Murder for Treasure, Page 2

  Constable Lewin lifted his eyebrows. It was hardly necessary to point out the irrelevancy of time when discussing the disposition of a dead body. ‘Nobody else saw it, then?’

  ‘Gomer saw it, didn’t you, my lovely?’

  The policeman made a mental note definitely to include that observation in his report. ‘Pity he can’t tell us,’ he commented wryly.

  Mrs Ogmore-Davies hesitated. ‘He doesn’t talk.’ Her lips tightened.

  Gomer moved crab-wise along his owner’s shoulder. ‘Sod it,’ he said, with perfect articulation.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘One in four people have smelly feet. Well, bless my soul.’ Lord Grenwood, Chairman of Grenwood, Phipps the well-known merchant bankers, treated each of his three luncheon companions to a stare of undisguised appraisal. ‘Never had problems in that direction, I’m happy to say. Waterworks, now, that’s an entirely different—’

  ‘Not one in every four, Lord Grenwood.’ Whatever physiological confidence the aged banker had been about to share was lost to the interruption from the big, earnest American on his right. ‘Statistics prove—’

  ‘Almost anything, in my experience.’ This time, the interpolation came from the urbane Mark Treasure, Vice Chairman of Grenwood, Phipps, who considered a discourse either on human olfactory problems in general or Grenwood’s prostate in particular as unpromising accompaniments to Dover sole. ‘I doubt Rigley & Herbert have needed to bother much about statistics over the years,’ Treasure added lightly. ‘Or am I doing you an injustice, Mr Crutt?’ He smiled confidently at the fourth member of the party.

  Albert Crutt, Managing Director of Rigley & Herbert Limited, manufacturing chemists and the makers of Rigley’s Patent Footbalm, shook his head in agreement. He could do little else while coping with a mouthful of gristle.

  The Perceval Club in London’s Pall Mall is celebrated for many things—notably the number of distinguished if superannuated politicians it counts among its members. Culinary excellence has never been high on the Committee’s list of priorities. The provision of a three-course lunch at a price that does not make too large a hole in the daily attendance allowance at the House of Lords is a prerequisite for the majority of habitues.

  Lord Grenwood invariably brought Americans to the Perceval in the usually erroneous belief that the venerability of the premises—matched by that of the members— was for them ample compensation for the shortcomings of the chef. He applied the same principle to ‘provincial visitors’ which broadly covered anyone normally domiciled north of Watford.

  Edgar J. Crabthorne Jnr, President of the Hutstacker Chemical Corporation of West Virginia, seemed impervious to both the surroundings and the fare. He was noted for his impassivity and had not registered dismay even on being advised that tea was available only at tea-time.

  The normally nervous, self-effacing and undersized Crutt was largely preoccupied with the various aspects of his personal and business predicament.

  His train from South Wales had been late. There had been no taxis available at the station. He had completed the journey in a bus going the wrong way, by Underground and, finally, on foot—all in an unfamiliar city in pouring rain.

  Since no London club of the gentlemanly kind sees fit to identify itself, ensuring thus that strangers need to enter in the role of grovelling supplicants, Crutt had been redirected by the hall porters of two such establishments before fetching up, wet and winded, at the right one.

  Decades before as a student pharmacist morbid physiology had held him academically enthralled. There had been nothing academic about his drumming pulse, his uncoordinated knee movements or his steaming torso as he had floundered up the Perceval steps. He had tried to think of Bronwen who made it all worthwhile: in the circumstances this only made it worse.

  An urgent but hasty visit to the washroom had resulted in his jamming a generous portion of shirt in the open zip of his trousers—something neither remedied nor much improved by some frantic ministrations with a pair of nail scissors firmly attached to a washbasin by an inadequate length of stoutish chain.

  The titled member who had come upon the hapless Crutt contorted over the basin, apparently performing one of several possible but unspeakable acts, had retreated immediately, consoled only by the conclusion that the fellow was unlikely to be British.

