The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set

by Peter Rimmer

  “Never.”

  “That’s good. Any other relations in town?”

  “Merlin. Brother Merlin. The writer, Robert St Clair, is a recluse in Dorset. Doesn’t like showing off his one good leg.”

  “Keep away from Merlin.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Merlin keeps well away from me.”

  “And don’t go home to Dorset for as long as you are working for me and Porter.”

  “I have no intention.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “She’s in Africa.”

  “Leave her there. Never confide in anyone. There is no such thing as a secret. You made a fortune in Africa. That’s all they have to know.”

  “How did you know I said that?”

  “As Max said, Barnaby,” Porter interrupted, “there is no such thing as a secret. Everyone loves to talk. You just do the prompting and the listening. For the moment, stay at your club. You can look for a flat later on.”

  “Will I earn that much?”

  “Probably,” said Max.

  Barnaby had done what he was told for the first month. Max and Porter had paid him twenty pounds for his information. The social circuit, spending money as carefully as possible, always deferring to another man who wished to pay the bill with the right amount of persuasion but not too much to land him with the bill, had cost Barnaby ten pounds. He had lived well and made a profit. Max and Porter had made a fortune if they did half what they said they were going to do. Only one of the shares failed to perform in the way it was meant to perform. One share out of ten. The odds were well loaded in their favour. Soon after Vickers came out with their results, the shares on which Merlin’s fortune was once based, fell seven per cent. Max and Porter had sold short, selling Vickers shares they did not have. When they bought the shares at the end of the month to give the stockbroker the shares they had sold, they pocketed the seven per cent difference in the share price without laying out a penny. Their only cost was the broker’s fees for selling and buying the shares.

  “And if the shares had gone up?” Barnaby had asked, trying not to show too much interest.

  “We would have had to find the difference on one hundred thousand Vickers shares to pay the stockbroker.”

  “That would have been a fortune.”

  “But we made a fortune, Barnaby. From your information.”

  “For which I received five pounds.”

  “You took no risk. We took the risk. Money is only made by those who take the risk.”

  “But their profits had dropped in half! They had to go down!”

  Max and Porter had smiled smugly. Barnaby had shaken his head in frustration.

  His first reaction was to go out on his own. Buy and sell shares on his own account with the four hundred pounds now left over from Merlin’s cash cheque for five hundred pounds.

  He thought about it all that night, thinking of Vickers. In the morning he saw the light, as he told himself. Most men went wrong by being too greedy. He would give his new employers their information. After all, they asked him to look out for the right information that he otherwise would not have been aware of.

  Instead, he opened a bank account with Cox’s and King’s, who had been the bank the army used to pay his salary during the war. He deposited the four hundred pounds. He spent half an hour polishing the bank manager’s ego, dropping names and being terribly deferential to the man’s position as manager of the bank.

  “My father, Lord St Clair, does not believe in owning shares. Something about being in trade. Came down the centuries, you see. Now that’s old rubbish, of course. You would know that better than anyone, sir. Well, I want myself a few shares. Nothing more than what I have, you understand. But I want to buy them in a name other than the Honourable Barnaby St Clair so my father can’t trace the transactions. He’s quite eccentric you see. My grandfather was much the same. They check up on you. Father will go to the registrar of companies and demand to see the list of shareholders if he suspects I own shares in the company. You know how people talk. One of the problems of having such a well-known name. You know what people are like talking about old money.”

  “Well, that would be quite difficult for your father. How would he know which shares to look for?”

  “But not worth the risk, sir. You see, I love my father very much.”

  “Then you could use the bank as a nominee. The shares will be registered in our name. Only in our books will they be for your account, Mr St Clair.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Of course, Mr St Clair. You don’t think the British Army would use us as paymasters for its officers if we did anything dishonest… All the shares are going up rather nicely. There’s another thing the bank can do for you, Mr Barnaby. We can lend you eighty per cent of the value of the shares you buy. That way, with your four hundred pounds, you may buy two thousand pounds’ worth of shares.”

