Stone's Fall, Page 2

  I sat down. Nobody likes appearing to be a fool, and I had not made a very good start. The fact that she was quite pleased with the way things were going did not help. Only later—very much later—did I consider that my inept beginnings might have had something to do with the lady herself, for she was beautiful, although if you considered her face there was no obvious reason to think so. It was not what you might call conventionally handsome; in fact, you might have almost concluded she was slightly odd looking. There was a distinct asymmetry to her features: her nose and mouth too big; her eyebrows too dark. But she was beautiful because she thought she was so, and so dressed and sat and moved in a fashion which elicited the appropriate response from those who saw her. I did not consciously notice this at the time, but it must have had some effect on me.

  The best thing to do, I decided, was nothing. She had summoned me, so it was for her to begin. This allowed her to take control of the meeting, but that was no more than recognising reality. So I arranged myself as best I could and tried hard to conceal my discomfiture.

  “I have spent much time recently reading the newspapers, Mr. Braddock,” she began. “What I am told are your innumerable contributions.”

  “I am gratified, Your Ladyship.”

  “It was not for your literary talent—although I have no doubt you are skilled in your chosen occupation. It is because I have need of someone with an ability to amass information and study it dispassionately. You seem to be just such a person.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Unfortunately, I also need someone who can be discreet, which I believe is not normally a characteristic of reporters.”

  “We are professional gossips,” I said, cheerful again now I was on to a topic I knew about. “I am paid to be indiscreet.”

  “And if you are paid to be discreet?”

  “Oh, in that case the sphinx will seem like a chatterbox in comparison.”

  She waved her hand and thought awhile. I had been offered no refreshment of any sort. “I have a proposition for you. How much do you earn at the moment?”

  This was an impolite question. By the standards of journalism I was paid adequately, although I knew that by the standards of Lady Ravenscliff it was probably a pitiful sum. Masculine pride does not like to be so easily damaged.

  “Why do you want to know that?” I asked cautiously.

  “Because in order to secure your services I will no doubt have to pay you somewhat more than you receive already. I wish to know how much more.”

  I grunted. “Well, if you must know, I am paid £125 a year.”

  “Yes,” she said sweetly, “you are.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Naturally, I discovered this for myself. I wanted to see whether you would give me an accurate figure, or inflate it in the hope of getting more out of me. You have made a good start as an honest man.”

  “And you have made a very poor start as a worthy employer.”

  She acknowledged the reproof, although without any sign of remorse.

  “That is true. But you will see in a moment why I am so cautious.”

  “I am waiting.”

  She frowned, which did not suit her naturally even complexion, and thought for a moment. “Well,” she said eventually, “I would like to offer you a job. It will pay £350 a year, plus any expenses you might incur, and continue for seven years, no matter how long you take to fulfil the task I will give you. This will be an inducement for you to accept the offer, and be discreet. Should you fail in the latter, then all payment will be suspended immediately.”

  It took a few moments to absorb this. It was a phenomenal sum. I would easily be able to save a hundred a year, and so could look forward to perhaps another four years afterwards without having to worry about money. Eleven years of blessed security, in all. What could she possibly want that would justify that sum? Whatever it was, I intended to do it. As long as it didn’t involve too long a gaol sentence.

  “You are aware, perhaps, that my husband, Lord Ravenscliff, died a fortnight ago?”

  I nodded.

  “It was a terrible accident—I still cannot believe it. However, it happened. And I must now live as a widow.”

  Not for long, though, I bet, I thought to myself as I composed my face into an expression of suitable sympathy.

  “Please accept my condolences for your loss,” I said piously.

  She treated the conventional remark with the solemnity it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it totally.

  “As you no doubt know, death is not merely an emotional matter for those who are bereaved. The law demands attention as well.”

  “The police are involved?”

  She looked very queerly at me. “Of course not,” she replied. “I mean that there is a will to be read, estates to be settled, bequests to be made.”

  “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry.”

  She paused for a long while after that little exchange; perhaps the calm presentation was more difficult for her than it appeared.

  “We were married for nearly twenty years, Mr. Braddock. In that time we were as happy and content as a couple can be. I hope you can appreciate that.”

  “I’m sure of it…” I replied, wondering what this was all about.

  “So you can realise that when I was read his will, which gave a substantial legacy to his child, I was surprised.”

  “Were you?” I asked cautiously.

  “We had no children.”

  “Ah.”

  “And so I wish you to discover the identity of this child, so that the terms of his will can—”

  “Just a moment,” I said in a rush, holding up my hand. The small amount of information she’d given me had already generated so many questions that I was having difficulties holding all of them in my head at the same time.

  “Just a moment,” I repeated more calmly. “Can we go through this a little more slowly? First of all, why are you telling me this? I mean, why me? You know nothing about me.”

  “Oh, I do. You come recommended.”

