Smallbone Deceased

‌Chapter Two —Tuesday— The Irritating Absence of a Trustee

The Law is utilitarian.

James Barr Ames: Law and Morals

I

“All that messuage tenement or building,” said John Cove reluctantly, “together with the outbuildings farmbuildings cottages barns sheds closets and other buildings of a permanent or quasipermanent nature erected thereon or on some part thereof together also with the several pieces or parcels of land thereto belonging and the several brothels and—”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Cove.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Bellbas. The word was ‘abuttals’. I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t quite what it should be this morning.”

“No, Mr. Cove?”

“In fact, if I may let you into a secret, I find some difficulty in opening both eyes at once.”

“I expect it was all those drinks you drank last night, Mr. Cove.”

“And when I do open them,” said John, properly ignoring this interruption, “what do I see?”

“I—”

“I see a greyish-yellowish mist, Miss Bellbas, and floating round in it, like the corpses of men long drowned, are Things, frightful indescribable Things.”

“I expect you need a cup of coffee, Mr. Cove.”

“That’s a very sensible idea, Florrie. See if you can get the sergeant to produce a cup—two cups. Mr. Bohun will have one as well.”

When Miss Bellbas had departed Mr. Cove said petulantly: “I really don’t know how you contrive to look so disgustingly fit. So far as I can recollect you drank exactly the same as I did.”

“I’ll let you into the secret some day,” said Bohun. “It’s a system you have to start young or not at all—like tight-rope walking and Yogi.”

“Then it’s altogether too late,” said John, “for I am at death’s door.”

Nevertheless, after a cup of strong coffee, he found himself revived sufficiently to begin Mr. Bohun’s education.

The latter was staring in a rather helpless way at a small mountain of filing cards.

“That is the Horniman Case Index Card. At the top you will see the name of the client. On the left, in purple ink, a series of letters; on the bottom, in pencil, a number. Now what’s the first card you’ve got there? Dogberry and Usk… That’s the ninth baron. ‘Children’s Settlement No. 5’, well, that’s plain enough. It’s a tax-dodging stunt, of course. Now the letter ‘C’. That tells you what stage the thing has got to. I forget just what ‘C’ stands for in Settlements—appointment of trustees, I think. You’ll find all that explained in the Horniman Index. Then last of all the number—52. That means that letter No. 52 was the last one to go out from this office. When you write the next letter you rub that out and put 53. Simple.”

“Do we have to number all our letters then?”

“Every letter written in this office,” said John, “is numbered, top copy and carbon, press-copied for the letter book and stamped for outgoing mail. The carbon is then filed and indexed.”

“Nothing else?” said Henry. “Surely you send a copy to The Times as well?”

“No. But you mustn’t imagine that your labours are over when a letter has been dispatched or an answer received. In the inside of every cardboard file cover—specially designed, I may say, by Abel Horniman—is a pro-forma into which you fill the essential details of each transaction. This pro-forma is finally reproduced, in a slightly condensed form, on one of the cards you’ve got there. Once a file is closed, it may go into a number of different places. If the client is a grade three client—one whose affairs are of small importance or who himself possesses only minor status—”

“The younger sons of younger sons of dukes?”

“That’s it. You’re getting the hang of it nicely. Well, his files will go in the tea-room—that’s the glory-hole next to Sergeant Cockerill’s lair. A second-class client travels the same route, but ends up in a locker in the muniments room. But a first-class client—” John waved his hand round the room.

“Has a BOX!”

“Right. And no ordinary box.”

John went over to the rack at the far end of the room and drew out a black tin receptacle labelled “The Venerable the Archdeacon of Melchester, D.D.”

It was after the same style as, but larger than, the normal deed box found in a solicitor’s office. Its most unusual feature was the closing device on the lid. This was a cantilever and clip, like the gadget which operates a simple trouser-press. Henry pulled the handle upwards and backwards and tugged at the lid. Nothing happened.