  “And if the shares go down?”

  “We have your four hundred pounds to cover the twenty per cent drop. The shares are in our name. We only sell when the bank is at risk.”

  “And if the shares go up?”

  “You may borrow another eighty per cent of the profit. You take the risk. You take the profit. We are bankers, Mr St Clair, not gamblers. You have banked with us for three years as a serving British officer. Welcome back to Cox’s and King’s.”

  “You really are a remarkable man, sir.”

  “Is there anything else I do for you?”

  “Would you be kind enough to purchase these shares? There are ten of them. Ask your man to buy to the maximum of my credit in equal proportions. In the name of your nominee. This morning would be a good time. If your man is unable to buy any of these shares before lunch, he is to leave them alone.”

  “By lunchtime? You mean one o’clock?”

  “Exactly. Please understand any purchases made after the hour I give you must be for the bank’s account. Please be kind enough to give me that in writing.”

  “Yes, sir, would you care to wait for the letter?”

  Outside in Pall Mall, Barnaby had felt better than at any time in his life. It was much better than he thought. Two thousand pounds’ worth of shares instead of four hundred pounds. He doubted if his father had ever seen a share certificate. He certainly would have no idea about the registrar of companies. It was Max and Porter Barnaby wished to keep in the dark for as long as possible. The only person he wanted to tell was Tina Pringle. She knew how to keep a secret. Had always known. Since they were young children. He wondered where she was. What she was doing. Which made him jealous. The very idea of Tina Pringle with another man made him jealous.

  Walking away from the bank he was smiling to himself. How typical of the British Army to keep its misdemeanours to itself. The bank manager had had no idea he stole from the officers’ mess account in Cairo. It was the one risk he had had to take. He needed the army’s years of backing with Cox’s and King’s to be to his credit. Being an army officer was the only way a man under twenty-one could have a bank account. He was going to write to Tina. He was solvent. By the end of next month, he would be worth a thousand pounds. Instead of writing to Tina he would send her a cable. Ask if she wanted to come home. He hurried down towards the club. The doorman would be a good chap and send his cable. There were forms in the club. His days of being poor were over. Tonight he would go out on the town. For himself. There was a young girl at the Embassy club he had had his eye on. He needed his own flat. He would give his shares a week to rise. Then he would sell. And find himself a flat where he could take the young girl from the Embassy.

  He was still thinking of Tina Pringle and the girl from the Embassy when he reached the Army and Navy Club. He decided to write to Tina after all. A cable might sound too strong a message. He would write to her in the morning, a long letter, and tell her everything. Maybe the girl at the Embassy had her own flat or a place to go. Unlikely. He just hoped so. The Embassy was very expensive, and t
he girls were always getting tips. First, he would have a drink in the bar to celebrate.

  “You look very chipper, St Clair. Very pleased with yourself.” Barnaby had seen the man twice before on the social circuit.

  “Can I buy you a drink, Fortescue?”

  “Let me buy you one.”

  “As you wish, old boy.”

  “Have you come into money?”

  “Nothing like that, I’m afraid.”

  “Anyway, have a drink with me.”

  By the time Barnaby was worth five thousand pounds, he had still not written to Tina Pringle. He had forgotten all about the idea. The girl from the Embassy did have a small flat in the West End. Barnaby used it half a dozen times. He thought the girl sometimes charged for her services. The flat was expensive. She never asked him for anything and he put it down to his youth and charm. The girl only mixed in the right circles so he did not think there would be any problems. Her father was a colonel in the Indian Army. Barnaby doubted the father knew his daughter waited tables. Or charged the older men for her services. If she played her cards right, Barnaby thought, she would find herself a rich husband. She was very pretty. Old men liked young pretty girls. Barnaby had even checked the Indian Army list. The father was half a colonel. Lieutenant colonel. But he was an officer.

