Death of a wine merchant

8

Alfred Davis, general manager of Colville and Sons, was staring in disbelief at four sheets of paper on the table in front of him. The latest disaster to strike the Colville company was the non-arrival of a great consignment of wine from Burgundy, wine in every price range. The receipts in front of Alfred were the records of these deliveries in the previous years. Always they had left Burgundy in the second week of October and arrived in London a week or so later. Now there were no records at all. Every attempt to contact the firm of Chanson, Pere et Fils, had failed. Alfred had first been made aware of the lack of incoming burgundy the evening before. He had spent most of his time since staring at the records of previous years. Alfred Davis did not wonder if anything had gone wrong at the wine merchants in France, a serious illness, a death perhaps which might have impeded business. He worried only about the firm of Colvilles. This consignment was meant to last them into the New Year. Another shipment usually came along in February. But Christmas, granted the long lead times involved in the trade, was almost upon them. Alfred did not know what he could do if the shipment simply failed to turn up at the docks. Mr Randolph had looked after the Burgundy business for years. No doubt he could have conjured some more wine out of those wily negociants and filled the gap. But Mr Randolph was rotting in his grave near the Thames and would trouble the wine trade no more. Alfred could not imagine what damage the loss of the Burgundy wines would do the business at one of the busiest times in the wine merchant’s year, Christmas and New Year.

There was a knock at his door. A junior porter told him that there was a Mr John Jackman, the younger Mr John Jackman, waiting to see him. Alfred shook his head. ‘I can’t see him now,’ he said, ‘not this morning, not today. He’ll have to come back another time.’

‘He says, sir,’ the porter sounded apologetic, ‘that he’ll come back every day until he receives satisfaction.’

‘He can come back every day till the end of time if he wants to,’ said Davis, ‘I don’t see a time at present when I will be able to talk to him. Tell him there’s no point. I’ve got nothing to say. There’s nothing I can do.’

John Jackman senior had worked for Colvilles for over forty years. He ended up in charge of the wholesale distribution system. Shortly before he retired there was a row about his pension. Reports of great shouting matches and fists being thumped on tables circulated round all the Colville buildings. Jackman thought he had been conned out of what he had been promised. He said that Randolph and Cosmo were cheats, depriving their workers of what was rightfully theirs. If death and the prison cell had not intervened, Jackman had threatened to go to Walter and Nathaniel to plead his case. Alfred was not aware of the precise nature of the transactions and the various charges and counter charges. But as he stared down at the notes about the missing wine a truly terrible thought struck him. What if the Colvilles were reneging on all their promises about pensions? He had always been told that a generous provision would await him on his retirement and see him off into a trouble-free old age. What if that money never came? How would he and Bertha manage? He had a few savings, but not as much as he would have liked for Bertha was not good with money. Now another of his headaches was coming on and he had run out of pills. He remembered Bertha saying to him that very morning at the breakfast table in Kentish Town, ‘You haven’t been looking well at all, Alfred, not for weeks now. Why don’t you change jobs? Ask Colvilles for a less stressful post or look for a position elsewhere?’

Alfred had almost shrieked his reply. ‘Are you mad, woman? The Colvilles aren’t running a hospital or a charity down there in the West End. If I said I wasn’t up to the job, I’d be out of the door faster than you could draw the cork out of a bottle. Another position? At my age? Don’t be ridiculous!’

Privately Bertha thought her husband was not up to the job, not in the present circumstances. Now, wondering yet again what to do about the missing burgundy, Alfred thought the same.

Powerscourt found Lady Lucy walking up and down the drawing room in Markham Square, her eyes red with tears.

‘Lucy, my love, what’s the matter?’ Powerscourt held her tight.

‘It’s so silly, Francis. Here am I walking up and down this room just like you do. Only I know you’re thinking when you do it, I can see it in your eyes, I’m just upset.’

‘What’s been upsetting you?’

Lady Lucy made her way to a chair by the fire. ‘It’s Milly,’ she said, ‘she’s only just gone.’

‘She of the Horrible Husband?’

‘Indeed so, Francis. Things are worse than we thought, much worse. All her money has gone. Horrible Husband has debts that he’s owned up to of three thousand pounds. Milly thinks there may be more. Only two people from the family have replied to my request that we club together to give her some money. So I wrote her a cheque right here in this room for one hundred pounds, Francis. I hope you think that’s all right. It’s just I couldn’t bear the idea of those little children going hungry.’

Lady Lucy looked defensively at her husband. Perhaps he would be cross.

‘Think nothing of it, Lucy. Where is the husband now? Is he still at home?’

