Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“We'll try the desk,” he said, going over to it, and sitting down in the swivel-chair.

“Did you bring the Will?” asked Hannasyde.

Giles drew it from his inner pocket, and handed it over. The Superintendent sat down on the other side of the desk, and spread open the crackling sheets, while Giles sought amongst the keys on the ring for one which fitted the drawers of the desk.

The Superintendent read the Will, and at the end laid it carefully down, and said in his measured voice: “I see that the residuary legatees are Kenneth and Antonia Vereker, who share equally all that is left of Arnold Vereker's fortune when the minor legacies have been paid.”

“Yes,” agreed Giles, glancing through a paper he had taken from one of the drawers. “That is so.”

“Both of them, then, benefit very considerably by Arnold Vereker's death?”

“I can't tell you, off hand, how much Arnold's private fortune amounted to. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty thousand pounds.”

The Superintendent looked at him. “What about his holding in the mine?”

“That,” said Giles, laying a sheaf of papers on one of the heaps he had made on the desk, “in default of male issue by Arnold, goes to Kenneth, under the terms of his father's Will. I thought you'd want to see that, so I brought a copy.”

“Thanks,” said Hannasyde, stretching out his hand for it. “I really am grateful. You're saving me a lot of time, Mr Carrington.”

“Don't mention it,” said Giles.

The Superintendent read Geoffrey Vereker's Will, knitting his brows over it.

“This is a most extraordinary document,” he remarked. “All that seems to be left to his other children is his private fortune - and even that is divided between the four of them. What's the meaning of it, Mr Carrington?”

“It isn't as extraordinary as it appears,” replied Giles. “The Shan Hills Mine was an obsession with my uncle. In his day it wasn't the huge concern it is now. My uncle believed in it, and made a private company to work it. It was to be developed, and it was on no account to pass out of the family. So he left his holding to Arnold, with a reversion to Arnold's eldest son, if any; and failing a son, to Roger and his heirs; or, in the event of Roger's death without legitimate male issue, to Kenneth. The private fortune amounted to thirty-three thousand pounds, and was at that time the more substantial bequest. It was divided equally between the four children. But a few years after my uncle's death, his belief in the potentialities of Shan Hills was justified by the discovery, on one of the leases, of a very rich deposit — a limestone replacement deposit, if you're interested in technicalities. Arnold floated the mine as a public company - and you know pretty well how it stands today. Arnold's holding probably represents about a quarter of a million.”

“A very nice little packet to inherit,” commented Hannasyde dryly.

“Very nice,” agreed Giles.

There was a short pause. “Well, we'd better go through the desk,” said Hannasyde. “Have you found anything that might have a bearing on the case?”

“Nothing at all,” said Giles. He handed a diary across. “I hoped this might reveal his Saturday night engagement, but he's merely crossed off Saturday and Sunday. I haven't come across his cheque-book yet, by the way. Was it on him?”

“Yes, I've got it,” Hannasyde said, producing it. “I see he drew a cheque for a hundred pounds to self on Friday. At first glance rather a large sum to carry about with him, but he seems to have been in the habit of doing it.”

“He was. He got rather a kick out of a fat wad in his pocket, I think.”

“Lots do. What surprised me a little, though, was to find that he only had thirty pounds and some loose change on him when his body was discovered. Seventy pounds seems to be a lot to have spent in a couple of days, unless he paid some bills, of course.”

Giles glanced through a pile of receipts. “Nothing here for that date. Might have bought a trinket for his latest fancy.”

“Or the butler's mysterious stranger might have relieved him of it,” said Hannasyde thoughtfully. “I should like to meet this smiling stranger.” He picked up a small letter-file, and began methodically to go through its contents. Most of the letters he merely glanced at, and put aside, but one held his attention for some moments. “Hm! I suppose you've seen this?”

Giles looked up. “What is it? Oh, that! Yes, I've seen it. There's some more of that correspondence - oh, you've got it!”

The Superintendent was holding a badly worded request for five hundred pounds, written in Kenneth's nervous fist. The letter stated with exquisite simplicity that Kenneth was broke, engaged to be married, and must have funds to pay off a few debts. Appended to it was a typewritten sheet, headed Copy, stating with equal simplicity that Arnold had no intention of giving or lending a feckless idiot five hundred pence, let alone pounds. Further search in the file brought to light a second letter from Kenneth, scrawled on a half-sheet of notepaper. It was laconic in the extreme, and expressed an ardent desire on the writer's part to wring his brother's bloody neck.

“Very spirited,” said the Superintendent noncommittally. “I should like to keep these letters, please.”

“Do, by all means,” said Giles. “Particularly the last one.”

“Kenneth Vereker is, I take it, a client of yours?”

“He is.”

“Well, Mr Carrington, we won't hedge. You're no fool, and you can see as clearly as I do that his movements on Saturday night will have to be accounted for. But I'm no fool either, and we shall get along a good deal better if I tell you here and now that these letters don't make me want to go after a warrant for this young man's arrest at once. A man who makes up his mind to kill someone isn't very likely to write and tell his victim that he'd like to do it.”

Privately Giles placed no such confidence in his cousin's level-headedness, but he only nodded, and said:

“Just so.”

The Superintendent folded the three letters and tucked them into his pocket-book. His eyes twinkled a little. “But if he's anything like his sister well, that alters things,” he said. “Now let's take a look at this memorandum.”

He picked it up as he spoke and opened it. Giles began to replace the papers in the drawers. “Hullo!” said Hannasyde suddenly. “What do you make of this, Mr Carrington?”

Giles took the book, and found it open at a page of figures. In the first column were pencilled various dates; against these were set names, apparently of different firms; in the third column were certain sums of money, each with a note of interrogation beside it, and a countersum, heavily underlined. At the bottom, each line of figures had been totalled, and the difference, which amounted to three hundred and fifty pounds, not only underlined, but wholly encircled by a thick black pencilmark.

“John Dawlish Ltd,” said Giles slowly, reading one of the names aloud. “Aren't those the people who make drills? These look to me like Company accounts.”

“They look to me as though someone has been monkeying around with the accounts, and Arnold Vereker found it out,” said Hannasyde. “I think we'll step round to the Shan Hills office, if you don't mind, Mr Carrington.”

“Not at all,” replied Giles, “but I don't see quite why you should want me to -”

He was interrupted by the butler, who at that moment opened the door, and stood holding it. “I beg your pardon, sir, but Mr Carrington would like to speak to you on the telephone,” said Taylor.

Giles looked up surprised: “Mr Carrington wishes to speak to me?”

“Yes, sir. Shall I switch the call through to this room or would you prefer to speak from the hall?”