The sandwiches came and were consumed in a silence broken only by the occasional rustle of paper.
Just before three o’clock, Gibbons tapped on the door frame and entered, carrying a sheaf of papers in one hand. He raised the papers. “All the investments and every last source of income. Foster and I have been through all the documents. Slocum, Pringle, and Slater have nearly met—they say they need another hour or two, but they will get the entire file re-sorted by day’s end.”
“Excellent.” Montague considered the documents he and Violet had yet to assess. With her helping, the pile had dwindled at literally twice the rate it would have had he had to do it on his own. “Another half hour, and we should be done.” He glanced at Gibbons. “I’ll call you when we are, then you and Foster can read through your list, while Violet and I check to confirm that we’ve got the expected income and expenses.”
Gibbons nodded. “Call when you’re ready. I’ve got a meeting at five o’clock—I’ll be preparing for that, but there’s not much I need to do for it.”
Montague nodded and turned back to his task with renewed mental vigor; reaching the end of his analysis of the Halstead accounts by the close of the day was a very real carrot.
Finally—finally—he slapped the last of the documents back on the pile. “Done!” He looked up at Violet; after finishing with the last document and handing it on to him, she’d risen, stretched, and walked over to look out of the window.
Turning to him, she smiled. “Now what?”
“Now . . .” He looked at the sheaf of papers stacked on her side of the desk and waggled his fingers. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
What she had was a neat list, ranging over several pages, of sources of income with the relevant amounts and dates of payment noted against each. And she’d organized the sources in alphabetical order.
As he’d done the same with the expenses—the original and any subsequent costs for each investment—it was easy to align their lists. “Wonderful.” Standing, he lifted the original pile of copied documents they’d worked through and carried them to a chest nearby. “Let’s get these out of the way.” Returning to his desk, he picked up his listing of expenses and laid the pages out, from A to Z, across his side of the desk. Then he interspersed Violet’s somewhat larger set of pages so that the income derived from each source lay next to the purchase and subsequent expenses for that source.
He surveyed the result with considerable satisfaction. Coming around the desk, Violet joined him. Glancing at her face, he saw much the same emotion reflected there. His lips curved and he looked back at their combined efforts. It was refreshing to discover that her mind was as tidy as his, that she took a similar delight in bringing order to complex matters.
“Now!” Turning, he strode to the door and looked out. “Fred? Phillip, if you’re free. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Gibbons and Foster came in, both eager to assess the results of their labors. At Montague’s suggestion, the two men took the chairs on the client’s side of his desk, while he positioned a deeper armchair for Violet alongside his admiral’s chair.
Gibbons had picked up the lists he and Foster had assembled. “So how do you want to do this?”
“Start at the earliest record we have,” Montague said. “We’ll work forward from there.”
The first investment Sir Hugo had made dated back more than thirty years. Gibbons read out the name, and Montague confirmed the expense, ticked it off, then crossed to Violet’s accompanying list and read out the income. All agreed the income was as expected, and Montague then ticked that off, too.
They proceeded through the years of Sir Hugo’s investment life, steadily ticking off the entries as they verified them. Initially, the investments were modest, and few and far between, but in the latter two decades of his life, Sir Hugo had been very much more active. “That was when he returned from overseas,” Violet said.
They’d accounted for the investments made up to 1823 when Gibbons paused to note, “Actually, this is building into quite a nice portfolio—Runcorn Senior did well by Sir Hugo.”
Montague nodded. “Indeed. Very sound, and with just the right amount of speculation for that style of client.” He saw Phillip Foster taking mental note.
They continued on through more investments, many more in each successive year, in all cases verifying the purchase and the resulting income. They reached the year of Sir Hugo’s death, and the number of new investments dramatically decreased, but Runcorn Senior had clearly continued to wisely advise Lady Halstead, and, each year, she had added a few new items to the portfolio.