‘The real reason Milly came has nothing to with the money, Francis. This story doesn’t come at first hand but I think it’s reliable all the same. Milly thought you should know about it. Terrible Tim goes drinking in some sordid gambling and drinking den near Paddington station. He drinks quite a lot there with the husband of a great friend of Milly’s called Trumper, Beauchamp Trumper. This Trumper told his wife that one day just before the wedding, Timothy had got more than usually drunk. He had begun to criticize the Colvilles. There was a lot of stuff, Beauchamp thought, about how he had been unfairly dismissed, his career ruined, his abilities questioned by those two Colvilles, Randolph and Cosmo. Beauchamp said it seemed to be the insults to his honour that made him most upset. Then, Francis – Beauchamp swears he remembers this bit perfectly – Tim said, “I tell you what I’m going to do to that arrogant sod Randolph Colville. I’m going to kill him. I bloody well am too.”’

At that point they heard, more or less simultaneously, the ringing of the telephone and a series of whoops and war cries as the Powerscourt twins, Christopher and Juliet, five years old, hurtled down the stairs towards the noise. It was always the same now. Whenever the bell rang, wherever they were, whatever they were doing, Christopher and Juliet headed for their father’s study at very high speed. They had once leapt out of the bath when the bell went off and shot down the stairs wrapped only in the scantiest of towels, passing one of Lucy’s relations who happened to be a High Court judge on the way.

They seemed to believe that the telephone was like a sacred object in some primitive tribe, to be worshipped and revered. At first they had refused to accept that you could speak to another person through the instrument, or that another person could speak to you. When Powerscourt spoke to them once from a neighbour’s telephone they had both dropped the instrument on the floor and fled upstairs, putting themselves straight to bed and holding whispered conferences from under the bedclothes.

On this occasion the twins reached the phone a lot earlier than their father. They took up their usual position, crouching on the floor and looking reverently at the instrument. When Powerscourt picked it up he was greeted by an unusually loud voice, even for his brother-in-law on the telephone.

‘Francis!’ boomed William Burke. The twins had never heard anybody speak so loudly through the telephone before. They thought the caller must be in the next room or outside in the street. Christopher and Juliet exchanged quick conspiratorial glances and clapped their hands over their ears. Then they fled the field to continue their life of crime elsewhere in the house.

‘William, how good of you to call back so soon.’ Powerscourt looked suspiciously at the study door in case the twins were lurking on the far side. A shriek from the upper floors told him they had gone.

‘I haven’t very much to say as yet,’ Burke shouted cheerfully, ‘and I haven’t got very long. Mary’s dragging me off to the opera again. Doesn’t seem fair to me. I went a couple of years ago, for God’s sake.’

‘You might enjoy it, William,’ said Powerscourt.

There was what sounded like a cross between a snort and a grunt at the other end. ‘Back to the Colvilles, Francis. My man is out of town for a few days but I have managed to pick up a few tasty scraps for you.’

‘Excellent, William, fire ahead.’

‘The main thing is that a lot of people in the know say there is something very funny going on with the Colville money. Nobody knows exactly what, but there is general agreement among sensible men that there is a serious problem. One man thinks they run two sets of accounts, one real, seen by nobody but senior Colvilles, and another one for more widespread circulation. The most significant fact,’ Burke ratcheted up the volume another three or four notches at this point, ‘is that they’ve lost three senior accountants in the last five years.’

‘Did you say three, William?’

‘I did,’ bellowed Burke.

‘Did they walk of their own accord or were they pushed?’

‘At least one walked out after three months in the job, saying, apparently, that he didn’t want to be there when the balloon went up.’

‘Names, William, can you get me names and addresses? Please?’

‘I’ll get them for you tomorrow, Francis. I’ve got to go. Damned cab at the door. Five hours of the wretched Lucia di Lammermoor coming up. It would all be over so much quicker if they didn’t bloody well sing.’

Powerscourt made his way back to the drawing room. Lady Lucy seemed to have captured the twins and was reading them a story. She promised to read them another story in ten minutes if they went straight up to bed.

‘I gather you’ve been talking to William Burke on the telephone, Francis?’

‘William Burke says there is something funny with the Colville money. They’ve gone through three senior accountants in the last five years, apparently.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Lady Lucy, whose knowledge of senior accountants was somewhat limited, but did include the view that they should stay in their position longer than twenty months each. ‘I’ve been thinking about Milly’s husband all the time, Francis. Suppose he did go to Norfolk intending to kill Randolph. Suppose you manage to rescue Cosmo Colville only to put Terrible Tim in Pentonville in his place. Suppose he has to go on trial for murder. It would be terrible for Milly after all she’s been through.’

Powerscourt thought his wife had travelled quite a long way down the road of trial and retribution but she hadn’t gone all the way. When would she reach the last journey, the apologetic priest, the pompous governor, the hangman and his assistant all on their way to the gallows? He was a pretty big man, Timothy Barrington White, he’d probably need a drop of seven and a half feet or so to finish him off.