“You have to open it with a jerk,” said John. “It’s hermetically sealed.”

When the lid came off, Henry saw what he meant. It was not, in point of scientific fact, hermetically sealed, but it was very tightly shut. Round the inside lip of the box ran a thick rubber lining into a groove in which the sharp edges of the lid fitted, pressed down by the leverage of the clamp.

“What a contraption. I’ve never seen anything like it. Surely the ordinary deed box is good enough.”

“It was commonly believed in the office,” said John, “that once, just before the turn of the present century, one of Abel Horniman’s leases had the signature eaten off by a mouse, a mishap which gave rise to expensive litigation in the Chancery Division. Accordingly he sat down and devised the Horniman dust-proof, moisture-proof, air-proof and, indeed, mouse-proof deed box—”

“I see.”

“With all due respect for the departed”—John placed both his feet tenderly on the desk—“it’s typical of a lot that the old boy did. All his ideas were sound enough in themselves, you know, the indexes and the cross-checking and what not—it was just the lengths to which he carried everything—Hello, yes—”

“Mr. Craine wants you.”

“Curse him. All right, Anne—”

“Miss Mildmay to you.”

“I say, you haven’t got a hangover too, have you?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Cove.”

“Well, stop trying to put me in my place, Anne, and convey my respects to Tubby and tell him I’ll be along in a minute.”

“You convey your own respects,” said Miss Mildmay. “And take the Batchelor file with you. I gather Mr. Craine wants to discuss the arithmetic in your completion statement.”

“Does he though,” said John uneasily.

He took his legs off the desk and departed.

“Have you got all you want, Mr. Bohun?”

“Thank you,” said Henry. “John Cove has been initiating me gently into some of the mysteries of the Horniman office system.”

“No doubt you were scared. I know I was at first. However, cheer up. It works quite well when you get used to it.”

“I expect it does. Can you tell me who’s going to do my work?”

“That’ll be Mrs. Porter. By the way, she’s new, too. She arrived at the end of last week. She doubles for you and Mr. Prince—he’s our Common Law clerk. You’ll find her in Miss Bellbas’s room. Just inside the door on the right as you come in.”

“Thank you,” said Henry. “I’ll go and have a word with her—as soon as I’ve got some ideas about what I want her to do.”

However, when he did get there, the room just inside the door was empty. Judging from the sounds coming out of it the entire staff of Horniman, Birley and Craine was collected in the partners’ secretaries’ room, on the other side of the entrance hall. He guessed that this was the hour of morning coffee. After some hesitation he hardened his heart, opened the door and went in.

He might have spared himself any embarrassment. Nobody took the slightest notice of him.

“But, Florrie,” Miss Chittering was saying, “when you’d made all your arrangements. It’s too bad.”

“You haven’t changed your mind again, have you?” said Miss Cornel.

“You can’t go altering your holiday”—Miss Mildmay sounded angry. “You’ll put everyone else’s out.”

“You’ve bought your ticket and everything.”

“Pull yourself together, Florrie.”

“It’s no good,” said Miss Bellbas. “The stars are against it.”

“Then defy the stars.”

“It’s no good, Miss Cornel.”

“Or take a different newspaper.”

“It isn’t the paper, Anne, it’s the stars.”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Mildmay. “How can you suppose that the stars can take any interest in your holiday. They must have more important things to think about.”

This reasoning fell on deaf ears. Miss Bellbas was fumbling in her capacious handbag and eventually produced a folded newspaper. The others crowded round her.

“Last month it was all right,” she said. “Look, there you are. ‘Virgo, August 24th to September 23rd’—that’s me—‘You will find fortune and a good companion on the great waters. Proceed boldly and overcome your natural qualms’—that’s right, too. Why, sometimes I’m sick before I even get on the boat. ‘Lucky colour red.’ Well, that was plain as plain. I went straight out and got a ticket for this cruise—”

“Why a Baltic cruise?”

“Well—lucky colour red—”

“Some might think it so, I suppose,” said Miss Cornel. “What happened next?”