  The same member was now eyeing Crutt suspiciously from across the dining-room, a circumstance that left no recourse but to swallow the gristle whole. Transferring the offending mouthful to his napkin would have nullified the usefulness of that linen square as cover for the gaping trouser front and frayed shirting beneath. Crutt had managed well enough standing at the bar and had marched stiffly to the table, one hand clasped across his lower stomach, in the manner of one about to throw up —as it happened, a common enough posture in the Perceval dining-room. Sitting down created entirely different problems. And he had yet to explain about the Judge.

  Crutt took a large draught of not very good burgundy. ‘We . . . we keep very careful sales figures, Mr Treasure,’ he offered apologetically. ‘It’s never been company policy to commission . . . er . . .’

  ‘Market research?’ Treasure suggested helpfully.

  ‘That’s right.’ Crutt nodded. ‘Nor . . .’

  ‘Nor retail audits, up-dated packaging, spin-off products, advertising or merchandising, or any other damn thing to put go in the business.’ Edgar J. Crabthorne Jnr shook his head gravely.

  ‘There was the aerosol version of the Footbalm. We introduced that seven years ago.’ The tone was still apologetic. ‘And we do a certain amount of advertising. Trade advertising, that is. But certainly we’re very behind the times. We just have—’

  ‘Seventy-two point four per cent of the UK market,’ said Crabthorne in the tone of a Pope pronouncing on a heresy, and in his real capacity as a proprietor of Sweet-Feet Spray, a product that though regularly re-packaged, lavishly advertised, savagely merchandised and meticulously researched, had failed dismally to acquire a market share remotely approaching two digits.

  ‘Our view has always been that extensive advertising tends to call attention to the product . . .’

  Crabthorne regarded the speaker with the kind of interested amazement normally reserved by tolerant persons for those who contend the earth is flat.

  ‘. . . and, of course, the condition,’ Crutt continued earnestly. ‘We feel sufferers are familiar enough with Rigley’s Footbalm. Wider advertisement—to people in general, I mean—would be pointless and would only increase the embarrassment of requesting it.’

  Lord Grenwood leant across the table. ‘Like asking for French—’

  ‘Quite so,’ Treasure put in quickly and in deference to the susceptibilities of the craggy old female retainer, who, having brushed away the table crumbs, was now attempting to snatch up Crutt’s napkin to go with the three she had already collected, but in the face of stem and inexplicable resistance from its temporary owner.

  ‘I think you may have a point there, er . . . Albert.’ said Crabthorne, who thought nothing of the sort, but who considered magnanimity would best serve his purpose. ‘Maybe we can learn something from you people. Said so when you looked over our plant that time’—a reference to what for Crutt had been a totally bewildering experience two years earlier and which he was still doing his best to blot from his mind. ‘Yes sir. You can surely teach us something about the British market,’ Crabthorne added: there was no point in overdoing it. ‘Once we get that merger through, with your know-how here and ours everywhere else, we can . . . er . . . we can really get going.’

  The hesitation was justified. Crabthorne had firmly decided that if the so-called merger ever did get consummated the first person going anywhere would be Albert Crutt.

  Sweet-Feet was only one range of products manufactured by the Hutstacker Chemical Corporation through its many factories across the world. Most of these products were market leaders. When Hutstackers met strong competition in any product area, the Corporation was
usually powerful enough to beat it into second place by what it referred to as scientific marketing methods and the expenditure of a great deal of money. In the United Kingdom, Rigley’s Footbalm had failed to be quelled by the scientific approach.

  For nearly three years, Sweet-Feet had been subjected to every marketing strategy known to the Harvard Business School and other lesser centres of great learning. It had been re-packaged, re-priced and re-formulated. It had been the subject of qualitative and quantitative research, preceded by structured in-depth discussions, all of which had been considered useful at the time. Free samples had been mailed to a wide variety of peer group leaders in the potential user categories. These had included chiropodists, pedicurists, policemen and ramblers, most of whom had regarded the largesse as some kind of calculated insult. Due to an error, samples had also been sent to dog-breeders, one of whom had irritatingly reported excellent results in the deodorizing of wet Labradors.

