The Doors Open

by Michael Gilbert

  When he spoke he sounded very old.

  “You knew him,” he said. “He knew you.”

  “Yes,” said Mr Wilson, alias Watson, very gently. “Yes. We knew each other.”

  13

  The Personal Angle

  “Who the Devil is Henry Bairsted, Jenny?” said Nap, breaking off the dictation of a complicated letter on Death Duties.

  “I don’t know. Isn’t he someone Paddy keeps talking about. Some financial person–”

  “That’s it. I knew I’d heard the name.”

  “What makes you ask?”

  “I’ve had a phone message,” said Nap. “It’s from someone who got it from someone who got it from someone else, but I think it came originally from Uncle Alfred.”

  “Lord Cedarbrook?”

  “Yes. It was a bit cryptic, like most of his messages, particularly at fourth hand. But I gather he thinks it important that either Paddy or myself should attend at the Bankruptcy Court this afternoon.”

  “Is that where this Mr Bairsted is being tried?”

  “It isn’t called a trial,” said Nap, “though it amounts to about that. It’s a Public Examination in Bankruptcy. Have you ever heard one? Well, come along too, then. You can always pretend to be there on business. Take some notes or something.”

  It was glorious weather still. Nap was in his shirtsleeves and Jenny was wearing a low-cut print frock, which had caused Mr Rumbold senior – on catching sight of it in the passage that morning – to reflect that solicitors’ offices had changed since he was an articled clerk.

  Nap and Jenny had been seeing a good deal of each other during the past few weeks. In fact, ever since Hazlerigg’s warning he had taken the precaution of seeing her home in the evenings.

  And a very sensible precaution, too, thought Jenny. That’s what men were for. To look after women. And since the two of them worked in the same office, and Paddy was usually busy in the evenings and couldn’t get away, what could be more natural than that Nap should undertake this duty. Exactly and quite so.

  Jenny frowned at her shorthand notebook, and drew a pentagonal sign with three loops and a tail which stood, apparently, for “the residuary personality of the deceased”.

  The telephone rang. It was Paddy.

  “I got your message,” he said. “Look here, old boy, I can’t possibly make it. Can you get along?”

  “I think so,” said Nap. “I was just suggesting to Jenny that I’d take her along too.”

  “Splendid,” said Paddy. “You do that. I’ll try and get there towards the final curtain. What time does a thing like that finish?”

  “It all depends. I suppose they usually rise at about four.”

  ‘‘What’s it all about?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Nap. “Maybe we shall know when we get there.”

  2

  The Court in the Bankruptcy Buildings in Carey Street (there used to be two such rooms, but one of them failed to survive the Blitz), is a small, not very dignified, rectangular, yellow-plaster box. It is designed on the lines of a bearpit.

  The bankrupt stands chained, in a manner of speaking, to the stake in a small enclosure, upon which converge triple lines of benches. Apart from the short side benches, which are used by the ushers, law reporters and odd functionaries of the Court, there are three long lateral pews. In the front one sit the Counsel (there is no distinction in this court between “silk” and junior). In the second bench are the solicitors and their clerks. In the back one are the hangers-on, the law students, and the occasional members of the public who look in on this legal bear-baiting.

  When Nap arrived the proceedings had begun and were already going with a swing.

  He identified Mr Bloom, one of the Official Receivers in Bankruptcy, a large man who sported a menacing pair of pebble glasses; Mr Collinshaw, an old and extremely bitter barrister who sat on Mr Bloom’s right; and to his right again a thin barrister with a contralto voice whose name he did not know, but which turned out appropriately enough to be Tinkle.

  “Now, Mr Bairsted,” said Mr Bloom, consulting a paper on which he evidently had it all written down. “You were, I believe, for many years with Messrs Impeys, the Deptford engineering firm?”

  “That is so.”

  “You were with them a great number of years.”

  “Yes. I joined them in 1904.”

  “Then you have had over forty years experience in the manufacture of steel goods.”