“What happened?” said Miss Bellbas, almost in tears. “Why, look at it now!” She pointed to another paper, and Miss Cornel read out “‘Virgo, etc., etc. Avoid the sea at all costs. Your happiness lies in the hills. Turn your eyes to them. Things will open up surprisingly about the middle of the week. From a sum of money expended now you will reap a modest benefit in fourteen days’ time. Lucky colour grey’.”

“It’s so definite,” said Miss Bellbas. “I couldn’t go on, not in the face of that. Luckily the company took back the cruise tickets. I shall just have to wait till the stars come round again.”

“But, Florrie—”

“Now wait.” Miss Cornel spoke in an authoritative voice. She picked up both newspapers and a deep silence fell on the secretaries’ room, broken only by the plaintive ringing of the inter-office telephone, of which no one took the least notice. After close study of both papers she announced: “I have it. No—wait. Yes, of course.”

“What, Miss Cornel?”

“Last month’s paper doesn’t actually mention the sea, does it? As I thought. It says ‘the great waters’. Why, it’s as clear as clear can be. You must take your holiday in the Lake District. Great Waters and High Hills. Red for the—let me see—for the ironstone crags and grey for the lakes.”

“Yes, yes,” said Miss Bellbas.

“And the last bit’s quite clear, too. You must take a cheap fortnightly return ticket. That’ll save you a modest sum in fourteen days’ time.”

This last stroke convinced everybody. Even Mrs. Porter, a quiet, middle-aged woman who had so far held herself aloof from the discussion, joined in to contribute an account of how her brother had avoided a train accident by intelligent reading of the tea leaves.

“I wonder if you’d mind coming in and taking a few letters,” said Bohun timidly, and as it proved inaudibly, since no one looked in his direction.

“You must make it a walking tour,” said Miss Chittering. “You can have that big walking-stick. You know—the one the Duke of Laxater left in the waiting-room—and Miss Cornel will lend you her big green rucksack.”

“Well,” said Miss Cornel, “since you’re so kindly lending her everybody else’s belongings, why not start with your own dressing-case?”

“Oh, no, really. I couldn’t do that,” said Miss Chittering, anxiously. “You wouldn’t want a dressing-case, would you, Florrie? Not on a walking tour. Why, it’s made of real crocodile skin. A rucksack would be much more suitable.”

“I—” said Miss Bellbas.

“If your dressing-case is crocodile, my fur coat’s polar bear,” said Miss Cornel flatly.

“Mrs. Porter,” said Bohun.

“I was assured when I bought it,” said Miss Chittering, “that it was absolutely genuine Congo crocodile—”

“MRS. PORTER!”

“Oh, Mr. Bohun, I didn’t see you come in.”

“Would you mind coming in and taking some letters?”

At this moment John Cove appeared looking slightly flushed. Evidently he had got the worst of his arithmetical discussion with Mr. Craine.

“Heave ho, Miss Bellbas,” he said. “We’ve got to do it all again.”

Miss Bellbas, however, seemed to have something on her mind.

“I should never have thought it,” she said to Miss Cornel.

“Thought what?”

“That your fur coat was polar bear.”

“That’s just it,” said Miss Cornel patiently. “It isn’t.”

“But I thought you said—”

“Florrie, my love,” said John Cove. “You really are the most literal creature on earth. Does irony mean nothing to you? Has sarcasm no place in your life? Do the shafts of satire pass you by? Have you never even heard of the homely figure of speech?”

“Yes,” said Miss Bellbas doubtfully.

“If I said to you, ‘I’m dying of hunger’ would you hurry out to summon the coroner and the undertaker? Would you search yourself anxiously for traces of strawberry jam if someone accused you of being a—”

“Really, Mr. Cove!”

II

“It would appear, Miss Chittering,” said Mr. Birley smoothly, “that you must imagine me to be a highly moral man.”

