Smallbone Deceased

‌Chapter Eleven —Thursday A.M.— Capital Appreciation

Years passed and he sat in the same place, wrote out the same documents, and thought of one thing, how to get back to the country. And little by little his distress became a definite disorder, a fixed idea—to buy a small farm somewhere by the bank of a river or a lake.

Chekhov: Gooseberries

I

“I say,” said John Cove, “have you heard?”

“No. What?”

“Eric’s going.”

“Then you did—”

“No,” said John. “I didn’t. That’s the scrumptious part about it. My conscience is absolutely clear. But Eric was so convinced that I should split on him—judging others by his own shocking standards—that he came to the conclusion it would be more dignified and grown-up if he got his own say in first. So he demanded an interview with Bill Birley and handed in his resignation all gentlemanly-like.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, I only got this part from Charlie—you know what those basement stairs are like—so you mustn’t take it for gospel. But apparently Bill Birley was suffering from a number-nine hangover from this Chittering business and the police and what with one thing and another he definitely wasn’t at his mental best. When Eric stalked in and said: ‘I wish to resign,’ Birley just gazed at him in a suffering way for a moment and said, ‘All right, when?’ and the whole scene fell a bit flat. Eric, apparently, in an endeavour to waken a flicker of interest, said, ‘And I don’t mind about notice. If it’s all the same to you I shall leave tomorrow.’ However, even this didn’t stir the great man, who simply moaned and said—Oh, hello, Eric. We were just talking about you.”

“I expect you were,” said Eric Duxford. He was obviously in that uncomfortable state of mind when one is spoiling for a row without knowing quite who to have it with. “I hear you called round at my office on Tuesday night.”

“Well, I didn’t actually know it was your office,” said John, tilting back his chair to a dangerous angle. “It seemed, from the information painted on the door, to belong jointly to a Mr. Smith and a Mr. Selverman.”

“Smith’s retired,” said Eric shortly. “Henry Selverman’s my partner. And a damned good business man.”

“A one-man firm?”

“And what of it?” said Eric. “He knows more about the law than any two of the stuck-up ducal bootlickers in this office.”

“No doubt,” said John. “I should say he must have a very close—almost a personal—acquaintance with certain branches of the law. Breach of contract, for instance, or that lovely, old-fashioned tort, seduction of servants—”

“Look here,” said Eric. “If I thought you’d gone and told Birley—”

“You know damned well I didn’t,” said John coolly. “And if it’s any consolation to you, I never intended to. However, since you have chosen to award yourself that order of the boot which, in my opinion, you so richly deserved—”

“You filthy cad.”

“Control yourself,” said John. He tilted his chair to an even more impossible angle. “You’re too fat for fighting and, in any case, we are both long past the age when exhibitions of personal violence have anything to recommend them.”

“I have no intention,” said Eric, “of demeaning myself by laying hands on you.”

“That hissing noise you heard,” said John to Bohun, “was me sighing with relief.”

“But I will say this”—Eric paused at the door—“I’m bloody glad I’m not staying in this place. It makes me sick. Day after day: ‘Yes, me lord, no, me lord. May I have the honour of blacking your lordship’s boots for you.’ You’re not solicitors. You’re flunkies. I can tell you, I shall be glad to get into an office where we do some real work. It mayn’t be as swanky as this, but we are our own masters…”

Bohun listened, fascinated. Excitement was rubbing all the careful gloss off Eric’s speech, and the brass was showing through in increasing patches.

“That’s the boy,” said John. “I should slam the door, too. It’s almost the only way of rounding off a good sentence like that.”

Eric gave him a final annihilating look and stalked out.

“Do you know,” said John, when he had gone, “if he’d had the guts to say that whilst he was employed here—actually on the pay-roll, I mean—I’d almost have been forced to applaud him. There was a good deal of truth in it. As it is, however, it seems a bit like spitting and running away.”

II

Hazlerigg, at this moment, was considering a series of reports. They dealt in great detail with the letter which had been found under Miss Cornel’s desk.

