‘Well, that accounts for his dark threats yesterday,’ remarked Stephen.
‘What were they, sir?’ asked Hemingway.
Stephen’s mocking eyes lifted momentarily to his face. ‘Something about making changes. I thought it was mere rhetoric.’
‘The question is, if Mr Blyth hasn’t got the will, where is it?’ asked Mottisfont.
Stephen shrugged. ‘Probably in the incinerator.’
‘No, no; he wouldn’t have done that!’ Joseph said. ‘Don’t talk of him in that cruel way, Stephen! You know there was no one, not even me, he cared for as much as he cared for you!’
‘Are you trying to say that I had reason to know there was a will in my favour?’ demanded Stephen.
‘You ought to have guessed as much, I should have thought,’ said Mottisfont spitefully. ‘Joseph’s been hinting at it ever since I came down here!’
At this attack, Joseph instantly ranged himself on the side of his nephew. ‘I don’t wish to speak harshly at such a time, Edgar, but that is a – a monstrous suggestion! Stephen, did I ever, at any time, tell you anything about poor Nat’s will?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, I haven’t known your family for all these years without learning that you always stick together!’ Mottisfont said. ‘All I can say is that I for one got the impression that Stephen was Nat’s heir, and I got it from the remarks you let fall, Joe!’
The Inspector, though not unappreciative of this interchange, intervened, saying apologetically: ‘I don’t want to interfere with you gentlemen, but if there is a will I’d like to see it.’
‘There isn’t one,’ Stephen said shortly.
The Inspector’s eyes were on Joseph’s troubled face. ‘What do you say to that, sir?’
‘My brother did make a will,’ Joseph answered. ‘Perhaps he subsequently destroyed it. I don’t know. But there’s a safe in this room, and I think it might be there.’
‘A safe in this room?’ repeated Stephen.
‘Yes, it’s hidden behind that picture,’ replied Joseph. ‘I don’t suppose you knew about it. Nat only told me when he was ill, and wanted me to get something out of it.’
‘Can you open it?’
‘Yes, if the combination hasn’t been changed.’
Stephen walked over to the picture Joseph had indicated, and took it down, revealing a small wall-safe. After a good deal of fussing and fumbling, Joseph succeeded in opening it. He then invited Blyth to see what it contained, and stood back, looking anxious.
Blyth drew two bundles of documents out of the safe, and brought them to the desk, where he and Hemingway went through them. Stephen stood frowning by the fireplace, while Mottisfont, who seemed to find it difficult to sit still, polished his spectacles.
After a pause, Blyth said in his precise way: ‘Most of these papers are share-certificates, and can have no bearing on the case. I find that there is a will.’ He added in a disparaging tone: ‘It would appear to be in order.’
‘For God’s sake – !’ said Stephen irritably. ‘Since there is a will, let’s know how we stand! Who’s the heir?’
The solicitor looked austerely at him over the top of his pince-nez. ‘It is, as you no doubt perceive, a brief document,’ he said. ‘Had I been consulted – But I was not.’
‘I think it’s all right,’ Joseph said guiltily. ‘My brother wouldn’t let me send for you, but I think I remembered enough of my early training to draw it up correctly.’
‘It will of course have to be proved,’ said Blyth in a cold tone. ‘Where such a large sum of money is involved, I should naturally have advised the employment of a solicitor. But I am well aware of the late Mr Herriard’s peculiarities.’
‘Who – is – the – heir?’ demanded Stephen.
Blyth looked affronted, and Mottisfont muttered something about observing a little decency. The Inspector, however, supported Stephen, and said that he too would like to know who was the heir.
‘There are two bequests,’ said Blyth. ‘Miss Paula Herriard inherits fifteen thousand pounds; Mr Joseph Herriard, ten thousand pounds. The residue, including the house and estate, is left to Mr Stephen Herriard, unconditionally.’
There was a moment’s silence. Stephen jerked his head round to stare at his uncle. ‘What in hell’s name did you do that for?’ he asked angrily.
Even Blyth looked surprised. The Inspector stood watching Stephen with the interest of a connoisseur. Joseph said: ‘It was Nat, old man, not I. I only helped him to draw it up.’
‘Encouraged him to leave a fortune to me, I suppose!’
The savage, gibing note in Stephen’s voice made Mottisfont’s jaw drop. The Inspector looked from Stephen’s harsh face to Joseph’s worried one, and waited.
‘Stephen, I can’t bear you to speak so bitterly of Nat!’ Joseph said. ‘You know he thought the world of you! I didn’t have to encourage him to make you his heir! He always meant it to be that way. The only thing I did was to persuade him to make a proper will.’
‘Well, I call it very decent of you, Joe!’ said Mottisfont, unable to contain himself. ‘It isn’t everyone who’d have behaved as you’ve done.’
‘My dear Edgar, I hope you didn’t think I was the Wicked Uncle of the fairy-stories!’
‘No; but I should have expected – You were Nat’s brother, after all! Ten thousand only! Well, I never would have believed it!’