“All very solid,” Gibbons murmured. They continued cross-checking and verifying each investment, its purchase price and the income paid. Nothing was out of order; no alarm bells rang.
Until they reached 1833 and Gibbons read, “A parcel of twenty shares in the Grand Junction Railway.”
Violet watched as Montague scanned his sheets. Sir Hugo had made a significant investment in the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1826, and that had been paying quite a nice income since the railway had opened in 1830; it was no great surprise to discover that Lady Halstead had bought shares in a second railway.
Pencil halting over an entry, Montague nodded and read out a sum.
“That’s correct,” Phillip Foster confirmed.
“And . . .” Montague tracked across to Violet’s listing of income. And frowned.
Thinking back, Violet frowned, too. She leaned forward and looked at what she’d listed under the sources starting with G. Frown deepening, she said, “I thought I heard that the Grand Junction Railway opened earlier this year.” She looked at Montague. “Perhaps they haven’t made any payments as yet?”
Montague continued to stare at the sheets. “But they have.” Raising his head, he looked at Gibbons. “And a very nice dividend it was.”
Eyes widening, Gibbons nodded. “August, wasn’t it? Unexpectedly large.”
Montague pushed back his chair and rose. Retrieving the Meredith file he’d recently returned to the shelf, he opened the ledger, flicked through the pages, then, finger on the relevant entry, nodded. “Yes. It paid a very large dividend in late August this year, eight weeks after opening. Those shares should be returning . . . a very large amount.”
Both Gibbons and Foster sat up, focused and ready to pounce. Montague held up a staying hand. “Before we get too excited, we should check that Runcorn, thorough though he appears to have been, didn’t simply miss putting that page into the pile to be copied for me.”
Returning the Meredith file to its place on his shelves, he led the way into the outer office. Gibbons and Foster followed close behind. Montague glanced back and saw Violet on her feet; across the office he met her eyes, smiled, and nodded. She had, after all, been instrumental in getting them to this point.
Reaching the long table Slocum, Pringle, and Slater had commandeered, spreading the pages of the huge file out across the surface so they could steadily add to their ordered piles, Montague halted, and, when the three glanced up at him, said, “We’re looking for a statement of income, a dividend which should have been paid into the Halstead estate somewhere—we don’t know to which account—in late August this year.”
Slater, seated at one end of the table with three neat piles of documents before him, peered over them at Pringle, at the table’s other end. “You should have that.”
Already searching through one of the two piles before him, Pringle nodded. “This August . . .” Carefully, he drew out a small stack of papers from toward the very bottom of one pile. He held it out to Montague. “This is what we have for August this year.”
“Barring anything still left in the mess.” Slocum reached for the now very much smaller melee of papers in the middle of the table, those yet to be correctly re-filed by their dates. Picking up a handful, Slocum quickly checked the dates.
Pringle grabbed another handful, as did Slater.
Spurred by the hope that they’d
finally stumbled onto something, Gibbons and Foster joined them.
Montague, meanwhile, stepped back from the fray, the already ordered documents for August in his hand. Waving Violet, who had hung back, to join him, he retreated to Foster’s nearby desk. With Violet’s help, he checked over those documents . . . and found nothing to indicate that any income had been paid to the Halstead estate from the Grand Junction Railway Company.
Meeting Violet’s gaze, he saw the speculation rising in her eyes.
“Have we found it?” she asked.
He pressed his lips tight but couldn’t quite suppress his excitement. “We might have.”
Turning, they watched as, one after the other, the rest of his staff set down the papers they held. The last to do so was Slater. Looking up, he met the others’ gazes and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Everyone turned to Montague.
Returning to the table, he handed the papers he and Violet had checked back to Pringle. “There’s nothing here, either. So . . .” He met Gibbons’s gaze. “It appears that the Halsteads haven’t been paid for their shares in the Grand Junction Railway. Our next step is to locate the share certificate.” He looked at Pringle. “Do you know who held their certificates—was it Runcorn, or did Sir Hugo keep them?”