  “That is not quite accurate. Until 1914 I was on the personnel side at Impeys. From that time on I have been concerned in the production and selling of commercial steel.”

  “Quite so. Why did you leave Impeys, Mr Bairsted?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that exactly. I suppose I thought that it was time I branched out on my own.”

  “But wasn’t 1944 a rather curious time to take such a step?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I mean, Mr Bairsted, with your knowledge of the commercial steel market – a knowledge which covered two European wars – were you not aware that a post-war period is a very difficult time for such an enterprise?”

  “I didn’t know when the war was going to end.”

  “You mean that you were reckoning on war contracts continuing for some time.”

  “No – yes – good Heavens, I don’t know. You have to take a chance sometimes.”

  “When you are only risking your own money, Mr Bairsted,” said the Registrar, “you may take what chances your fancy dictates. Where other people’s money is involved it is the duty of this court to see that the project you undertook had a reasonable commercial chance of succeeding, and was not one of rash and hazardous speculation.”

  “Yes. I suppose so,” said Mr Bairsted wearily.

  “If you please, your honour–?”

  “Certainly, Mr Collinshaw.”

  Counsel half rose from the bench, directed a viperish look at the box and said, “Mr Bairsted, when you took this extraordinary step to which my learned friend has just alluded – that is to say, when you left the firm with which you had been associated for so many years – was it as a result of a personal difference with the Management?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “It wasn’t because the Management had come to the conclusion that you were too old for your post and wished to move you down to one of – er – less responsibility.”

  “It was nothing of the sort – I–”

  “I see.”

  Mr Collinshaw resumed his seat.

  “It’s no good saying ‘I see’, as if you didn’t believe a word of it,” said Mr Bairsted with some spirit. “I repeat that I left Impeys of my own free will in order to start my own firm.”

  “Your remarks have been noted, Mr Bairsted,” said the Registrar.

  “Now, Mr Bairsted,” said Mr Bloom, jumping up to resume the attack, “I see here in your statement of affairs that the premises which are occupied by your firm are subject to a mortgage – quite a large mortgage. Just over eight thousand pounds, when we include unpaid interest. The lender is a Mr Symonds. Is he known to you personally?”

  “So far as I know I’ve never met him.”

  “Then how were the arrangements for the mortgage made?”

  “Through my solicitors.”

  “And they introduced you to Mr Symonds–”

  “They didn’t introduce me,” said Mr Bairsted. “I’ve just told you. I’ve never met him.”

  “I used the term in a commercial sense. Let me put it to you another way. You needed this money, and they found a client who had it. Is that right?”

  “I suppose so,” said Mr Bairsted.

  “And you subsequently gave Mr Symonds an absolute bill of sale on your trade machinery and stock, to cover a further advance of three thousand pounds.”

  “But that was later. You see I needed–”

  “One moment, please. Confine yourself to the question. Yes or No?”

  �
�Yes.”

  “So that Mr Symonds – whom you have never met – became your principal creditor, in an amount of more than eleven thousand pounds?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you stood so far in debt to a secured creditor, did it not strike you as imprudent, Mr Bairsted, to run up further large unpaid accounts – with Messrs Thomas Jamieson & Co., for instance, who supplied you with sheet metal?”

  “Everybody in the trade buys their sheet metal on credit terms.”

  “Fortunately,” said Mr Bloom, “everybody in the trade is not subject to secured debts which exactly equal their assets.”

  “I’m afraid that the matter didn’t appear to me in that light,” said Mr Bairsted.

  “Quite so,” said Mr Bloom.

  “Your Honour?”

  “Certainly, Mr Collinshaw.”

  “Mr Bairsted, you are a businessman?”

  “Yes.”

  “You understand facts and figures?”

  “I think so.”

  “You knew what your premises and fixed machinery and stock-in-trade were worth?”