Joseph gave one of his whimsical smiles. ‘I’m afraid it seems a dreadfully large sum to me. I never could cope with money. You can say I am an impractical old fool, if you like, but I should have been very uncomfortable if Nat had left me more.’
This was so unusual a point of view that no one could think of anything to say. After a pause, Blyth cleared his throat, and enquired whether the Inspector wished to go through his late client’s papers.
Joseph sighed. ‘If you must, I suppose you must,’ he said. ‘Somehow one hates the thought of poor Nat’s papers being tampered with!’
‘I can’t see the least sense in it,’ said Mottisfont. ‘They aren’t likely to throw any light on the murder.’
‘You never know, sir,’ said Hemingway, polite but discouraging.
The contents of Nathaniel’s desk, however, afforded little of interest. Evidently Nathaniel had been a methodical man who kept his papers neatly docketed, and did not hoard correspondence. A letter from Paula was discovered, bearing a recent date. Paula’s wild handwriting covered four pages, but apart from one petulant reference to her uncle’s meanness in not instantly agreeing to support Willoughby Roydon’s works there was nothing in the letter to indicate that she felt any animosity towards him. None of the other private letters seemed to have any bearing on the case, and after glancing through them the Inspector turned to the business letters, which Blyth was sorting. These too were uninteresting from Hemingway’s point of view, but while he was running through them, Blyth, who had been studying some papers which were clipped together, glanced fleetingly towards Mottisfont, and then silently laid the papers before Hemingway.
‘Ah!’ said Mottisfont, with a slight laugh. ‘I fancy I see my own fist! I can guess what that is!’
Hemingway paid no heed to this remark, but picked up the sheaf, and began to read the first letter.
It had apparently been written in reply to a demand for information, and the terms in which it was couched were too guarded to afford the Inspector any very precise idea of the business the firm of Herriard and Mottisfont had been conducting. Attached to it was the rough draft of a further letter from Nathaniel. Such intemperate expressions as crass folly, unjustifiable risks, and staggering impudence abounded, and had called forth a second letter from Mottisfont, in which he suggested rather stiffly that his partner was behind the times, and had, in fact, been out of the business for too long to realise the exigencies of modern times, or the necessity of seizing any opportunity that offered for lucrative trading.
The fourth and last letter in the clip was again a copy, and in Nathani
el’s hand. It was quite short. It stated with crushing finality that ‘this business’ would be brought to an immediate conclusion. Plainly, although Nathaniel might of late years have taken but little share in the working activities of the business which bore his name, his veto was final, admitting of no argument.
The Inspector laid these papers to one side, and would have continued to run through the dwindling pile before him had not Mottisfont said, with another of his mirthless laughs: ‘Well, if that’s my correspondence with Mr Herriard over the China business, as I can see it is, I’ve no doubt you must want to know what the devil it’s all about, Inspector!’
‘Not now!’ Joseph said. ‘This isn’t quite the moment, do you think?’
‘Oh, so Nat told you about it, did he?’
‘Good heavens, no! Nat knew me too well to do that! I knew you’d had some sort of a disagreement, of course.’
‘Well, I’ve no objection to having the thing out now, or at any other time.’
‘If you feel like that, sir, what is it all about?’ asked Hemingway.
Mottisfont drew a breath. ‘My firm – it’s a private company – deals with the East Indies trade.’
‘Just what is the composition of the company, sir?’
‘Private limited liability. The shares were held by the three of us: Nathaniel Herriard, Stephen Herriard, and myself.’
‘In what proportion, sir?’
‘Nathaniel Herriard held seventy per cent of the shares, myself twenty, and Stephen Herriard ten. When Nathaniel virtually retired from active partnership, I became managing director.’
‘And you, sir?’ asked Hemingway, looking at Stephen.
‘Nothing to do with it. Shares wished on to me when I was twenty-one.’
‘Oh no, the business was just Nathaniel and me!’ said Mottisfont. ‘Well, he more or less retired some years ago, leaving me to carry on.’
‘What does more or less mean, sir?’
‘Less,’ said Stephen.
Mottisfont pointedly ignored this interruption. ‘Well, I don’t suppose anyone who knew Nathaniel will deny that he was by nature an autocrat. He never could keep his fingers out of any pie.’
Joseph protested at this. ‘Edgar, I must point out to you that this pie was of his own making!’
‘Oh, I’m not saying he wasn’t a very clever business man in his day! But you know as well as I do that he was getting past it. Couldn’t keep up with the times: lost his vision.’
‘Any disagreements between you and Mr Herriard on the firm’s policy?’ asked Hemingway.
‘Yes, many. Trade has been very bad during the last few years, particularly bad for our business. The Sino-Japanese war was a crippling blow. Nathaniel had been out of things for too long to be able to cope with the new situation. I always had to fight to get my own way. Dear me, I can recall occasions when he’s threatened me with every kind of disaster! But that was just his way. If you let him bluster himself out, in the end he always listened to reason. Those letters you have under your hand refer to a deal I wanted to put through, and which he was frightened of. I could show you dozens of others just like them, if I hadn’t destroyed them.’
‘What was this deal, sir?’
