Stone's Fall

by Iain Pears

  You see—I was also beginning to think like a man of money. Never before in my life would I have considered that income flow might help determine a man’s relationships, but it was now beginning to come naturally, now I realised that, for some, it was the only thing which mattered.

  “I receive a cheque four times a year from Barings Bank in London for £62.”

  I calculated quickly, using my newfound financial sophistication. £62 a quarter was about £250 a year, which meant a capital sum of something around £6,000. Hardly in Ravenscliff ’s league. His bequest meant that her income had just multiplied by eight. A fortune by English standards, and I guessed a vast fortune by Venetian.

  “Signora Vincotti,” said Lady Ravenscliff. “I would like to ask you an even more direct question. Please do not take offence, but it is essential that I know the answer.” She said it in a way which suggested she did not care one way or the other if the other woman did take offence. What was wrong with her? She really didn’t have to try quite so hard to be rude.

  Vincotti looked at her enquiringly.

  “My husband travelled frequently to Venice. Sometimes I accompanied him, most times not. I have never really cared for Venice.” She paused for a moment. “Let me put it bluntly. Was my husband the father of any of your children?”

  Signora Vincotti stared in shock at the question, and I felt sure she was going to become angry, as she had every right to be. For a moment this was very nearly the case, but she was very much more intelligent than her thick-set, homely features suggested. She reached out and took Lady Ravenscliff ’s hand.

  “Oh, I see,” she said gently. “I see.”

  Lady Ravenscliff snatched her hand away.

  “Don’t be annoyed with me, I mean no insult,” the Italian woman said softly. “No. There is no possibility, no possibility at all, that your husband was the father of any of my children. None. If you saw them, and saw pictures of my husband as well, you would not have to take my word for it.”

  “In that case, we need trespass on your time no longer,” Lady Ravenscliff said, standing up immediately. “I am sure my lawyers will be in contact with you in due course. My thanks for your assistance.”

  And with that she walked swiftly across the hotel lobby, leaving me—feeling thoroughly embarrassed by her appalling behaviour—to make amends as best as I could by saying goodbye in a more friendly fashion, and mutter about shock and grief. None of which was true.

  Then I too hurried into the noise of Russell Square and found Lady Ravenscliff waiting for me, her face dark with anger.

  “Appalling woman,” she said. “How dare she patronise me? If her father was as vulgar as she… certainly there must be a physical resemblance. She looks like a bulldog in frills.”

  “She conducted herself with a good deal more dignity than you did, even though she must have found the encounter very trying…”

  “And it wasn’t for me?” She turned around and confronted me for my mollifying remarks. “You think everything was calm and easy for me? That discovering your dead husband has a child, having to deal with people like that—”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You are not in my employ to see both sides of the argument, Braddock.”

  “Mr. Braddock. And in fact I am in your employ to do precisely that. You want me to discover the truth. Not to be partisan.”

  “It’s my money, and you are being paid. You will do as you are told.”

  “I will do a good and proper job, or I will not do it at all. Please decide what you want of me.”

  Dangerous, that. The desire, which comes upon me on occasion, to strike an attitude put me in a risky position. Of course I wanted to do a decent job; but I also wanted the money, although, after my editor’s sombre remarks, I would have been quite happy to have the project brought to an end. The perfect reply (in my opinion) would have been had she told me that she wanted to pay me a huge amount of money to go away. Unfortunately, my upright, manly remarks had the opposite effect. She crumpled in front of me and began sobbing quietly, so through pure instinct I responded in a supportive and consolatory fashion, which of course made things even worse. I handed her a handkerchief, which, fortunately, was clean. Then I completely wrecked things by taking her hand and holding it firmly. She did not snatch it away.

  “Let us go into the square and find a seat,” I suggested. “It is a little public here on the pavement.”

  I led her into the middle of Russell Square and the little stall near the centre that served office workers. There I bought two cups of tea and presented her with one. I thought it was probably one of the most exotic things she had done for years, she who never did anything in public, nor anything without servants. She looked a little doubtfully at the old cracked cup.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “It’s quite safe.”

  She sipped in silence, initially more to please me, but then with greater enthusiasm.

  “I apologise for my rudeness,” she said after a while. “And of course I behaved horribly to that poor woman. I will write and apologise. Please do not think badly of me. I am finding all of this so hard.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement. “I understand. I really do. But while we are both amiably disposed to one another, might I renew my request that you begin to tell me the truth?”

  The flash in her eyes clearly demonstrated that, however much she might have been chastened, the situation was very far from permanent. I pressed on while there was still time.

  “Mr. Cort,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “Henry Cort is in charge of government espionage. He has been described to me as the most powerful and dangerous man in the country.”

  “Henry?” she said. “Oh, I don’t think…”

  “You have known him for years, so you told me. I do not believe you could be unaware that there is more to him than meets the eye.”

  She considered for a moment. “I think you also have been less than open with me,” she replied. “If I remember, I asked what your interest in Henry was, and you replied merely that someone had mentioned his name. I do not see why I should be open with you, if you dissimulate with me.”