  “Yes. They were valued every year for the purposes–”

  “Please. I am not talking about valuations. We all know how valuations are made. I am asking you if you knew what they were worth?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much were they worth?”

  “About eleven thousand pounds.”

  “Quite so. Your total realizable assets were worth eleven thousand pounds, and your secured debts amounted to eleven thousand pounds. In other words, your unsecured creditors – of whom my clients, Messrs Thomas Jamieson & Co., were very much the largest, could expect exactly nothing.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You said a moment ago, in answer to a question on the same point put to you by my learned friend, that the matter did not appear to you in that light. In exactly what light did the matter appear to you, Mr Bairsted?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr Bairsted. He was an old man and he looked his full age, and he looked very tired. “I don’t know. At the time that I did it, it seemed quite a natural thing. I just didn’t expect that the mortgage would be called in.”

  “This bill of sale, Mr Bloom,” said the Registrar. “It was absolute and not by way of security only.”

  “That was exactly my point, your Honour,” said Mr Bloom.

  Thereupon ensued a very learned discussion about a recent decision referred to by all concerned as “re Ginger” – a discussion which was obviously much enjoyed by Mr Bloom and Mr Collinshaw and the Registrar, and not understood very much by anyone else.

  “Now Mr Bairsted,” said Bloom, at the end of it all, “the point which his Honour has just outlined to you, I expect you realize how important it is in your case–”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t quite follow it all,” said Mr Bairsted.

  “I shall try to make it plain to you, then. This Mr Symonds, whom we have heard about, not only held a mortgage on your real property, that is to say on the land and buildings, but he had also an absolute bill of sale – not a bill by way of security only, but an absolute bill of sale on your machinery stock and other trade assets. The result of this is that they do not pass to your trustee in bankruptcy. Though to all appearances you were the owner of a prosperous business – and it was no doubt for this reason that Messrs Thomas Jamieson and other firms extended you their credit – yet in fact, in actual fact” – Mr Bloom placed an enormous forefinger on the edge of the pew and leant on it until the top joint stood backwards almost at right angles? – “you had nothing?”

  “I suppose that is so.”

  “In that event, everything has gone to this secured creditor, Mr Symonds?”

  “Yes – if you put it that way – I suppose it has.”

  “Mr Bairsted,” said Mr Bloom, “are you quite sure that you were not acquainted with Mr Symonds?”

  For some seconds Mr Bairsted did not appear to see the implications of this last question. When it got home to him, he jerked his head back as though he had been struck in the face.

  “I didn’t,” he began – “certainly I didn’t. I’ve told you. He was a complete stranger.”

  “A very accommodating stranger,” observed Mr Collinshaw.

  “Your Honour,” said Mr Tinkle, appearing to come out of a deep trance, “on behalf of my client I must object to such an insinuation.”

  “I think the suggestion is one which arises quite naturally from the evidence, Mr Tinkle,” said the Registrar.

  “Then I defer to your judgement,” said Mr Tinkle. He had already had some very rough treatment from Mr Collinshaw and had been caught out by Mr Bloom, citing the wrong section of the Bankruptcy Act.

  He subsided gratefully.

  “Now Mr Bairsted,” said the Registrar, “I should be glad if you would deal with Mr Bloom’s question.”

  “I didn’t hear any question.”

  “Then I will put it to you again. Was not your whole arrangement with Mr Symonds a collusive one?”

  “No.”

  “Is it not obvious that when you started this business, you realized that you might lose money. And that you installed your friend Mr Symonds as a convenient cover – someone who could take over the valuable assets and enable you to step out, leaving your trade creditors in the cold?”

  “Certainly not, I told you before, I have never even met Mr Symonds.”

  “And I suggest that on the face of it that is a very unlikely statement.”

  “I can’t help what you suggest,” said Mr Bairsted desperately. “It’s not true. I have never met him.”

  A middle-aged man, sitting on Nap’s left, here made a smacking noise with his lips as if he had just emptied a nice pint of draught beer. One member of the public at least was evidently relishing Mr Bairsted’s discomfort.

