Ken Follett - A Dangerous Fortune

“What’s going on here?” she said to Toby.

“I gave them some lunch,” he said. “I made bread and butter and cut some ham. I tried to make tea but I burned my hand on the kettle.” He was trying to be brave but he was on the brink of tears. “Do you know where my father might be?”

“No, I don’t.” The baby had asked for his mama, but the older boy wanted his father, Maisie noted. “What about your mother?”

Toby took an envelope from the mantelpiece and handed it to her. It was addressed simply Hugh .

“It’s not sealed,” Toby said. “I read it.”

Maisie opened it and took out a single sheet of paper. One word was written on it in large, angry capital letters:

GOODBYE

Maisie was horrified. How could a mother walk out on three small children — and leave them to fend for themselves? Nora had given birth to each of these boys, and held them to her breast as helpless babies. Maisie thought of the mothers in the Southwark Female Hospital. If one of them were given a three-bedroom house in Chingford she would think herself in heaven.

She put such thoughts out of her mind for the moment. “Your father will be back tonight, I’m sure,” she said, praying it was true. She addressed the four-year-old in her arms. “But we wouldn’t want him to find the house a mess, would we?”

Sol shook his head solemnly.

“We’re going to wash the dishes, clean the kitchen, light the fire and make some supper.” She looked at the six-year-old. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Samuel?”

Samuel nodded. “I like buttered toast,” he added helpfully.

“Then that’s what we’ll have.”

Toby was not reassured. “What time do you think Father will come home?”

“I’m not sure,” she said candidly. There was no point in lying: children always knew. “But I tell you what. You can stay up until he gets here, no matter how late. How’s that?”

The boy looked somewhat relieved. “All right,” he said.

“Now, then. Toby, you’re the strongest, you can bring in a bucket of coal. Samuel, I believe I can trust you to do a job properly, you can wipe the kitchen table clean with a rag. Sol, you can sweep up because — you’re the smallest, so you’re closer to the floor. Come on, boys, let’s start work!”

HUGH WAS IMPRESSED by the way Scotland Yard responded to his report. The case was assigned to Detective-Inspector Magridge, a sharp-faced man of about Hugh’s age, meticulous and intelligent, the kind who would have made it to chief clerk in a bank. Within an hour he had circulated a description of Micky Miranda and set a watch on all the ports.

He also sent a detective-sergeant to interview Edward Pilaster, at Hugh’s suggestion; and the man came back with the report that Miranda was leaving the country.

Edward had also said that Micky was implicated in the deaths of Peter Middleton, Seth Pilaster and Solomon Greenbourne. Hugh was shaken by the suggestion that Micky had killed Uncle Seth, but he told Magridge that he already suspected Micky of killing Peter and Solly.

The same detective was dispatched to see Augusta. She was still living at Whitehaven House. With no money she could not hold out indefinitely, but so far she had succeeded in preventing the sale of the house or its contents.

A police constable assigned to check London steamship offices reported that a man answering the description but calling himself M. R. Andrews had booked passage on the Aztec sailing from Southampton tonight. The Southampton police were instructed to have men at the railway station and at the dockside.

The detective sent to see Augusta came back to report there was no answer when he rang and knocked at the door of Whitehaven House.

“I have a key,” Hugh said.

Magridge said: “She’s probably out — and I want the sergeant to go to the Cordovan Ministry. Why don’t you check Whitehaven House yourself?”

Glad of something to do, Hugh took a cab to Kensington Gore. He rang and knocked, but there was no answer. The last of the servants had left, obviously. He let himself in.

The house was cold. Hiding was not Augusta’s style, but he decided to search the rooms anyway, just in case. The first floor was deserted. He went up to the second floor and checked her bedroom.

What he saw surprised him. The wardrobe doors were ajar, the drawers of the chest were open, and there were discarded clothes on the bed and chairs. This was not like Augusta: she was a tidy person with an ordered mind. At first he thought she had been robbed. Then another thought struck him.

He ran up two flights of stairs to the servants’ floor. When he had lived here, seventeen years ago, the suitcases and trunks had been kept jam-packed in a big closet known as the box room.

He found the door open. The room contained a few suitcases and no steamer trunk.

Augusta had run away.

He quickly checked all the other rooms of the house. As he expected he saw no one. The servants’ rooms and the guest bedrooms were already acquiring the musty air of disuse. When he looked into the room that had been Uncle Joseph’s bedroom, he was surprised to see that it looked exactly as it always had, although the rest of the house had been redecorated several times. He was about to leave when his eye fell on the lacquered display cabinet that held Joseph’s valuable collection of snuffboxes.

The cabinet was empty.

Hugh frowned. He knew the snuffboxes had not been lodged with the auctioneers: Augusta had so far prevented the removal of any of her possessions.

That meant she had taken them with her.

They were worth a hundred thousand pounds — she could live comfortably for the rest of her life on that money.

But they did not belong to her. They belonged to the syndicate.

He decided to go after her.

He ran down the stairs and out into the street. There was a cabstand a few yards along the road. The drivers were chatting in a group, stamping their feet to keep warm. Hugh ran up to them, saying: “Did any of you drive Lady Whitehaven this afternoon?”

“Two of us did,” said a cabbie. “One for her luggage!” The others chortled.

Hugh’s deduction was confirmed. “Where did you take her?”

“Waterloo Station, for the one o’clock boat train.”

The boat train went to Southampton — where Micky was sailing from. Those two had always been cronies. Micky smarmed all over her like a cad, kissing her hand and flattering her. Despite the eighteen years’ difference in their ages, they made a plausible couple.

“But they missed the train,” the cabbie added.

“They?” Hugh said. “There was someone with her?”

“An elderly chap in a wheelchair.”

Not Micky, evidently. Who, then? No one in the family was frail enough to use a wheelchair. “They missed the train, you say. Do you know when the next boat train leaves?”

“At three.”

Hugh looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. He could catch it.

“Take me to Waterloo,” he said, and jumped into the cab.

He reached the station just in time to get a ticket and board the boat train.

It was a corridor train with interconnecting coaches, so he could walk along it. As it pulled out of the station and picked up speed through the tenements of south London, he set out to look for Augusta.

He did not have to look far. She was in the next coach.

With a quick glance he hurried past her compartment so that she would not see him.

Micky was not with her. He must have gone by an earlier train. The only other person in her compartment was an elderly man with a rug over his knees.

He went to the next coach and found a seat. There was not much point in confronting Augusta right away. She might not have the snuffboxes with her — they could be in one of her cases in the luggage van. To speak to her now would serve only to forewarn her. Better to wait until the train arrived at Southampton. He would jump off, find a policeman, then challenge her as her bags were unloaded.