  A fair point. “Very well. Let me summarise. Henry Cort visited the police within hours of your husband’s death, and was quite possibly the man responsible for suppressing news of it for nearly three days. In the meantime, Barings Bank was brought in to support the price of the Rialto Investment Trust, which was your husband’s financial instrument for controlling a large part of British industry.”

  “I know what Rialto is.”

  “Cort also used to work for Barings,” I continued. “Barings, we now know, pays Signora Vincotti’s annuity. I refuse to believe that an old friend, whom you have known for twenty years or more, would conceal all of this from you.”

  She smiled quietly. “Of course. You are quite correct. I didn’t mention it because I did not know of his involvement when John died. Besides, Mr. Cort and I are not close.”

  “That means you do not like each other?”

  “If you like.”

  “Why not?”

  “That is none of your business. John necessarily had dealings with him, but I insisted that they be conducted away from me.”

  I brooded over this. It didn’t help me at all. “Why? I mean, what dealings?”

  “John made weapons, the Government bought them. Naturally they had common interests. Don’t ask me more; I do not know.”

  “How did you meet your husband? What was he like?”

  She smiled, recalling a fond memory. “He was the kindest man you could meet, the best I ever knew,” she began. “That was not his reputation, perhaps, and I sense that it is not the opinion you have formed of him, but you are wrong. The man of money and power, and the man who shared my life, had little in common.”

  She paused and looked across the square, at all the normal, poor people strolling to and fro, or hurrying across. Some looked as though th
ey were taking a break from the reading desks of the British Museum, others came from the shops and offices of Holborn. I even hoped—again, this was a sign to which I should have given more attention—that perhaps an old colleague from Fleet Street might appear, and see me. See me with her, in fact.

  “I met him on a train,” she went on, as this pleasant and dangerous fantasy flickered through my mind. “On the Orient Express.”

  “Is it true he had his own carriage?”

  She laughed, more easily now. “No, of course not. I’ve told you—he was a simple man in his tastes. He had his own compartment, of course. There is no particular pleasure in sharing with total strangers unless you have to. Ostentation would have been detrimental to his business; often on these trips he liked to travel as quietly as possible so as not to be noticed.”

  Maybe she had really loved him; she smiled as memories flitted past, the very idea of her husband brought her pleasure, and the thought of his death caused her grief. I had anticipated a marriage of convenience and companionship at most. A rich man seeks a beautiful young woman in the same way that such people might desire a racehorse, or an expensive painting. Is that not true? And the beautiful young woman desires security and luxury. But they expect no gratification, and little affection; these (so I understood) they must find elsewhere. Perhaps this had been different.

  “The thing about John, you see, is that he was quite simple in his affections as well. He thought of himself as a sophisticated man of the world, and in business matters no doubt he was. But he was not a man for gallantry, had no idea how to seduce, or flatter or be anything other than he was. I found his uncomplicated nature beguiling.”

  She looked at me, and smiled. “I can see I am surprising you,” she said. “You think I would want an elegant man of sophistication. Hand some, athletic, worldly.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You know nothing, I’m afraid, Mr. Braddock. Nothing of me, nothing of women at all.” She said it gently, as a matter of fact, but I still blushed hotly.

  “Someone said that both of you met their match in the other.”

  She laughed. “Who on earth said that?”

  “Mr. Xanthos. Do you know him?”

  She nodded. “Not well. But we have met often.”

  “So is his opinion true?”

  “I would hardly claim to be John’s match. What else did he tell you?”

  “Oh, that you were once one of the most influential women in France, or something like that.”

  Here she let out a burst of laughter, and almost choked on her tea. Her eyes sparkled with merriment as she put down her cup carefully and looked at me. “Good heavens,” she said after a while. “What an extraordinary idea. How on earth did he come up with that?”

  “He said you ran a salon, or something.”

  “And that made me the most influential woman in France?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Well, no,” she said, still smiling broadly. I think it was the first time I had seen her laugh, genuinely and without restraint. It transformed her. “No, I’m afraid not. A young girl from Hungary would stand no chance whatsoever of establishing herself like that in Paris. Not if she was respectable.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Some of the most famous salonnières are—or were, I do not know what it is like now—courtesans. Very expensive ones, but still… I hope you do not think…”

  “No, no. Of course not. I mean…” I was red in the face, blushing deeply; I could even feel the roots of my hair burning with embarrassment. She looked at me, enjoying my confusion, but then kindly looked away across the square until I recovered myself. I could see her mouth still twitching, though.

  “Is Mr. Bartoli being helpful?” she asked, to change the subject.

  “Mr. Bartoli does not approve of me. He has indicated he will give me as little assistance as possible.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Let me deal with that” was her only reply and I realised Mr. Bartoli was not going to be happy about it.

  “I asked about your husband’s concerns.”

