A Pocket Full of Rye

Chapter 23
Once again Miss Somers had just made tea in the typists' room, and once again the kettle had not been boiling when Miss Somers poured the water on to the tea. History repeats itself. Miss Griffith, accepting her cup, thought to herself, "I really must speak to Mr Percival about Somers. I'm sure we can do better. But with all this terrible business going on, one doesn't like to bother him over office details."

As so often before. Miss Griffith said sharply:

"Water not boiling again, Somers," and Miss Somers, going pink, replied in her usual formula:

"Oh, dear, I was sure it was boiling this time."

Further developments on the same line were interrupted by the entrance of Lance Fortescue. He looked round him somewhat vaguely, and Miss Griffith, jumping up, came forward to meet him.

"Mr Lance," she exclaimed.

He swung round towards her and his face lit up in a smile.

"Hallo. Why, it's Miss Griffith."

Miss Griffith was delighted. Eleven years since he had seen her and he knew her name. She said in a confused voice:

"Fancy your remembering."

And Lance said easily, with all his charm to the fore:

"Of course I remember."

A flicker of excitement was running round the typists' room. Miss Somers's troubles over the tea were forgotten. She was gaping at Lance with her mouth slightly open. Miss Bell gazed eagerly over the top of her typewriter and Miss Chase unobtrusively drew out her compact and powdered her nose. Lance Fortescue looked round him.

"So everything's still going on just the same here," he said.

"Not many changes, Mr Lance. How brown you look and how well! I suppose you must have had a very interesting life abroad."

"You could call it that," said Lance, "but perhaps I am now going to try and have an interesting life in London."

"You're coming back here to the office?"

"Maybe."

"Oh, but how delightful."

"You'll find me very rusty," said Lance. "You'll have to show me all the ropes, Miss Griffith."

Miss Griffith laughed delightedly.

"It will be very nice to have you back, Mr Lance. Very nice indeed."

Lance threw her an appreciative glance.

"That's sweet of you," he said, "that's very sweet of you."

"We never believed - none of us thought..." Miss Griffith broke off and flushed.

Lance patted her on the arm.

"You didn't believe the devil was as black as he was painted? Well, perhaps he wasn't. But that's all old history now. There's no good going back over it. The future's the thing." He added, "Is my brother here?"

"He's in the inner office, I think."

Lance nodded easily and passed on. In the ante-room to the inner sanctum a hard-faced woman of middle age rose behind a desk and said forbiddingly:

"Your name and business, please?"

Lance looked at her doubtfully.

"Are you - Miss Grosvenor?" he asked.

Miss Grosvenor had been described to him as a glamorous blonde. She had indeed appeared so in the pictures that had appeared in the newspapers reporting the inquest on Rex Fortescue. This, surely, could not be Miss Grosvenor.

"Miss Grosvenor left last week. I am Mrs Hardcastle, Mr Percival Fortescue's personal secretary."

"How like old Percy," thought Lance. "To get rid of a glamorous blonde and take on a Gorgon instead. I wonder why? Was it safety or was it because this one comes cheaper?"

Aloud he said easily:

"I'm Lancelot Fortescue. You haven't met me yet."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr Lancelot," Mrs Hardcastle apologised, "this is the first time, I think, you've been to the office?"

"The first time but not the last," said Lance, smiling.

He crossed the room and opened the door of what had been his father's private office. Somewhat to his surprise it was not Percival who was sitting behind the desk there, but Inspector Neele. Inspector Neele looked up from a large wad of papers which he was sorting, and nodded his head.

"Good morning, Mr Fortescue, you've come to take up your duties, I suppose."

"So you've heard I decided to come into the firm?"

"Your brother told me so."

"He did, did he? With enthusiasm?"

Inspector Neele endeavoured to conceal a smile.

"The enthusiasm was not marked," he said gravely.

"Poor Percy," commented Lance.

Inspector Neele looked at him curiously.

"Are you really going to become a City man?"

"You don't think it's likely. Inspector Neele?"

"It doesn't seem quite in character, Mr Fortescue."

"Why not? I'm my father's son."

"And your mother's."

Lance shook his head.

"You haven't got anything there. Inspector. My mother was a Victorian romantic. Her favourite reading was the Idylls of the King, as indeed you may have deduced from our curious Christian names. She was an invalid and always, I should imagine, out of touch with reality. I'm not like that at all. I have no sentiment, very little sense of romance and I'm a realist first and last."

"People aren't always what they think themselves to be," Inspector Neele pointed out.

