Stone's Fall

She shrugged. I couldn't blame her.

'How much did you steal?' I asked quietly.

'Nothing.'

She was clearly lying, so I smiled at her. 'Back wages?'

'If you like.'

'This gold mine. Was it anything to do with this man, do you think?'

Another shrug. I did wish she'd stop it. She managed to give the impression she couldn't care about anything in the world. Which might be true, of course. 'I think so. She was excited enough after he went.'

'This money you didn't steal. Was there anything else in the drawer?'

'Some papers, didn't look. Nothing important.'

'Did you take those?'

'No.'

They'd gone as well. I had been beaten at every turn. Every time I did something, thought of something, someone had been there before me. All I had established for my money was that Ravenscliff wasn't interested in the spirit world, but I had guessed that anyway. That this woman had known something, but I had no idea what it was. Maybe she had learned something in Russia, or in Germany. What could she possibly know that was important to a man like Ravenscliff?

'How well did they know each other? Were they friendly? Distant? Like strangers?'

'Him, you could almost see him holding his nose when he talked to her. Wouldn't shake her hand or anything like that. No; he wanted something, and then he'd never want to see her again.'

'Did he get it?'

'Don't know. All I heard was her muttering to herself. 'Why? Why? Why that?' Over and over again.'

'It's too much to hope that you know what she was talking about?'

She shook her head. I sighed. 'Tell me,' I said, very dispirited, 'do you recognise any of these people?'

I showed her a picture of Lady Ravenscliff. She shook her head. Then I offered the group photograph of the Beswick board, and she looked and shrugged again.

CHAPTER 25

It turned into an eventful evening in Paradise Walk, perhaps the oddest the little house had ever known. I had just managed to persuade Mrs Morrison that the reputation of her house really wasn't under any serious threat when the doorbell rang, a fact unprecedented and unimaginable. Respectable people do not ring the doorbell, unannounced, at eight o'clock. Respectable people do not have unexpected visitors at eight o'clock. The very sound caused consternation and excitement.

Even more the visitor. It was Wilf Cornford, who had a look of beatific pleasure on his face, except when he looked at me. Then he frowned in disapproval.

'I do believe you have not been keeping to your side of the bargain, young man,' he said sternly. 'I assumed that you would tell me things of importance. And I find, or at least I suspect, that you have not been.'

'Why is that?'

'Because I have been talking to a sales manager from Churchill's, the machine-tool people. And he told me that Gleeson's had ordered, near eighteen months ago, three new lathes, the sort used to bore gun barrels.'

'So?'

'And then I dropped into a pub in Moorgate, and talked to a broker who deals in such things, who told me quite categorically that Gleeson's had not sold off its old lathes. In fact, that the lathes it already possessed were exactly the same as the new ones.'

'Is this interesting?'

'Why would Gleeson's need eight lathes? For boring guns for battleships, when it has no orders for battleships?'

'I am truly not dissimulating when I say I haven't got a clue.'

'I want a little bit more information from you, if you please. What else have you found out that you haven't told me?'

I thought for a while, then decided to take the plunge. 'I have discovered that a couple of million has been sucked out of Ravenscliff's companies in the past eighteen months, and that the shipyard is awash with spare parts.' I described the scene as best I could. 'Also that every politician in the land has shares in Rialto. And, if you want minor details, that Ravenscliff had discovered some hole in his management structure that he couldn't understand, and that the estate is tied up because of a bequest to a child who is probably dead.'

Wilf leaned back and sighed with contentment. 'Ah, yes,' he said. 'A great man, even in his fall.'

'Pardon?'

'Had you told me all of this when you started, I could have put all the pieces together very much faster, you know.'

'I didn't want the pieces put together at all,' I said crossly. 'My job was to find this child, not investigate his companies. I couldn't give a hoot about Beswick or Rialto. Anyway, what pieces have you put together?'

'Ravenscliff was a gambler. He took the biggest gamble of his life and was losing. I wonder how much longer he could have kept it going.'

'Could you just tell me what you are talking about?'

'Don't you realise? He was building himself a battle fleet.'

'What?'