  “I do not know what they were. Just that he had been quite busy in the months before his death; I reproached him for it, and said that he really should be working less hard at his age, not more. But he said that this was the way of business, and if something important came up, you could not postpone it simply because you were getting old. Besides, he always maintained that working kept him young, and I think there was something in that. His mind was absolutely undiminished, and he was in no way frail.”

  “And this something important…?”

  “Tell me, Mr. Braddock, why do you ask so many questions about my husband’s death?”

  “I think you know perfectly well,” I said. “Those papers disappeared when he died. I have two ways forward. Either to look for the child, or to look for the papers which will do the work for me. As I am naturally lazy, I think I should exhaust the latter option first of all. Besides, I don’t even know when this boy—or girl—was born, or even in what country. Clearly if it was last year that requires one approach. If it was ten or twenty years ago, then it is different. Do you really have no idea at all…?”

  “No,” she said softly and a little sadly. “None whatsoever. I really do not.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I realise that I have said little about my own life in my account. Partly this is because I wish to tell the story of Lord Ravenscliff, but mainly because I have little enough to say. Life as a reporter involved long hours; often enough I failed even to get back to my lodgings for dinner, and I frequently had to be up and out before Mrs. Morrison had even begun to prepare breakfast. Lunch and dinner were eaten in pubs or taverns; my circle of acquaintanceship, outside my fellow lodgers and reporters, was limited. I briefly attended a reading group of worthy socialists, who would get together to discuss texts on the evils of capitalism, but I missed so many of the meetings, and so rarely had the time to read the books we were meant to be talking about, that I gradually let this drop.

  I had no family nearby; my parents lived in the Midlands and I was the only member of the family to leave the town of my birth. I think I was the first of innumerable generations to stray more than ten miles from the centre of Coventry. We were not close; my wish to try my luck in London was perfectly incomprehensible to them. So it had been to me; I did not know why I wanted to leave so much. All I knew was that, if I stayed, I would end up like my father, working as a clerk in an office, or like my brothers, spending their lives in the factories and workshops of that city because they did not dare to do anything else. I do not relish adventure, but that prospect so terrified me that I was willing to swallow my fears. When I left school I worked for a year or so on the local newspaper and convinced myself that I was good at it; better still, I convinced others for long enough to get a reference. Armed with this and five pounds given to me by my father—who understood better than I why I did not wish to be like him—I caught the train to London.

  It took two months and nearly all my money to get my first job, working on the social announcements page of the Chronicle. I later moved to football, the obituaries and after nearly two years finally had my piece of luck. The crime reporter was more of a drunk than was average, and he was entirely unconscious on the pavement outside the Duck when the first of the Marylebone murders took place. I volunteered to stand in for him, and McEwen agreed. In my desperation—such chances come very infrequently—I nearly said, “Let me go, Cox is drunk again.” That would have damned me. Instead, I robustly denied all knowledge of the poor man’s whereabouts, and said that I was sure he was out on a story. I would fill in until he returned.

  And so I did, as he never did return. McEwen did not need me to tell tales. He knew perfectly well what Cox was working on and his patience finally snapped.

  I did a good job; a very good job, dare I say it, considering my inexperience. I was told to continue until a proper replacement was found, but one never was. Eventually ed
itorial interest faded, and I continued as acting crime reporter for another year until someone remembered that I was not supposed to be doing the job at all. Then I was promoted, given a proper position, and told to keep going.

  That had been five years previously. I had dreamed of being a reporter on a London newspaper and I was one. My ambitions for life should have been satisfied. But, however splendid a job may seem when one does not have it, it rarely stands up to close acquaintanceship. I was beginning to get bored with the life, and even to find murder most foul just a little tedious. But I had not yet fixed on a new goal to fire my ambitions once more. That, quite apart from the money, was why I had taken up Lady Ravenscliff ’s offer with so little hesitation.

  As far as the matter of Ravenscliff was concerned, I needed to look through his office with care. Perhaps the papers were there after all. Perhaps some diary or letter would provide all the information I needed, and solve the matter in a few seconds. I doubted it; his widow wasn’t so helpless that she couldn’t find that herself, and she had good reason to look carefully. I knew already that most of the papers were financial in nature and that I could spend days looking at them, with every possibility that I would miss the vital clue even if it was there. So I decided to recruit Franklin.

  This wasn’t easy, not because he wasn’t willing, but because he had so little time off from work. He was at the bank from eight in the morning to seven in the evening every day, six days a week. And on Sunday he spent much of his time in church. I thought initially this was calculated; Franklin attended a church frequented by the great bankers of the City and travelled a couple of miles to do his singing and praying when he could have walked a hundred yards round the corner to St. Mary’s, Chelsea. But that was attended only by shopkeepers and landladies. Eventually I realised I did him an injustice. Many people choose a church they find inspiring. Some go for ancient and beautiful buildings, some choose a church with fine music, some prefer an eloquent vicar who can deliver a good sermon. Franklin found that being enveloped in an aura of money incited religious awe in him. To sit around individuals who controlled tens of millions of pounds brought home to him the infinite possibilities of God’s benevolence, and the intricacy of his Creation.