"No, I suppose that's true," said Lance.

He sat down in a chair and stretched his long legs out in his own characteristic fashion. He was smiling to himself. Then he said unexpectedly:

"You're shrewder than my brother, Inspector."

"In what way, Mr Fortescue?"

"I've put the wind up Percy all right. He thinks I'm all set for the City life. He thinks he's going to have my fingers fiddling about in his pie. He thinks I'll launch out and spend the firm's money and try and embroil him in wildcat schemes. It would be almost worth doing just for the fun of it! Almost, but not quite. I couldn't really stand an office life, Inspector. I like the open air and some possibilities of adventure. I'd stifle in a place like this." He added quickly, "This is off the record, mind. Don't give me away to Percy, will you?"

"I don't suppose the subject will arise, Mr Fortescue."

"I must have my bit of fun with Percy," said Lance. "I want to make him sweat a bit. I've got to get a bit of my own back."

"That's rather a curious phrase, Mr Fortescue," said Neele. "Your own back - for what?"

Lance shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, it's old history now. Not worth going back over."

"There was a little matter of a cheque, I understand, in the past. Would that be what you're referring to?"

"How much you know, Inspector!"

"There was no question of prosecution, I understand," said Neele. "Your father wouldn't have done that."

"No. He just kicked me out, that's all."

Inspector Neele eyed him speculatively, but it was not Lance Fortescue of whom he was thinking, but of Percival. The honest, industrious, parsimonious Percival. It seemed to him that wherever he got in the case he was always coming up against the enigma of Percival Fortescue, a man of whom everybody knew the outer aspects, but whose inner personality was much harder to gauge. One would have said from observing him, a somewhat colourless and insignificant character, a man who had been very much under his father's thumb. Percy Prim in fact, as the A.C. had once said. Neele was trying now, through Lance, to get at a closer appreciation of Percival's personality. He murmured in a tentative manner:

"Your brother seems always to have been very much - well, how shall I put it - under your father's thumb."

"I wonder." Lance seemed definitely to be considering the point. "I wonder. Yes, that would be the effect, I think, given. But I'm not sure that it was really the truth. It's astonishing, you know, when I look back through life, to see how Percy always got his own way without seeming to do so, if you know what I mean."

Yes, Inspector Neele thought, it was indeed astonishing. He sorted through the papers in front of him, fished out a letter and shoved it across the desk towards Lance.

"This is a letter you wrote last August, isn't it, Mr Fortescue?"

Lance took it, glanced at it and returned it.

"Yes," he said, "I wrote it after I got back to Kenya last summer. Dad kept it, did he? Where was it - here in the office?"

"No, Mr Fortescue, it was among your father's papers in Yewtree Lodge."

The Inspector considered it speculatively as it lay on the desk in front of him. It was not a long letter.

"Dear Dad,

I've talked things over with Pat and I agree to your proposition. It will take me a little time to get things fixed up here, say about the end of October or beginning of November. I'll let you know nearer the time. I hope we'll pull together better than we used to do. Anyway, I'll do my best. I can't say more. Look after yourself.

Yours,

Lance."

"Where did you address this letter, Mr Fortescue. To the office or Yewtree Lodge?"

Lance frowned in an effort of recollection.

"It's difficult. I can't remember. You see it's almost three months now. The office, I think. Yes, I'm almost sure. Here to the office." He paused a moment before asking with frank curiosity, "Why?"

"I wondered," said Inspector Neele. "Your father did not put it on the file here among his private papers. He took it back with him to Yewtree Lodge, and I found it in his desk there. I wondered why he should have done that."

Lance laughed.

"To keep it out of Percy's way, I suppose."

"Yes," said Inspector Neele, "it would seem so. Your brother, then, had access to your father's private papers here?"

"Well," Lance hesitated and frowned, "not exactly. I mean, I suppose he could have looked through them at any time if he liked, but he wouldn't be..."

Inspector Neele finished the sentence for him.

"Wouldn't be supposed to do so?"

Lance grinned broadly. "That's right. Frankly, it would have been snooping. But Percy, I should imagine, always did snoop."

Inspector Neele nodded. He also thought it probable that Percival Fortescue snooped. It would be in keeping with what the Inspector was beginning to learn of his character.

"And talk of the devil," murmured Lance, as at that moment the door opened and Percival Fortescue came in. About to speak to the Inspector he stopped, frowning, as he saw Lance.

"Hallo," he said. "You here? You didn't tell me you were coming here today."