Miss Chittering looked blank but surmised it was something to do with the letter she had just typed and which Mr. Birley was now perusing.

“I take it as a compliment, of course.”

“Yes, Mr. Birley.”

“But I’m afraid it won’t do.” He scored the letter heavily through. “When I said, ‘This is a matter which will have to be conducted entirely by principals,’ I intended it to be understood that the work would be done by a partner in the firm concerned, not that it would be carried out according to ethical standards.”

“I never really know the difference between principal and principle,” said Miss Chittering apologetically. “It’s often been explained to me, but I just never seem to pick on the right one.”

“Oh, and another thing,” said Mr. Birley. “You do not address a man as Thomas Smallhorn, O.B.E., Esquire.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Birley.”

“It’s not that I object myself, of course, Miss Chittering, but the recipient might imagine that I was unaware of the commoner usages of polite society, and the reputation of the firm would suffer accordingly.”

Mr. Birley tore both pages of the letter slowly across and dropped them into the basket—which Miss Chittering felt to be rather mean, since the top page could quite easily have been salvaged, and attached to a new second page, which in any case only had three lines on it, besides the offending address.

“I sometimes wonder what we pay you such a princely salary for,” went on Mr. Birley.

This might conceivably have been intended as a joke, and Miss Chittering rewarded it with a nervous titter.

“If you are uncertain about these things, ask Miss Cornel or someone who knows their job—”

This was definitely unkind, and Miss Chittering flushed, but was spared the responsibility of answering by the arrival of Mr. Craine with some papers.

She made her escape.

“I don’t know if you’ve got a moment,” said Mr. Craine.

“What is it?” said Mr. Birley, in a far from gracious tone.

Now the real trouble was—and it is pointless to pursue this narrative further without being quite honest about it—that the two partners disliked each other; and the reason for it was inherent in the characters of the men themselves, which were as immiscible as oil and water.

Mr. Craine had performed throughout the 1914 war with some credit in an infantry battalion. Mr. Birley had evaded most of the war with an allegedly weak heart. Mr. Craine was a cheerful little extrovert, and a heavily-married man. Mr. Birley was a confirmed bachelor, who had bullied his adoring mother into the grave and was now engaged in nagging his elderly sister in the same direction.

Even the type of work in which each specialised reflected their discrepant natures.

Mr. Craine was a devotee of a certain swashbuckling sort of litigation; with occasional forays in the direction of avoidance of death duties and evasion of income tax; twin subjects exceedingly dear to the hearts of the firm’s exalted clients. One sub-section of the 1936 Finance Act, it may be mentioned in passing, was thought to have been drafted expressly to frustrate Mr. Craine’s well-meant efforts.

Mr. Birley, on the other hand, was a conveyancer. A pedlar of words and a reduplicator of phrases. A master of the Whereas and Hereinbefore. He was reputed to tie a tighter settlement than any conveyancing counsel in Lincoln’s Inn.

Both men were very competent lawyers.

“I’ve had a letter from Rew,” said Mr. Craine. He referred to Mr. Rew, General Secretary of the Consequential Insurance Company, one of their biggest clients.

“What has he got to say for himself?”

“You know what Rew is. He never says very much. But what he seems to want to know is, can Bob Horniman look after their business as his father used to.”

“I thought we’d argued all this out before.”

“So we did,” said Mr. Craine. “So we did. And in principle we all agreed that we’d keep the division of work exactly as it was—Bob taking on all his father’s clients with Bohun to help him. But I must admit, I’d forgotten about the Consequential—”

“What about them?”

Mr. Craine nearly said: “You know as well as I do what about them.” Instead he kept his temper and merely remarked: “Well, we aren’t bound to them in any way, you know. Neither side is under any obligation to the other. They used to give us their business—a lot of business—because Abel did their work as well or better than anyone else could do it. I’d hate to lose them.”

“Do you mean that Bob doesn’t know his job?”

