A QUESTION OF ACCOUNT
On the morning which followed Richard Shrewsbury’s departure for Paris,
Carsdale, turning over the letters which lay on his desk at Abbotsbury
House found, on looking at the flap of one envelope, the old-fashioned
seal of Mr. Septimus Winch, who kept up the old-time habit of securing
his correspondence in a thoroughly dependable way. He tore it open with
an exclamation of impatience.
“What does this old ass want?” he muttered, running his eye over the
enclosure. “More about Leverton’s affairs, I expect.”
Mr. Winch’s letter, however, gave Carsdale no information: it merely
stated that Mr. Winch would feel much obliged if Mr. Carsdale would
call upon him at eleven o’clock. Carsdale glanced at his watch, it was
already ten minutes to the hour named. He went to his safe, took out
the papers which Richard had signed so hastily the previous day, put
them into his breast pocket, and caught up his hat and umbrella.
“Mrs. Walsingham been in?” he asked as he strode through the outer
office.
Griffkin replied that Mrs. Walsingham had been in, and had gone out
again, before Mr. Carsdale arrived.
“Tell her, when she comes in, that I shall be in and out all day, but
out most of the time, and that she isn’t to make any appointments for
me,” said Carsdale. “I may be out all the time.”
Then he hurried off to Lincoln’s Inn, wondering what Mr. Winch wanted,
and grumbling because he himself was anxious to get down to the City in
order to carry out certain plans which he had been maturing in his mind
since the previous day. He was not well pleased, on reaching the old
lawyer’s office, to be kept waiting five minutes beyond the appointed
time, nor did it increase his good temper, when he was admitted to Mr.
Winch’s private room, to find Frances Leverton there. He bade solicitor
and client a curt good-morning, and he was too much preoccupied with
his own affairs to notice that neither offered to shake hands with him.
“Good morning, Miss Leverton; good morning, Mr. Winch,” said Carsdale,
in his usual rapid manner. “I have very little time to spare this
morning, and I only got your note as I was starting out for the City,
but I thought I would call in. What can I do for you, Mr. Winch?”
Mr. Winch waved his hand to a chair.
“Sit down, Mr. Carsdale, sit down,” he said. “I dare say we shall not
detain you very long: it depends largely on yourself. Miss Leverton had
asked me to see you on her behalf, but all things considered, I thought
it best that she should see you with me. So she is here.”
“Yes?” said Carsdale, impatiently. “Yes?”
Mr. Winch put the tips of his fingers together.
“The fact is, Mr. Carsdale,” he said slowly, “the fact is, Miss
Leverton, who has, as I believe you know, a sure aptitude for business
matters, has been gradually going through her late father’s papers and
winding up his concerns since his death.”
“Just so,” said Carsdale. “So I understand. I offered my assistance to
Miss Leverton.”
“I think Miss Leverton has done very well without it,” said Mr. Winch,
dryly, “though I am sure it might have been most valuable. Now, Mr.
Carsdale, Miss Leverton has naturally brought to light certain matters
with which she had not been familiar during her father’s life. With
some of those matters you were concerned; with one or two of them very
intimately concerned.”
Carsdale showed signs of impatience.
“No doubt, no doubt,” he said. “There are still matters between us
which are not cleared up. I have more than once put myself at Miss
Leverton’s disposal in those matters, but she has never taken advantage
of my offer.”
“No, sir, because those matters were not worth attending to!” said Mr.
Winch. “But there was a matter which was worth attending to that you
did not mention to Miss Leverton, nor to me, nor to anybody.”
Carsdale, under his impatient surface, was all attention. He had a
clear notion of what was coming, and he was thinking hard as to how to
meet it, what to say, and what to do.
“To what do you refer, Mr. Winch?” he asked calmly.