“The exhibit,” said the first, “corresponds in twelve distinct instances with the test sample supplied. Texture, colour, weave, depth of impress, colour of impress, etc. etc. etc.”

“I have examined the two samples of handwriting under a magnification of one hundred,” began the second. “The number of characteristics which correspond in each sample is too high for me to come to any other reasonable conclusion than that they were written by the same person at about the same period.”

And then a very interesting note from Mr. Allpace, stationer, of Belsize Park. “I supply Mr. Smallbone with writing paper and have in my possession the die-stamp for heading the same. Mr. Smallbone wrote to me early in February ordering a new supply and stating that his present supply was nearly exhausted. I had five hundred sheets stamped, but they have never been called for. I have written twice to Mr. Smallbone reminding him that his notepaper was ready, but have had no reply.”

Sergeant Plumptree said: “That’s quite right, sir. When I went up to get a sample of Mr. Smallbone’s notepaper, on your instructions, I had some difficulty in finding a piece. There was none in his writing-case or desk. In the end I got a bit from Mrs. Tasker. Apparently when he paid his rent he used to fasten the cheque to a sheet of notepaper and leave it on the table outside her sitting-room, so luckily she was able to produce a piece.”

“Then it looks,” said Hazlerigg, “as if the notepaper was genuine, and it looks as if the signature was genuine. And yet—was there any sign of a typewriter?”

“No, sir. He never had a typewriter. Mrs. Tasker said she thought he used to type his letters in a friend’s office. She didn’t know the name of the friend or anything else about him—”

“Well, it’s feasible,” said Hazlerigg.

He said it absent-mindedly. In fact, his thoughts were far away. When Sergeant Plumptree had gone he sent for Miss Cornel.

“Something’s just occurred to me,” he said without preamble. “Should have thought of it long ago, but what with one thing and another… However, here it is. Where are the papers and files and books and things which ought to have been in that deed box? All the Ichabod Stokes stuff. It must have added up to something fairly bulky. Not the sort of thing you could take away under your coat. Well, where is it?”

“I can tell you one thing for certain,” said Miss Cornel slowly. “It’s not in the office.”

“What makes you say that?”

“In any other solicitor’s office,” said Miss Cornel, “a bundle of papers, a couple of account books, a folder of documents, might get pushed away and overlooked—not here. Not in a Horniman office.”

“I see,” said Hazlerigg. “How much was there—roughly I mean?”

Miss Cornel made a vague gesture with her hands.

“It’s difficult to say,” she said. “The box was about half full. There were all sorts of odds and ends. More than anyone would care to have to lug around with them.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “Yes. That’s just what I was thinking.”

III

Bob Horniman, exiled from his own office and driven for the time being to work in the deed examination room, a dismal apartment in the basement, had got into the habit of spending a good deal of time in dropping in on other people, and Bohun was therefore not surprised to receive a visit which corresponded with the arrival of his eleven o’clock tea.

“You can have John Cove’s cup,” said Bohun. “He’s out at a completion.”

“Thanks.” Bob sat on the edge of John’s desk, swinging his legs, until Miss Bellbas had removed herself, and then said: “I’m glad Cove’s out, because there’s something I’ve been wanting—well, to tell you the truth, something I’ve been plucking up the courage to ask you for some time.”

“Yes,” said Bohun cautiously.

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with this police business,” said Bob, noting his reserve. “It’s—look here, your father’s got money, hasn’t he?”

“A pound or two,” admitted Bohun.

“I’m sorry. I’m not doing this very tactfully. I remember being told that he was something in the City, and I’ve always heard of him as a sort of mystery financier with millions at his fingertips.”

“I don’t think it runs to that,” said Bohun. “I don’t think anyone really has millions nowadays. He has certain capital resources which he is free to invest—”

Bob seized on the word. “That’s it. That’s just what I meant. It would be a sort of investment.”

“Perhaps,” said Bohun patiently, “you would explain exactly what it is you have in mind.”