“No, I don’t. I mean that he’s young—and, well, Abel taught him a lot about filing systems and the Horniman method of office management, but I sometimes thought he kept him a bit in the dark about the clients themselves.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Birley. “Well, what do you suggest?”

“I don’t suppose you could—”

“Certainly not. I’ve got more than enough work as it is. I think you’re worrying unnecessarily. He’ll pick it up as he goes along. By the way, how’s Bohun shaping?”

“He could hardly be said to have shaped yet,” said Mr. Craine, “since it’s his first morning in the office. He’s got a remarkable record.”

“First-class honours in his Final, you mean.”

“Not only that. It’s the speed he did it all. He only took up law just over two years ago, you know. He got a special exemption to sit the exam early. He was a statistician before that, and a very brilliant one, I believe. And he holds actuarial qualifications.”

“Well, then, he ought to be able to deal with insurance work.”

“I expect he will, eventually,” said Mr. Craine. “I’ll try and make time to keep an eye on him and Bob—”

“Hrrmph!” said Mr. Birley. Having got his own way he became a shade more amiable and the conversation turned to other topics.

Meanwhile both subjects of this conversation were experiencing their own difficulties.

Henry Bohun, having dismissed Mrs. Porter, was once more staring thoughtfully at the little stack of cards on the desk in front of him, trying to relate them in some comprehensible manner to his allotted share of that morning’s post. The more he read them the less they seemed to mean, but finding that there were fifty-two of them he dealt out four bridge hands and came to the conclusion that he could make three no trumps without difficulty on his holding, which included such obvious winners as “The Duchess of Ashby de la Zouche—(questions relating to her claim for Dower)”, “Lieutenant-General Fireside’s Marriage Settlement No. 3)” (his third marriage or his third settlement, Henry wondered), and most promising, “The Reverend the Metropolitan of Albania—Private Affairs.” He reshuffled the cards and started a card house, which was destroyed at its fourth storey by the interruption of Miss Cornel in search of the Law List.

“Never mind,” he said, “it couldn’t have gone much higher. We shouldn’t have got planning permission for more than six floors. Now that you are here perhaps you can help me to sort things out a bit. Only start from the beginning and go slowly.”

Miss Cornel suspended her search in the Law List and said: “Well, it would take all morning to explain the office system in detail—”

“Horniman on Office Management I have already had from John Cove,” said Bohun. “What I really want to know are the more practical points. Who works for who? Who am I under? Who signs my letters for instance—”

This simple question seemed to give Miss Cornel considerable food for thought. “I’m not sure,” she said. “In the old days it was quite straightforward. Mr. Duxford—I don’t think you’ve met him—works under Mr. Birley. John Cove with Mr. Craine. And young Mr. Horniman, of course, worked under his father. If they’re going on with that, I suppose you will be working under Bob Horniman.”

“You sound doubtful.”

“You must forgive an old retainer’s licence,” said Miss Cornel. “I’ve known Bob since he was a prep-school boy in shorts when he used to come up here on the day he travelled back to school, and swing his legs in the waiting-room until his father was free to take him out to lunch—”

“Those awful last-day-of-holiday lunches,” said Bohun. “Indigestion tempered by the hopes of an extra ten shillings pocket-money.”

“Yes—well, he came in here as soon as he left his public school which, in my humble opinion, was a mistake. Then he’d only just qualified when the war broke out, and he went straight into the Navy. So what with one thing and another he doesn’t know all he might about the practical side of a solicitor’s work. He did very well in his exams, I believe—but that’s not quite the same thing—”

“You’re telling me.”

“If it hadn’t been for his father, I think he’d have stayed on in the Navy. He was doing very well—”

Miss Cornel broke off rather abruptly—possibly with the feeling that she had said more than she intended. (“He’s got such a damned insinuating way of saying nothing,” she confided afterwards to Anne Mildmay, “that you find yourself telling him the most surprising things.”)

