When he reported his lack of success, Fearne said, “Go back three years more. There’s something buried there. I can smell it.”
Tara was unsympathetic. She said, “It’s all right for you. You can do your work in the office or at home. You don’t have to sit for hours holding an old lady’s hand and wondering if she’ll be alive when you go back next.”
“Alive? What makes you think—?”
“I found that she’d got hold of two bottles of aspirin and a full bottle of sleeping pills and hidden them in the cupboard beside her bed. I saw them when she was out of the room for a moment. And something else with them. Her husband used an old fashioned cut-throat razor. That was there, too.”
“Good God!” said Hugo. “Shouldn’t you tell someone?”
“No. I don’t think she’ll kill herself. Not now. The shock’s wearing off and she’s getting more rational. But whatever you do, don’t tell Dad. He’d have a fit. Promise me.”
Hugo promised. But very unwillingly.
During those weeks they both — Tara in particular — found Mr. Piggin a great help in keeping an eye on their matters: dealing with occasional crises and keeping the wheels turning. He said to Hugo, “Keep it up. It doesn’t matter how long it takes — give the old man the lead he wants and he’ll sniff out the truth.” He added, “If I’d done something to upset him and I knew he was after my blood, do you know what I’d do? I’d emigrate.”
October died in glory and turned into a chilly November. Tara had established a friendly relationship with Mrs. Brocklehurst’s housekeeper, Mrs. Vicarage, who attended to Laura’s personal needs, while Tara herself dealt with business matters. This was largely a question of paying the household bills. There were not a great number of them, but she had come to the end of the current cheque book and suggested writing to the bank for a new one.
Laura said, “Now you mention it, I remember on the morning — on the morning it happened — there was a letter from the bank. It was probably a new cheque book. I put it in Clive’s desk—”
Tara went downstairs to Clive’s study. She had never been in the room before. It was cold and dusty and seemed to be mourning for its previous occupant. She found the envelope from the bank in one of the pigeonholes in the desk. There was a new cheque book in it. Something else too, which came out with it. Bank passbook sheets for the last quarter. She looked at them for a moment, then picked up a piece of paper and started to scribble. Then she poked the sheets back into the envelope behind the cheque book and went upstairs, on legs that felt oddly weak.
“Do you think she knew you’d seen these bank-account sheets?” said her father.
“I don’t think so. She got the cheque book out without looking at them. If I thought she had seen them — well, I can only tell you that I’d left the door ajar.”
“Why? Do you think she’d be violent? Her preparations, surely, were for suicide, not murder.”
“Then Hugo told you? He’d promised not to—”
“Of course he told me. As soon as he thought about it, he realised he had got to. And don’t talk about promises. We’re not playing nursery games. Now, about those statements. You got it all down accurately, I hope.”
“I think so,” said Tara faintly. She’d never seen her father in that mood before and it frightened her.
“On September first she drew a cheque for five thousand pounds in favour of stockbrokers Welsby and Grintham. There wasn’t a lot of money in the account, so she must have deposited the share certificate or contract note or whatever with the bank as security for a temporary loan. Then on September fifteenth she paid in six thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds, discharged the loan, and was credited with the profit — one thousand, two hundred and fifty?”
“Can you do something like that?”
“Easily. If you have inside information. Now, let’s think. You’d better keep clear of the Brocklehurst house for a bit. If we need anything, we’ll send in Mr. Piggin. He has a very calming effect on hysterical women.” Noting the look on his daughter’s face, he added, “Cheer up. I doubt if anyone could have done better than you did. Or as well.”
At eleven o’clock that same night Hugo closed the sixth personal file, which he had just finished, rubbed his eyes, and opened them again. Yes. Surely. There had been something. He had been so sleepy that, at first reading, he had missed it.
It was the carbon copy of a letter from Clive to Rupert Maxwell, the senior partner of the internationally known firm of City solicitors, Mayne, Maxwell, and Freudenger. They were evidently old friends.
“Dear Rupert, If you want my advice, as an accountant, I’d say no to Welling. You say that he’s a clever chap. All right. I accept your word for that. What makes me doubt whether he’s really fitted to be finance manager to a firm of your standing is that he appears to be totally unqualified. He calls himself an accountant. Anyone can so describe himself. But I’d prefer to see the letters F.C.A. or F.C.C.A. or even F.C.M.A. after a man’s name before I put him into such an important post.”
When he saw the letter next morning, Fearne said, “Well played the second eleven.” He told Bob what Tara had discovered. “Plenty of grounds there for Welling hating Clive. If he saw the letter. Which he could only have done if he was working, in some capacity, at Mayne, Maxwell, and Freudenger at the time. It’s an enormous outfit, with a rapid turnover of junior staff, so it’s quite possible that he was. We’ll get Mr. Piggin moving on that side of it. Meanwhile, it’s about time I had a word with Clive’s partner.”
Sam Garigan said, “You can count on me, of course. Any help I can give you, you’ve only to ask. I’m still shaken when I think of what Clive was driven to. Ghastly. Do you know, a few days before it happened, we gave him a little party to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of him joining the firm. And he seemed so happy and relaxed.”
“He was a very self-controlled man,” said Fearne. “I doubt if anyone, even his wife, had any idea of what was happening. What I want you to do now is to let me have a list of all the companies your firm acts for, leaving out small private companies.”
“Even without them it will be quite a long list. But you shall have it.”
“Right. Then I want you to mark on it any companies that have had capital dealings in the last six months. I mean takeovers, or being taken over. Increases or reductions of capital. Rights issues. Bonus issues. Anything like that.”
“There won’t be many of them.”
“Good,” said Fearne. He thought for a moment and then said, “At that party you gave for Clive, were there any presents?”
Garigan said, with some surprise, “Only two. The firm gave him a set of golf clubs, and his wife gave him a camera. A very fine modern one. He was a keen photographer and was mighty pleased with it.”
“It would have cost a lot of money?”
“A fair amount, yes.”
“As much as one thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds?”
“Could be. But, forgive me, I hardly see how this information is going to help you.”
“It fills out the picture,” said Fearne. He added, “The fact is that I’m tracking a jackal, in very thick country. I can see his paw marks and I’m beginning to hope that with the help I am getting—” he smiled gratefully at Garigan, “I may soon sight him. When I do, I’ll skin him and nail his hide up on the wall.”
After which the pace slackened for some weeks, while Mr. Piggin pursued his molelike activities.
He knew many of the managing clerks and senior office staffs in the City offices. He stood a great many drinks and, in important cases, a few lunches. He knew that it was no use being impatient. If he listened carefully and waited long enough, the great sounding board of the east central district would transmit to him the message he wanted. It reached him in the bar of the Falstaff, when he was talking to a retired stockbroker’s clerk.