Inside Front Cover:
Rowton had been managing the family business of Truscotts till Roger Truscott came of age. Roger has a younger brother, Cyril, who is a rotter and up at Oxford. Rowton is in league with a rascally auditor called Boddington, and tells the Truscotts that the business has been doing badly and another firm has offered them £30,000 for their shares, which he advises them to take. Roger refuses, but Cyril wants the cash. A few days later, after leaving Rowton's office together, Cyril is found shot and Roger accused of the murder of his brother.
An inspector, a young solicitor and an attractive typist in the auditor's office all play their parts in a thrilling tale which includes a convincing police-court scene and has a commercial background, which is portrayed with a sure hand.
This is a work of fiction, and all characters in the book are drawn from the author's imagination. If any names or titles belonging to living persons have been used, this has been done inadvertently and no reference to such person or persons is intended.
CHAPTER I
MR. ROWTON, sole director of Truscott & Rowton, Ltd. (Hydraulic Engineers and Contractors, London and Liverpool), sat at the broad desk of his private office, and looked across at the young man who had come of age only a week before, and who now held a controlling interest in the firm.
Ellis Rowton was a man of fifty, heavily made, with pale intelligent eyes, and a fringe of greyish-yellow hair round the bald expanse of a large head. He had a heavy jaw that had been square once and was fleshy now, but still showed the driving force which had brought him, seventeen years ago, to the place where he now sat.
Roger Truscott, who faced him, was a slim young man of quiet aspect, of whom it was easy to guess that his college triumphs had been achieved in the study rather than upon the field or river. He seemed self-possessed, but may have been more nervous than he allowed himself to appear.
"I would tell you," Ellis Rowton was saying, in the manner of a captain who will not boast overmuch of the storms through which he has steered to a quiet port, "that we have come through some very difficult years. There have been times when I have feared that I might be less than equal to the trust which your father gave me seventeen years ago . . . But I am glad to say that I have not entirely failed."
"I expect," Roger replied, "that we" (he spoke for his younger brother and himself) "owe you great deal for the ability with which you have carried the business on. . . . I suppose it is doing all right now?"
Mr. Rowton hesitated in his reply. "It is that," he said, "about which I have been anxious to see you. . . . There is, of course, no cause for alarm. We are solvent enough, even now . . . But the lack of capital, resulting from the losses of earlier years, is a very great embarrassment . . . Two years ago, we had an offer of amagamation - in fact, of an outright purchase of the shares in this business - which, in your interest, I should have liked to accept. But I found that there was no power to do so, until you should come of age. . . . With some difficulty, I have kept the offer open. . . It is not as favourable now as it would have been then. We cannot expect that. But it is still one that I feel we ought to accept. . . . In a word, it would give you and your brother immediate control of £30,000 - £15,000 each."
However startled the young man may have been at hearing this proposal on his first visit to the business his father had founded, and of which he now had the right to take at least partial control he gave little sign of these thoughts.
"You mean," he said, "that there is an offer to buy us all out at five shillings a share?"
"Yes, that's just it."
"And you think it will be wise to accept?"
"Yes. It's a safe way out. . . . We haven't averaged two per cent profit in the last ten years, and last year we were a little on the wrong side. . . . Not much, but more than it was healthy to see."
"I suppose we needn't decide at once?"
"Not exactly. The offer's open till the 15 th April - that's twelve days from now. After that, it can be withdrawn by notice at any time."
"It doesn't seem long. . . . You see," Roger added, almost apologetically, "it wasn't quite what I expected to hear."
"Well, we're not bound to accept. But I thought I ought to tell you at once. . . . It might have been a good bit worse than it is."
"Yes, I suppose so. Yes, of course. But it's rather a shock at first." He rose up, as though to go.
Mr. Rowton rose also. He said: "If you'd care to have lunch with me, I'll explain how matters stand as well as I can. But, of course, you'll go into them for yourself."
They went out together.
CHAPTER II
IT was nearly two hours later when they returned. Mr. Rowton entered his office by a private door, explaining as he did so that he preferred that the staff should not always be aware of his periods of absence. "They never know for sure," he said, "whether I'm here or not, unless they knock at the door, and if they do that they've got to have a good reason - and I can see how things are going on in the main office at any time."
He stepped to a small sliding panel, which he drew back, giving a view of more than a dozen clerks seated along a double row of high polished mahogany desks, and of two glass-partitioned offices for the heads of the staff at the further end of the room.
"James," he called out, in a sharp peremptory voice, "I'm ready for the afternoon's mail."
The next moment there was a knock on the door, and a boy entered bringing a wire basket piled with letters. Behind him, a shabby, elderly, thin-nosed man, with a slight stoop, approached to enter, and then paused.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "I didn't know you were engaged."
"This, Menzies, is Mr. Truscott - one of our two largest shareholders. . . . What is it you want now?" And then, as Menzies still hesitated, he added impatiently: "Go ahead, man. We've no secrets here."
"It's about Thornton's cash, sir. There's no doubt of what's been happening. In fact, he's owned up."
A look of annoyance crossed Mr. Rowton's face, and was quickly smoothed away.
"Oh that," he said. "You were quite right to tell me at once. I'm glad he's had the sense to confess. It saves trouble all round."
He turned to Roger Truscott to explain: "It's one of those things that will happen at times in the best managed firms. But it was foolish to try it here. Our system's too good. . . . Just a case of dishonesty on the part of the clerk who has charge of the wages sheets. . . . Not a large amount, I'm thankful to say. . . . A man who's been with us for twenty years, too. One we should have been able to trust. . . . You'd better send him in to me, Menzies. . . . Mr. Truscott is just going."
It was not a remark which Roger had any cause to resent. He had said, ten minutes ago, that he had an engagement for the afternoon, and would only come back to pick up a book he had left. But now he altered his mind.
He had learnt something during the last hour of the man on whose advice he must so largely depend. Perhaps he felt that if he should stay now he would learn more. Perhaps he was attracted by the opportunity of experience in the new drama of life, on the threshold of which he stood. He said: "I don't know that I need go yet. But have him in, all the same. I don't want to hinder you."
Mr. Rowton looked hesitant for a second, and then said: "Oh, of course, if you like to stay."
A minute later there was a knock at the door, and a clerk entered of about Menzies' age and figure, and with the same neat shabbiness of attire. He had normally the undistinguished features of a man without imagination or originality: one of those who appear to have been designed by Nature for subordinate positions and routine work. It might be postulated with certainty that in all he did he would be accurate, precise and timid. Dishonesty, in any form, would be an improbable prophecy. Now, as he faced his employer, without apparent observation of the younger man, who had stood somewhat aside, near the private door, he had the look of a frightened dog.
Mr. Rowton surveyed him with a cold and contemptuous severity. "Thornton," he said, "you're about the last man I'd have suspected of this. But I'm glad to hear you're making a clean breast of it now. How much have you had?"
"It was £27, sir, but -"
Mr. Rowton, glancing down at a sheet of figures upon his desk, interrupted sharply.
"£27! - that's more than I've got here."
"I'd paid back £4. 3s. od. up to last week, sir. If I'd had time -"
"You mean you thought you'd pay it back without anything being found out?"
The smile with which Mr. Rowton asked this question was of an unfriendly derision, but it seemed to give some increase of confidence to the culprit before him. Perhaps it was not going to be so bad after all?
"Yes, sir," he said. "I had hoped to pay it back before any irregularity would be observed. After twenty-two years, sir, and not a shilling wrong all that time. Not a mistake, sir, from year to year. I daresay you can guess how I felt. . . . But if it's not too much to ask that you'll overlook it this once, sir, I'll get it square before Christmas." He looked at his employer's expressionless face, and added eagerly: "I would that, indeed, sir. You can't imagine what a relief it would be. . . . I've hardly slept for the last six weeks."
"Now, Thornton," Mr. Rowton said, with the severity which a man may deserve who demonstrates that, having been a knave already, he must add folly to his offence, "you know it's no use talking like that. You've made your bed, and you've got to lie on it. You've done quite right to confess - though I don't suppose you had much choice about that. I expect Menzies got you too tight - and I don't say we won't ask for a certain measure of leniency when the case comes on; but you know I've a duty to do, a duty to the public and the firm. If I let it be understood that the firm's money was here for everyone to take if they could, and they'd only have to pay it back in the next six months if they got found out - Why, you must see for yourself!"
Roger, looking on, saw the flicker of hope go out of the man's eyes, but he was fighting for all that he was and had, for position and home, for wife and children, for the narrow respectability and meagre comforts that might have been his during his remaining years, if a moment's folly (difficult for his own belief) had not thrown him into this pit which threatened ruin, the unmeasured shame of a jail, the shadow of unemployment beyond, and the likely end of a pauper's grave.
"Yes, sir," he said, "I see that. I know how wrong it was, and I can't say how sorry I am. But if you could overlook it just this once. . . . You see, sir, I've been here all my life. I couldn't have thought it possible I should do such a thing myself, and I'd always meant to pay it back. I'm not, sir - I'm not really a thief. If you'd let me tell you just how it happened "
"No, Thornton, I'm afraid I can't. The tale's always about the same, and there's no excuse. . . . And, besides, it's not a matter for me to decide. You can tell all that in the right place and at the right time, and you can be quite sure it'll get heard. . . . I've got a lot to get through this afternoon. I'm bound to give you in charge, and it's no use dragging it out like this. . . . I expect you'll get bail without much trouble. But that's your business. They'll tell you at the station how to go about that."
"Suppose, sir, I could find the money within a - within a week?"
"I'm sorry, Thornton, but it's no use. It's hard on you, of course, but it's a bit late to think about that. It's worse in your position than if you'd been one of the juniors." He touched the bell as he spoke.
Roger interrupted for the first time. "How could you get the money within a week?"
The man was obviously surprised at the question, and the direction from which it came. Till that moment he had not noticed that Roger was there. It had the effect of checking a final outbreak of emotional appeal, which the next second would have brought. He did not know who Roger might be, nor that he could have any power to come to his aid. He saw a young man, plainly not of the business world, very scrupulously dressed and groomed, and wearing the tie of a famous college, whose glance upon him was gravely aloof, as was the tone of his voice. It was not a reasonable supposition that he would have either the will or the power to avert the doom which had just been spoken. But - any port when the storm breaks!
"I could," he began. He had to improvise something, for he had no clear idea of how the money would be raised when he had offered it first. He had been merely fighting for time. "We could sell up the home. It ought to fetch more than that. . . . I'd have done it before, only I daren't let the wife know the trouble I'm in.
"Would that be the only way?"
"Yes, sir. I don't see how else I could find it within a week." (How could he say that he had a wild hope that, when his trouble was known throughout the office, as he had supposed it would be in the next hour, there might be sufficient sympathy to raise the required sum by a subscription among the staff?)
Mr. Rowton had given no attention to this conversation. He had told the boy who answered his summons to ask Mr. Menzies to step in, and that individual, who had not been far distant, was already entering the door.
Roger turned to Mr. Rowton before he could give the instructions he had intended. "Could we have a word about this in private. . . . If you'd tell them to step outside for a moment?"
Mr. Rowton stared somewhat at this request, at which he was less than pleased. But he had good reasons for wishing to conciliate Roger, and he was too adroit to risk an argument in the presence of his subordinates.
"Menzies," he said curtly, "step outside with Thornton, and wait by the door till I call you back."