Pringle blinked, then he rose. “One moment.” Going to his desk, he pulled out a drawer and lifted from it a small black notebook. “I took this from Mr. Runcorn’s office, because without it . . . well, no one would know what was where.”
Opening it, he flicked through the pages. Slocum, curious, went to look over his shoulder.
“Here it is,” Pringle said. “The Halsteads.” He ran his finger down the page, then stopped. “It says here that Sir Hugo kept his share certificates.”
Montague frowned. “Does it say if he kept them at his bank, or at his home?”
“It doesn’t say,” Pringle reported.
“Try some of the other entries,” Slocum suggested.
Pringle flicked slowly through several more pages. “Ah, yes—this is mostly notes from the older Mr. Runcorn, but he does say for others ‘kept in bank.’ ”
Montague nodded. “So we can assume, therefore, that Sir Hugo kept his share certificates at home.” He looked at Violet. “Have you any idea where? Was there a safe?”
She shook her head. “No safe, of that I’m sure. But . . .” She frowned. “What do share certificates look like?”
Montague held up a finger, asking her to wait. He strode into his office. Through the open doorway, she saw him walk to a section of bookshelves, press some spot, then swing the bookcase back to reveal a very large wall safe. The door was the size of a room door. Montague quickly spun dials, then turned the handle and pulled open the heavy door. He stepped into the dim space beyond but almost immediately reappeared, a stack of papers in his hand.
Returning and halting beside her, he showed her the papers. They were somewhat larger than bank notes but were covered in much the same elaborate writing and had a seal attached. “These,” he said, fanning the papers, showing her various different styles, “are share certificates. They constitute proof of ownership.”
Reaching out a hand, Violet ran her fingers across the papers. “Oh, I recognize these. I know where Lady Halstead kept them.” She met Montague’s eyes. “They’re in the locked middle drawer of the chest of drawers in her bedroom.”
Montague didn’t look impressed. He glanced at his staff. “I’ll need witnesses for this. Fred—you have your meeting. Pringle—you should come. And Foster, if you’re free?”
Both Foster and Pringle were eager to assist.
Violet hurried back into Montague’s office, donning her coat and tying on her bonnet as Montague, who had followed her, returned the share certificates to the safe, closed and locked it, and swung the bookcase back. Then he shrugged into his greatcoat, picked up his hat, and retrieved the keys to the Lowndes Street house from his desk drawer.
A minute later, he guided her out of the office and down the stairs to the street, Foster and Pringle following close behind.
The house in Lowndes Street was as dismal and chilly as the last time she’d been there, but Violet barely registered the gloomy atmosphere. Having let them in via the front door, Montague waited only until Pringle shut it behind them before waving her up the stairs.
She led the way to the first floor and Lady Halstead’s bedroom. Entering, she went straight to the chest of drawers.
“The lock,” Montague said.
She threw him a look, pulled out the small drawer that formed the base of the mirror sitting atop the chest, reached inside, and drew out a small key.
Montague looked disgusted. As she fitted the key into the lock in the middle drawer of the three that formed the top level of the large chest, he glanced at Foster. “That’s why I do not allow my clients to keep their own share certificates unless they possess a safe.”
Stifling a smile, very conscious of the excitement bubbling through her veins, Violet turned the key, heard the lock click open, then she tugged on the round wooden handle, and slid the drawer out.
Everyone crowded around to peer inside.
Three thick rolls of share certificates, each tied with a ribbon, lay neatly aligned, filling the bottom of the drawer. “Well,” Montague said, studying the evidence, “we knew Sir Hugo had purchased lots of shares.”
Reaching inside, he lifted out the three rolls, confirming just how thick each was. “Going through these is going to take time.” He met Violet’s gaze. “I’ll be taking these with me when we leave—they are far too valuable to be left in an empty house. Close the drawer, and let’s go downstairs.”
