Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

53

Captain of Industry

For once, Charles Whitstable was at a loss for words. He was still wearing the previous day’s clothes, and had not slept.

“We just want to know how you did it,” said May, hunching forward on his chair. The workmen had made a surprise return to Mornington Crescent, and there were tools all over the floor. There was also, inexplicably, a large hole in the ceiling.

“I’m not sure what you’ll even be charged with,” added Bryant, “but it’ll certainly be as an accomplice to murder. Try to explain what happened. Then we’ll decide what you need to put in your official statement.”

Charles lifted his head from his hands and attempted to smooth his hair back in place. “All right,” he said, resigning himself to the first in a series of trials. “When I went to Calcutta, I found the guild’s group of companies still operating under archaic conditions. There had been no technological advances, no updating of the infrastructure. The offices were staffed by the grandsons of the original owners. Bureaucracy was rampant, even by Calcutta’s standards. Nothing had changed from James Whitstable’s time.

Back in London, Peter and Bella were moaning about profits dropping. They were all complaining, even the damned lawyers, and no one had the balls to come and sort out the mess. Everything was left to me. I soon noticed that certain ‘obligations’ transmitted from London were being honoured by staff members. Every once in a while, someone would disappear for a few days on ‘company business,’ financed by money orders transferred through the lawyers’ office in Norwich. That staff member would then reappear and continue working without a word of what had transpired. Apparently, this had been going on for years.

I noticed a pattern in the type of people chosen for this clandestine work. They were always the sons and grandsons of men who had been granted a great favour by the guild at some point in the past.”

“What sort of favour?”

“The usual sort of thing – a cash advance for a newlywed, an executive post for a son – a favour that demanded repayment at some unspecified point in the future,” explained Charles. “Employees of even the most distant branches of the Watchmakers could, in extreme circumstances, be granted special deals in the form of large low-interest loans. In return, a brown-paper package was delivered to the home of the borrower, to be kept within the family and opened at a time specified by the company.

When the time came, instructions were to be carried through to the last letter. The debt was canceled once the rival was out of action. There could be no defaulting on repayment. At least, that was how the system had worked in the past. I arrived to find dissent. People had begun to refuse to honour these ‘obligations.’ They’d been held to promises by their fathers, their grandfathers, but couldn’t see why they should perform favours for the English any more. Victoria’s reign might have gone, but it was a damned long time dying. Our employees had been kept in place with threats and superstitions, but they no longer feared the power of the alliance. India now had its independence, after all.”

Charles Whitstable looked as embarrassed as a captain of industry could ever be seen to be. “Well, I couldn’t completely abolish the system. But the Calcutta police were becoming suspicious. I had to take control. I had the family’s best interests at heart. The machine provided the competitors of those marked for removal because it was regularly updated in London by Tomlins. I had no idea that the system had begun to backfire, or that it would kill my own family. James Makepeace Whitstable used everyone – his craftsmen, his lawyers, the heirs of his most loyal members of staff. That was the simple beauty of his scheme. All the dirty work was done overseas, thereby keeping his own hands clean. James never dreamed that one day it would all come home.”

“That was why the assassins used such old-fashioned methods of execution,” May realized. “They were working to a tried and trusted formula. When Max Jacob’s killer used cottonmouth snake venom, it was probably the closest he could get to a native Indian reptile.”

“What an apt Victorian process,” snorted Bryant. “Butcher your rivals, dupe the locals, and improve your own fortune. If anyone gets caught it’s only an invisible foreigner, a third-class citizen, and who’ll believe him against the word of a white man? So men like poor Denjhi had their lives destroyed by the debts of their forefathers. His conscience prevented him from killing Daisy Whitstable, so he was used again. But he beat the system a second time. Instead of lethally poisoning Peggy Harmsworth, he diluted the concoction, hoping to spare her life without failing to honour his debt.” Bryant rose and refastened his shapeless brown cardigan. “You have the deaths of your own family on your conscience. It’ll be interesting to see if we can make you pay in the courtroom.”