  Sweet-Feet was advertised seriously in the press, conspicuously on posters and humorously on television. In response to all this effort, the market for foot deodorants had expanded dramatically. Nothing much happened to the sales of Sweet-Feet, but Rigley’s Footbalm had gone from strength to strength.

  It was not in the nature of the Hutstacker Chemical Corporation to admit defeat. When it couldn’t win in a selling situation, it adopted a new strategy: this it called creating a buying situation.

  As financial advisers to Hutstacker’s in Europe, the firm of Grenwood, Phipps had been briefed to purchase all the stock of the family-owned Rigley & Herbert at an irresistible price. What Crabthorne referred to as a merger was more accurately intended to be a takeover—submerger would have been more accurate still.

  There were no Rigleys and only a few Herberts surviving as descendants of the nineteenth-century founders of the firm. Although shareholders, they were none of them engaged in the company, and all of them—save one— only too pleased to sell their interests for princely sums. Nor had they jointly considered it necesssary to employ expensive financial advisers to transmit this simple truth to Hutstacker’s without delay, which was why Crutt had been nominated emissary. There remained the problem of the one Herbert who had so far proved unwilling to part with his holding.

  The aged waitress retreated, grumbling under her breath. Crutt seemed temporarily more relaxed, napkin still in place. ‘The Judge hasn’t said no. On the other hand—’

  ‘He hasn’t said yes,’ put in Treasure, reminded of a song. ‘And with fifty-one per cent of the equity he can create—’

  ‘A blocking situation,’ pronounced Crabthorne portentously. ‘I could see him myself.’ He produced a complicated-looking diary. ‘I’m not due in Paris till Monday.’

  ‘If I may say so—’ Crutt was sounding less confident— ‘he doesn’t . . . er . . .’

  ‘Like Americans?’ Crabthorne joked, attempting to refold the diary whose concertina folds had got out of control.

  ‘Lot of people don’t,’ Lord Grenwood volunteered dispassionately. ‘Can’t imagine why. My grandmother came from Boston. Perfectly decent woman. I remember . . .’

  ‘It’s not that’ Crutt dared to interrupt not so much in the cause of Anglo-American amity as in the interests of fulfilling a firm obligation. ‘He did most specifically state he was willing to discuss the matter with Mr Treasure and no one else.’ Unthinkingly, he raised his napkin to wipe his glistening brow.

  ‘Your fly’s open,’ Grenwood observed loudly enough to cause two passing members swiftly to glance downwards.

  ‘And he wants me to go to him.’ Treasure sounded less than enthusiastic.

  Crutt was now doubly embarrassed. ‘If you would be so good, Mr Treasure.’ He fumbled beneath the table. ‘He’s writing to invite you. He said a night or two . . . the house is most comfortable and commodious, um . . .’ His right arm gave a sudden jerk upwards and a beam of satisfaction appeared on his face.

  ‘Got it done up have you?’ enquired Grenwood. ‘Tricky things, zips. Gone back to buttons myself,’ he confided, more in the direction of the returned waitress than his luncheon companions. ‘We’ll have coffee in the smoking-room, Elsie.’

  All four members of the party prepared to leave the cleared table. ‘And the Judge lives in . . . ?’ Treasure asked as he rose.

  ‘Panty,’ declared the relieved Crutt boldly, and just before becoming aware, as he stood up, that the tablecloth was firmly attached to the top of his trousers.

  The letter from His Honour Judge Henry Nott-Herbert arrived the following morning. Treasure wondered irreverently whether the Judge had journeyed through life having his name invariably mistaken for a protest. ‘I’m Henry not Herbert’ sounded like a promising first line for a music hall ditty.

  The invitation was courteous and close to compulsive for a number of reasons. The writer explained that his advancing age and accompanying decrepitude made travelling burdensome. He went on that although a widower, he took pains to maintain a civilized abode and pleasure in having friends to stay in it. He was conscious of the need to treat ‘the business matter’ with due seriousness and would be especially grateful for the opportunity to debate the right thing to do with Treasure in person. A mutual friend had advised that Treasure’s objectivity and discretion were legendary. Thus he would be deeply obliged if the banker and his talented wife would join him for as long as they cared to stay. Golf, sailing, walking and the fascinating cathedral at St David’s were all agreeable distractions close at hand. In a postscript Judge Nott-Herbert had thought fit to add that he had just started on the Latour ’61 and had no hesitation in declaring that Treasure would find it fit for drinking.

