehouse was dark and he couldn’t see the doors to the river. What he could see, between a narrow passage of coffee sacks, was a ladder leading up into the dim recesses of the roof. Perhaps he could hide in the roof. The ladder must lead somewhere. Putting down his umbrella, he crept forward, treading as quietly as he could.
The sound of footsteps was muffled by the walls of coffee. He couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Sick with fear, he made it to the ladder and started up the rungs. Above him was the box of a cabin with a trapdoor in the floor. If he could make
it to the box, then he could hide until this nightmare stopped.
Wheezing with effort, he pulled himself through the trapdoor. Exhausted, he lay sprawled on the wooden boards, dizzy with effort and fright. Gradually his breathing slowed and he realized where he was.
It was the crane! Raising himself to his hands and knees, he crawled towards the crane driver’s seat. In front of him was a set of controls that looked like the gear lever of a car and, stretching out from the crane, a long wooden arm.
There was a sort of shuffling silence from the warehouse below. Still on his knees, he risked a glance over the side of the cabin.
A shout rang out. ‘There he is!’
He fell back, knocking the controls, and, with a creaking noise, the great wooden arm rose upwards. Amidst his panic, the glimmer of a plan came to him. He seized the controls and yanked them hard. The wooden arm moved left, then right. He pulled the levers feverishly, sending the arm rocking first one way, then another, building up speed until the cabin swayed sickeningly under the strain.
There were sacks of coffee attached to the massive hook and, laughing wildly, he brought the arm, hook and sacks round in a huge destructive arc, crashing into the towering walls of jute surrounding him. The crane cracked and splintered, hurling him out onto the falling mass of sacks.
With a soft whispering that turned to a roar, the sacks slid, bumped and thundered off the pallet. The pile caught another, and another, and across the entire warehouse, tons of coffee cascaded to the floor.
‘Look out!’ yelled Jack, jumping back, pulling Bill with him. They missed the avalanche by inches, coughing in the thick wall of dust that mushroomed up. The noise of the falling sacks seemed to go on forever, followed by an eerie silence. On his hands and knees and spluttering in the choking cloud, he caught the faint sound of coughing from beyond the fallen mound of sacks.
Jack got to his feet gingerly. The stinging dust was like the worst of London fogs, but, very gradually, it started to settle. He pulled out his handkerchief and wrapped it round his mouth. A vague shape moved beside him. It was Bill. He tried to speak, but the attempt ended in a barking cough.
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