Stone's Fall

He looked protective as he thought of his nest egg. For my part, I had not a penny saved in the world, as yet. But I could imagine how I would feel at the prospect of losing the result of several years' parsimony.

'Where has this money gone, then?'

He shrugged. 'No idea.'

'There is nothing else to say? I can't imagine that such a quantity of money could just vanish.'

'I quite agree. But it's not here, or at least I haven't found it. I told you I wasn't finished. And there are some files missing. I only found this one because it was in the wrong place.'

'So what do I do?'

'If I were you? I'd forget I'd ever seen it. If you say so much as a word you will start a financial storm the like of which London has not seen for decades.'

I could see that he was enjoying this brush with the occult secrets of the mighty. I wasn't. I knew better than he realised what we were dealing with. He was right. I should leave this alone; forget all about it. But I was a reporter. I wanted to know what was going on; where that money had gone. The fact that it had nothing to do with Ravenscliff's child was irrelevant. I had completely forgotten about the little brat.

Franklin brought me back to myself. 'I must go,' he said. 'I have to go to church.'

How he could think of such a thing, when he had just discovered proof that all these people he liked to associate with in the pews were not quite what they seemed I did not know. But Franklin was not the sort who would allow one sinner to call into question his entire outlook on life. I suspected he would pray fervently that God would show him His favour by allowing him to get a good price for his Rialto Ordinaries the next morning.

I nodded. He left, but not without reminding me of his advice. 'One other thing,' he added as he opened the door. 'File three/twenty-three. Personal disbursements. Try that. Apart from anything else, it seems that his Lordship has been supporting the International Brotherhood of Socialists for the past year.'

I sat in Ravenscliff's study for the next hour in a reverie, occasionally emerging from my mood to study the notes Franklin had made. I did quite well. Not that I uncovered any significant new financial information, of course. That was quite beyond me. But I at least managed to understand it. And I discovered, by comparing handwriting, that the accounts detailing the true situation at Rialto had been prepared for Ravenscliff by Joseph Bartoli, his right-hand man. My simple solution to the problem – simply asking Bartoli what was going on – disappeared. If Bartoli was part of some elaborate fraud, he was hardly going to open up to me.

Eventually I put down the file, and took out file three/twenty-three. It was, as Franklin had said, Ravenscliff's personal expenses, and exactly the sort of documents I should have been studying. If there were any payments for illegitimate children they should be here, buried among the itemised notes for clothes, shoes, household expenses, food, servants' wages and so on. The lists went back to 1900, and there were many entries which were ambiguous. I realised after a while that detailed study would yield nothing: an entire schoolroom of bastards could easily have been hidden under the heading of 'miscellaneous expense' (1907; £734 17s 6d). All it established was that, by the standards of the wealthy (if, perhaps, no longer quite as wealthy as I had imagined) Ravenscliff was not at all extravagant. His greatest expense was his wife (1908; £2234 12s 6d) and he spent more on books than he did on clothes. The payments Franklin referred to were on a separate sheet on the top of the file. Easy enough to understand, they were headed 'Provisional list of payments to the International Brotherhood of Socialists'. No ambiguity there. And a list of dates and amounts. This was curious. It was a lot of money; nearly £400 in the past year. Nor did it occur in the more detailed sheets of expenses underneath it. And what on earth was someone like Ravenscliff doing giving money to a group who, one assumed, were dedicated to abolishing everything he stood for? Had he had a Damascene conversion? Did that explain the sucking of money out of his own companies? I went back to his appointments diary and there, jotted down for a few days after his death, was the entry, 'Xanthos – ibs.'

I did not like Ravenscliff by instinct, but I was beginning to find him fascinating. A book-reading, Socialist-sympathising, child-begetting capitalist fraud. Wilf Cornford at Seyd's had told me he was nothing but money; he was beginning to be very much more than that. Too much more, in fact.

'They told me you were still here,' came the voice of Lady Ravenscliff from the door. I looked up. It was getting dark in the room and I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Nearly eight o'clock. No wonder I felt uncomfortable. I was hungry. No more nor less than that. That was a relief.

'Working away,' I said cheerfully.

'And have you discovered anything?'