“I see,” said Bohun. “But look here, if Bob’s taking over his father’s work, and I’m taking over Bob’s work—what are all these cards? Are these the things Bob used to do himself, because if so—”

Miss Cornel picked up some of the cards and ran an expert eye over them. “Well,” she said. “You’ve got some soft options to start with. There’s nothing much here to worry about. ‘Lady Buntingford—Affairs.’ That practically only means we pay her laundry bills once a month. ‘The Marquis of Bedlam, deceased.’ That’s a probate matter, but the accounts have all been settled. If you really want some stuff to get your teeth into, I’ll slip you some of Bob’s. He’s got some matters there that—why, they even tied his old man up—”

Something in the tone of this last remark led Bohun to say: “You liked working for Abel Horniman, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, I did,” said Miss Cornel. “He was a great man, he really was. And a good man to work for, too. I ought to know—I was his secretary for nineteen years.”

“He certainly seems to have been a man of method.”

“Now you’re laughing at him,” said Miss Cornel. “Perhaps he did overdo order and method a bit. Usually it made things easier. Of course, it didn’t always work that way.” She gave a particularly masculine chuckle. “I expect you’ve grasped that we’ve got rather a peculiar type of client here—upper five hundred and so forth. When Abel or his partners were dictating the letters themselves it was all right. They put in all the correct little twiddly bits and personal touches. Some of the assistants we had didn’t quite get it—I mean, their law was sound enough, but you need something more than law when you’re writing a personal letter to a duke. Of course, Abel tackled the problem in his own unique way. He sat down and made out a list of suitable sentences for ending every letter with—you know the sort of thing: ‘I hope the pheasants are coming over strongly this year,’ and ‘Did you have any luck with your runner in the National?’ and so on. Of course, the first thing John Cove did when he arrived in this office was to include the whole boiling lot in all the letters he wrote—and it just happened that Mr. Craine was away that day, so John signed his own letters and sent them off. When Abel saw the carbons next morning he nearly had a fit… Well, I mustn’t stop to gossip. Ask me if you want anything.”

“Right,” said Henry. “Yes, I will.” After she had gone he sat for some time, then resummoned Mrs. Porter from the typists’ room and dictated a vigorous letter to Lady Buntingford’s laundry.

III

Bob Horniman was reading slowly through a letter and frowning as he did so. When he had finished it, he pushed back his rather long black hair and read it through again. Then he placed it in the In-basket, regarded it with distaste, transferred it to the Out-basket, where it looked no better, and rang the bell for his secretary.

“This Anthrax-Plumper insurance, Miss Cornel,” he said.

“I’ll get you the file,” said Miss Cornel, lifting down a fat-looking folder.

“I don’t think I’ll tackle the file yet,” said Bob hastily. “It looks a very complicated business. I wondered—I mean, you used to look after these things for my father—”

“I just wrote down what I was told,” said Miss Cornel dryly.

“Oh, quite. Yes, of course. I just thought that perhaps father might have said something—given some opinion—”

“The only thing I can remember him saying about Mrs. Anthrax-Plumper was that she was a woman who would mortgage her own virginity, if she could persuade anyone she still possessed it—”

“She certainly mortgaged everything else,” said Bob, running a finger distastefully through the bloated file. “It’s this reversionary business I can’t quite get hold of. Perhaps I ought to go to Counsel—”

“You could do that, of course,” said Miss Cornel. “But the Consequential are very sticky about paying Counsel’s fees unless they have to.”

“Oh, well,” Bob sighed again. “I’ll see what I can ferret out.”

Miss Cornel turned to go, but relented at the last moment and said: “I seem to remember the same problem on double reversion cropping up—oh, about ten years ago. The client was Lady Bradbury. And that time, we did go to Counsel. There’s a copy of his opinion in the 1937 file.”

“I don’t know what I should do without you,” said Bob. He took a key-flap from his pocket. “What’s the number of Lady Bradbury’s box?”

“Seventeen.”

