Stone's Fall

'Same with all the armaments companies,' he said reflectively. 'No orders. The government isn't buying. They've been going through hard times. Anyway, the point is, all of a sudden, there were buyers all over the place. The shares went up, can you credit it? The question is, who was buying? Somebody knew something, but I'm damned if I could find out what. And later Cazenove came into the market, acting for Barings. And the funny thing was, Barings seemed to be trading on their own account.'

'What does that mean?'

'Buying for themselves, not for a client. So I'm told. The thing is they weren't trying to make money. They were buying at full price. Whoever heard of a bank not trying to make money? Unless they were doing someone a favour.'

'This was when, exactly?'

'When Ravenscliff died.'

'No, I mean what day exactly? The day he died, or the day the news appeared in the papers.'

'There was nothing in the papers. That came two days later.'

'What would have happened if the news had come out immediately? A few hours after he died?'

'Heavy selling, with, presumably, no buyers primed to intervene. Collapse in the share price. Possibly forcing the Trust to sell off the shares it owned in other companies, leading to a general drop of the market.'

'Which is not good?'

Leighton sighed. 'Not really.'

I thought about this. It more or less explained the delay in reporting Ravenscliff's death; gave one possible explanation, at any rate. Keeping the news quiet meant that Ravenscliff's friends had time to prepare. All very well.

'Have you ever heard of a man called Henry Cort?'

Leighton looked puzzled for a moment, then shook his head. 'City man?'

'I don't know. Just a name I heard. Not important.'

I left him ordering another drink and a pork pie, and went to think. I was accumulating information, but so far it didn't add up to much. Ravenscliff died, assorted people of some considerable authority delayed the news becoming generally known; stockbrokers intervened to stop a run on Ravenscliff's company; the Foreign Office was, maybe, involved. Of all the information I had, this was the most curious. At least, that was the only thing I thought FO might mean. Everything else was the usual sort of thing (I believed) one might expect from the City.

I didn't sleep as well as usual that night; I felt that I was proceeding in an amateurish, haphazard fashion – a bit of information here, a bit there, without having any real sense of what I was doing. I was annoyed with myself, even though I had only been at work for a few days. I felt I should be more organised. More business-like, in honour of my subject. By the time I finally fell asleep, I had resolved to start again, at the beginning, and go back to question Lady Ravenscliff more thoroughly. She must have known him better than anyone.

I was aware that I was trying to do several things at once. I was, officially, meant to be writing a biography of a financier; I was supposed, unofficially, to be finding a child; and I was also meant, even more unofficially, to be examining Ravenscliff's death to find out what it meant for the Chronicle. I had to remember to keep in mind which one of these I was meant to be doing at any particular moment.

The next morning, I sent a note to Lady Ravenscliff requesting an interview, another to Mr Xanthos asking for the same, and then took myself off to visit the family solicitor.

I should have known that Ravenscliff would not have had a solicitor of the Dickensian type, who still existed in those days. Old clerk, brown wooden desks, glasses of sherry or port, and reassuring conversation surrounded by piles of carefully docketed folders and archival boxes. No; Ravenscliff liked efficiency and dynamism; his solicitor matched his tastes. Mr Henderson was a young man for his job, perhaps in his mid-thirties, and, in my opinion, somewhat bumptious. The sort who had done well at school, never broken any rules, been a favourite with his teachers. Someone who was going to do well in life, and who, as a result, never questioned whether it was worth doing. I didn't like him much, and he treated me with scant respect in return. The sherry decanter was not disturbed in its rest by my presence.

Still, I was the representative of his most valuable client, trying to do something which he was incapable of doing on his own. He formed trusts and conveyed things. Finding illegitimate children was quite outside his range. As our conversation progressed, I occasionally even felt a slight sense of unseemly interest, as though some long dormant imp buried deep in his well-run life was stirring a little. Perhaps he had really wanted to flick an ink pellet at a teacher, but had never dared.

'You know that for public purposes I am supposed to be writing a biography?'

He nodded.

'And you are also aware of the real reason for my presence?'

He nodded again.

'In that case, I can dispense with all the subtleties. What do you know of this business?'