  “Really? By whom?”

  “By your editor. We have known him for some time. He said you were a fine ferreter out of other people’s secrets. He also told me you could be discreet and, incidentally, told me how much you are paid.”

  “There must be someone better than me.”

  “That is modest of you. And do not think I have not considered the matter carefully. In fact, there are few people capable of performing such a task. Lawyers occasionally employ such people, but none I know of. There are investigative agencies, but I do not feel inclined to trust someone who does not come personally recommended. Besides, they might well require more information than I can provide. I do not know whether this child is alive, when he or she was born, who the mother was. I do not even know in which country it might have been born. There is just one sentence in his will.”

  “And that’s it? Nothing else at all?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “What did the will say, exactly?”

  She paused for a moment, and then recited. “‘Conscious of my failings in so many matters, and wishing to make amends for past ills, I direct that the sum of £250,000 be left to my child, whom I have never previously acknowledged.’ So you see, it is not a small matter.” She looked at me evenly as she spoke.

  I gaped. Money wasn’t my speciality, but I knew a gigantic fortune when I lost track of the noughts dancing in my head.

  “That’s some failing,” I commented. She replied with a frosty look. “Sorry.”

  “I wish to honour my husband’s will to the letter, if it is possible. I need to inform this person of the bequest. I cannot do that until I know who he, or she, is.”

  “You really have no more information?”

  She shook her head. “The will referred to some papers in his safe. There were none there. At least, nothing of any relevance. I have looked several times.”

  “But if your husband conducted an—ah—”

/>   I really did not know at all how to manage this conversation. Even with women of my own social class it would have been impossible to ask directly—your husband had a mistress? When? Where? Who? With a lady in the first flush of mourning it was completely beyond my capabilities.

  Luckily, she decided to help me out. I rather wished she hadn’t, as it made me even more uncomfortable. “I do not believe my husband was in the habit of taking lovers,” she said calmly. “Certainly not in the last decade or so. Before then I know of no one, and there is no reason why I should not have known had any such person existed.”

  “Why is that?”

  She smiled at me, again with a slightly mocking twinkle in her eye. “You are trying to contain your shock, but not doing it very well. Let me simply say that I never doubted his love for me, nor he mine, even though he made it perfectly clear to me that I was free to do as I chose. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “He knew perfectly well that I would accept anything he wished to tell me about and so had no reason to conceal anything from me.”

  “I see.”

  I didn’t, of course; I didn’t see at all. My morals were—and still are—those of my class and background, that is to say far more strict than those of people like the Ravenscliffs. It was an early lesson: the rich are a good deal tougher than most people. I suppose it is why they are rich.

  “If you will excuse me for saying so, why did he make life so complicated for people? He must have known that it was going to be difficult to find this child.”

  “It may be you will find an answer to that in your enquiries.”

  She would never have made much of a living as a saleswoman in a department store, so it was perhaps as well that she was wealthy. Still, it would be an intriguing problem and, best of all, I got paid whatever the result: £350 a year was a powerful incentive. I was getting increasingly ill-humoured about the succession of bachelor lodging houses I had lived in for the past few years. I wasn’t entirely certain whether I wanted domesticity and stability—wife, dog, house in the country. Or whether I wanted to flee abroad, and ride Arabian stallions across the desert, and sleep by flickering campfires at night. Either would do, as long as I could get away from the smell of boiled vegetables and furniture polish that hit me full in the face every time I returned home at night.

  I was bored, and the presence of this beautiful woman with her extraordinary request and air of unfathomable wealth stirred up feelings I had long ignored. I wanted to do something different from hanging around the law courts and the pubs. This task she was offering me, and the money that went with it, were the only things likely to show up that could change my circumstances.

  “You have become very thoughtful, Mr. Braddock.”

  “I was wondering how I would go about this task, if I decide to accept your offer.”

  “You have decided to accept it,” she said gravely. From many people, there would have been a tone of contempt in the statement. She, on the other hand, managed to say it in a serene, almost friendly tone that was quite disarming.

  “I suppose I have. Not without misgivings, though.”

  “I’m sure those will pass.”

  “I need, first of all, to discover everything I can about your husband’s life. I will need to talk to his lawyer about the will. I don’t know. Have you looked through his correspondence?”

  She shook her head, tears suddenly welling up into her eyes. “I can’t face it yet,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  I thought she was apologising for her laziness, then realised it was for the display of weakness she was showing me. Quite right. People like her weren’t supposed to get emotional about a little thing like a husband dying. Should I have taken out a handkerchief and helped to dab her eyes? I would have enjoyed it; it would have required me to go and sit by her on the sofa, bring strength to her frailty. I changed the subject instead, and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

  “I imagine I will have to ensure that no one knows why I am asking these questions,” I said in a louder voice than necessary. “I do not wish to cause you embarrassment.”