She did, and they did; repairing to the dining room, they used the table to unroll and spread out the certificates. Pringle commandeered the salt cellars and some cutlery to act as paperweights.
They searched through one roll, then the second, and finally the third.
Montague laid the last certificate down. “No certificate for those Grand Junction Railway Company shares.”
After a moment, he looked at Foster and Pringle. “Gather these up and take them back to the office. Pringle, I want you and Slocum to take an official inventory before Slocum locks them away, then, Foster, you can check the inventory against the list you and Gibbons prepared. If you find any further discrepancy, send word to me at Albemarle Street.”
“Yes, sir.” Both Foster and Pringle started to gather the certificates.
Montague rose and drew back Violet’s chair.
She searched his eyes. “Where are we going?”
Montague met her gaze. “To tell Stokes, and the others, too. This is far too important for them not to know.”
At eleven o’clock the next morning, Montague left his office and took a hackney to Albemarle Street.
On leaving the Lowndes Street house the previous afternoon, he and Violet had gone to Scotland Yard, but Stokes and Barnaby had been out; Stokes’s sergeant had recognized Montague and told him that Stokes had said that he and Adair would be visiting various locales to check Walter Camberly’s alibis.
Denied the most appropriate outlet for their building excitement, Montague and Violet had headed for Albemarle Street. There, they’d had to wait for Penelope and Griselda, who had earlier returned from an outing aimed at verifying the alibis of the Halstead and Camberly ladies, but had subsequently taken their children for an airing in Grosvenor Square. Rather than chase after them, Violet had suggested a late afternoon tea; suddenly realizing he’d been famished, Montague had agreed. They’d sat in the pleasant parlor and sipped and nibbled, and he had started to think through his next steps aloud.
Then Penelope and Griselda had arrived; not having any news of their own to impart, they’d been keen and eager to hear what Montague and Violet had together discovered.
Immediately grasping the significance, Penelope had sent a summons to Stokes and her husband, enticingly stating that a breakthrough had occurred and that they needed
to return to Albemarle Street forthwith to learn its substance.
Then, of course, the four of them had had to wait with mounting impatience for Stokes and Adair to arrive. Once they had . . .
In the end, they’d all stayed to dine, the discussion over the dinner table rife with supposition, hypothesis, and suggestions as to how they might best proceed. Everyone had agreed that the missing share certificate was a major clue and that they needed to learn who presently held it—who had received the recent large dividend—with all possible speed, but at that point, the group had divided into three camps. Stokes and Penelope had been all for barreling ahead regardless of how much noise and dust they raised. Montague and Barnaby, however, had urged caution and care in taking their next steps, while Violet and Griselda had sat back and weighed the merits of both arguments. Ultimately, it had been agreed that, despite the acknowledged urgency over identifying the villain—already a murderer three times over—before he either murdered again or, alternatively, fled, caution and circumspection were nevertheless required in dealing with such a matter.
As Barnaby had said, “The police marching into a share registry and demanding to see their books—even assuming you can—will only cause outrage and resistance on many fronts, none of which are pertinent to this investigation, and none of which will help us in the least.”
Montague had nodded. “Indeed. It may not seem so, but in such a case, asking one question at a time will get us further faster, without unnecessarily raising anyone’s hackles or alerting anyone beyond the most discreet officials to our inquiries.”
Reluctantly, the others had agreed and had left it to him to formulate and ask the questions about the shares.
Meanwhile, Stokes and Barnaby would pursue the alibis of Walter and the Halstead men, while Penelope, accompanied by Griselda, would confirm Constance Halstead’s, Caroline Halstead’s, and Cynthia Camberly’s alibis, purely to ensure they hadn’t missed some connection.
As Stokes had somewhat grimly growled, “After this business with Walter, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found some other irregularity within that family, something else that has nothing to do with the murders.”
The Masterful Mr. Montague: A Casebook of Barnaby Adair Novel Page 30