The two men went out together, and Roger said, as the door closed upon them: "I hope you won't think that I'm wanting to interfere. But I just wondered whether this was the first time that Thornton's gone wrong."
"The first time? I should say it is! I hope you don't think we keep men on here who have a habit of putting their hands in the till. . . . It's only the second time we've had anything of the kind in the last ten years - and it was a boy then that we'd just put on."
"Then I don't think we ought to let him sell up his home."
It seemed to Roger, vaguely imagining the catastrophe which would suddenly shatter the humble stability of the man's unsuspecting household, that it was an intolerable and needless consequence of a less momentous irregularity, which was already regretted, and, in any event, belonged to the unchangeable past. Why augment the wrong with a further, and quite avoidable evil?
Mr. Rowton stared in a moment's genuine difficulty of comprehension. "Sell up his home? I don't know that he will. Anyway, he's made his bed, as I pointed out. The more fool he, after all these years, and a safe £6 a week, till he'd have got pensioned off more likely than not. . . . You mean, he'll have a stiff fine? I daresay you're right. They won't jail him, being the first time. Not if he gets a good lawyer to tread on the soft pedal. . . . Of course, there'll be him to pay."
"I didn't mean that. I thought we might drop the idea of prosecuting. But I didn't like the man selling his things to pay the money back all at once. The firm can't be so badly off that it matters that much to us. . . . Anyway, I thought I'd find it myself rather than that."
"It isn't a question of the amount. It's the principle, and the example we have to consider. . . . I think you'd better leave this to me. A man who behaves like that often gets more sympathy than he deserves."
"I daresay he does. . . . He looked rather a rat. . . . But I'd rather pay it for him, if you don't mind, and give him another chance."
"You don't suggest that we should keep him on?"
There was an amazement in Mr. Rowton's voice which caused a doubt to rise in the mind of the younger man. Was he showing himself to be no more than an utter fool? But there was in him a vein of obstinacy, a core of reliance upon his own judgement, beneath his quiet exterior, which would not lightly give way.
"I don't see why not. He wouldn't be foolish enough to do such a thing again, after the fright he's had now. . . . And if you sack him, I don't see how he'd get another job. I shouldn't think it would be easy to do."
Mr. Rowton listened with a rather grim look on an otherwise expressionless face. He cursed inwardly that he should be opposed in the act of public discipline that the occasion required. But he had no intention of quarrelling with Roger Truscott over so indifferent a matter, when there were so much larger issues at stake. He found time to reflect that this exhibition of unpractical altruism might indicate a character which would oppose no difficult opposition to certain plans in his own mind. It was at least sure that Roger Truscott was unsuited to business life!
But it was equally clear to him that it must not be known throughout the staff that he had condoned embezzlement and falsification of accounts.
"Well," he said, "there's only one way to do that. "He went to the door, and called in the two who had stood silently waiting without.
"Menzies," he said, "you did quite rightly to bring this matter to my attention. Thornton had behaved very foolishly in not explaining the way in which he was dealing with the adjustments which have led our auditors, quite naturally, to assume that irregularities were occurring in his accounts, but he may have felt that his length of service with us, and the position of trust which he has held for so many years, exempted him from the necessity of reporting to me, or any possibility of suspicion attaching to himself.
"Thornton," he went on, "while I wish Menzies to understand that I accept your explanation, and that you leave this room completely exonerated, you must realise that you have nothing but your own folly to blame for any annoyance that you have experienced today.
"Menzies, if any rumour of this investigation has spread in the office, I rely upon you to contradict it absolutely. Thornton has the entire confidence of the firm."
Menzies said: "Yes, sir," to that. He was a much puzzled man. Thornton, who could have been no less puzzled, had the sense to say nothing at all.
Mr. Rowton added: "You can go now." But as they were racing out he called: "Just a moment, Thornton."
The man stood, when Menzies had gone, in a bewildered uncertainty. He would have broken out next moment into expressions of gratitude, which he yet felt might not be appropriate to the occasion. He could not understand what his fate was intended to be.
Mr. Rowton understood what was going on in his mind, and dealt with the position with the abruptness which he felt it required.
"I don't want to hear anything more from you," he said, in his hardest voice. "Not a word. You will not repay the money. We cannot allow such incidents to be condoned in that way. You will transfer it to the Special Expenses Account. I'll explain to Boddington about that. You'll give no explanation, and say nothing to anyone. If you do, you'll leave in the next hour. And if you want to keep your job from now on, you'll keep straight to the last inch. . . . Now go."
The man did literally as he was told, going without a word.
Mr. Rowton turned to his companion. "Well," he said, with as much geniality as he could bring to his voice, "that's the afternoon's work, and he can think he's a lucky man. . . . By the way, you heard me mention Boddington -he's our auditor. Had that office for ten years past. You might like to see him, and get the firm's position from an independent angle. He'll tell you how he'd value the shares in his own way. I don't want you only to listen to me. You'd better have the address."
He scribbled it on a memorandum pad on his desk, and tore off the slip.
"Thanks," Roger said, "I'll give him a call tomorrow."
He left, feeling some satisfaction in what he had been able to do. He supposed that the way in which Mr. Rowton would have dealt with the dishonesty of a trusted servant was that which most business men would approve. Perhaps he owed him some thanks for the readiness with which his own wishes had been allowed to prevail. After all, at the moment, he had no claim to override the Managing Director's discretion on such a point. He had the right to claim a seat on the Board (as had his brother also when he should come of age eighteen months later). That right must be exercised within three months, if at all. At present, Mr. Rowton was the sole director in office. Together, he and his brother could ultimately control the business. They held four-fifths of the shares, the whole voting power of which was now in his hands till his brother should come of age.
But unless, or until, he should claim a seat on the Board, he had no right to interfere in the management of the business, and he saw that some men in Rowton's position might have resented his interposition, which, he was also conscious, there would be many to condemn, as no better in itself than a sentimental folly.
Yet he did not feel any gratitude. He had had his way, but he did not like the method which Mr. Rowton had felt appropriate to the occasion. More seriously, he was disturbed by the proposal that he should sell out of the business, with all the detailed reasons to which he had listened during the luncheon hour.
Yet he saw that it was not reasonable to suppose that his inexperience would be successful in a struggle which appeared to be overpowering all but the most able and resourceful men in the trade - and they with far larger reserves of capital than he could hope to control.
But he had spent the last five years in anticipating the day when he would be able to take his father's position in the firm, and in the pursuit of such studies as would fit him therefor. . . . He had had no previous hint of difficulty, or impending disaster. His liberal allowance had always been regularly paid. It was hard for him to adjust his mind so suddenly to a different outlook.
Yet the very proficiency he had gained in the principles of commerce and finance, so far as they can be theoretically learned, had enabled him to understand the explanations which had been given to him far better than he could otherwise have done - better, indeed, than Rowton had supposed that he would be able to do. And they had impressed him in the way that had been designed, for they had been very capably put.
. . . Well, he would see Mr. Boddington tomorrow - and he would delay writing to Cyril till after that.
CHAPTER III
THE next morning, Roger went to see Mr. Boddington.
The offices of Bagley & Co., Chartered Accountants, of which Mr. Boddington was the sole surviving partner, occupied the upper portion of No. 15 Duckling Street, which is one of those narrow byways, little more than an alley, which are still common in the city precincts.
The building had not been found adaptable for the insertion of a lift in its ancient structure, and Roger climbed three flights of gloomy, circular, wooden stairs before reaching the floor he sought.
The offices which he entered were as drab and shabby as their approach, but it was with a shabbiness too sure of itself to be careful of what it wore. He looked across a stained and battered counter to a room in which four clerks were working, amid a miscellany of desks and tables piled or scattered with papers and books of accounts. He saw files and books stacked in corners and round the walls. He looked up to dusty shelves loaded ceiling-high with accumulations of the same kinds. He saw doors giving entrance to further rooms from which voices came.
A boy took his name, in a brisk, incurious way, telephoned it to his principal's room, and asked Mr. Truscott to take a seat, as Mr. Boddington would see him in a few minutes. Roger sat down beside two other waiting gentlemen, on an ancient bamboo bench which showed projecting horsehair through more than one rent in its leather upholstery.
He took in the details of what he saw with the awareness of one who looks on unfamiliar things. It was all part of a world he had hoped to conquer, which seemed rather more doubtful than it had done when he came to London twenty-four hours before.
He looked at the men beside him. One was uniformed in a style which suggested a bank messenger to his mind, as in fact he was. The other he guessed to be a solicitor's, or perhaps a stockbroker's clerk. . . . His observations were interrupted by the boy's voice: "Mr. Boddington will see you now, Mr. Truscott." He was led out, along a narrow passage, and shown into a room, the size of which was emphasised by the lowness of its ceiling, and dignified by a dusty carpet, and substantial though dingy furniture.
Mr. Boddington rose from a large desk in the centre of the room as he entered, and came forward a few steps to receive him. He offered the ample comfort of a low upholstered chair, the one luxurious article in the room.
Roger, sinking into its depths, must look somewhat upward at the professional affability of a face that was normally set to the severe cast of mathematics, rather than the romance of life.
"I'm glad," he said, "that you were able to give me a look-in. Mr. Rowton told me that you had come up to town. . . . I expect he's told you also about the offer we have for the shares?"
"Yes, it's about that I came to see you. I want to know whether, as our auditor, you advise the sale, and whether you think the figure's as much as we ought to get."
Mr. Boddington appeared to have no doubt about that. "Yes," he said. "I have advised its acceptance." His tone was one of finality, as though, when his opinion was given, there remained no more to be done than to sign the documents which the deal required.
Observing, however, that Roger did not quickly respond, and supposing correctly that the verdict was not that which he would have preferred to hear, he offered some explanation.
"The offer, speaking between ourselves, is, in my opinion, exceptionally good. It is one which we could not have hoped to obtain, but for a convergence of business interests, which is not likely to recur. The fact is that the business, at the moment, would be of far greater value to the purchasing syndicate than it can possibly be in its present hands. The sale would eliminate competition, and the business would pass into the control of those who have ample capital to exploit it properly."
"But I suppose a year or two of good trade would make the shares worth a much higher figure?"
Mr. Boddington shook his head slightly. "A year or two? A much higher figure? Scarcely that. A somewhat higher, no doubt. But, I must tell you, that is an improbable eventuality . . .There is a more likely - and perhaps I should say a more sinister contingency to which I must draw your attention. It is a responsibility which falls upon me, in view of your inexperience of business matters. The value of the ordinary shares in a commercial undertaking is always precarious. It may be (as it is here) dependent entirely upon the business continuing. If it were closed tomorrow the claims of creditors, of bankers and mortgagees, would swamp the assets. I can assure you that you would get nothing at all.
"At the present moment, it would take no more than a short period of adverse trading, a slight fluctuation in market conditions, to render your shares of no realisable value whatever. . . . No, Mr. Truscott," he concluded, in the voice of one who has shown a sufficient patience with the hesitation of ignorance, and assumes the acceptance of the advice he has given, "I can assure you that the offer is not one to be put aside. Indeed, I should have been obliged to advise its acceptance, had it been for a less amount, or offered in a less liquid form."
He sought among the papers that piled his desk. "I have here the document which the solicitors sent over this morning. You will see that it is brief but simple, but, as a matter of form, I should like you to read it over before you sign it. You will observe that it covers your brother's interest as well as your own, and provides for an immediate cash payment of £30,000, half of which you would, of course, hold in trust for him.