“I want to sell my share in this firm,” said Bob. “I thought you might like to buy it,” he added.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Now that Bob had got it off his chest he seemed much happier. “It’s not a thing I’d offer to anybody, but—well. I know you, and Craine seems to cotton on to you all right, and Birley—well, quite frankly, if he gets a few more shocks like he’s had lately, I don’t think he’ll last out much longer.”

“Yes, but why do you want to do it—why are you getting out? Dash it all, you can’t just throw everything up as if…” Bohun, looking round helplessly, happened to catch the eye of a large photographic portrait of Abel Horniman which glared back at him. “It’s your vocation.”

“Vocation, my foot,” said Bob. “Look here, I’ve never told this to anyone in my life, but you might as well know exactly where you stand. I hate the law. I loathe and detest all this pettifogging round with words and figures, and hours and days and weeks spent mangling bumph and sitting on my bottom worrying about whether Lady Marshmoreton’s annuity should be retained in Consolidated Mines or shifted to 3½ per cent Non-Cumulative Preferential Fish Paste, and whether Lord Haltwhistle has got the power to appoint an eighth part of the fifteenth part of the funds in his great-aunt’s will trust to his nephews and nieces in equal shares, and if not why not.”

Bohun grinned. For the first time since his arrival in the office he remembered Bob as he had last seen him at school, with a serious inky face, broken glasses, and a pair of black boots two sizes too large for him.

“I think maybe you’ve got something there,” he said, “but what do you want to do?”

“Sailing,” said Bob, “and farming. I know of just the place in Cornwall where you could run a small stock farm with one cowman, and there’s a creek runs up actually through the farm. It’s deep enough for a small sea-boat. It would only cost six thousand, and perhaps another three or four thousand to stock it. I’d have to have a reserve, because I don’t suppose I should make it pay at first.”

“I see,” said Bohun. “And how much did you—how much were you expecting to get for your share in the equity of the firm?”

“Twenty thousand,” said Bob. “And it ought to bring in an absolutely safe four thousand a year.”

There was a short silence. Bob Horniman thought of a meadow, knee-deep in the first pasture of early summer; of a silver river running through the meadow; of the murmur of flies; of mighty udders, rhythmically a-swing. Bohun thought of the Duchess of Southend’s Marriage Settlement.

“I’ll see my father at lunch-time,” he said. “Where money’s the question he usually makes his mind up quickly. I’ll probably be able to give you an answer by tomorrow evening.”

IV

Mr. Bohun (senior) had for his offices the third floor of one of the noble buildings on the east side of Lombard Street.

His offices were almost spartan in the simplicity of their arrangements. On the right, as you came out of the elevator, a door invited your enquiries. On the left was a similar door, without anything on it at all. Henry opened this door and went into an anteroom, in which sat an old-looking young man, who earned a four-figure salary by insulating Mr. Bohun from the outside world. He looked up as Henry came in, nodded, and returned to the study of an elaborate graph which he was plotting in six different coloured inks.

Mr. Bohun, who was sitting in a leather arm-chair beside an open fire (the only one allowed in the building), got up, said “Hullo, Henry” in an absent-minded sort of way, and sat down again. He didn’t click switches or talk into boxes and tell people he wasn’t to be disturbed, because there were no switches or boxes in the room, which looked like a smoking-room or study. Anyway, the young man outside would see to all that.

“Hullo, Dad,” said Henry. “You aren’t getting any thinner.”

“No exercise,” said Mr. Bohun. “No excitement. In this firm we don’t go in for excitement. Not like you lawyers. We keep papers in our deed boxes. By the way, I see you’ve been having more trouble lately.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “That’s really one of the things I wanted to tell you about. Here’s how it is…”

By the time he had finished, Mr. Bohun had allowed his pipe to go out. He showed no other definite sign of interest.

“What do you think about it yourself?” he said finally.

“I’d like to do it,” said Henry. “They’re not a very happy firm at the moment. You could hardly expect them to be. But I think they’re sound enough at heart. They’ve got a first-class connection and a lot of business. Perhaps they’ll lose some of it over this tamasha, but it’ll die down. People don’t change their solicitors very easily.”