Bob thumbed through the ring. “Why the deuce they all had to have different keys!” he said. “Here it is.” He snapped the box open and picked out the file whilst Miss Cornel withdrew to the secretaries’ room to try and make up on her morning’s work. Five minutes later the bell went again. She suppressed an unladylike exclamation and picked up her shorthand book.

Bob had apparently abandoned Mrs. Anthrax-Plumper and was reading another letter.

“What do you think of this?” he asked.

Dismissing the temptation to say that she wasn’t paid to think, Miss Cornel dutifully perused the letter which was from Messrs. Rumbold & Carter, solicitors, of Coleman Street, and was headed “Stokes Will Trust”.

“According to your request,” it said, after the usual preliminary flourishes, “we endeavoured to contact Mr. Smallbone to secure his signature to the proposed transfer of Stock. We wrote to him enclosing the transfer form (in duplicate) on the 23rd February and sent him a further communication on the 16th ultimo and the 8th inst., in all three cases without receiving any answer. If Mr. Smallbone is absent abroad or indisposed possibly you could so inform us—”

“Isn’t that the funny little man whom father used to dislike so much?” said Bob.

“I don’t think your father and Mr. Smallbone got on very well,” agreed Miss Cornel. “Unfortunately they were co-trustees—”

“The Ichabod Stokes Trust?”

“Yes; otherwise I think he’d have refused to have anything to do with him. Seeing that he was a fellow trustee, though, I expect he felt he could hardly refuse to look after his private affairs too—”

“Did he have any private affairs? I mean—”

“He isn’t a person of very great substance,” said Miss Cornel, interpreting this remark accurately. “He was involved in some litigation just before the war, and we look after his annuity for him, and I think we made his will.”

“I remember the fellow,” said Bob. “A scrawny little brute with an eye like a rat. I could never understand how Dad put up with him.”

“I think,” said Miss Cornel, “that he found him very tiresome. If it hadn’t been that the Stokes Trust was such a big thing—and of course it was tied up with the Didcots and Lord Hempstead—I think he might have refused the trusteeship, rather than be forced to work with Mr. Smallbone.”

“As bad as that, is he,” said Bob. “It must be a deuce of a trust. What does it figure out at?”

“We’ve sold the real property now,” said Miss Cornel. “It’s all securities. At the last account they were worth just under half a million pounds.”

“I expect you can put up with quite a lot for half a million pounds. The point is, however, what’s happened to the little blighter?”

“He really is a hopeless person,” said Miss Cornel. “He never answers letters. Whenever we didn’t particularly want to see him he’d be round here every day, and when we did want him, when we were selling the real estate, to sign the big conveyances and so on, as likely as not he’d disappear altogether and go on a walking tour in Italy.”

“Italy?”

“Yes. He’s a great collector of pottery, though your father used to say he’s got as much knowledge of it as a market gardener. I believe that the two little rooms in the house in Belsize Park where he lives are full of urns and statuettes and heaven knows what.”

“Well,” said Bob. “I can only see one thing for it. If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet—you know. You’d better slip over to Belsize Park and stir him up.”

“What, now, Mr. Horniman?”

“Why not—go after lunch.”

“I’ve got an awful lot to do—”

“Take a taxi,” said Bob. “The firm will pay.”

“Yes, Mr. Horniman.”

IV

Accordingly, that afternoon, Miss Cornel made her way out to Belsize Park. She went by Underground. She was not by nature dishonest over small matters, but she reckoned that if she was prepared to put up with the discomfort and pocket the difference, that was her affair.

Wellingboro’ Road was some distance from the Underground station, and her search for it was made no easier by the fact that the first two persons of whom she enquired appeared to speak only Czechoslovakian, the third, a large and helpful lady, chiefly Polish, and the fourth, a starved-looking Indian, seemed willing to commit himself only to the language of signs.

Eventually, more by good luck than judgment, she discovered herself outside No. 20 Wellingboro’ Road.

A grey-haired lady opened the door, said, “No, Mr. Smallbone was not at home,” and prepared to shut it again.