"You may like to know that it will be paid to you without deduction - I shall be able to obtain a certified cheque made out to yourself in exchange for this document - as it is a condition that all expenses incidental to the transaction shall be the liability of the purchasers.
"Miss Morton, I shall want you to witness this gentleman's signature."
As he concluded, Roger, following his eyes, became fully aware for the first time of a third occupant of the room, a girl who had been seated at a small table in the dimmest corner, and who now rose and came forward.
"I'm afraid," he said, with a diffidence of manner which did less than justice to the resolution of his own mind, "I'm not prepared to decide anything just yet. I want to think it over a bit more."
He was not insensible to the force or gravity of the arguments which had been put before him, but he had an instinctive objection to being rushed. He had entered that office to enquire, not to decide, supposing that the company's auditor would give impartial advice. Well, such it might be. But, all the same he would sign nothing today.
As he had spoken, Mr. Boddington had already risen, to offer him the use of his own chair in executing the document. Now he looked at him with the controlled impatience which may be shown to a child's folly, perhaps excusable in itself, but exasperating in its results.
"It is, of course, of little moment to me," he said. "The loss is yours. But I am bound to advise you that, if you let this opportunity slip, you will be guilty of an almost incredible folly."
"I am not sure," Roger said, "that it is what my father would have liked me to do."
"Your father," the accountant replied, with an amount of reason which Roger was obliged to recognise, "showed the extent of his confidence in Mr. Rowton by the position in which he placed him. It is no more than a logical deduction that he would have wished you to take his advice on a matter which you should recognise that he is much more competent to decide."
"Yes," he replied frankly, "I see that. But it was my father's intention, as it is stated in his will, that the arrangement he made should conserve the business for his sons to follow. It could not have been his wish that we should sell out the first moment that we have the power."
"But he could not foresee the business conditions that now prevail."
"It would be a less responsibility if I were deciding for myself only, but I am asked to sell my brother's shares also."
"That is the very point, Mr. Truscott, which I was about to bring to your notice. If you refuse this offer, your brother, when he will come of age in about eighteen months, may succeed to nothing better than shares which have become unmarketable. You may have deprived him of his entire fortune if you refuse this offer, against the judgement of those who are most competent to advise you."
Roger had realised this already, and it was not a risk he could take lightly. He asked: "I suppose we can't sell part, and hold part?"
His thought was that he would sell half if he could, giving his brother the ultimate benefit of whichever might prove to be the more profitable policy. But the idea proved to be impracticable.
"Obviously not," Mr. Boddington replied, with a shortness of tone implying that Roger's objections and difficulties were approaching perversity, "the offer is to buy out the firm for purposes of amalgamation."
Though with a stubborn reluctance, Roger was near to yield at that moment. But he remembered that there was one question he had not raised, which had been on his mind during the night. It was one that he felt some diffidence in putting, but he had a quiet persistence of character which did not lack courage, and the reminder that he had his brother's interests, as well as his own, to guard strengthened his resolution. After all, it was a point on which he was entitled to be fully informed.
"I suppose - I mean, I think I ought to know - does this sale involve Mr. Rowton's retirement, or will he retain his position?"
It was a question which caused the accountant to look at Roger with a new keenness, as though weighing him afresh; but he showed no indisposition to answer it. "Mr. Rowton will take a place on the Board of the purchasing company. Had he not consented to that, it would have been impossible to secure you so favourable an offer - if any at all. . . . I suppose, Mr. Truscott, you cannot be expected to realise how much, in the course of years, the goodwill of the firm has become inseparable from Mr. Rowton himself, or what its position would be if he should have decided to withdraw himself from it. Do you suppose that your shares would have any value then?"
"I don't know how that would be. . . . I didn't mean to suggest anything. . . . I only thought that it was a point on which I should be informed. . . . But I should have supposed that the terms of Mr. Rowton's appointment with us would have rendered it impossible for him to act in opposition under any circumstances."
"Well, so they may. I can't say about that. I wasn't suggesting that he ever had such a thought in his mind. I only wished you to realise what his position is, and how much reason you may have for gratitude that he has brought matters to a point at which you can pick up so large a fortune. . . . If you are satisfied now, perhaps you will sign the deed?"
"I think I should like to think it over - at any rate for a couple of days."
Mr. Boddington recognised defeat, for that occasion at least
"I suggest," he said, "that you should use that time to consult your brother. You may find him to be of a different mind."
Roger said: "Yes, I will do that."
He thought there could be little doubt as to what Cyril would say. He would take the cash with both hands, if he had his choice. To ask him, and then to decline to sell, would throw the maximum responsibility upon himself, if his decision should prove disastrous in the end.
Still it ought to be done.
He rose to go.
Miss Morton, who had stood waiting while this conversation proceeded, went back to her chair.
Mr. Boddington shook hands, with no warmth of cordiality, but with no more show of annoyance than was natural in one whose opinion had been too lightly regarded. "Well, think it over," he said, "and don't be too quick to refuse the advice of those who know how the land lies."
Roger went out, and entered a nearby restaurant of frugal respectability, where he ordered lunch. A few minutes later, a young lady hesitated and then sat down opposite to him. The tables had been filling up since he came in, and seats were few.
He glanced at her and observed a face that he had seen half an hour before, being that of Miss Morton, Mr. Boddington's secretary. It was one at which any man might be glad to look twice.
He had a correct impression that when he was not looking at her, she was observant of him. He repaid her in the same way. More than once, by this process, their glances met and withdrew. But, beyond that, shyness held them apart. They both lingered somewhat over the meal. In the end, Miss Morton, having less liberty of time, was the first to go.
CHAPTER IV
"Of course, we'll take the cash," Cyril said, with some impatience at his brother's hesitation. "We should be mugs if we didn't. Fifteen thousand isn't to be sneezed at these days, and I don't reckon it ever was. . . . And you say yourself that everyone tells you it's a good get-out."
"Not quite everyone. Look at this." Roger handed his brother a strip of paper, such as might have been torn from a cheap writing-pad, on which was written in block capitals,
"IF YOU'RE WISE YOU WON'T."
The two brothers were standing in the window of the lounge of the Ridgway Hotel, in which Cyril had engaged a room for the night, having come up to town on Roger's suggestion to discuss the proposed deal.
Cyril, though the younger, was some inches the taller, and much the heavier of the two. He was more proficient in sports than studies, and pulled stroke in the University boat. His sporting activities had the beneficial effect of keeping him sober for long periods, when he was in training for any competitive event, which was not his invariable condition. Now he turned the strip of paper over, looking for a signature that was not there.
"Where did you get this? Who is it from?"
"I don't know. Rowton's found me a room where they bring me accounts and correspondence to look at. I'm supposed to be studying the state of the business. Of course, they bring me what they're told. I found this on the table, when I got back from lunch yesterday."
"You might have asked who'd been in while you were away.
"So I might, and perhaps got some poor beggar sacked for nothing worse than trying to give me the straight tip. I thought it best to say nothing."
"But it mayn't be that at all. It's someone trying to queer the pitch, but you can't tell why. He may think he'll lose his job if the amalgamation comes off. There's one safe bet, that when he wrote that he was thinking of his own skin rather than ours. . . . Anyway, you wouldn't take more notice of a thing like that than of the opinions of men who gave us reasons, and know how to sign their names."
"No, I don't say that I should. But I'm not easy about the whole thing. . . . I don't like Rowton, and though he tries not to show it, I feel he's too eager to get me to fall in."
"Well, that's natural enough, if he thinks it's a good deal. We're all in the same boat. . . . You mayn't like him, but you've only seen him about three days. Father must have known him better than you. . . . How soon can we touch the cash?"
"They'll pay it over any time if I sign. . . . I suppose that means that they've got all the other signatures that they need, and I'm the one that's holding it up. . . . I wish I didn't feel so reluctant to do it."
"And how long can you hold them off?"
"It's about a week now before the offer could be withdrawn."
"Well, don't dally too long." He looked at Roger's doubtful irresponsive face, and a sudden fear came into his own. "You wouldn't really -" he exclaimed, as though the almost incredible folly had only just entered his mind as a serious possibility -" you wouldn't really let this money go loose?"
"No. I don't promise; but I expect I shall accept. There doesn't seem much else to be done."
"No, I should think not! If I thought -" Cyril broke off the sentence, leaving the threat which underlay the new truculence in his tone to his brother's imagination. He added, as another thought came to disturb his mind: "And you won't play the elder brother with me, or I'll know why. I don't want any Trusteeship business, or 'wait till you're twenty-one.' I'll come up on Thursday next, and I'll look to you to have the cash ready by then. . . . I suppose there'll be no legal reason for holding it back?"
"No. I think not. I suppose I'm responsible, and could hold it till you're of age, or pay it over at once. But I don't know why I shouldn't do that. I expect you'd blue it in about the same way then as now."
"I'm going to have a good time with it, if you mean that. But you're a long way out, if you think I shall just chuck it away. . . . Going now? So long. I'll get leave to come up on Wednesday again, and I'll trust you to shell out then."
Roger, walking away, felt that, whether his instinct of reluctance were right or wrong, the issue must be the same. He was caught in a current against which he might strive, but could not hope to prevail.
For, as Cyril had talked and blustered, he had looked ahead, and seen that, if he should have his own way at this time, and should prove so far right that the business would be carried on successfully for the next eighteen months, yet he would be steering to an almost certain wreck at that time.
At present he could claim a director's place, giving him equal power with Mr. Rowton, though the absence of the same detailed knowledge and experience of the business might make its practical exercise difficult. He had a further power, in that he could convene a shareholders' meeting on any serious issue, when he could vote down all opposition. But that would only be during his brother's minority. In eighteen months, if the shares were still held, half of them would pass to him, with their voting power. Cyril could claim an equal seat on the Board. Or he could sell the shares to whom he would.
To have power for eighteen months would be of little use, if it must entail making enemies on all sides, who could contrive to thwart him at last.
He saw that Cyril would be hostile and embittered, if he should refuse to make the instant sale which would put into his hands the money on which he counted already with eager greed. Even if his obstinacy should be so far justified that the business would be prosperous, and the shares saleable eighteen months hence, his brother's most likely action would be to sell them to anyone who would be willing and able to buy, as he himself would be powerless to do. And anyone who should purchase his brother's shares could make a combination against him which would render his own votes impotent. To engineer such a position, Cyril's shares might be worth almost as much as were the whole quantity which he now controlled. He might find that he had done no more than to fill Cyril's pocket, while his own would be left half-empty.
They might even be able to combine to throw him off the Board. . . . There were legal questions on which he was far from clear, and not sure of where he could get sound and impartial advice. But he had wondered whether, at the worst, he could not turn Rowton out with the votes he had, if it should prove impossible to work together, and what is sauce for the goose - It might depend upon agreements he had not seen. . . . He supposed he ought to go to the Company's solicitors. So he had been invited to do. And so he would. But he must do it with a sense of uncertainty as to whether everything he said might not be reported to Mr. Rowton, as soon as he should walk out of the door. . . . He felt, with some bitterness, that his youth and inexperience of business life were a handicap too great to be overcome. The advice he heard from all sides might be disinterested or not (and it was rather difficult to formulate his doubt to a logical probability), but he saw that all around him were of one mind, and it might be beyond his strength to resist, even had he been more than sure that it was the right course to take.
If Cyril had been of a kindred spirit, the two together might - and yet, perhaps, even then.