“I refer, sir, to the matter of the Chilwhele Mine Concession,” replied
Mr. Winch, with a stern glance. He laid his hand upon a pile of papers
at his side, tapping it significantly. “Here are the documents, sir. It
is only by the greatest skill and the utmost patience, Mr. Carsdale,
that Miss Leverton has got at the truth of that matter--her father
never knew it. But we, his legal representatives, know it. Now, sir,
I am going to tell you the plain truth, and I tell you it advisedly,
staking my reputation as a solicitor upon what I say. You subjected my
late client, Barclay Leverton, to a mean fraud!”
“Fraud is a strong word, Mr. Winch,” said Carsdale.
“It is a strong word, and an ugly word, and a nasty word, sir!”
retorted the old solicitor. “And it is the only word to use in this
case. Fraud!”
Carsdale shrugged his shoulders.
“Abuse me, if it pleases you, Mr. Winch,” he said quietly. “All the
abuse you can shower on me is a matter of indifference to me. And----”
“It will not be a matter of indifference to you, sir, when a Scotland
Yard man taps you on the shoulder,” said Mr. Winch, angrily. “I know a
case of common fraud when I see one. It is a wonder you have been found
out, for you are a clever fellow, Mr. Carsdale, but found out you are,
and you shall learn it.”
“And you may threaten me as you please,” said Carsdale, “for all
your threats are as indifferent to me as your abuse. But perhaps you
and Miss Leverton will allow me to give my version of this matter--I
believe that even a prisoner may speak in his own defence. This affair
of the Chilwhele Mine Concession, Mr. Winch, is a mere question of
account. Now, hear me,” he continued, as the old solicitor raised a
hand in protest. “Whatever you say, it is a question of account, and
nothing else: it is a question of very intricate account, and that is
the reason why there has been so much delay in settling it. I told you
just now that there were matters between us--that is, between you, as
Mr. Barclay Leverton’s executors, and myself, as an informal partner
of his--which were not yet settled up. This is one of them. Now, as it
so happens, Mr. Winch, I completed the statement of accounts in that
matter only yesterday, and I have it in my pocket-book, and here it is.”
And from amidst the numerous papers in his pocket-book, Carsdale
selected one and laid it on Mr. Winch’s desk. It looked to be newly
type-written; it was very neat, and precise, and business-like; in
reality, it had been in the pocket-book ever since Barclay Leverton’s
death, ready for any emergency. The emergency had arisen; the document
accordingly made its appearance.
Mr. Winch picked it up with a frown and glanced it carefully over,
motioning Frances, who sat at his side, to look at it at the same time.
And Carsdale, knowing his advantage, went on in his glib and plausible,
and, just then, slightly-injured tones.
“That is a full statement of the matter,” he said. “My books are open
to your inspection. You will perceive that there is a balance due
to the late Mr. Leverton’s estate of two thousand seven hundred and
eighty-five pounds. I was going to send you a cheque for that amount
at the end of this week, Mr. Winch. As I am here, and as you have said
what you have said, I will give you the cheque now.”
Carsdale drew out his cheque-book and turned to an adjacent table. But
Mr. Winch threw down the statement and raised his voice.
“Stop, sir!” he said. “I decline to receive that cheque until I have
had this matter fully investigated. I have proof here of what you did
in this matter, sir, and it cannot be settled by your sitting down and
writing a cheque. I won’t have that cheque, sir--you shall not write
it!”
Carsdale laughed contemptuously and went on writing.
“You can no more stop me from writing a cheque, Mr. Winch, than you can
stop me from making it payable to you,” he said calmly. “There it is,
on your desk--and if you send it back to me, I shall post it to you.
You have now statement and cheque, and the matter is closed as far as
I’m concerned. And as regards your charge of fraud, Mr. Winch, let me
hear of it again, and you shall hear from me. Good day, sir, and good
day, Miss Leverton.”
“Stop, sir, stop, I say!” exclaimed Mr. Winch. “I tell you, sir, I----”
But Carsdale only laughed and strode out, and the old solicitor and
Frances looked at each other. Mr. Winch suddenly ceased fuming, and
shook his head. “That,” he said, “is a man who will always escape by
the skin of his teeth! My dear, I am afraid he has been too sharp for
us. I wonder if he was speaking the truth? I wonder if he really meant
to render an account?”