  When Barnaby grew bored with her, he suggested she go back to India on the fishing fleet to find herself a husband. Young girls of good families went to India looking for lonely bachelors. The single girls out from England were known in India as the fishing fleet. Englishmen never married the natives. It was just not done. If they did they were thrown out of the regiment.

  Barnaby had given the Embassy a miss for a month. When he went back, the girl had gone. There were so many young pretty girls in London. They were the flappers dancing into the small hours every night. With money, Barnaby was having a wonderful time. The war was over. He was rich. Everyone was having a good time. It was right everyone should have a good time after such a terrible war. No one thought too much of the future. They were too busy enjoying themselves. The ones like Barnaby spending their money and their youth.

  On the same morning Len Merryl sailed for Singapore watched unbeknown by Cousin Mildred, Barnaby St Clair decided to call on his brother Merlin. To add to his brother’s annoyance, he decided to call unannounced. There was a thin fog in Hyde Park which was not uncommon on a winter’s morning in January. Barnaby passed the opulent entrance to the hotel where Len had worked as a dishwasher and found his brother’s block of flats. Barnaby had them ring his brother’s flat from downstairs in the foyer. There was a telephone system between the desk in the foyer and the flats. The man at the desk made the call on Barnaby’s behalf.

  “There is a gentleman to see Mr St Clair, Smithers, Mr St Clair’s brother.”

  Barnaby waited, giving the desk man his best sardonic smile. He was dressed, he thought, to perfection but without the old Harrovian tie. The sapphires in the cufflinks of his handmade shirts were now genuine. He wore a tailor-made overcoat with lapels of black fox fur. He carried kid gloves and a trilby hat that he held in his hand with the light cane that hid the rapier blade of his sword. Barnaby had always wanted to walk around London with a sword disguised in a walking stick. It gave him a feeling of daring. A cut above the rest. In his pocket was a cash cheque for five hundred pounds which is what made him smile. If his brother had been poor, he would never have given him back the money. One of Barnaby’s new golden rules was never to upset anyone who was rich. The poor did not matter. The rich mattered very much.

  “Mr St Clair is on his way down, sir.” The man was giving him a queer look. Barnaby smirked back at him and waited, exuding confidence from the top of his head to the bottom of his well-made leather shoes. Gently, with the tips of his fingers, he tapped the top of his felt hat, the latest fashion from America to rage through London, along with the cocktails he copiously drank on his social rounds.

  As Barnaby expected, his brother Merlin was scowling when he stepped out of the lift into the foyer. Barnaby smiled sweetly and gave his brother the cheque for five hundred pounds.

  “Sorry, it’s been so long, old chap.”

  Merlin stared at the cheque for a moment. Then he grinned up at his brother.

  “You’d better come up to the flat,” said Merlin.

  “Breakfast would be nice. It’s ten minutes to nine o’clock. Maybe even a glass of whisky.”

  “Isn’t it too early to drink?”

  “It’s never too early to drink,” said Barnaby.

  The brothers were now laughing. The man at the desk watched quizzically as they got into the lift. They were arm in arm. He rang the same number again.

  “Make it breakfast for two, Smithers, they’re coming up. Bloke gave him a bloody cheque.”

  Nothing was secret in a small block of flats, however exclusive. The servants had to do something to alleviate their boredom. So they gossiped. About their employers. Usually while drinking the employer’s whisky when the employer was out of his flat. It gave the servants the satisfaction of getting even for having to know their place and play the game of master and servant. Smithers had said so succinctly to the doorman the night they first drank Merlin St Clair’s whisky.

  “Never piss in your own whisky glass. Play them along. If they want to speak with a plum in their mouth and a stick up their bum that’s fine by me. Have another drink.”

  “Won’t he mind?”

  “The man has far too much breeding and manners to ask. It’s like adding up the bill in a restaurant. If you have to add up the bill, you should not be there in the first place. If you have to watch the level of your whisky bottle, you shouldn’t have a servant.”

  “You speak just like ’im.”

  “Makes him feel comfortable. Cheers, old boy. I hope this will not be the last time we drink good whisky together.”