‘Francis,’ Lady Lucy called him back from his reverie, ‘if he was arrested, Terrible Tim, I mean, would you try to get him off? Anything to keep the scandal away.’

Powerscourt reflected that his wife wasn’t exactly at the top of her form in this exchange. If Barrington White was arrested, it would mean that Cosmo Colville could walk free. If he then took on the responsibility of liberating Terrible Tim, somebody else would have to be arrested so that he too could walk free. Was Cosmo, after a couple of days of freedom, to return to his prison cell?

There was one definite fact where he could take action. He must speak to Beauchamp Trumper at the earliest opportunity. What if that fellow drinker of Tim’s had been so alarmed by what he heard of Tim’s drunken boasting that he would kill Randolph Colville, that he had warned the Colvilles to take care? If he had done so, one of the central mysteries of the case would be removed. Randolph Colville had taken his gun to the wedding because he thought somebody might try to kill his brother. Or himself.

Rain was falling in Fulham. It bounced off the top of the omnibuses and the roofs of the carriages. It bounced up off the pavement ensuring that the people were soaked from top to bottom. Small boys on their way home from school tried to shrink themselves inside their caps and hugged the side of the streets in a doomed attempt to keep dry. Lord Francis Powerscourt had his finest black umbrella high above his head, looking for the turning off this main road to the smaller Ringmer Avenue he believed should be the second turning on his left. London, he reflected, was growing bigger all the time, radiating outwards on all four parts of the compass. He wondered if it would ever stop.

Here was Ringmer Avenue at last and here was number sixteen, home to one James Chadwick, former senior accountant at Colvilles, who opened the door reluctantly.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Chadwick, Powerscourt’s the name. I wrote to tell you I proposed to call at this time today.’

‘Come in then.’ James Chadwick sounded as if he would have preferred to leave his visitor out in the rain. He showed Powerscourt into a small sitting room with a sofa and a couple of chairs and a good collection of books. Looking at it Powerscourt knew there was something wrong, something lacking. There was nothing warm or intimate about this place. It had all the humanity of a cell in the local jail. Powerscourt felt sure that there was no woman in the house. There might have been one here some time ago, but not now.

Powerscourt placed himself on the sofa. ‘Thank you so much for seeing me, Mr Chadwick,’ he began. ‘How long is it now since you left Colvilles?’

‘Four years nine months and two weeks,’ said Chadwick, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice.

‘Were they good people to work for, Mr Chadwick? The Colvilles, I mean?’

‘They were and they weren’t, if you follow me. Good in some ways, not so good in others. Not that I can tell you very much about them. My work was confidential, you see.’

‘I suggest, Mr Chadwick, that with one brother dead and the other one about to go on trial for his life, the time for confidentiality is past.’

‘You know the oath the doctors swear, Lord Powerscourt?’

‘The Hippocratic Oath?’

‘That’s the one. The section I’m thinking of says: All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.’

‘With the greatest respect, Mr Chadwick, that sentence is meant to apply to doctors, not to senior accountants. I can fully see the necessity for confidentiality under normal circumstances but these are not normal times. Come, I am not interested in every last detail of the Colville accounts. But I would be very interested to know how they got through three senior accountants inside five years.’

‘Can you promise me that I won’t have to give evidence in court?’

‘I’m not sure I can promise you that, Mr Chadwick, but I can promise you that you won’t have to go to court if you don’t want to.’

Powerscourt looked again at James Chadwick. There was something seedy about the man. His shirt collar was on the verge of disintegration. His jacket was badly frayed at the elbows. The shoes had seen better days and the trousers were heavily stained. Powerscourt wondered if there had been a wife who had left, or passed away from some terrible illness or died in childbirth. He wondered too if money had become a problem. No sensible employer was likely to take on a man who dressed like this. They might as well take on a tramp from one of the great railway stations. He tried a different tack.

‘Of course, if we find your information valuable there may be a question of a fee. I would have to talk to my colleagues about that.’ Nightmare visions of the prosecuting counsel unleashed on James Chadwick flashed across his brain. ‘Did you say you were paid for this information, Mr Chadwick? Perhaps you would like to tell the court how much? Gentlemen of the jury, it is for you to decide how much weight to attach to evidence which has been purchased as you might purchase a horse or a train ticket.’

The mention of money seemed to act as a tonic on the accountant. He sat up straight in his chair and fiddled with his tie as if that might restore it to health.

‘I will tell you the bald points of my time with the Colvilles, an account I hope will still fall within the general guidelines of the Hippocratic Oath.’

James Chadwick paused briefly. One of the dirty curtains across his window flapped for a moment. Powerscourt wondered if he would be offered a cup of tea in this place. Probably not, he thought.

