Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

Noak frowned. "You have sharp eyes. That was to give Frant an additional reason to welcome me, and to do so without delay. The coolness between the two of them was common knowledge, so I said I wished to consult him about regaining a bad debt from Carswall. A man is disposed to look favourably on one who has the same enemy as he: I have always found it a sound principle. And I may say that Harmwell recognised Frant at once."

"But Mr Harmwell's identification does not amount to proof that he was guilty of anything."

"Of course it don't," Noak said. "I will not beat about the bush, Mr Shield: I believe my son was murdered on the orders of Mr Frant, because he threatened to expose the sordid foundations of the scheme that was making him rich. But I cannot prove it."

"Surely if you approach the authorities-?"

"With what? With wild allegations supported solely by the word of a Negro? Harmwell is a most respectable man, but – well, I need say no more, I am sure. And you must bear in mind the fact that I am an American citizen. Believe me, I have tried and failed to pursue the matter by orthodox means."

Not entirely failed, I thought: for Noak's attempts had helped to float the rumours in the City that Rowsell had heard.

"However, there are other methods." He caught my look of astonishment and went on, "Always within the law, Mr Shield. I disdain to sink to their level. To put it in a nutshell, in my own mind I was perfectly certain of Mr Frant's guilt in the matter of my son's death – but wholly unable to prove it. However, my inquiries about his character and activities in England suggested that he was vulnerable in other ways, that it might be possible to bring him to justice for other offences. Moreover, I wished to come here for another reason, to establish whether Mr Frant had been acting on his own in Canada or on the orders of a more powerful patron."

There flashed before my eyes a picture of the misery that had been caused by the collapse of Wavenhoe's at the end of last year. "Am I to understand that you brought about the bank's ruin, and that of its depositors and their dependants, so that you might have a private revenge on Mr Frant?"

"I did not cause the collapse of the bank, sir," snapped Mr Noak. "That is quite inaccurate. The collapse was inevitable once Mr Carswall withdrew his capital and Henry Frant took over the direction of the bank's affairs. I merely hastened it, and made sure that Frant would be implicated in the ruin, and his embezzlement exposed."

"You bought bills at a discount and presented them for payment?"

"I find you are surprisingly well informed. Yes, that and other tactics. For example, I encouraged Mr Frant to believe I was contemplating a substantial investment in an English bank – that was what we were discussing when we dined together on the night of Mr Wavenhoe's death. The intelligence I gained was remarkably valuable. When one has a little knowledge, much can be achieved by sowing a word in the right ear. A bank is like a hot-air balloon held in the air by the gas of public confidence. If the balloon is punctured, then the machine tumbles to earth."

"And so we come to Mr Frant's murder," I said flatly.

Noak regarded me in silence for a moment. "It was very convenient, was it not? It saved him and his family the mortification of a trial, and the public hanging which would inevitably have followed. It also meant that a number of questions were left unanswered because only Henry Frant could answer them. For example, there was a considerable sum in securities that was never recovered. His confidential clerk gave me a list of the missing bills that were in the possession of Wavenhoe's Bank at the end of August."

"Arndale? Was it not he who identified his master's body at the inquest?"

"You imply that he may not be an unimpeachable source? Possibly. But I have confirmed at least some of his information elsewhere, and I am inclined to think that he no longer has any motive to conceal the truth. But to return to the securities: Frant might have gambled them away or sold them at a discount before his presumed death on the twenty-fifth of November. But I do not believe it."

"They could be turned into ready money? Even now?"

Noak nodded. "They were all negotiable by bearer. You would need to know what you were doing, and of course the transactions would leave a trace." He walked back to his chair and sat down slowly. "Two weeks ago, one of the bills on the list was presented for payment in Riga. The sum involved amounted to nearly five thousand pounds. It was not presented directly but through a local intermediary."

"It is nigh on six months since Mr Frant died," I pointed out.

"Or disappeared." Noak glanced at Harmwell, who had retreated into the shadows. "I think it likely, however, that Frant did not have the securities at his disposal until some way into January this year." He paused and looked steadily at me.

I said, "You believe he deposited them at Monkshill?"

Noak stared impassively at me.

"He knew Monkshill and its environs intimately," I continued. "As only a boy who had grown up there could have known it." I stared back at Noak, and thought I saw an almost imperceptible nod. "The recess in the ice-house sump, where Mr Harmwell and I found the ring. It is the sort of hiding place that an inquisitive little boy might have found."

"What age was Frant when he left Monkshill. Do you know?"

"Ten or eleven." I remembered Sophie telling me on the night of the ball, as we sat beside the fire at Fendall House. I yearned with sudden urgency to have her beside me now. "I have it from an unimpeachable source. Or perhaps he discovered it later. When he was at school in England, he often stayed with the Ruispidges at Clearland-court. It is no distance for an active youth. He might well have revisited the scenes of his childhood."

"Ah." Noak pulled back his lips, exposing his gums. "So – if we allow this – why should Frant have not retrieved the securities before January?"

"Because when he deposited the securities, he must have reached the sump by the drain. The ice-house was full and he could not reach it from the chamber above, could he? He could not have foreseen the accident of the autumn gales, of the landslide which blocked the shaft down to the drain."

"Quite so, Mr Shield. And why Monkshill? Why Monkshill, out of all the hiding places in the world?"

I smiled at him, for suddenly I sensed that I knew as much as he did, that for once we were on an equal footing. "Mrs Johnson."

"She was his confederate," Noak said flatly. "There is no shadow of doubt in my mind on that score."

"I saw her in London in October, hard by Russell-square. Miss Carswall glimpsed her in Pall Mall. But at Monkshill she denied having been in town."

"I believe the woman was his mistress." There was a rare note of passion in Noak's voice, as though adultery disgusted him more than theft and murder. "When Frant saw ruin staring him in the face, I suspect he set aside a collection of portable valuables and that he or Mrs Johnson hid them at Monkshill. It is possible that he entrusted her with them on the day you saw her, and that she carried them down to Monkshill. No doubt their intention was to wait until the hue and cry had died down, and then slip abroad under false names. When the blocking of the drain prevented them, they were compelled to wait until the time came to clear out the ice-house, when the sump would become accessible from the chamber itself. On the night in question, they poisoned the dogs and went to the ice-house from Grange Cottage to retrieve what they had left there. And something went wrong – a lover's quarrel that turned sour, perhaps, or even a simple accident – and Mrs Johnson died, leaving Frant with no choice but to take what he had come for and make good his escape. Either way, he would have been hanged if he was caught."