He walked on in a gloomy doubt, only relieved by another purpose that caused him to loiter the way he went, for a destination at which he did not wish to arrive too soon; and meanwhile Mr. Boddington, having called up Mr. Rowton on the 'phone, was saying: "Is that young fool going to sign? . . . Well, he must. . . . And there mustn't be much delay about it either. . . . Yes, it's sure. . . . I've just had a code cable. 'Enter'. . . . Yes, that's the word. . . . Well, I needn't say any more. I leave it to you."
Miss Morton, who had paused in the typing of a report, so that the conversation should not be disturbed by the noise of the instrument, heard this end of the conversation, but Mr. Boddington was not concerned about that. Even if she were interested, or understood it, which he had no reason to suppose, he knew that she was not one to betray the confidence of her employer. He chose his staff with discretion, and often for very different qualities from his own: and he had found that it paid him to pay them well.
So, having concluded this conversation to his satisfaction, he went out to lunch. A few minutes later, Miss Morton did the same; and a few minutes later still, Roger Truscott, having loitered long enough to make it reasonably certain that she would have settled herself in what he rightly supposed to be her usual midday resort, entered by the same door, looked round in as casual a manner as his eagerness would allow, and took a seat at her table.
CHAPTER V
ROGER TRUSCOTT had something more than the average shyness of a sisterless youth, who has been of too fastidious a habit to mix much with the more outspoken members of his own sex, or the bolder ones of the other; and whose knowledge of life has been most largely gained from the printed page.
But this shyness was controlled by a spirit which would not fail to provide whatever courage might be required for the occasion it had to meet. What he had resolved, he would do. Twice before - once by chance, and once by his own design he had sat opposite Diana Morton, in a silence which he would have been glad to break, but in which his eyes only had spoken; and, in the intervals, the memory had distracted him continually from the surely more urgent question of whether he should sign a deed which would produce fifteen thousand pounds to his immediate possession.
He saw that, if he should find her table again, it must be of an unmistakable significance, and he told himself that it would be no less than unmannerly impertinence if he should do so without ascertaining that his conduct was not resented. He might even merit, and receive, a word of sarcastic or indignant protest, such as would double-bolt the door which he was seeking to open.
Reflecting thus, he had resolved upon a line of attack which he thought it would be difficult to resent, and which, without the formality of introduction, would still be natural in view of the place and circumstances in which they had met.
After a few minutes, occupied on his side in some uncertainty as to how she might be regarding his appearance at the same table as herself on a third occasion, to resolve which he had nothing to guide him beyond the fact that she gave no sign of observing his presence, he determined to test the wisdom of the method of assault which had seemed so simple, indeed so obvious, when it had occurred to him during the night.
He was to ask the question in a casual, natural way, the first time that he should happen to meet her glance, and, after that, conversation would easily develop. The first difficulty he experienced was that the glances which had been freely directed upon him on the first occasion, and more frugally on the second, were now entirely withheld. He was too ignorant of the facile theories which explain all women alike to attempt interpretation of this withdrawal, but he felt that it gave an added formality to the question which he had resolved to ask, though he would not let it deter him.
"Excuse me, Miss Morton, but could you tell me whether Mr. Boddington would be in this afternoon at about three, if I should look in at that time?"
He was aware, as he spoke, that the question, carefully phrased in his mind before he commenced, had no genuine sound. The girl lifted her eyes to regard him silently, her brows meeting in a puzzled frown.
"I don't make appointments for Mr. Boddington," she said, after a pause that seemed to Roger much longer than it actually was. "It might be best to telephone first."
"I beg your pardon," he said awkwardly. "I thought you might happen to know."
She made no answer to this, and the stubborn core of his own nature caused him to continue the conversation on the lines which he had planned already.
"The fact is I'm not sure whether I ought to see Mr. Boddington, or the firm's solicitors, Tonks & Weatherhead. You see, I don't know much about the etiquette of these matters. I've only been up in London a few days, and I don't know anyone here. . . . I suppose they are a reliable firm?"
He got an answer at last. She looked at him again in a cool way, and said: "Quite". As she did so, she rose, leaving the table at an earlier time, and after a shorter meal than her habit was, as he had observed it on the two previous occasions.
He was left with a consciousness of defeat, and a suspicion that it might have been his own fault. He had wanted to talk to the girl, and his mind had been occupied, at the same time, with doubts and suspicions regarding the men who had his business interests in their hands, and the two motives had converged to produce those awkward queries which had been so coolly rebuffed. His desire to know more of Messrs. Tonks & Weatherhead had been real enough. Vaguely he had thought that in conversation with her he might learn something which would assist him to the decision which he found so difficult. It had been an end in itself, though it might have been considered first as a means to another. But it had proved to be no more than a double blunder.
Well, he must find some other method by which to know her - to break through her reserve. After all, her tone had been no worse than noncommittal and cool. It had been free from any indication of hostility or resentment. He was not of the disposition to withdraw from a first defeat. Curiously and illogically, this repulse increased his indisposition to give way on the quite separate business issue which also engaged his mind.
He went back to Cannon Street, to the Truscott & Rowton offices, where he was to be occupied in the inspection of elaborately tabulated records of the specifications to which the firm had estimated during the last three years (from which he was intended to learn that they could only obtain contracts by quoting prices which were unremunerative to them, though they might be
profitable to their better equipped competitors). He felt less depressed than he might have been
expected to do. He might have realised his position in a worse light had he heard the conversation which took place between Diana Morton and her employer when he came in from lunch
that afternoon. Mr. Boddington had listened to a few words from one of his staff as he passed through the outer office, and there was a frown still on his face as he asked the girl: "Anything happened since I went out?"
"Only Mr. Clifford's rung up to know whether you can attend the Restall meeting for them
next Wednesday. It's 4 p.m. I told them yes, as far as I knew, but I would let them know definitely
when I'd spoken to you. . . . And Mr. Truscott saw me at lunch, and asked if you would be in at three."
"Is he coming in?"
"I couldn't say, but I don't think he really wanted to know. I think he was trying to find out whether he could get any information from me, so I cut him short. . . . I'd like to know what you wish me to do if he tries again."
"What information did he try to get?"
"It hardly went that far. He asked about Tonks & Weatherhead - were they a good firm? And I said yes, of course. But I didn't know what you'd wish me to say if he went on, so I didn't let him. He came and sat opposite to me at lunch yesterday, but he didn't try to talk till today."
Mr. Boddington considered this. It confirmed the report that he had had three minutes before from a clerk who had been sitting no more than four tables away. It also confirmed his previous judgement that Miss Morton was a reliable secretary. But there is no wisdom in trusting anyone more than you are obliged to do.
He said: "You'd better tell him that you know nothing. But let him talk as much as he likes, and let me know what he says. . . . If the young fool can't understand when he's well off, he'll end up with nothing, more likely than not." (She could tell him that, if she would.)
He thought that Roger Truscott was a troublesome young cub, and more pertinacious than was indicated by his mild exterior. But Rowton could be trusted to deal with him.
CHAPTER VI
It was on the following Monday, the 10 th April, toward the end of the afternoon, that Mr. Boddington was informed that Mr. Rowton was coming to see him, and would be over in twenty minutes.
Shortly after that, Mr. Boddington asked Miss Morton to complete a letter of some importance, and added that the remainder of the correspondence could be left till the next day. He said that she could leave a bit early for once, which she was pleased to do. When Mr. Rowton arrived, and was shown into Mr. Boddington's room, he found that gentleman alone. Without the formality of shaking hands, he rose and closed a felt-lined door which doubled that by which his visitor entered.
Mr. Rowton observed, as the key turned: "I see you guess why I have come."
"I know he hasn't been here to sign; and it's a week now since he came to town."
"Well, I've done all I could."
"Then you've got to do a bit more."
"It's no use. He's made up his mind he won't. He's like a mule, for all his quiet ways."
"Nonsense! A boy like that, with no advice, and knowing nothing of business matters, except what he's read in books. Rowton, you're enough to make a man sick. Do you mean he's told you he won't?"
"Not in words. But he's made it clear enough. He gets more determined every hour. He told me this morning that he couldn't see why we shouldn't pull the business round, and get the shares back to par, and he was sure that was what his father would have wished him to do. . . . But there's more than that. He wrote to his brother this afternoon. Dictated it to one of the girls, who read it back to me when I had her in. The letter says there's no need for his brother to come up on Wednesday, as he's decided to hold on to the shares, and take a seat on the Board. . . . He's been at the books all the time since he came up. I shouldn't have thought it possible he'd learn so much in the time."
"He can't learn anything from the books that he shouldn't know."
"I don't say he can, in the way you mean, but he's learned a damned lot more than we want him to. He's been with T. & W. a good bit too, and got some things from them."
"Weatherhead would advise him to sell."
"So he would have done at the first, and I don't say he doesn't now. But I'd give something to know all that's gone on in that office."
"I don't suppose you'd hear much if you did. You'd be a better man if you didn't funk at things you can't see. But it's your part to do this, and you're going to see it through. You'll have the fellow here before five tomorrow, with his pen in his hand, or we'll talk again in a different way."
Mr. Rowton's face flushed angrily. But he made no protest against the insulting words, or the vague menace of their conclusion. His eyes fell before the cold anger and contempt of those that were fixed upon him.
"You know," he said, "I'll do what I can. It's as much to me as to you."
"It's all that, and a lot more," was the curt reply.
Mr. Rowton went, without further words.
CHAPTER VII
DIANA MORTON was loyal to her employer. Mr. Boddington had been correct in that assumption, as he most often was. If she saw and heard things in his offices which were beneath her own code, she supposed them to be no worse than were generally permitted by the lower ethics of business life. She could not reasonably hold herself responsible for the contents of the letters she typed, or the accuracy of the accounts that she duplicated. In her work she was quiet, exact, efficient. She was paid a liberal salary, which she fully earned. Her business experience, after the completion of her secretarial training, had begun in that office, so that she had observed no other standards with which to compare it.
So far, Mr. Boddington could have diagnosed her with as much accuracy as she knew herself, and something more beyond that. But there was one point on which he would have been widely wrong. He underestimated the activity of her intelligence; he did not guess how much of growing knowledge and understanding her silence held.
When he engaged her, he had recognised her qualities of character as acutely, and chosen her for them as definitely as for those of education and secretarial proficiency. He would have seen no more force in the criticism that he did not cultivate such qualities in his own character, than a ship's captain would feel if he were told that the ship's cook would make a better omelette than himself. He navigated the business of Bagley & Co., and selected his staff for the various qualifications of brain or character that their positions required.
The mistake he made was that which is common among clever and unscrupulous men of linking rectitude with obtuseness, if not actual stupidity, as its complementary quality.
He would have been very greatly surprised had he been made aware of how clearly Miss Morton understood, from casual hints, and half-heard telephone conversations, the nature and extent of the plot which had been woven to deprive the Truscott brothers of their rightful heritage. But she did not regard it as a matter in which she had any personal part, nor did it arouse any active interest in her mind until the day when she was led by a fateful chance to seat herself at a table with Roger Truscott, and to become conscious, with the swift instinct of femininity, that he was not unaware of, or indifferent to her.
When he found her table on the second day, she did not fail to interpret his action correctly, as being in deliberate pursuit of her own attractions, nor was the secret thrill of excitement that a girl may feel when she is first conscious of such pursuit deadened by any instinct of antipathy, or, more fatal, indifference, to the man whose attention had been drawn toward her.