  The banker promptly decided to accept the invitation—at least for himself. His wife, Molly, better known as Margaret Forbes the actress, was in a season at Chichester and much as she might have enjoyed a day or two in rural Wales, the point was academic.

  Treasure welcomed the thought of a short and entirely justified business holiday. It was clear that the Judge, enfeebled by age, looked to him for independent counsel. This might be a trifle irregular in the circumstances, but wholly understandable. Like so many of the dwindling band of traditional merchant banks, Grenwood, Phipps had originally been engaged almost exclusively in arranging the disposition of private venture capital. Social and business evolution, plus the ravages of taxation, had drastically altered the reach of the business in recent times, but Treasure was well used to the role of professional counsellor to persons of immense wealth. The Grenwood family itself still constituted a major responsibility in this connection.

  In his mind’s eye, Treasure pictured Judge Nott-Herbert as someone not dissimilar to Lord Grenwood. Both were into their seventies and while—according to Who’s Who—the Judge had not been born to exceptional riches, he was now on the way to acquiring them.

  Treasure replied to the invitation in longhand, giving the day of his arrival and apologizing about his wife. He added lightly that the tennis elbow which temporarily prevented him from playing golf, happily did nothing to hinder his raising first growth claret to his lips, and that he looked forward to inspecting St David’s.

  As he handed the letter for posting to his secretary, the admirable Miss Gaunt, he speculated briefly on the likely identity of the unnamed mutual friend who had briefed the Judge so accurately on the lures that would fetch him to Wales.

  There is no way of telling whether he would have been better or less pleased had he been aware that his calling as a banker was quite incidental to the Judge’s purpose, and that the invitation had been prompted through knowledge of his reputation in a severely different guise.

  CHAPTER 3

  The man picked up the ringing ’phone in the untidy living-room. ‘Two-four-two.’

  ‘Morning, sir, Patton here.’

  ‘Yes, Patton?’

  ‘Suspect checked out half an hour ago, sir. I followed him to Paddington Station where he bought a first-class ticket to Fishguard. He boarded the nine o
’clock through train at eight forty-five. He’s wearing his clerical outfit sir.’

  ‘Any baggage?’

  ‘Largish suitcase. Doesn’t look like he’s coming back. Anything else sir?’

  ‘No. Just make sure he leaves with the train. Then he’s all ours. Thanks, Patton. We’ll be in touch.’

  Mark Treasure enjoyed railway stations, a characteristic common enough in those seldom obliged to use them.

  The drive to West Wales, he had been advised, was long and boring. Panty was not on the railway, but could be reached quickly and comfortably by train to Fishguard Harbour, followed by a short cab ride. The idea of travelling on the Fishguard Express had been irresistible.

  Paddington station had an especial attraction for the handsome and still hardly middle-aged banker. He paused on the main concourse unfashionably to gaze up at Brunei’s mighty centre span. Several passers-by emulated his action, failed to recognize a mid-nineteenth century engineering feat of the first importance when they saw it, and hurried onwards; two confirmed their natural as well as untutored imperception by colliding with each other.

  In his extreme youth, Treasure’s infrequent visits to London had begun and ended at this same station: memories of innocent pleasures crowded back. As an Oxford undergraduate the journeys here had been more frequent and the pleasures usually less innocent. He gave a half-smile at his own long, good-humoured visage reflected in the glass of a telephone-box with a man in it: the passage of years had not made him intolerant of youthful exuberances—least of all his own youthful exuberances. Wistfully, he recalled offering a proposal of marriage while waiting for a London connection at Didcot.

  The 9 a.m. Fishguard train stood ready to be boarded at Platform Five. True, it no longer oozed steam from every joint, nor would it be hauled by a giant County Class 4-6-0 locomotive in the green livery of the Great Western, brightwork gleaming. Sadly, there was nothing to indicate it was anything out of the ordinary.