“If he did, why did he never mention the matter before?” asked
Frances. “No--he has been too sharp, as you say. He must have been
prepared--I’ll swear we should never have heard word or whisper of the
Chilwhele Concession from him if he hadn’t suddenly been plumped with
it.”
“Well, well, after all, there’s the cheque,” observed Mr. Winch. “See,
he’s left it open--I’ll send it round and see if we can get cash for
it.”
“Then we shall accept his version of it and have done with him,” said
Frances. “The cheque will be met all right.”
“Let us see--let us see!” said Mr. Winch, a little skeptically. “And
after all, my dear, it is the money we want, you know.”
But Frances wanted more than that, and when Mr. Winch’s clerk had been
to Carsdale’s bank and had come back with a sheaf of bank-notes, she
went away discontented. Carsdale, it seemed to her, had slipped out of
the noose she wanted to keep around him. But she had other concerns
connected with him to see to, and she went off to see to them.
In a suite of palatial rooms, at the top of an equally palatial
building, Frances was soon closeted with a well-gowned, smart woman who
might have been the head-mistress of a girl’s high school instead of
what she was--the soul and brains of a private detective agency.
“You are still keeping Mr. Carsdale under close observation?” said
Frances, who had taken it upon herself to institute a particular
surveillance over the movements of her late father’s partner two days
before.
“Quite so, Miss Leverton,” replied the head of affairs cheerfully. “I
have two of my very best people devoting themselves to him, and there
will be a third--a very smart girl who has just joined my staff--on the
work this afternoon, when one of the others comes off. And as you are
not particular about expenses, I have an especially good man detailed
for the evening and night work. Oh, yes!--from the moment Mr. Carsdale
left his rooms in Jermyn Street this morning until he goes back to
them to-night, he will be continually under observation. We can’t, of
course, penetrate into the offices and places of business where he may
go, but we shall always know where he is, and whom he calls to see, and
so on. Now, here, for instance, is his record of yesterday, you see.”
Frances took the detailed report which the principal handed her and
glanced it over with all the awe which attaches to the reading of a
secret document. It set forth all Carsdale’s movements of the day
before, and she was bound to confess that they all seemed to be very
innocent and ordinary, and such as he might reasonably have been
expected to make in the way of business. She gave it back without
comment.
“I rather gathered,” said the principal, “that you are afraid of this
man leaving the country suddenly.”
“Yes,” replied Frances. “I think it very likely that he may do so.”
“Well, it’s a very easy thing for a man to do that, you know,” remarked
the principal. “He’s nothing to do but jump into a train or take a
swift motor-car down to the coast. And if we should detect him in
either of those acts, how are we to stop him? It isn’t as if the police
had any warrant out against him. I’m afraid all we can do is to keep
you thoroughly posted in his movements while he is in England.”
“That will be a great deal,” said Frances. “I want to know where he is,
what he is doing, what is likely to happen. I can tell a good deal from
merely knowing where he goes on business.”
Then she went away, reflecting on the wiliness of Carsdale. She was
certain in her own mind that if he had not been confronted with the
matter by Mr. Winch he would never have mentioned the affair of the
Chilwhele Mine Concession to her, never have sent her a cheque. Putting
two and two together, she began to get at a gleam of the truth.
Carsdale was one of those clever folk who can see rocks ahead and
exercise great ingenuity in steering clear of them. And in his hands
rested Richard Shrewsbury’s fortune!--why, it might vanish into thin
air at any moment, and Carsdale with it. She went home feeling that
the events of the morning had been all in the adventurer’s favour. She
and Mr. Winch had failed. She had no hold on Carsdale now--the mere
cashing of his cheque had destroyed whatever hold she had had, and she
recognized that he had gone away from New Square more powerful for
trickery than ever.