  “On a point of order, Mr Registrar,” said a new voice.

  A scholarly looking barrister, his rather prominent blue eyes emphasized by square-lensed glasses, had seated himself silently at the end of the front bench, on Mr Tinkle’s right. The rustle of silk proclaimed a leader. Attention had been so focused on the unhappy Mr Bairsted that no one seemed to have noticed the arrival of the newcomer.

  “Certainly, Mr Hilton-Carver,” said the Registrar. “Do you appear?”

  “Yes, your Honour. I was about to say, your Honour, that as I understand the matter – I am open to correction – Mr Symonds, who is here a secured creditor, has not entered his proof. There is, of course, no reason why he should do so. But in the circumstances it is surely not open to us to question Mr Bairsted about him. I need hardly remind the court that questions should be confined to matters which arise directly out of the statement of affairs and the claims of proving creditors.”

  “H’mm.” The Registrar evidently knew his Hilton-Carver. “I think the point is within my discretion as arising out of the Debtor’s conduct. However, Mr Bairsted in any event has denied all knowledge of Mr Symonds. There is, perhaps, no need to press the question.”

  “If you please,” said Mr Hilton-Carver. He had, in fact, achieved his objective, which was to take some of the impetus out of Mr Bloom’s assault.

  “Might I ask for whom my learned friend appears in this matter?” enquired Mr Collinshaw acidly. “I was under the impression that my clients, Messrs Jamieson and Co., were the only proving creditors.”

  “Then I am afraid my learned friend’s impression was an erroneous one,” said Mr Hilton-Carver courteously. “I represent Messrs Jeffereys, who have proved for a small account rendered of twenty-three pounds, and I hold a watching brief for Office Cleaners Limited, seventeen pounds three shillings, and the Fluorescent and Incandescent Overhead Lighting Corporation, twelve pounds eighteen and fourpence.”

  “I stand corrected,” said Mr Collingshaw. “I should have said that I represented the only substantial proving creditor.”

  “As to the substance of your clients,” said Mr Hilton-Carver smoothly, “there
can of course be no question.”

  The Court were still working this one out when the Registrar intervened.

  “We are out of order,” he said. “Mr Bloom, if you please.”

  Mr Bloom picked up his papers and continued his examination. It was noticeable, however, that a good deal of animosity had gone out of his voice. It was all right, thought Nap, for him to bully old Bairsted when he only had Tinkle up against him, but it was rather a different proposition under the eye of Hilton-Carver who was not only a personal friend of the Chancellor, but was notoriously a snip for the Bench himself at next reshuffle.

  Why a leader of his eminence should be in the Bankruptcy Court at all, let alone representing three creditors whose total debts would hardly have sufficed to cover his brief for a morning’s work, was just one further puzzle in a puzzling business.

  At this moment Nap became aware that someone had sat down beside him, and looking up he saw Lord Cedarbrook. His Lordship looked remarkably fit and wore the smile of a successful impresario.

  Nap was not certain whether he was intended to know his uncle or not. Since Lord Cedarbrook took no notice of him he decided that probably he wasn’t.

  Mr Hilton-Carver was now on his feet.

  “Mr Bairsted, there is one point in connection with these proceedings that I am far from clear about. When the mysterious Mr Symonds entered into his arrangement with you, by which he was to lend you eight thousand pounds on a mortgage of your business premises, was this mortgage intended to be a permanent one?”

  “I thought so,” said Mr Bairsted.

  “Was anything said about this?”

  “Not in writing. No. But I understood that it was to be a long-term arrangement.”

  “And were your premises valued for the purpose of this loan?”

  “Yes, of course. By Messrs Garney & Percy.”

  “And what was the valuation figure?”

  “Eight thousand pounds.”

  “Really! And did it not strike you as remarkable that a businessman – I suppose Mr Symonds was a businessman – should be prepared to lend you up to the whole of the valuation.”