There might have been no other sequel than the age-old idyll of youth and love, had not Roger addressed her with those sudden blundering questions, and had she not been conscious for some previous minutes that Teddy Watts was only four tables away.
She knew Teddy well enough to guess with instant accuracy the interpretation which he would be likely to place upon the fact that she was lunching with Roger Truscott, and that he would report it when he got back to the office.
With this realisation, there had risen the unwelcome doubt - suppose that Teddy's idea should be partly true? Suppose that. Mr. Truscott was really seeking her acquaintance, not for herself, but in the hope that he could extract some business information from her?
While she doubted thus, she was roused, and her doubt confirmed, by Roger's fatuous question. How she would have answered under other circumstances, and to what confidences it might have led, can be no more than a vain conjecture. She might even then have refused to discuss matters on which it is at least certain that she would not consciously have betrayed her employer.
But with the knowledge that Teddy was looking on, and the subconscious realisation (which was almost a conscious pain) that Roger Truscott's interest in herself might be quite impersonal, the manner of her rebuff was a natural sequence.
The same two reasons united in the same conscious and subconscious way to suggest that she should report to Mr. Boddington that Roger had approached her thus; but, having done this, her mind was led to dwell upon the whole affair with a more personal interest than she was accustomed to give to Mr. Boddington's business enterprises.
She saw the full singularity of the fact that it should rouse some suspicion in any mind that one of the clients of the firm should cultivate friendship with her, and she was led to a sharper realisation of the moral standards prevailing in the offices where she had gained her sole experience of professional usage. She felt that there must be others, practising a different etiquette and a higher morality, but she had the feminine characteristic of being more strongly influenced by the particular than the general, and, when the thought of resignation came to her mind, it was impulsed rather by the fact that she was witness of an unscrupulous intrigue in which her sympathies had passed over to the opposite camp, than by any moral recoil from the abstract principles of the firm she served.
A desire to warn Roger Truscott against a plot of which she was now clearly aware, and which aimed to rob him and his brother of the main part of their inheritance, might or might not have been sufficiently strong to lead her to resign the comfortable position she held, had she not felt a scruple of honour as to whether she would even then have been free to disclose that which she had already learnt, and this hesitation was strengthened by the reflection that Roger Truscott, for all she knew, might be sufficient for his own protection. He might not require her aid. She might resign a most comfortable position to no purpose, and receive no thanks.
These doubts and hesitations occupied her during the hours while the deed lay awaiting Roger's signature on Mr. Boddington's desk, and he did not come, and while she heard Mr. Rowton being summoned to another conference, which was to take place that evening after she had left the office. But they were forgotten with the news of the tragedy of the following day.
Wednesday opened in Bagley & Co's offices with the usual routine business, in which Mr. Boddington became engrossed, having seemingly put the affairs of Truscott & Rowton, Ltd., for the moment, out of his mind. Miss Morton's curiosity as to what might be the issue of last night's conference remained ungratified until he made some clearances of his desk before leaving for lunch. Then he came on the unsigned deed, and passed it over to her, remarking: "You'd better file this. I understand that Roger Truscott has definitely refused to sign, and that blocks the whole deal. Remind me, if necessary, to give you letters to close it tomorrow morning. There'll be some papers to send back to Mr. Weatherhead. I shall be away at Thompson's meeting this afternoon."
She supposed that Roger had won, without the need of any information from her, which it would have been treacherous to supply (she saw that clearly now), even though she had resigned before doing so. She was not surprised that Mr. Boddington showed no concern at this issue, for it was not his habit to be outwardly ruffed by the loss or gain of a business coup, nor was she supposed to be aware of the inwardness of the matter.
Still, she did know. She knew not only the largeness of the stake, but of other financial facts which had made it a matter of critical urgency that it should be won. She must wonder still what the end would be.
She went quickly on with her work during the afternoon, until the time came when Stubbs entered with the usual tea-tray. His eyes were round with excitement.
"Ow, miss," he said happily, "ain't it 'orrible?"
"What's the matter now?" she asked, without supposing that he had anything of much interest to communicate, for she knew Dick.
"'Aven't you 'eard, miss?" He was stirred to wonder that anyone could be isolated from an event of such moment. "Not about the murder at Rowton's? Not about Mr. Truscott's murder? Shot, he was, and then fell down the stairs. . . . It's in the papers this afternoon."
Diana's familiarity with a quality of imagination in Stubbs's composition which rendered a discount of eighty per cent. no more than a conservative deduction from any statement for which he might be responsible, helped her to receive this news with an aspect of outward serenity, but she found some difficulty in controlling her voice to its normal tone, as she answered: "All in the papers, is it? Then suppose you run out, and get me one, and I'll read it while I have tea."
Dick took the offered penny and disappeared, but his return was so instant as to make it clear that the paper he brought had been already circulating in the outer office.
She waited until he had left the room before opening it, to read, in heavy block capitals across its front page:
"TRAGEDY IN CITY OFFICE
UNIVERSITY BLUE SHOT DEAD."
She read the few leaded lines below, which must be followed to an inner page before it became definite that it was not Roger Truscott, but a brother of whom she had heard but had not seen, whose life was so abruptly terminated:
"Shortly after 1 p.m. today the police were summoned to the Cannon Street Offices of Truscott & Rowton Ltd., where they were shown the body of a young man lying at the foot of a flight of stone stairs, which lead from the private offices to a side entrance in Filkin Street. The body, in which life was extinct, has been identified as that of Mr. Cyril Truscott, younger son of the founder of the firm.
"Mr. Truscott had been shot, apparently by a revolver which was found lying upon the stairs, but it is uncertain whether death was due to this cause, or to the injuries which he received in his fall.
"Mr. Truscott was a member of the Oxford boat-crew, and a well known golfer."
That was all the detail obtainable from a paper which must have gone to press within two hours of the time when the police were first informed of the tragedy; except that, in the stop-press column, there was a further brief announcement:
"In connection with the death of Mr. Cyril Truscott, his brother, Mr. Roger Truscott, was interviewed by Inspector Byfleet at about 2 p.m. at the Royalty Restaurant, where he was lunching. After a short conversation he was invited to accompany the Inspector to Scotland Yard, where he is stated to have been detained."
Miss Morton saw clearly enough that the question of selling or holding shares might be of little more remaining interest to the living brother than to the dead. If it were really so. . . . It was hard to believe. And yet she knew that, in such matters, the metropolitan police do not make many mistakes. And Roger Truscott was detained on account of his brother's death. . . . And there would be the lawyers to pay. "Yes," she said to herself, "I suppose he will sell now."
She saw that Mr. Boddington was likely to have his own way once again, as he mostly did.
CHAPTER VIII.
The morning newspapers contained the definite announcement that Mr. Roger Truscott had been arrested, and charged with his brother's murder: the afternoon ones, that he had appeared before the magistrate, and been remanded for seven days at the request of the police. He had looked pale, but composed. Mr. Leslie Tonks (Tonks & Weatherhead) had appeared for the prisoner.
When asked if he had any objection to a remand, the solicitor had had a few whispered words with his client, after which he had replied that he must consent to the remand, but he was instructed to say that the prisoner absolutely repudiated the charge, and denied all knowledge of his brother's death. The whole proceedings lasted less than five minutes.
Those who were present in court could have added some details which editorial discretion declined to publish. It had been clear from the reporters' table that the whispered exchanges between the prisoner and his legal representatives had not been of a harmonious character, and it appeared evident that the statement the solicitor had made, denying all knowledge of the crime, had been against his own judgement and instruction. The prisoner's final words: "Then if you don't say it, I shall," had come clearly to the reporters' table, after which Mr. Leslie Tonks had risen and made the declaration of innocence which his client claimed.
The afternoon papers contained a variety of other details, concerning both the accused and the murdered man, and the scene and circumstances of the tragedy, but they were restrained by the rule which forbids comment upon any event after it has become the subject of a criminal charge, and while the legal process continues; and there is more to be gained from the discussion which proceeded in the offices of Messrs. Tonks & Weatherhead, when Mr. Leslie Tonks returned from court, and reported the circumstances of the case to his senior partner.
Leslie Tonks was depressed. A young man of normally optimistic temperament, and of a romanticism somewhat unusual in his profession, he had been disposed to think that the great occasion would not find him unequal to it. The great occasion had come. The case in which he was appearing would be reported as widely as the English language is spoken, and in a few additional countries. He would be unable to show his legal abilities at the trial itself, for which counsel must be briefed, but the magisterial enquiry which precedes the trial is often no less than a full-dress rehearsal, at which the grounds of attack and defence are chosen, and the final battle may be lost or won. So far, he could take control, and it was a position such as an able lawyer may often find sufficient to establish a lifelong reputation in the criminal courts.
But now he paced the room as he talked, in an excitement of irritation. He said bitterly: "He gives us no chance at all."
Mr. Weatherhead sat by the fire, for the morning was chilly, and he was an old man, no longer in robust health. He listened with a sad gravity to the tale he heard. He was not thinking of the ability or reputation of his junior partner, but of a friendship of earlier years with a man who had been long dead. These were his two sons, and one had come to a violent death, and the other, it seemed, would be almost certainly hanged - and the boy had not seemed to be of that sort at all. But - you never can tell! A lawyer learns that well enough, as he deals with the follies and crimes of men.
He said gently: "It can't make much difference, can it? You see, he was shot in the back. It would be hard to get over that."
"Yes, I daresay it would. You couldn't call it an easy case, at the best. But we might have cooked something up. It's wonderful what you can do, when you know just what you've got to explain away. And the remand gives us a week. At the worst, we could have fought for manslaughter, and for a reprieve after that. But - when he denies what they can prove up to the hilt! It gives us no chance at all."
"I shouldn't attach too much importance to that. I mean, to the statement which you have already made. It's not much more than a general denial. As you say, you've got a week. I've no doubt he'll talk differently when he's had time to think it over, and you've put it to him in the right light. . . . Are you satisfied that you know what the case against him really is?"
"Yes, I think I do. There's the post-mortem report still to come, and a few details that aren't clear, but Inspector Byfleet has been very decent. He said they'd nothing they wished to keep back. I think he'd help us if we'd got any real defence to set up - I mean anything to extenuate or reduce the charge. . . . But if we just deny everything - well, it doesn't need saying. It's too silly for words. I suppose we ought to decline to go on with the case unless he'll take our advice."
"I don't think we can quite do that. We've been the Truscotts' lawyers too long. And your father, as I needn't remind you, was joint trustee with Rowton until he died. If he'd lived, things might have turned out in a different way. I don't suppose their father thought sufficiently what the position would be if Rowton were left with a free hand. . . . But I believe he trusted him more than may have been wise. We were all younger then."
"You don't mean that you think Rowton's had any hand in this?"
"No. It would be absurd. But I wish you'd tell me just how much Roger admits, and where his denials begin."
"You might say he admits everything up to the very time that the shot was fired, or perhaps three minutes before. He doesn't deny anything till they're both on the spot, with the witnesses all about, and then he says that he wasn't there! It's like refusing to plead."
"How can he say that he wasn't there?"
"He says he went out first, and left Cyril behind."
"And why shouldn't that be true?"