“What about the price?”

Henry grinned. “I know quite well,” he said, “that you’ve got your own means of finding out anything you want to know in that line. You don’t need my opinion.”

“Perhaps not,” said his father, “but let’s have it.”

“I think,” said Henry slowly, “that it would be a fair gamble. They’re not gilt-edged. If they were you wouldn’t get four-tenths of the equity being offered for twenty thousand.”

“No,” said his father. “I don’t think you would. All right. I’ll have a look at it. One of the conditions, of course, will be that you stay in the firm. I shall be investing the money in you as much as in Horniman, Birley and What’s-it.”

“Very handsome of you,” said Henry. “I’m going to get myself some lunch. I suppose it’s no good asking you to come out.”

“Never have lunch,” said Mr. Bohun. “Waste of time. By the way, I suppose you haven’t got any idea who did these murders? Not,” he added hastily, “that I’m being inquisitive but it might make a difference to my offer.”

“I’ve no idea at all,” said Henry truthfully.

V

“Well, now, Mr. Hoffman,” said Hazlerigg. “I understand that you’ve finished the first part of your work and can give me a general report on the financial position.”

“An interim report,” said Mr. Hoffman. “Then, if you consider that any particular aspect of it wants detailed analysis—”

“Let’s start with the general picture, if you don’t mind.”

Thereupon Mr. Hoffman spoke for an hour, with very little interruption from Hazlerigg. He had a sheaf of notes but he did not refer to them much. It was in his head.

He spoke of capital assets and of invisible assets, of fixed assets and floating assets; of goodwill and the professional index; of the solicitor-client relationship; of the ratio of incomings to outgoings; of over-all balance; and of the law of diminishing returns. And every point which he established was nailed to the table with figures—pounds and shillings, and years and months, and percentages and fractions.

When he had done, Hazlerigg said: “Thank you very much.” Then he said: “I take it you will be letting me have the gist of that in writing.” Mr. Hoffman nodded. “Absolutely off the record and without prejudice, what does it add up to?”

Mr. Hoffman considered the question. Then he parcelled his papers neatly back into his brief-case, screwed on the top of his fountain pen, replaced his pen in his inside pocket (where it lived with three coloured propelling pencils) and leaned back in his chair with a relaxed smile; a parting of the lips which, in a man less austere, might almost have been called a grin.

“I always think,” he said, “that starting a business is very like lighting the drawing-room fire. First, you stack up the sticks and paper and coal in the grate, and then, at the favourable moment, you apply your match. There’s an immediate and beautiful blaze. The paper burns away and the sticks crackle and you put on more and more coal—that’s your working capital—and you get precious little real heat by way of return. Then, in every fire, and in every business, there comes a moment when you know if the thing is going to go or not; and if the fuel is dry and if the draught is right, and if you’ve laid the thing properly, you’ll get a decent fire. If anything’s wrong, then you can prod it and puff it and pile on fuel till you’re black in the face. You’ll get nothing but smoke, stink and a hearth full of charred paper. But once the thing’s alight there’s nothing more to it. The office boy can keep it going. He’s only got to drop an occasional lump of coal on. Incidentally that’s one of the things people don’t think of when they moan about the boss sitting back and taking the profits whilst they do all the work. Anyone can look after a fire when it’s alight.”

“Agreed,” said Hazlerigg. “What then?”

“That’s all obvious, isn’t it,” said Mr. Hoffman. “Anyone who thinks about it can see it. But what people don’t always realise is that it works the other way round as well. A good fire, you know, will go on burning and glowing and giving out heat for a long time after you’ve stopped putting on any fuel. And if you put on a little from time to time—not enough to replace what’s being burnt, but a lump or two—well, it’ll go on burning for a very long time. That, as nearly as I can explain it, is what was happening in Horniman, Birley and Craine in about 1939 and 1940. I don’t think anyone could have spotted it from outside—but the fuel supply was giving out. Partly,” went on Mr. Hoffman, “I expect it was the war. Partly the fact that the system they use here, though an excellent one, isn’t productive of very quick or profitable returns. It would be admirably suited”—Mr. Hoffman did not intend this satirically—“to a government office. But chiefly, I think, it was the fact that whilst the incomings were decreasing the liabilities were increasing—especially Abel Horniman’s liabilities. They must have been. He had his big house in London and his country house and farm in the country, and he was beginning to attain a certain position, a position which needed money to keep it up; money, and then more money.”

