Chapter XXVIII: 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.