  “It would cause me no embarrassment,” she replied, the absurdity of the idea bringing her back to her senses. “But I suppose a general knowledge of your task might generate false claimants. I have already told a few people—your editor included—that I am thinking of commissioning a biography. It is the sentimental thing that a woman with much grief and money might do.”

  “And as I am a reporter,” I said, cheerful once more to find myself back on home territory, “I can ask indiscreet questions and seem merely as though I am fired by a love of the squalid and vulgar.”

  “Precisely. You will fit the part very well, I’m sure. Now, I have made an appointment for you with Mr. Joseph Bartoli, my husband’s general manager. He has drawn up a contract for you.”

  “And you?”

  “I think you should come and see me every week to report progress. All Lord Ravenscliff’s private correspondence is here, and you will have to read it as well, I imagine. You may ask any questions you have then. Although I do intend to travel to France in the near future. Much as I loved my husband and miss him, the conventions on mourning in this country I find very oppressive. But I know I would shock and scandalise if I acted inappropriately, so I must seek a little relief elsewhere.”

  “You are not English.”

  Another smile. “My goodness, if that is how quick you are, we are not going to make much progress. No, I am not English. I am Hungarian by origin, although I lived in France until I married.”

  “You have not the slightest trace of any foreign accent,” I said, feeling a little ruffled.

  “Thank you. I have been in England for a long time. And I have never found languages difficult. Manners are a different matter, though. Those are more difficult to learn.”

  She stood and shook my hand as I prepared to leave; she wore a soft, utterly feminine perfume which complemented perfectly the black clothes she wore. Her large grey eyes held mine as she said goodbye.

  A drink. Either to celebrate or to recover, I wasn’t sure, but I certainly needed assistance to think about the wave of change that had just swept over my life. In about forty-five minutes I had changed from being a jobbing reporter on £125 a year to someone earning nearly three times as much and able to do pretty much as I pleased. If that did not call for a celebration, I do not know what would, and there is a decent pub in Apple Tree Yard, just round the corner from St. James’s Square, which caters for the servants who work in the big houses, and the suppliers who keep those inhabitants in the style they require. Two drinks later, I was beginning to feel fairly grand. I would take a house, buy some new clothes. A decent pair of shoes. A new hat. Eat in hotel restaurants. Take a cab every now and then. Life would be very fine.

  And I could do my appointed task with as much diligence as I chose. Lady Ravenscliff, it appeared, was still in shock over the loss of her husband and the discovery of his secret life. She had depended on him and looked up to him. Not surprising that she was now throwing his money around.

  Why investigate at all? I wouldn’t have done. If her husband hadn’t troubled to find out who his wretched child was, why should his widow? It seemed to me like inflicting quite unnecessary self-punishment, but what did I know about the mentality of widows? Maybe it was just curiosity, being childless herself, to discover what a child of her husband would be like. Maybe she wanted to find out something about the woman who had succeeded where she had failed.

  CHAPTER 3

  The offices of Ravenscliff’s general manager were in the City, at 15 Moorgate, an anonymous street of five and six-storey buildings, all erected for commercial use in the past half century. There was nothing remarkable about the street or the people in it; the usual bustle of traders and agents, of young men with spotty faces, top hats, ill-fitting suits and shirts with stiff collars. It was a street of insurance brokers and stockbrokers and grain traders and metal
dealers, those who imported and exported, sold before they bought and contrived to keep themselves and the Empire at whose centre they were in liquid funds. I had never liked it very much, this part of town; the City absorbs bright youths and knocks the spirit out of them. It has to; it is the inevitable result of poring over figures eleven hours a day, six days a week, in chilly offices where no talking is allowed and frivolity is punishable by dismissal.

  The Stock Exchange is different; I was passing through once when some jobbers decided to set fire to the coattails of a grandee, who was billowing plumes of smoke for several minutes before he noticed. Fights with bread rolls arcing over the trading floor are a daily event, American Funds assaulting Foreign Railways. They work hideous hours for low pay, and lose their jobs easily even though they make their masters much money. It is not surprising that they have a tendency towards the infantile, for that is how they are treated. In the pubs and taverns of the City I had made many good friends amongst the jobbers and brokers, but amongst the bankers few, if any. They are different; they see themselves as gentlemen—not an accusation that could ever be hurled at a stockbroker.

  I did not know what to expect of Mr. Joseph Bartoli. This is not surprising, as he filled an unusual position, although the evolution of capitalism will throw up more of his type as industry becomes more complex. Ravenscliff (I later learned) had so many fingers in so many pies that it was difficult for him to keep track of them; nor could he involve himself in day-to-day operations as a mine owner or steel founder might be expected to do. For this he had managers in each enterprise. Mr. Bartoli oversaw the managers, and informed Ravenscliff how each business was developing.