  “So do bloody I, mate. So where you from, Smithers?”

  “Lambeth. East End. I’m a cockney.”

  “Don’t sound like none.”

  “Don’t get me started.”

  Tina Pringle had found out soon after Barnaby St Clair had been kicked out of her brother’s house in Johannesburg that being a rich man’s sister was of very little use. She was never going to get any of it. The house on the beach at Umdloti in Durban had had all the attributes of a jail for a girl of twenty-two. Otherwise, everything was perfect. The sea was warm, the seafood rich, the servants polite, and the conversation with her sister-in-law relaxed. She had tried to suggest going back to Johannesburg the day they arrived. There was this beautiful house right on the beach with nothing on either side. Durban, that might have provided some fun, was seventeen miles down the coast. There were no neighbours. No restaurants. No people.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” Sallie Pringle had said.

  Tina said nothing. She wanted to be with Barnaby. Even if they had to live off their wits and their own good looks.

  A week passed before her brother phoned his wife and told her to come home.

  “Barnaby has sailed for England,” Sallie had told Tina. “He’s on the water. We can go back to Johannesburg, Albert has paid his passage. Albert loves you, Tina. Wants the best for you. Barnaby is a rotten apple.”

  “How do you know? Why can’t Albert mind his own bloody business?”

  “When a man sponges off of him it is his business, Tina.” Sallie was doing her best to control her temper.

  “He can afford it.”

  “Your looks won’t last forever.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Don’t be rude.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am, Sal… Blimey, can we really go home? This place is a bloody mortuary.”

  “Remember how Miss Pinforth taught you to speak. Please, Tina.”

  “Bugger Miss Pinforth. I love Barnaby. Always have. Since we were little kids. Is that really such a bad thing? Loving someone. Without Barnaby life doesn’t happen. Doesn’t exist. Where’s he gone to?
”

  “London.”

  “What’s he going to do in London?”

  “I don’t really care.”

  “But I do. What am I going to do?”

  “Find yourself a rich husband.”

  “I wish Barnaby was rich. Solve all our bloody problems.”

  “Please don’t swear, Tina.”

  “I can’t help it. You wouldn’t help it either if your lover was on the other side of the world.”

  “Are you really lovers?”

  “’Course we are.”

  “Be careful you don’t get pregnant.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk.”

  “But we got married. Barnaby won’t marry you. He’s far too much of a snob. You would be his mistress for as long as it suits him. Men like Barnaby like to be seen with very pretty young girls. It boosts their ego. They try to keep young girls as long as possible. Look at Benny Lightfoot. You were going out with a man thirty years your senior. Those kinds of men don’t want a wife and family. They want to think they are still young with everything ahead of them. In the end, it’s desperation when they discover they have missed out on life. Sex is more important to them than family. They are very unhappy people. So are the girls that love them.”

  “You can’t stop loving a man just because he’s a rotter.”

  “There are lots of men in Johannesburg. I promise to help. I’ll find you a man you can really love. Who will fulfil your life.”

  “Do you really love my brother?”

  “Not in the way you might think. I love his mind. That will last us forever.”

  “Don’t you like sex?”

  “Of course I do. But it is not the predominant need in my life. In a man. Can’t you understand?”

  “No, I bloody well can’t. I’m a physical person. So is Barnaby. Why I love him so much. Don’t you understand?”

  Little Julia Pringle had been born seven months after Tina’s brother married Sallie Barker, as she was then. Even Tina’s maths worked that one out. Everyone she had ever known, starting with her mother, knew the way she should live her life. In criticising her, telling her what to do, they implied their own lives were perfect. Even at twenty-two, Tina knew that was a lot of rot. Her mother had spent her married life breeding children and cooking for her family. Nothing else. She was an old woman before she was thirty-five. She had had less fun than the family cat. And as to Sallie loving a man’s mind rather than his body, Tina thought in that case, it would be better not to be born. Where was the fun in a man’s mind!