"I felt a kind of zeal for work coming over me," said Lance, "so here I am ready to make myself useful. What do you want me to do?"

Percival said testily:

"Nothing at present. Nothing at all. We shall have to come to some kind of arrangement as to what side of the business you're going to look after. We shall have to arrange for an office for you."

Lance inquired with a grin:

"By the way, why did you get rid of glamorous Grosvenor, old boy, and replace her by Horsefaced Hetty out there?"

"Really, Lance," Percival protested sharply.

"Definitely a change for the worse," said Lance. "I've been looking forward to the glamorous Grosvenor. Why did you sack her? Thought she knew a bit too much?"

"Of course not. What an idea!" Percy spoke angrily, a flush mounting his pale face. He turned to the Inspector. "You mustn't pay any attention to my brother," he said coldly. "He has a rather peculiar sense of humour." He added, "I never had a very high opinion of Miss Grosvenor's intelligence. Mrs Hardcastle has excellent references and is most capable besides being very moderate in her terms."

"Very moderate in her terms," murmured Lance, casting his eyes towards the ceiling. "You know, Percy, I don't really approve of skimping over the office personnel. By the way, considering how loyally the staff has stood by us during these last tragic weeks, don't you think we ought to raise their salaries all round?"

"Certainly not," snapped Percival Fortescue. "Quite uncalled for and unnecessary."

Inspector Neele noticed the gleam of devilry in Lance's eyes. Percival, however, was far too much upset to notice it.

"You always had the most extraordinarily extravagant ideas," he stuttered. "In the state in which this firm has been left, economy is our only hope."

Inspector Neele coughed apologetically.

"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Mr Fortescue," he said to Percival.

"Yes, Inspector?" Percival switched his attention to Neele.

"I want to put certain suggestions before you, Mr Fortescue. I understand that for the past six months or longer, possibly a year, your father's general behaviour and conduct has been a source of increasing anxiety to you."

"He wasn't well," said Percival, with finality. "He certainly wasn't at all well."

"You tried to induce him to see a doctor but you failed. He refused catagorically?"

"That is so."

"May I ask you if you suspected that your father was suffering from what is familiarly referred to as G.P.I. General Paralysis of the Insane, a condition with signs of megalomania and irritability which terminates sooner or later in hopeless insanity?"

Percival looked surprised. "It is remarkably astute of you, Inspector. That is exactly what I did fear. That is why I was so anxious for my father to submit to medical treatment."

Neele went on:

"In the meantime, until you could persuade your father to do that, he was capable of causing a great deal of havoc to the business?"

"He certainly was," Percival agreed.

"A very unfortunate state of affairs," said the Inspector.

"Quite terrible. No one knows the anxiety I have been through."

Neele said gently:

"From the business point of view, your father's death was an extremely fortunate circumstance."

Percival said sharply:

"You can hardly think I would regard my father's death in that light."

"It is not a question of how you regard it, Mr Fortescue. I'm speaking merely of a question of fact. Your father died before his finances were completely on the rocks."

Percival said impatiently:

"Yes, yes. As a matter of actual fact, you are right."

"It was a fortunate occurrence for your whole family, since they are dependent on this business."

"Yes. But really Inspector, I don't see what you're driving at..." Percival broke off.

"Oh, I'm not driving at anything, Mr Fortescue," said Neele. "I just like getting my facts straight. Now there's another thing. I understood you to say that you'd had no communication of any kind with your brother here since he left England many years ago."

"Quite so," said Percival.

"Yes, but it isn't quite so, is it, Mr Fortescue? I mean that last spring when you were so worried about your father's health, you actually wrote to your brother in Africa, told him of your anxiety about your father's behaviour. You wanted, I think, your brother to combine with you in getting your father medically examined and put under restraint, if necessary."

"I - I - really, I don't see..." Percival was badly shaken.

"That is so, isn't it, Mr Fortescue?"

"Well, actually, I thought it only right. After all, Lancelot was a junior partner."

Inspector Neele transferred his gaze to Lance. Lance was grinning.

"You received that letter?" Inspector Neele asked.

Lance Fortescue nodded.

"What did you reply to it?"

Lance's grin widened.

"I told Percy to go and boil his head and to let the old man alone. I said the old man probably knew what he was doing quite well."

Inspector Neele's gaze went back again to Percival.

"Were those the terms of your brother's answer?"

"I - I - well, I suppose roughly, yes. Far more offensively couched, however."