‘Well, unless you’re a business man, I don’t suppose you’d understand it,’ said Mottisfont.
Stephen’s bitter mouth curled. ‘Nothing very difficult to understand about it,’ he said, his voice harsh enough to make Mottisfont start.
‘I was not aware that you were in Nathaniel’s confidence!’ Mottisfont said, his eyes snapping behind their spectacles.
Stephen laughed. Joseph laid a hand on his arm. ‘Gently, old man! We don’t want to make mischief, do we?’
‘Damn you, don’t paw me about!’ Stephen said, shaking him off. ‘I’ve been quite sufficiently nauseated by Mottisfont’s pretty picture of his own totally non-existent influence over Uncle Nat. So you could handle him, could you? You just let him bluster himself out, did you? By God, I won’t have the old devil belittled by a damned little worm like you! You went in mortal dread of him, and well you know it!’
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ stammered Mottisfont. ‘You know nothing about my relationship with Nat! Nothing! Because you knew no better than to quarrel with him, you think no one had more sense! Well, I was dealing with Nat when you were at a kindergarten! Puppy!’
‘Edgar! Stephen!’ implored Joseph, wringing his hands. ‘This isn’t worthy of either of you! What must the Inspector think?’
The futility of this agonised enquiry drew a sound like a snarl from Stephen, but only made Hemingway say cheerfully: ‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about me, sir! Perhaps, since Mr Stephen Herriard seems to know all about it, he’d like to tell me what this new deal was that his uncle didn’t hold with?’
‘Gun-running,’ said Stephen.
Mottisfont grasped the arms of the chair he was sitting in as though he were about to jump up, and then relaxed again. ‘It isn’t difficult to believe that you’d stab a man in the back!’ he said, in a trembling voice.
‘I’d already noticed that you found no difficulty in believing it!’ retorted Stephen.
‘Stephen, Stephen, don’t let your tongue betray you into saying what you can only regret! That was unpardonable of you, Edgar, unpardonable!’ Joseph said.
‘Oh yes, what I say is unpardonable, but what your precious nephew says is quite another matter, isn’t it?’ Mottisfont sneered.
‘Edgar, you know what Stephen is just as well as I do! I’m not excusing him. But as for letting him get a rise out of you with his absurd, nonsense about gun-running – ! For shame, Edgar! Of course, no one believes you were mixed up with anything of the sort! Why, it sounds like one of those lurid films which I, alas, am too much of an old stager to enjoy!’
‘Only it happens to be true,’ said Stephen.
‘Really, Stephen! I hope I’m as fond of a joke as anyone, but is this quite the time, my boy?’
The Inspector, who had been watching Mottisfont, said: ‘I don’t want to interrupt you gentlemen, but perhaps we’d all of us get along better if I made it plain that I’m not at the moment interested in gun-running, which is what I thought this “China business” of yours might be, Mr Mottisfont.’
Stephen found Mottisfont’s expression of mingled relief and uncertainty comic, and began to laugh. Joseph flung up a hand. ‘Stephen, please! Edgar, is this thing possible?’
‘Good heavens, Joseph, there’s nothing to be so tragic about!’ said Mottisfont. ‘A great many people consider that we are making a criminal mistake not to allow the shipment of arms to China!’
‘But it’s illegal!’ said Joseph, quite horrified. ‘You mean to say you wanted to engage in an illegal business?’
‘Was engaged in it. Is engaged in it,’ said Stephen. ‘Lucrative pursuit, gun-running.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ said the Inspector.
‘Not me, no. Only what my uncle told me. You have Mr Mottisfont’s word for it that I have nothing to do with the management of the firm.’
‘Well, it is a lucrative business,’ said Mottisfont, with sudden candour. ‘Of course, it’s frowned on by the authorities, but we needn’t go into that now. There are always two ways of looking at a thing, and I’m not at all ashamed of selling arms to China. What’s more, Nat would soon have come round to my point of view.’
‘Nat,’ said Joseph, in a deep voice, ‘was the Soul of Honour. He would never have consented.’
The Inspector looked at him. ‘You weren’t in his confidence, sir?’
‘Not about business matters,’ confessed Joseph. ‘You see, I’ve never had the least head for that sort of thing. I chose to follow Art, and though I daresay many people would think me a fool, I’ve never regretted it.’
‘And you, sir?’ asked Hemingway, addressing Stephen. ‘Just what did you know about this?’
‘The bare facts. My uncle had discovered the gunrunning racket, and he wasn
’t pleased about it. In fact, he was damned angry.’
‘Nathaniel was too good a business man not to have seen reason, in face of the balance-sheets during the past three or four years!’ said Mottisfont. ‘I don’t mind admitting that we hadn’t been doing well.’
The Inspector said: ‘If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d like to know how things stand. What are your Articles of Association? What happens to Mr Herriard’s shares?’
‘They were to be offered to the remaining shareholders pro rata,’ replied Mottisfont. ‘A very ordinary arrangement.’
‘That is to say that you would then have a two-thirds interest in the company, and Mr Stephen Herriard one-third?’