Twenty years of miscellaneous experience in a solicitor’s office had hardened Miss Cornel to this sort of thing. She placed herself in such a position that the door could not be shut without actual violence, and said: “It’s rather important. I come from his solicitors, you know, Messrs. Horniman, Birley and Craine, of Lincoln’s Inn.”

She produced from her handbag an impressive piece of the firm’s best headed notepaper, addressed to the “Occupier, Head-Lessor or Sub-Lessor as the case might be of 20 Wellingboro’ Road” and authorising him (or her) to permit the bearer to make all proper enquiries as to the whereabouts of one of the firm’s clients, viz. M. Smallbone of the same address, etc. etc. Miss Cornel had actually typed it out and signed it herself with a thick nib in a flowing hand, and altogether it looked rather good.

It was good enough for Mrs. Tasker, anyway. And Miss Cornel was allowed to enter. It was not, she reflected, the type of tenement or dwelling-house usually associated with the clients of the firm. The front hall exuded that unforgettable miasma which clings to a certain type of north London residence which has been built too long and interiorly decorated too seldom: a smell altogether different from, and more repellent than the racy odours of the slums. The whiff of decayed gentility was almost physical. It was as if some very faded spinster had been allowed to fade away altogether and her body had been laid to rest beneath the floorboards.

“The first floor he has,” said Mrs. Tasker. “Two rooms and the use of the gas-ring in the back room, which he shares with the second floor. This way, and mind the edge of the linoleum, some day ’twill be the death of us all.”

Miss Cornel found herself on a narrow landing. Mrs. Tasker led the way to the front room. Looking over her shoulder Miss Cornel could see a visiting card pinned to the door—“Marcus Smallbone, B.A.”—and, in smaller writing in the bottom left-hand corner, “and at Villa Carpeggio, Florence.”

“Goodness,” said Miss Cornel, “he’s got an Italian residence as well.”

“I expect he has,” said Mrs. Tasker. “A remarkable man, Mr. Smallbone. The things he’s got in that room of his, you’d be surprised. Valuable. But there, I have to get in to dust over them.” With this remark, which seemed to be in part an excuse and in part an explanation, Mrs. Tasker drew a key from the mysteries of her upper garment and unlocked the door.

The contents of the room were certainly unexpected. Round three of the walls stood glass-fronted cases containing coins, medals, a few cameos and intaglios, and a number of objects which looked like large fishbones. On top of the cases, and on shelves which stood out from them were rows of statuettes, figurines and uninspiring clay pots of the dimmer shades of umber and burnt sienna.

“Where on earth does the man sit down?” asked Miss Cornel.

“He has his meals in his bedroom.” Mrs. Tasker sounded quite unsurprised. She was indeed hardened to the vagaries of her lodgers. One of them kept parrots and another belonged to the Brotherhood of Welsh Buddhists.

“When’ll he be back?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Mrs. Tasker.

“Well, when did he go away?” asked Miss Cornel patiently.

“About two months ago.”

“What? I mean, didn’t he—doesn’t he tell you when he’s going away? What about his rent?”

“Oh, if it’s his rent you’re worrying about,” said Mrs. Tasker complacently, “you needn’t. Six months in advance he pays. Has his own meters, too. I don’t care where he goes or when he goes. It’s all the same to me. Why, last year he was away for three months—”

Miss Cornel nodded. She remembered it well. Mr. Horniman had been moving heaven and earth to get his signature to a Trust document.

Another thought struck her.

“What about his letters?”

Mrs. Tasker pointed to a little heap on the sideboard.

“There’s a few come for him,” she said. “Mostly bills.”

Miss Cornel looked through them quickly. Three of the cleaner envelopes were, she guessed, Messrs. Rumbold & Carter’s communications of the 23rd February, the 16th ultimo and the 8th instant. The rest were, in fact, circulars and bills.

“Well,” she said rather hopelessly. “You might ask him to telephone us as soon as he turns up. It’s rather important.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Mrs. Tasker.