Smallbone Deceased

“Well,” she said rather hopelessly. “You might ask him to telephone us as soon as he turns up. It’s rather important.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Mrs. Tasker.

‌Chapter Three —Wednesday Morning— A Capital Asset Comes to Light

The body (or corpus) of the trust estate will normally be invested in approved and easily realisable securities.

I

Apart from the Roman Church, who are acknowledged experts in human behaviour, there is nobody quicker than a solicitor at detecting the first faint stirrings of a scandal: that distinctive, that elusive odour of Something which is not Quite as it Should Be.

Mr. Birley was only voicing the uneasiness of all his colleagues when he said to Mr. Craine next morning:

“The fellow can’t have disappeared. He’ll have to be found.”

“It’s awkward,” said Mr. Craine. “By the way, who are the other trustees?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Bob apologetically, “there isn’t another. Father was one trustee, you know, Mr. Smallbone was the other.”

“Wasn’t another trustee appointed when Abel died?”

“Well, no. That is, not yet.”

“Who has the power to appoint?”

“I think the surviving trustee—”

“So it amounts to this—that unless we can induce Smallbone to come back to England we shall probably have the expense of going to the court—”

“I don’t know that Mr. Smallbone’s gone abroad,” said Bob. “His landlady only said that he’d gone away. She said he went to Italy last year—”

“It’s perfectly absurd. He must have left an address. People don’t walk out into the blue. Not if they’re trustees.”

“Well, that’s what he seems to have done,” said Bob. He always found Mr. Birley alarming; and the fact that they were now, in theory, equal members of the partnership had not gone very far towards alleviating that feeling. “Perhaps if we wait for a few weeks—”

“With half a million pounds’ worth of securities,” said Mr. Birley. “This isn’t a post office savings account. There must be questions of reinvestment cropping up every day. I wonder you’ve managed to get by for as long as you have—”

Bob flushed at the obvious implication of this remark. Mr. Craine came to his rescue.

“Wouldn’t it be a good thing,” he said, “to take this opportunity of going through the securities. We’ll have to appoint a new trustee and that will mean an assignment. We’ll get a broker’s opinion on any necessary reinvestments at the same time.”

“I’ll do that,” said Bob gratefully.

“Where are the securities?” asked Mr. Birley.

“They’re in the muniments room. I’ll get Sergeant Cockerill to bring them up.”

“You might get the trust accounts out of the box, too, and run through them,” suggested Mr. Craine.

“All right,” said Bob. “But—I’m sure there’s nothing wrong.”

“Why should there be anything wrong?” said Mr. Birley, looking up sharply.

“About Mr. Smallbone, I mean. He often used to disappear like this. Miss Cornel was telling me about him. He’s a bit of a crank.”

“Fact is, the fellow ought never to have been appointed a trustee,” said Mr. Birley. “But Stokes was mad for years before he died. None of his relations had the guts to say so. Served them all right when he left his money on charitable trusts—”

“Only he might have chosen his trustees a bit better,” agreed Mr. Craine. “Now then, about this death duty scheme of Lord Haltwhistle…”

Bob stole gratefully away.

About half an hour later when Lord Haltwhistle’s death duties had been partially mitigated, Mr. Birley broke off what he was saying to come round suddenly on a fresh tack.

“You remember,” he said, “we were talking yesterday about this new fellow Bohun—”

“Yes.”

“I thought you’d be interested in something I heard at the club yesterday—from Colonel Bristow. He got slung out of the army.”

“Good heavens!” said Mr. Craine. “I thought they retired the old boy on half-pay.”

“Not Colonel Bristow. Bohun.”

“Oh.” Mr. Craine sounded only mildly interested. “What for?”

“Bristow didn’t know. Bohun was attached to his staff in the Middle East and the War Office removed him. Medical reasons, they said.”

“Perhaps that was what it was,” suggested Mr. Craine.

“Chap looks fit enough to me.” Mr. Birley stopped and lifted his head. “What the devil are they making all that noise about out there?” he said. “Is that someone screaming?”

II

At about eleven o’clock that morning Henry Bohun sat back in his swivel-chair, said “Ouch!” and sat forward again quickly.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said John Cove, looking up from the study of a crossword puzzle. “When I shared this room with Eric Duxford it was my lot, as the junior, to sit in that chair.”

“What’s wrong with it?” said Henry, massaging his back.

“It is possessed,” said John, “by an active and malignant spirit, a sort of legal gremlin which leans out and pinches you when you are least expecting it.”

Henry upended the chair on his desk. “It’s the join in the back piece,” he announced. “The support’s worked loose. If I had a screwdriver I could fix it—”