"Because they were seen to go out together. There are three witnesses to that, and there might as well be three dozen. There would have been, if it hadn't been just after one, and most of the staff gone to lunch. They saw Cyril go out in a rage - they all agree about that - cursing his brother as he went, and calling out that he wouldn't listen to any more. He went out at a door which opens on to a small stone landing, about two yards square, with the stairs in front of it. There's no other door - nothing. Just the stairs - and the street-door at the foot. Roger followed him out, just a few yards behind, closing the door as he went. They heard loud voices but not words, and then the sound of a shot. They ran to find out what had happened, and one of them - a clerk named Menzies - was in time to see Roger disappear through the street-door. He left his brother dead at the foot of the stairs. He'd got a bullet through the back, and a broken neck. He must have fallen most of the way down. . . . And Roger simply says that he wasn't there."
"And this account of what happened earlier is not in dispute? Does it give any adequate motive for such a crime?"
"Not adequate. It gives some. And as to denying it, there isn't much that he could. Though in view of what he does deny, perhaps I shouldn't say that.
"But he couldn't deny that he'd been having a difference with his brother about letting the shares go, because we've been having that over with him here every day for the last week. And though we advised a sale on the facts that Mr. Rowton had given us, and the certified figures from Bagley's office, I don't say that he hadn't made me a bit doubtful whether there wasn't some dirty work going on in the rear. . . . If he'd brought his brother here yesterday afternoon, as I'd asked him to do, I'd got a suggestion to make that might have settled the whole thing, one way or other, but it's too late for that now.
"Anyway, he'd written to Cyril to say that he wouldn't sell, and telling him that it was no use coming up to town again, as he wouldn't alter his mind. It wouldn't be any good to deny that, because the police have got the typist's notebook in which it was taken down. It's quite a reasonable letter. They let me see a copy at the police station.
"However, Cyril wouldn't take that. He came up on Tuesday night, and they had a talk at his hotel then. After that, Cyril went out by himself, and there's a suggestion, which may be true, that he got a bit wild. They say that he didn't seem more than half sober when he came to Cannon Street yesterday morning. That may go some way to explain what happened afterwards. He probably bullied and threatened, and Roger may have been frightened of him, and lost his head. It's no excuse, but it may go some way towards an explanation."
"It sounds weak to me - particularly in view of how the shooting is said to have happened," Mr. Weatherhead said doubtfully.
"So it is. Weak as a kitten. But a poor explanation may be better than none."
"Or it may be worse. It may prevent sufficient search for the true one."
"Yes, that's right enough. But the explanation's something we oughtn't to have to guess. We ought to get that from our client. He's the one man who knows. We can't help those who won't help themselves."
"What about the gun? I should have thought that Roger would be very unlikely to have one at all."
"So should I. I haven't had time to go into that yet. I don't suppose the police have either. But what use is it, while he denies the whole thing? It may be it was Cyril's gun, and he first pulled it on him, and Roger wrenched it away, and fired in a sudden impulse as Cyril turned to run down the stairs. Even panic might explain that. The finger contracts on the trigger, almost without intention. You can twist facts a dozen ways, but you can't do much with facts that you haven't got. We ought to know how he got that gun, and be ready to explain why, and why he'd got it with him yesterday.
"But it's no use making anything up, such as saying that it must have been Cyril's gun, when the police may put the man in the box from whom Roger bought it the night before."
"We don't want to make anything up," Mr. Weatherhead replied. "We want to be sure that the truth is put to the court in the best way. And we ought to assume that our client's instructions are true, until the contrary is decided."
"But we know some of it isn't."
"Perhaps so. You must see him again, when he's had time to adjust his mind. . . . Had he got a licence to carry a gun?"
"No. Inspector Byfleet says there'll be a charge about that, but it will be left on the file till they've disposed of the present one. I suppose they're so sure of a conviction that they don't think it's worth while to proceed with anything else."
"Well, they may be right. You don't seem to have an easy case. But there's another reason why they must let the lesser charge stand over.
They can't assume that he did carry the gun. It might be much harder to prove than the murder charge they have made. As you say, he might have snatched it from Cyril's hand."
"Well, we oughtn't to sit guessing here. He ought to tell us all this, and then I might get busy to give him some real help."
Mr. Weatherhead made no further reply. His attention seemed to have wandered. He sat gazing into the fire, his thoughts going back to the days which his young partner had never known. After a time, he said: "There's one thing you mustn't forget. It mayn't seem very important now, but it's a matter we oughtn't to overlook. I mean the question of selling the shares. The present offer expires tomorrow."
"You think the shares ought to be sold?"
"Yes, I think there's no option now. It seemed wise to us at the first, and Boddington took the same view. . . . And suppose Roger Truscott were right in thinking that there was some misrepresentation or trickery - it isn't very clear what, and I don't think he was over-competent to decide - I should still give the same advice. If he escaped with a long-term sentence, which seems the best we can hope, his interests would be absolutely in Rowton's hands.
"Even if you say Rowton's a rogue - and we've got no proof that goes anything like so far - I should still give the same advice. It's £30,000 to be had clear of risk, and we should be best out of his hands.
"And it's - yes, it's all Roger's, now Cyril's dead. . . . But there couldn't be sufficient motive in that?"
"You'd think not. But it's curious how often, when someone gets poisoned or shot, there's someone about three feet away who picks up what he drops. It seems to act like a natural law."
"Yes," the older man said more tolerantly, "we've all noticed that at times. But it mayn't be quite what it sounds. A man's closest relatives are likely to be round him when he is sick, and they are the ones who most often benefit by his death."
Leslie did not dispute that. He said: "Anyway, you've given me an idea. I'll arrange to see Roger at once, and take his instructions to sell the shares. He can't be fool enough to stand out about that now. He'll want money for his defence. Perhaps I'd better rub it in, if he tries playing the mule any more."
"I shouldn't anticipate that, if I were you . . .We've got to do all we can, for his father's sake, if not for his own."
Leslie added mentally: "and for the sake of the firm too." He could not feel much concern for a dead man he had never known, and any pity he might have had for his son was deadened by the exasperation he felt at the stubborn folly which would not admit that which it was so plainly vain to deny.
Mr. Weatherhead rose rather stiffly from the fireside seat, and went back to his desk. He would do no good to anyone by neglecting his own work. And he did not think it likely that Roger would remain obstinate in that useless denial. He had seen too often the difference which results from a few hours in a quiet cell.
CHAPTER IX
INSPECTOR BYFLEET made no difficulty about arranging for Mr. Tonks to visit his client that afternoon. It is the routine of such cases to give reasonable facilities for defending lawyers to consult their clients, and in this instance, the Inspector could afford to be generous. He had rarely had a simpler case, nor one in which a conviction would be more certain. Besides, he was one of those officers of the law, perhaps more numerous in fact than in popular imagination, who are more concerned that an indictment should be equitably presented to the court than with the result which may follow, and in this case he had formed the opinion that there was something - possibly, something of importance to the accused - that he did not know.
"It's a cold-blooded, brutal murder, Mr. Tonks," he said bluntly. "I don't see how you'll get over that; and I don't suppose you'll make much of a try. But I'm not satisfied all the same. There's motive, but not motive enough. It's not natural somehow. I mean, I can't help feeling that there's something we're not on the track of yet, and, of course, that's where you come in. . . . I've got the post-mortem report. You can have a copy of that. But I don't see that it's going to be any good to you. . . . Bullet entered at the back, a little to the left of the spine. Penetrated lung, and left ventricle of the heart. Slightly downward direction, probably fired by someone standing above, though not much, and holding the gun not less than three feet away. Suicide therefore impossible. . . . Bleeding mostly internal. . . . Broken neck and other injuries, the severity of which indicates that he fell the whole length of the stairs. Either of the major injuries would have caused almost instant death, and it is therefore difficult to give either the preference. There's the whole thing put in simpler words than any doctor would care to use.
"Your client shot his own brother in the back, and went out to eat a good lunch. He'd just finished when I asked him to step this way, and I stood by while he paid the bill. There's no getting over that. But it makes me think that there's something more that we don't know. . . . Unless of course, he's insane, which I'm told he's not."
"He would be, if he'd killed his brother the way you say," Leslie announced boldly, "but you know what our defence is. We say we didn't fire the shot, and don't know who did, because we left first."
There was a slight twinkle in the Inspector's eyes as he answered: "Well, it's his funeral, not ours. But you'll have to get up early to make a jury believe that."
"I don't care how early I get up, but that's what we say, and that's what we mean to prove," the lawyer answered, with a tone of confidence which he did not feel. It actually caused Inspector Byfleet to turn his experienced mind, when he had left, to a careful scrutiny of the evidence in his possession for any possible weakness; but he found it complete and final, "unless," as he said to himself, with a quiet smile, "there should be a secret door on the stairs. Perhaps we ought to tap the walls to dispose of that possibility! . . . But, all the same, there's something here that we don't know . . ."
Mr. Tonks met his client in the room reserved for such interviews. Roger was pale, but self-controlled, and obviously glad to see him. There had, indeed, been a pleasant acquaintance between the two men, approaching intimacy at times during the past week, for Roger had called several times at the lawyer's office to obtain advice on the legal problems that he confronted, and to discuss his doubts concerning the offer which he was being urged to accept, and conversation had wandered to the discovery of several congenial topics of common interest.
"I'm glad," he said, "that you've been able to come so soon. It seems to me that I'm in a very difficult position unless we can find out who shot Cyril, and, in any case, I shouldn't rest till I had."
"Yes, I'm afraid you are," was the rather dry reply. "Inspector Byfleet says he has three witnesses who saw you go out just behind your brother, and heard the shot."
"I think that must be a lie."
"I don't think so. Most of the staff had gone to lunch, but these three were still there. One of them got to the top of the stairs in time to see you leave by the street-door. Menzies, his name
"He says I left after Cyril was shot? That's a lie, anyway."
"It isn't likely that everyone's telling lies. Why not say that he saw someone else, and thought it was you?"
"That's possible, of course."
"I don't know that it is. But it has a more plausible sound. . . . The real difficulty is in the time. They were not far from the door, and they ran to it at once when they heard the shot. Whoever fired it must have been at the top of the stairs when he pulled the trigger. You can work it out for yourself."
Roger looked at him in a moment of quiet silence. "You mean," he asked, "that you don't believe what I say?"
"I haven't said that. There are other possibilities. At least, you may not intend to mislead me. There are instances of loss of memory following shock."
"I hadn't had any shock. That's come since. Do you really think that I should have shot Cyril dead, and then walked out to lunch as though nothing had happened? Why, I never even handled a gun in my life, let alone having one."
"The question isn't what I think. The trouble is that several witnesses saw you, and that's what they say you did. As to the lunch, Inspector Byfleet himself is a witness to that."
"Have you ever thought how a sane man must feel when he's shut up in an asylum, and knows his business is being ruined, and perhaps his wife going off with another man, and he knows that if he shows any excitement it will be taken as evidence that his lunacy's rather more dangerous than usual? Well, that's how I feel now. I can see I'm in a more difficult position than I realised even half-an-hour ago. I've got no chance unless I keep calm, and it isn't easy to do. . . . Are you willing to handle this case for me on the assumption that I am right when I say that I went out before Cyril and not after?"
"No. I don't know that I am."
"Then, I must find someone else who is."
"Mr. Weatherhead was anxious that I shouldn't throw up the case. He thought you might look at matters differently when you'd had more time for consideration. . . . I'm bound to advise you that I think it's a useless line of defence. . . . It's worse than that, because it shuts our mouths from offering any explanation that might put the case in a better light than the prosecution will be likely to do."
"You mean you think that I shot Cyril?"
