To the hilt [en]

Margaret listened without moving.

I went on, 'Ivan took his Cup and had a heart attack, so he gave his treasure into the keeping of his longtime friend, my uncle, Robert Kinloch. The two men decided to give the Cup to me to look after, but in their trusting way they spoke of that plan in front of listening ears, with the result that four robbers came to my door to find and steal the Cup.'

'So it's gone?'

'No. It wasn't there. It hadn't reached me. The four robbers… er… damaged me a bit.'

'That black eye last week? And all those winces?'

'Mm… Well, the Cup's still bouncing, so to speak, and I wouldn't stake my life on Desmond Finch returning it to the brewery if he got his hands on it.'

'That's probably slanderous - what would he do with it?'

'I'd say he would think it reasonable, if not proper, to give it to Patsy Benchmark.'

Margaret Morden's mouth opened.

I sighed. 'Patsy heard her father and my uncle plan to give the Cup to me.'

'My God. But… surely… she wouldn't send people to harm you.'

'She might. She might not. But how about Surtees, her husband?'

Margaret said, looking horrified, 'He was violent enough at that meeting yesterday for anything. But funnily enough, his violent way of speaking, and Mrs Benchmark's furious denunciation of you personally as a ruthless adventurer out for whatever you could get, well, they worked against them, and for you. When they'd gone the very senior bank manager put all his weight behind your trustworthiness, and it was he, too, who pushed for the race to be run. He said the bank would make the funds available.'

I could think of nothing to say.

'Fortunately the receivables are enough to more than cover the running costs this week. The pay cheques will be issued and honoured. You have to sign the agreements drawn up yesterday, but, if you do, Tobias Tollright will OK the audit, and King Alfred's Brewery will stay in business.'

I stood up blindly and walked to her window, and heard her voice behind me, 'Al?'

'Mm?'

'I thought you would be pleased.'

I didn't answer her, and she came questioningly to stand beside me. I put my arms round her silently and hugged her, and finally found voice enough to thank her in a more businesslike fashion.

She said, 'The bank manager said that nothing you have done is for your own benefit.'

'He's wrong. What benefits the brewery benefits Ivan, and what benefits Ivan benefits my mother, which benefits me.'

'Yes,' she said gravely, mocking me, 'I do see.'

She spread out the agreement papers on her desk and showed me where to put my name, bringing in her secretary to witness every signature. She then said she would have copies run off for all the creditors, which I would initial, and for Ivan and for Tobias, and for the brewery in the shape of Desmond Finch.

While all the copying was in hand she asked me why Ivan and my uncle had planned to send the King Alfred Gold Cup to me. Why to Alexander on his mountain?

I said I supposed it was because of Prince Charles Edward's sword hilt, and I told her of the ancient Honour of the Kinlochs, and about my uncle's ongoing disagreement with the castle's administrators.

'I'm afraid,' I said lightly, 'that now, owing to the incautious tongues of two men who would never knowingly harm me, any number of people may learn that whether or not I may know where to find the King Alfred chalice, I do have in my care the Kinloch golden hilt, which is infinitely more valuable, as apart from its historical uniqueness, it is oozing with emeralds and rubies.'

'Al!'

'So it looks as if it is time to bounce that on to someone else.'

'Immediately!'

Immediately. But to whom?

Not to James: and Andrew was too young.

Himself would have to decide.

Margaret's secretary returned with the copy agreements for copious initialling, and I asked if protocol would stretch to a pub lunch for three, Margaret, Tobias and me.

Margaret thought it might. Tobe, when telephoned, agreed. Accordingly we sat round a small table in a dark discreet corner and toasted the brewery's survival in a bottle of good Bordeaux.

I said to Margaret, 'You mentioned something to me about a twitch of unease. Is it for our auditor's ears?'

Margaret considered Tobias and slowly nodded. 'He might help.'

'What twitch of unease?' he asked, searching his pockets for toothpicks. To do with the brewery's prospects?'

'No, with its past.'

His search drew a blank. He walked over to the bar and returned with a whole small pot of picks. 'Go on, then,' he said. 'What twitch?'

'I think,' Margaret said tentatively, 'that Norman Quorn may have done a trial run.'

Tobias blinked. 'A what?'

'You remember I asked you for the accounts for the past five years?'

'Yes, you had them.'

Margaret nodded. 'Immaculate work. But I just got a teeniest whiff of what I call a "beach towel and hotel" job, only that one seems to have gone full circle, which of course doesn't usually happen, and didn't happen this time.'

'You've lost me,' I said. 'What's a "beach towel and hotel" job?'

I looked enquiringly at Tobias, but he shook his head. 'Never heard of it.'

Margaret, smiling, explained. 'I got the idea one day on holiday, while I was lying sunbathing on a beach chair round a hotel pool, watching people come and go. They would put a towel on a chair and go off and leave it, maybe for hours, and then come back and pick it up and wander off… and no one working for the hotel would think of asking who the towel belonged to. Do you see?'

'No,' I said, but Tobias thoughtfully nodded.

'Suppose,' Margaret said, 'that you were Norman Quorn, and you wanted to retire with a pension big enough to give you all the luxuries you'd never had - not just a bungalow on the south coast, counting the cost of things like postage stamps - but round-the-world cruises and a big new car and a bejewelled companion and caviare and playing the tables in a casino or whatever excites his dry conventional old bachelor mind. Suppose you got the sparkling explosive idea of taking enough for a glorious sunset, and you know how easy and fast it is now to send money whizzing round the world impersonally by wire… then you open small banking accounts here and there… you sort of book into hotels… and every so often you leave a beach towel on a sunbed for a while… and then move it onward to another hotel… and no one pays much notice, because the beach towel never goes missing, and comes safely home.'

'Only one day it doesn't,' Tobias said. 'I lost him in Panama.'

We drank the substantial red wine and ordered fried brie and cranberries with another half-bottle.

Margaret's job fascinated her. 'Almost everyone sees when their bankruptcy's looming,' she said, 'and nearly everyone makes the giveaway mistake of removing their most valuable possessions before torching the premises. Insurance fraud is the worst way out of bankruptcy. It never works. I won't take those cases. I tell them to go to jail and get it over with. Most insolvencies are caused by bad luck, bad management and changing times. Last year's rage is this year's ruin. And then sometimes you get a Norman Quorn. Ingenious, careful. A small trial run, to get the hotels used to the arrival of his beach towel… and they give the towel a sunbed to lie on for a day or so, and send it on unsuspectingly when the right instruction arrives - right codes, right signatures… lovely job.'

'And no one asks questions?' I said.

'Of course not. Millions of transactions take place round the world every day. Hotel guests arrive and leave by the hundred thousand.'