“I thought his bank account was rather a modest document,” said Hazlerigg.

“I’ll give you one example of the sort of thing they were driven to. This building is leasehold. Not a very long lease. Every well-run business which operates on leasehold premises puts aside a fund against the day when the lease expires—for repairs and dilapidations, to say nothing of the premium that they may have to pay to get the lease renewed. Horniman, Birley and Craine had been building up a leasehold depreciation fund for a great many years. Well, in 1939 they stopped adding to it. In 1940 and 1941 they drew it out and spent it.” Mr. Hoffman paused for a moment to marshal his thoughts, then went on: “What happened next is the most difficult of all to explain. But sometime, about the end of 1941, the firm had a blood transfusion.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg. There was no doubt about his interest now. “Please go on.”

“Abel Horniman got his hands, somehow, on quite a large capital sum. It isn’t obvious—but when you look for it you can see it. That leasehold depreciation account was built up again. The very heavy mortgages on both of Abel’s properties were reduced. And more than that, certain expenditure which should normally have come out of income, was made out of capital, which meant, of course, that what income there was went further, and everything looked much more healthy all round.”

“A blood transfusion, you said?”

“That was the metaphor that occurred to me.” Mr. Hoffman sounded apologetic, as if he realised that an accountant had no business to dabble in metaphors, let alone mixed metaphors. “But it really does explain in the simplest way that I can think of exactly what happened. Somewhere—and I may say that I haven’t the very least idea where—Abel Horniman got hold of this money. I can only tell you one thing about it. It came from outside. Maybe someone died and left it to him—only you’d have imagined we should have known about it. Possibly he robbed a bank.”

“Well, he may even have done that,” agreed Hazlerigg without a smile. “This sum of money—can you estimate how much it was?”

“Oh, quite a lot,” said Mr. Hoffman. “Ten thousand pounds, at least.”

VI

“After all,” said Miss Bellbas. “Murder’s a serious thing. It might be one of us next.”

“Even so,” said Anne Mildmay. “It seems to me rather like sneaking.”

“Oh, be your age, Anne,” said Miss Cornel crossly. “This isn’t the sixth form at St. Ethelfredas. I agree with Florrie. This is serious.”

“Well, you can tell him, if you like,” said Miss Mildmay. “It just doesn’t seem to me to be any of our business.”

“I think we should,” said Miss Bellbas.

“I’m going to,” said Miss Cornel.

Hazlerigg was on the point of leaving when Miss Cornel came in. He was on his way back to the Yard for an interview with Dr. Bland, the pathologist.

“Look here,” she said. “I won’t keep you long. It’s about that letter. The one that was found under my desk.”

“Yes,” said Hazlerigg.

“I might as well admit,” said Miss Cornel, “that there’s been a certain amount of difference of opinion about telling you this. But the general idea was that we ought to. It was something we all noticed at the time.”

“Something about the letter?”

“Yes. This mayn’t seem much to you—but if you remember it started ‘Dear Mr. Horniman’. Well, that wasn’t the way Mr. Smallbone ever wrote to Abel Horniman. It was always ‘Dear Horniman’, or ‘My Dear Horniman’. There’s quite a nice etiquette about these things, you know. When you get friendly, you drop the ‘Mr.’ and when you get more friendly still you add the ‘my’. It’s not a thing you’d be likely to get wrong.”

“No,” said Hazlerigg. “I appreciate that. Well, thank you very much for telling me. I don’t really see,” he added with a smile, “why you should have been so reluctant to let me have this information.”

His mind must have been working at half-speed that morning. It wasn’t until he was half-way to Scotland Yard that he saw the implication.