"It doesn't really matter what I think. What matters is that there are three witnesses to swear that you did."
"It matters everything what you think. If you think you know the truth now, you won't try to find it out, and what can I do, shut up here? It's an infamous thing that a man accused in this way should be shut up so that he can't do anything for his own defence. . . . But I made up my mind to keep calm."
"Well, suppose we leave that for a moment. There's another matter of even greater urgency. We've got a week before the case comes up again, but there's this share matter, and the offer expires on the 15 th. - that's tomorrow - and Mr. Weatherhead thinks that, under the present circumstances, you'll do best to accept."
"I don't intend to do that."
"What can you do better, placed as you are?"
"How long do you suppose I'm going to stay here?"
"I wish I could answer that. You know we'll do all we can. But, meanwhile, you can get this money clear of all risks, and, if you don't, you're absolutely in Rowton's hands, whom you don't trust; and, if the business goes wrong, he'll always be able to say that he showed you a way out that you wouldn't take, and so you ruined yourself and everyone else as well."
"I can't help what anyone says, but I made up my mind that I shouldn't sell, and I'm not going to change because I've been got into this mess.
"I think you're the most obstinate man that I ever met. . . . Do you realise that, if this case should go to trial, as it almost certainly will, you'll need funds for your own defence?"
"Perhaps I shall; but as you decline to defend me in any sensible way -"
"I haven't declined anything yet. Suppose I bring the deed here tomorrow - I shall have to come rather early, being Saturday, if any business is to be got through - and you can think things over again between now and then? . . . We've both got rather warmed up. . . . By the way, do you seriously say that it wasn't your gun?"
"I've told you that I never had or handled one in my life."
"Was it Cyril's?"
"How can I tell? I don't believe he ever had one either. I never heard of it, if he had."
"Then you think I couldn't possibly do you any harm if I press the police to use all their resources to trace the origin of the weapon?"
"Of course you can't. That's the first word of sense I've heard since you came in. . . . But, if they know their business, surely they'd do that, whether you ask them or not."
"I daresay they would. But if they think they've got a clear case, they mightn't go very far, especially if they think it's your gun."
"Well, you must take it from me that it never was. Can't you see that I've got too much at stake to tell you what isn't true?"
Leslie Tonks went away in some doubt of mind. Was it possible that three witnesses could be wrong in so clear a tale? But Roger's final argument became less convincing as he pondered upon it. Criminals who had so much at stake did not always think that the truth would be useful to set them free.
CHAPTER X.
It was after Mr. Weatherhead's usual time for leaving when the junior partner got back to the offices of the firm, but he found him to be still there, having waited to hear his report of the afternoon's interview.
He listened to this without comment, only asking an occasional question to clarify the narrative in his own mind, until Leslie concluded with the remark: "Of course, I know it's absurd, but the fact is that when he protested that he hadn't shot Cyril, and didn't know who had, and hadn't even handled a gun in his life, I half began to wonder whether he wasn't speaking the truth. . . . And Inspector Byfleet has much the same feeling. At least, he said he was inclined to think that there was something more to come out."
"But that isn't much the same as suggesting that Roger may not have done it," Mr. Weatherhead objected. "Inspector Byfleet is a very experienced officer. His opinion is not one to be lightly put aside. But I should say that what he meant was that while there can be no doubt that Cyril Truscott died by his brother's hand, yet there is some complication of motive or emotion to which we have no clue in the facts as they are yet known.
"I've been thinking it over this afternoon while you've been away - I've had a little experience myself in the last forty-five years - and I came to the same conclusion. But I came to another, which seems to be about opposite to your own. You think Roger shot his brother. So far we agree. You go on to think that it's a rather stupid obstinacy that makes him stick to his tale that he left before it occurred, because you think it's one that no jury would swallow.
"I don't say that you're wrong there, but has it occurred to you that a small chance is better than none?
"If he once admits that it was his hand that fired the shot, do you think there's any tale that ingenuity could invent that would be sufficient to save his neck? A brother - shot in the back - when he was going away - shot with the only gun that there was. The best counsel that was ever briefed might come down at a fence like that.
"Isn't it his one chance - call it as small as you will - to stick out to the last that he went out first, and to rely on us to shake the testimony of the witnesses, to impugn their memories - if not their veracities - to raise a doubt in the jury's mind?
"I'm not sure that his instinct hasn't been right about that, and when you've been urging him to admit that it was the work of his own hand, that you haven't been urging him to pull the rope more tightly round his neck."
"Well," Leslie said frankly, "I hadn't thought of it in that way; but I'm not sure that you're
wrong. . . . What course ought I to steer now, if we take that view?"
"I think there's no doubt about that. You've urged him already to admit that he fired the shot, and to try to explain it away, and he's refused to take your advice. If he goes his own way now, and he finds himself in the ditch, he can blame himself, but not you.
"But if you find he stands out tomorrow to the same tale, I think you ought to accept it, as long as you don't know that it isn't true, which you certainly don't as yet. You ought to let him see
that you mean to work on those lines, and search every scrap of contrary evidence for whatever flaws you can find. It's a fighting chance, though it's small - and it seems to me it's the only one that there is."
Having delivered himself of this opinion, Mr. Weatherhead rose to make his way to his waiting car. As he put on his coat, he added: "And, by the way, if you find he's still obstinate about selling the shares, you can tell him that he needn't worry about funds. I'll see him through that, for his father's sake, if not for his own."
"You mean you don't think he ought to se out?"
"No. I think he should. If he's made up his mind that way, you can just say nothing, and let him sign. . . . But I don't want him to sell against his own wish because he thinks he can't get defended unless he does."
"As you say, of course. But it's a fairly big risk. Counsel's fees in a case like this -"
"I dare say we shall find that much in Truscott' at the worst, if we start to dig. . . . But it's my risk, not the firm's."
CHAPTER XI
THE next morning, having had the benefit of a night's reflection, during which he had adjusted his mind to recognise the force of the advice which he had received from his more experienced partner, Leslie Tonks had a second and more satisfactory interview with a difficult client.
He commenced, in accordance with his partner's wishes, by producing, as though for signature, the deed which would have surrendered possession of Roger Truscott's heritage in his father's business. He had requested its return from Bagley & Co.'s office on the previous day, and had doubtless led Mr. Boddington to conclude that he was obtaining its execution, as the only one who could readily achieve access to Roger, under existing circumstances; and as a means (Mr. Boddington would suppose) by which funds could be found for the hopeless, spectacular battle of the defence.
Roger, looking weary from the long misery of a sleepless night, greeted him quietly, and said, as he drew out the document: "I suppose you want me to sign that? . . . Well, so I will, if we can agree on the lines on which we are going ahead rather better than we did yesterday."
"I hope that you see now that it's the wisest course.
"No. I don't at all. I do it under protest, on your advice, and because I'm more or less in your hands. I don't believe that the business would go down if we carried on, and I believe the shares would soon be worth four times what we're offered now. . . . But you'll say," he added, the momentary energy dying out of his voice, "that I've other things to think about now, and the business has got to go."
"You've got other things to think about. I can't deny that. But if you don't want to sell the shares, Mr. Weatherhead asked me to say that there'll be no difficulty about funds. The firm will advance any sum that's required, and you can have any counsel who's free to accept the brief."
"I don't want counsel who won't believe what I say."
"Counsel usually do that, or at least they take the line of defence set up in the brief, if they accept it at all. I don't say that some might not return it, if they should find they'd have to take up ground that they disapprove."
"The only line of defence is that I didn't do it, or even know it was done, and that there's no one alive who's more eager to learn the truth."
"Very well. We are prepared to accept that. You realise the consequence must be that we shall start investigations, and cross-examine witnesses, on that assumption - that, for instance, we shall move heaven and earth, if necessary, and perhaps request the aid of the police, to trace the ownership of the revolver, and how it came to be there?
"And there's another consequence that we can't avoid. The prosecution, in endeavouring to fasten the murder upon you, may put it in the worst possible light, and we're shut out from reply. We can't suggest any extenuating provocation, any threat, any accident - in fact, instigation of any kind. They'll say that you must have deliberately brought the gun with you, and that you shot your own brother in the back when you were alone with him on the stairs, thinking that you could escape into the street before the discovery of the crime, so that no one could ever prove that the act was yours. And to that our only reply will be that you were not the one who fired the shot, and that all the witnesses must be making mistakes - unless you want us to say that they have combined to lie."
Roger Truscott listened to this warning with a pale face, and, as he was not quick to reply, Leslie thought for a moment that he was about to hear some dramatic confession, with such explanation (truthful or otherwise) as the ingenuity of a cornered criminal could contrive to offer.
But when he spoke he said quietly: "Yes, I see all that. But what else can I do? I want you to find out the truth by every means in your power.
"Very well. That's agreed. You can reckon from now on that we put every other thought from our minds. You didn't shoot Cyril. You went out first. You never owned, nor even saw the gun with which he was shot. We stand or fall on that, and we don't mean to fall if there's any human way by which we can pull you through. . . . We've got a week, and now we've agreed what the plan of campaign must be, there won't be a day lost: you can be quite sure about that.
But, just to get it out of the way, what do you mean to do about this agreement? I don't want to influence you one way or other. But it's got to be signed, and sent over this morning, if it's to be any use doing it."
"If you don't press me, I shan't sign."
"Then that's that. . . . And the next question is, do you want counsel briefed for when the case comes on again, and, if so, have you any choice of who you're to have?"
"I've no idea about that. I should leave it to you to decide. I suppose it needn't be settled today?"
"No. If you leave it to us. . . . Now I want you to tell me just what happened on Wednesday. . . . Or from the night before, when Cyril came up, which he seems to have done as soon as he got your letter - by the way, the police have a copy of that, from the typist's book."
"Well, that doesn't matter. It only told him there'd be no sense in his coming up on Wednesday, as there'd be nothing to pick up. I said I'd decided not to sell, and he must take that as final; and I gave him a few reasons why. But I didn't waste many words over them, because I didn't expect him to agree, nor to care much whether they were bad or good. He only wanted the cash. . . . Oh, and I said I could arrange to find him some money at once, if he needed it. I'd asked the bank about that."
"Yes, I've seen the letter - that is, a copy. I think you've remembered it accurately enough. It was quite a reasonable letter to write, and it gets us just this far forward - which isn't much - that you couldn't have formed any plan of murdering him then, as you didn't encourage him to come up to town. . . . Did you expect he would, after he'd read it?"
"Yes, I thought it more likely than not. I hoped he wouldn't, but I expected he would. I knew he'd think me a fool, and be angry at the delay in getting his money, even if he didn't honestly think that I was doing the wrong thing; but I didn't guess how savage he'd be."
"You never got on very well with him?"
"No. We used to be friendly at times, and we quarrelled, as brothers do, and forgot it, were friendly again. But we hadn't many interests in common. I never cared for sports, and I suppose we both despised the other more than we should for being so different, but we were friends underneath. . . . You see, we had no near relatives living. . . . We might quarrel between ourselves, but we should have been side by side against any attack against either. . . . That is how I should have put it a week ago. I'll own Cyril lost his head over this money. It's a large sum, and he honestly thought me an utter fool, as perhaps I am. And I've no doubt it must be exasperating to have a brother eighteen months older who can settle your affairs for you, and perhaps ruin you, whether you like it or not. . . . I don't say he didn't lose his head, and say a lot more than he meant, which may have been overheard; but no one can say that I ever made a threat against him. I hadn't any such thought. I'd no cause, and it isn't sense. . . . But what I meant to say was this, that however he felt, if anyone had murdered me he'd have been on his track till he ran him down, and I feel the same about him, or, at least, I should have done if I hadn't been caught in this nightmare way, - and if you ask me to explain it, it's something I can't do, any more than you can yourself. Indeed, I expect you know more about it than I - I don't even know who the people are who are supposed to have seen what happened, or what the case is that we've got to meet."