‘I didn’t think the accounts were properly organized before I got there, Lord Powerscourt. So I changed them so they followed the wines, if you follow me. Under the old regime everything was organized alphabetically. That might have been fine in earlier times, but it was hopelessly out of date when I got there. I changed the system so that it was organized by wine. Separate accounts for port, Madeira, claret, Bordeaux and so on. I could track all the money in these accounts at the end of every month. Over time, assuming the trade followed consistent patterns year on year, we could have predicted in May how much profit the firm would have made at the close of the year.’

‘It sounds an admirable system, Mr Chadwick. You must have been proud of it.’

‘It was admirable, and, yes, I was proud of it.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘I’ll show you what went wrong. I said I could track the money the firm was making or losing month by month. I knew by the end of the year what the final figures should be, I just had to add the monthly figures together. After that the figures went through Mr Randolph Colville and Mr Cosmo Colville to the main board who signed off on the final figures for the year’s accounts.’

‘That sounds perfectly proper to me, Mr Chadwick.’

‘The difficulty lay in the gap, Lord Powerscourt. I won’t give you exact figures, but the annual profit leaving my accounts might be three hundred thousand pounds. But the final figure in the final accounts would be in the order of two hundred and fifty thousand. Something in the order of fifty or sometimes one hundred thousand pounds was disappearing out of the Colville accounts every year. In good years it might have been worse, if you see what I mean.’

‘Did you know who was doing the intercepting? Would they have been allowed to do this? Was it illegal?’

‘I don’t know who was doing the intercepting, but the most likely candidates had to be Mr Randolph and Mr Cosmo. Only Colvilles were allowed to hold shares in the company, you see. So whoever was doing the fraud was effectively stealing from his own family.’

‘Did you mention this to anybody?’

‘I mentioned it to Mr Randolph,’ James Chadwick laughed bitterly, ‘and I was fired the next day. I haven’t had a full-time position since. The Colvilles put it about that I had helped myself to their money when in fact the problem was the other way round, Colville robbing Colville, not Chadwick robbing Colville.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt, ‘you have had a hard time of it.’ He was doing a series of calculations in his head. In the five years since James Chadwick left the firm, half a million pounds or more would have disappeared from the family firm, money that could have been spent on expansion, or larger dividends, or buying out your competitors. He had always thought that people were unlikely to murder for a bottle of Sauternes or a Chassagne Montrachet. But for half a million pounds? Or in revenge against those who had defrauded you out of such a sum? And what had the Colville thief done with the money? Where was it? As Powerscourt took his leave of James Chadwick and Ringmer Avenue he wondered if the other two senior accountants would tell him the same story. And if the theft led directly to murder and death.

Emily Colville, nee Emily Nash, sat in the drawing room of her new house in Barnes close to Hammersmith Bridge. Emily had been married for less than a month and was already dubious about the supposed virtues of the married state. Their honeymoon to Rome and Florence had been postponed because of the murder of her father-in-law at the wedding reception. Emily missed Brympton. She missed the company of her younger brothers and sisters. She missed her horse and her dogs who, her father had assured her, would be waiting for her. Secretly, her father hoped that the animals would be a lure to bring her back home.

Many of the things that would have occupied newly married young women were not available to Emily. The all-important consolations of domestic bliss, the transition from doll’s house to real house, the location of furniture and fittings, the vital questions of where to hang the pictures had all been taken care of as the house had been rented furnished and the owners, gone to New York for a year or two, had made it clear that they expected to find the house exactly as they had left it on their return. Every morning her husband Montague walked over Hammersmith Bridge and took the train to his Colville offices in the West End. Every evening he left his Colville office and returned to his house near the river. Emily stayed behind in what was, for her, in danger of turning into a Colville mausoleum. Other fashionable young women might have taken up votes for women and spent the occasional evening breaking the shop windows of Bond Street and Mayfair. Emily thought the suffragettes were faintly ludicrous and didn’t care if she had the vote or not. Then there was charity and good works among the capital’s innumerable poor. Sadly neither charity nor the poor appealed to Emily at all. She was restless, hungry for excitement. Her husband might be kind, reliable, steady, but the heady wine of romance did not flow in his veins. Sometimes Emily thought she was composed of two selves, one respectable, conventional like her parents, the other giddy, longing for escape and adventure and intrigue. It was the first Emily, not the second, who had married Montague. She sought consolation in the women’s magazines but they only left her more dissatisfied than before. More and more she looked back to her summer adventures in Norfolk, the waiting, the secret messages that summoned her to these trysts in the little cottage. Only in these weeks in Barnes did she come to realize that forbidden activity brings its own excitement and that secret love is a most powerful aphrodisiac. Desperately, she wished for another message, scrabbling through the morning and afternoon posts in the hope that happiness might return.