“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.
Chapter Three —Wednesday Morning— A Capital Asset Comes to Light
The body (or corpus) of the trust estate will normally be invested in approved and easily realisable securities.
I
Apart from the Roman Church, who are acknowledged experts in human behaviour, there is nobody quicker than a solicitor at detecting the first faint stirrings of a scandaclass="underline" that distinctive, that elusive odour of Something which is not Quite as it Should Be.
Mr. Birley was only voicing the uneasiness of all his colleagues when he said to Mr. Craine next morning:
“The fellow can’t have disappeared. He’ll have to be found.”
“It’s awkward,” said Mr. Craine. “By the way, who are the other trustees?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Bob apologetically, “there isn’t another. Father was one trustee, you know, Mr. Smallbone was the other.”
“Wasn’t another trustee appointed when Abel died?”
“Well, no. That is, not yet.”
“Who has the power to appoint?”
“I think the surviving trustee—”
“So it amounts to this—that unless we can induce Smallbone to come back to England we shall probably have the expense of going to the court—”
“I don’t know that Mr. Smallbone’s gone abroad,” said Bob. “His landlady only said that he’d gone away. She said he went to Italy last year—”
“It’s perfectly absurd. He must have left an address. People don’t walk out into the blue. Not if they’re trustees.”
“Well, that’s what he seems to have done,” said Bob. He always found Mr. Birley alarming; and the fact that they were now, in theory, equal members of the partnership had not gone very far towards alleviating that feeling. “Perhaps if we wait for a few weeks—”
“With half a million pounds’ worth of securities,” said Mr. Birley. “This isn’t a post office savings account. There must be questions of reinvestment cropping up every day. I wonder you’ve managed to get by for as long as you have—”
Bob flushed at the obvious implication of this remark. Mr. Craine came to his rescue.
“Wouldn’t it be a good thing,” he said, “to take this opportunity of going through the securities. We’ll have to appoint a new trustee and that will mean an assignment. We’ll get a broker’s opinion on any necessary reinvestments at the same time.”
“I’ll do that,” said Bob gratefully.
“Where are the securities?” asked Mr. Birley.
“They’re in the muniments room. I’ll get Sergeant Cockerill to bring them up.”
“You might get the trust accounts out of the box, too, and run through them,” suggested Mr. Craine.
“All right,” said Bob. “But—I’m sure there’s nothing wrong.”
“Why should there be anything wrong?” said Mr. Birley, looking up sharply.
“About Mr. Smallbone, I mean. He often used to disappear like this. Miss Cornel was telling me about him. He’s a bit of a crank.”
“Fact is, the fellow ought never to have been appointed a trustee,” said Mr. Birley. “But Stokes was mad for years before he died. None of his relations had the guts to say so. Served them all right when he left his money on charitable trusts—”
“Only he might have chosen his trustees a bit better,” agreed Mr. Craine. “Now then, about this death duty scheme of Lord Haltwhistle…”
Bob stole gratefully away.
About half an hour later when Lord Haltwhistle’s death duties had been partially mitigated, Mr. Birley broke off what he was saying to come round suddenly on a fresh tack.
“You remember,” he said, “we were talking yesterday about this new fellow Bohun—”
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d be interested in something I heard at the club yesterday—from Colonel Bristow. He got slung out of the army.”
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Craine. “I thought they retired the old boy on half-pay.”
“Not Colonel Bristow. Bohun.”
“Oh.” Mr. Craine sounded only mildly interested. “What for?”
“Bristow didn’t know. Bohun was attached to his staff in the Middle East and the War Office removed him. Medical reasons, they said.”
“Perhaps that was what it was,” suggested Mr. Craine.
“Chap looks fit enough to me.” Mr. Birley stopped and lifted his head. “What the devil are they making all that noise about out there?” he said. “Is that someone screaming?”