"I thought the Inspector had better have a bowdlerised version," said Lance. He went on, "Frankly, Inspector Neele, that is one of the reasons why, when I got a letter from my father, I came home to see for myself what I thought. In the short interview I had with my father, frankly I couldn't see anything much wrong with him. He was slightly excitable, that was all. He appeared to me perfectly capable of managing his own affairs. Anyway, after I got back to Africa and had talked things over with Pat, I decided that I'd come home and - what shall we say - see fair play."

He shot a glance at Percival as he spoke.

"I object," said Percival Fortescue. "I object strongly to what you are suggesting. I was not intending to victimise my father, I was concerned for his health. I admit that I was also concerned..." he paused.

Lance filled the pause quickly.

"You were also concerned for your pocket, eh? For Percy's little pocket." He got up and all of a sudden his manner changed. "All right, Percy, I'm through. I was going to string you along a bit by pretending to work here. I wasn't going to let you have things all your own sweet way, but I'm damned if I'm going on with it. Frankly, it makes me sick to be in the same room with you. You've always been a dirty, mean little skunk all your life. Prying and snooping and lying and making trouble. I'll tell you another thing. I can't prove it, but I've always believed it was you who forged that cheque there was all the row about, that got me shot out of here. For one thing it was a damn bad forgery, a forgery that drew attention to itself in letters a foot high. My record was too bad for me to be able to protest effectively, but I often wondered that the old boy didn't realise that if I had forged his name I could have made a much better job of it than that."

Lance swept on, his voice rising, "Well, Percy, I'm not going on with this silly game. I'm sick of this country, and of the City. I'm sick of little men like you with their pinstripe trousers and their black coats and their mincing voices and their mean, shoddy financial deals. We'll share out as you suggested, and I'll get back with Pat to a different country - a country where there's room to breathe and move about. You can make your own division of securities. Keep the gilt-edged and the conservative ones, keep the safe 2 per cent and 3 per cent and 3 1/2 per cent. Give me father's latest wildcat speculations as you call them. Most of them are probably duds. But I'll bet that one or two of them will pay better in the end than all your playing safe with three per cent Trustee Stocks will do. Father was a shrewd old devil. He took chances, plenty of them. Some of those chances paid five and six and seven hundred per cent. I'll back his judgment and his luck. As for you, you little worm..." Lance advanced towards his brother, who retreated rapidly, round the end of the desk towards Inspector Neele. "All right," said Lance, "I'm not going to touch you. You wanted me out of here, you're getting me out of here. You ought to be satisfied." He added as he strode towards the door, "You can throw in the old Blackbird Mine concession too, if you like. If we've got the murdering MacKenzies on our trail, I'll draw them off to Africa." He added as he swung through the doorway, "Revenge - after all these years - scarcely seems credible. But Inspector Neele seems to take it seriously, don't you, Inspector?"

"Nonsense," said Percival. "Such a thing is impossible!"

"Ask him," said Lance. "Ask him why he's making all these inquiries into blackbirds and rye in father's pocket."

Gently stroking his upper lip, Inspector Neele said:

"You remember the blackbirds last summer, Mr Fortescue. There are certain grounds for inquiry."

"Nonsense," said Percival again. "Nobody's heard of the MacKenzies for years."

"And yet," said Lance, "I'd almost dare to swear that there's a MacKenzie in our midst. I rather imagine the Inspector thinks so, too."

II

Inspector Neele caught up Lancelot Fortescue as the latter emerged into the street below.

Lance grinned at him rather sheepishly.

"I didn't mean to do that," he said. "But I suddenly lost my temper. Oh! well - it would have come to the same before long. I'm meeting Pat at the Savoy - are you coming my way, Inspector?"

"No, I'm returning to Baydon Heath. But there's just something I'd like to ask you, Mr Fortescue."

"Yes!"

"When you came into the inner office and saw me there - you were surprised. Why?"

"Because I didn't expect to see you, I suppose. I thought I'd find Percival there."

"You weren't told that he'd gone out?"

Lance looked at him curiously.

"No. They said he was in his office."

"I see - nobody knew he'd gone out. There's no second door out of the inner office - but there is a door leading straight into the corridor from the little antechamber - I suppose your brother went out that way - but I'm surprised Mrs Hardcastle didn't tell you so."

Lance laughed.

"She'd probably been to collect her cup of tea."

"Yes - yes - quite so."

Lance looked at him.

"What's the idea, Inspector?"

"Just puzzling over a few little things, that's all, Mr Fortescue -"