Leslie listened to this without interruption. He wanted Roger to talk, and was content to bring him back to the point when he had wandered from it as far as his inclination led. And, as he
listened, a real doubt came to his mind. The idea that Roger might be innocent took a reality which was quite different from the professional belief which he had previously undertaken to feel. And with this genuine doubt, there came a faint, inadequate realisation of what it must be to be caught thus in the trap of circumstance, so that life and honour may go down to a common pit.
"We can't know that with any finality till the prosecution have presented their case, and we hear what their witnesses say, and see how they stand up to cross-examination. But if you didn't shoot Cyril, someone else did, and it's our business to find out who. We're not bound to, of course. We're not bound, even, to show you're innocent. It's their business to prove their case. That's the theory of the legal position. But it doesn't work out like that, particularly in murder trials. I don't suppose it ever did, and it certainly doesn't since the accused is expected to go into the witness-box, and counsel is allowed to comment on it, if he doesn't. . . . But there must be someone who fired that shot, and we've got a week in which to give him a name. . . . You might go on telling me what happened when Cyril came."
"He came on Tuesday. He must have wired me as soon as he got my letter in the morning."
"Wired you? What did he say? I suppose the police have got that?"
"No. I tore it up."
"Well, the original could be got from the post office. But I don't see why the police should get on the track of it. The question mightn't arise. But what we've got to consider is whether it would do us any good. What did it say?"
"It said, as nearly as I can remember, ' Strongest protest against your action shall hold you responsible to last penny if I lose through your obstinacy coming immediately do nothing till I arrive.' He rang me up at the office about three o'clock, and I arranged to meet him at his hotel at four."
"Just a moment. I want to get that wire down. Your brother didn't spare words."
"No. He never counted what he spent. That was half the trouble. He could get any credit he needed, because we were supposed to be heirs to a wealthy business, and very rich. I used to suppose that myself up to ten days ago, and never really troubled about his debts. But he was in debt rather heavily, although he'd always borrowed about half my allowance, and he must have owed me nearly £600 when he died."
"And you were willing to let him have more?"
"I offered him £500 when I met him at the hotel. I told him that I asked the bank, and they'd go that far against a deposit of shares, but no more. They said it wasn't the kind of advance that their Board approved, especially as the money was not required for any commercial purpose, and for a somewhat prolonged or indefinite period. I told him that, if he saw me at the office next morning, he could have the money."
"Did he have it?"
"No. He said he wasn't going to make any such deal. He knew where he could get £500, if he wanted it, without any favours from me."
"Then it wasn't to get money from you that he saw you again next day?"
"No. Not except by the sale of the shares, to which he was still trying to persuade me to agree."
"Could he have got money elsewhere, or was it no more than a boast?"
"He had a friend, a son of Dowson, the brewer, from whom he got money rather easily. He may have been thinking of him."
"So, in fact, he had no money from you, although you offered it? It isn't a case of him having a large sum on him, and having been shot and robbed?"
"No. I don't think robbery seems a probable motive, it happening how and when it did. But then nothing about it does seem probable. Though it isn't quite correct that he had no money from me. I didn't mean to say that. I took £20 with me on Tuesday afternoon, which was all I could spare till the month-end, and he had that, though he wouldn't agree to the larger sum."
"Then the question of whether he was robbed may be worth considering. I saw a list of the contents of his pockets. There was a return ticket to Oxford, and quite a small amount of cash. I think it was £2 4s. 0d. Did you give him the money in banknotes, or how?"
"It was in £1 notes. But I don't think he was robbed. He wouldn't be likely to have much of the money left after the sort of evening he'd probably had."
"You mean it would have been of an expensive, and probably discreditable kind?"
"It would be - hilarious. He reckoned on having what he called a lively time when he came up to town. It was quite common for him to run through a good deal of money on such occasions."
"Do you know how it went? Women, gambling, or what?"
"Not at all definitely. There were some matters on which we were not at all confidential. I suppose he thought I should disapprove."
"What I'm trying to get at is whether he could have formed some acquaintances, or got into some row the night before, which resulted in this crime the next day."
"Yes. I see. But I can't help you there. I wish I could."
"Suppose he had incurred a debt - gambling, for instance - and arranged for someone to meet him at your office to pay it off. We must follow that up, though it isn't easy to see how it fits some of the facts, if we can call anything a fact yet. . . . But what I'm most anxious to know is what happened at the offices, when he saw you there, and when you both left."
"There's not much to tell, beyond what I suppose you'll have heard before now.
"He wasn't quite himself - I don't mean that he was less than sober, but he was in a state of bad temper and irritation that wasn't unusual when he'd had a late night, and I suppose he'd had one or two more drinks in the effort to pull himself together again. He was furious with me because I wouldn't give way, and he talked in a manner that I don't suppose he would if he'd been more like his normal self, and some things he said must have been overheard."
"Could any threat have been overheard - any angry retort - anything that could be taken hold of - that you made in reply?"
"No. I didn't make any. I'm certain of that. If anyone says that, it's untrue."
"I don't know that they have. . . . As your brother was in the mood you describe, could he have quarrelled with anyone else on the premises? Did he talk to anyone beside you?"
"He talked to Mr. Rowton. He was in his office for some time, and the three of us were together for a few minutes, but there was no quarrelling about that. Rowton was explaining to
him that he'd done all he could to persuade me to a different decision. but he'd given it up in despair. They were in agreement against me."
"Did Rowton make a fresh effort to talk you over, when he found he'd got your brother's support?"
"Not much. He took the line that he'd done all he could, and that there was nothing left but to give in to my point of view, and do our best to pull together to carry the business on. . . . .He spoke as though he'd given up, but he'd be very glad if Cyril could be more persuasive."
"And how did you part at last? You need to be very careful here, for this is the vital point."
"I said I'd got to go out to lunch, and it wasn't any use going on talking. We'd got to the point where we were saying the same thing over and over again. It must have been before one when I said that, because it was after that that the office began to clear. But he wouldn't go. He said he didn't mean to stop till he'd got my word that he would have his money, - that was how he talked of it, as though I'd already got £15,000 of his that I wouldn't hand over, and I said at last, if he wouldn't go, would he come out and have lunch together?
"Then he turned round, and said if I were with him it would make him too sick to eat. He'd come out, if he had my word first that he'd have his money. So then I said if he wasn't going I was, and I came away."
"There was no quarrel beyond that at the last moment? No altercation that might have been misconstrued in the light of what happened afterwards?"
"I pushed past him. Nothing beyond that. He could have stopped me, if he had really meant to. He's stronger than I. The last words between us may have been overheard. He followed me out of my room into the - well, it's rather hard to describe, it's like an extension of the general office, but out of sight of the clerks that are working there, that I had to cross to get to the door at the head of the private stairs - and Mr. Rowton was coming out of his room at the same time.
"I think Cyril's last words were that I could go where I liked, but I'd find him there when I got back. Rowton may have heard that. I came away without looking round. I didn't see anyone else there. I believe Cyril and Mr. Rowton were talking as I left, but I couldn't honestly swear to that. . . . I went to lunch at my usual place, and I'd just finished when Inspector Byfleet arrested me for murdering Cyril."
"You didn't even know that Cyril followed you down?"
"No. And I doubt whether he did."
"The trouble is that the police appear to think there's conclusive evidence about that. . . . Can you say how many minutes after one it was when you left? That may become a vital point, because it can't have been long after one that the murder occurred."
"I should say it was about five minutes past. I should have said it might be a minute earlier, or perhaps two, but I remember seeing that the restaurant clock was at ten past when I sat down, and I think I should get there within five minutes."
"But you don't know that it was correct to a minute, which is less likely than not. For the moment, we will assume that you left at four minutes past. It will be important to ascertain just how much interval there was between then and the moment when the police were summoned, which is understood to have been instantly after the crime was committed."
As he said that, Leslie rose to go. He shook hands with a cordiality which he would not have shown on the previous day. The case had taken hold of him now, so that he believed the tale he had heard, and felt that he was allied with his client in refuting a monstrous charge, though he was still in the dark, not only as to how he could uncover the truth, but as to what its revelation would be likely to show.
He noticed that Roger had an increased cheerfulness, a more confident aspect, now that his protest of ignorance had been adopted as the basis on which the defence was to be prepared; and he was shrewd enough to reflect that this increased the probability that it was a genuine presentation. He picked up the unsigned deed, which was lying on the bare deal table between them.
"I must let Boddington know," he said, "that we shall not execute this," and so turned, without further wasting of words, to summon the constable who was waiting outside the door of the cell. He heard the key shot, as he walked away.
It is the constant experience of a criminal lawyer to be a part of tragedies which he does not share, but, he reflected, - who would have thought it a week ago?
CHAPTER XII.
It was a few minutes to one when Leslie got back to his own offices, which, it being Saturday morning, were already vacated except for the telephone operator, and a junior clerk who was waiting to dispatch some letters which were on his desk for signature.
As he sat down to deal with them, the telephone rang, and he picked it up to learn that Mr. Boddington was on the wire.
"Put him through," he said, and heard the accountant's voice: "About Truscott & Rowton - I promised to let Mr. Rowton know whether your client had signed. I didn't suppose there was any doubt, but I thought I'd better ring you up, so that I could write him definitely."
"No, he hasn't. He says he told Rowton that he had made up his mind about that."
There was a moment's silence, and then: "Well, it's a suicidal folly. I suppose you've no more influence over him than anyone else; but I should have thought under existing circumstances-"
"But I have no wish to influence him," Leslie replied, with a decision of tone which was almost curt, "it is a course which I fully approve."
He laid down the receiver. It was not an opinion which he would have expressed yesterday. Even earlier in the week, when his talks with Roger had somewhat shaken his previous confidence in the wisdom of the proposed sale, and before the position had been complicated and jeopardised by an accusation of murder against his client which it might not be easy to rebut, he would not have committed himself to so assured a statement. The change showed that, perhaps beyond his own consciousness, he was identifying himself with his client's cause and his client's mind.
. . . But there was nothing more to be done now. Nothing till Monday, except to consider the facts he had, and to make his plans.
He must trace the ownership of the revolver, which, as it was in the possession of the police, could not be done without their co-operation. He no longer feared that he might be manufacturing evidence against his client by urging such an enquiry. But he felt a decided reluctance to saying anything to Inspector Byfleet which would indicate the line of defence which he intended to take. If the police thought that they had a walkover with the evidence they already had, and that the defence would be no better than some fantastic tale of impossible accident, or of a weapon that went off in a struggle and shot its owner - (in the back!) - well, let them remain in that soporific delusion. If the tale that they had was false, it could not be of an unshakable strength, and a false tale is most vulnerable to an unexpected attack. He must try to collect material for its destruction without the prosecution having knowledge of what he did. . . . And probably they were enquiring about the gun already. There is, as he knew, considerable thoroughness about the methods of the metropolitan police. Anyway, he could ask Byfleet whether they had settled the ownership of the gun, and see what he replied. He could do that without giving himself away. P