Page 38 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

“A gentleman?” Swallowing his leaping excitement, Barnaby adopted a resigned air. “I expect that must have been my cousin. Did you see him?”

“Not well—he stayed in the carriage. Just opened the door and gave the lady his hand to help her inside.” The boy looked at Barnaby questioningly.

Barnaby sighed, pulled out a half crown, and held it up. “So what did he look like?”

“Gentleman—couldn’t say how tall ’cause he was sitting down.” Like a magpie’s, the boy’s eyes had fixed on the shiny coin. “He didn’t have a beard but those side bits as is common now, and his face was roundish, and he had brown hair.” The boy looked at Barnaby as if to ask if that was enough.

“One last thing—how old was this gent?”

The boy blinked. “Thought he was your cousin—don’t you know how old he is?”

“I have several cousins. I’m trying to decide which one it was.”

“Oh.” The boy hesitated, then screwed up his face. “Can’t be sure, can I? I didn’t see him clearly, but . . . the same age as the lady?”

His tone made it clear that his estimation was pure guess. Nevertheless, Barnaby handed over the coin. “Good enough.”

The boy had told him enough to be sure that the veiled lady was working with—or perhaps for—one of the five Halstead males.

Barnaby turned to leave, then halted, hunted in his pocket, and pulled out a sovereign. He swung back to the lad, who had pocketed the half crown. “Here!” When the boy looked up, Barnaby tossed him the sovereign.

Swift as a hawk, the boy plucked the coin from the air. The dawning wonderment in his face as he turned it between his fingers and realized his good fortune made Barnaby grin.

When the boy glanced up, Barnaby jauntily saluted him. “That’s for being observant. Put it to good use.”

He left the boy staring at the wealth in his palm. Feeling thoroughly pleased, Barnaby strode down the street toward Montague’s office.

After returning to Chapel Court and his office, Montague’s first act was to check on Pringle. Seated at the desk Slocum had cleared and assigned to him, Pringle was steadily working his way through the accumulated Halstead financial records.

“They go back nearly thirty years.” Pringle held up one account. “Sir Hugo dealt with young Mr. Runcorn’s father, who had the business before him. I can’t tell whether it was the villain who did it, or the constables when they gathered them up, but the papers are in a right jumble.”

“So you can’t yet say if anything’s missing?” Montague asked.

Pringle shook his head. “Not until I get everything in order again.”

Leaving him to it, suppressing his impatience to get on and do—to analyze the accounts and find the murderer and so ensure Violet Matcham was safe—Montague spoke with Gibbons and Foster, reviewing their on-going work with the firm’s clients, then he confirmed the arrangements to have the pair take over all scheduled meetings for the next several days. His own slate thus cleared, he retreated to his office and settled behind his desk.

The papers Pringle had copied and sent to him sat in a thick sheaf to one side. They beckoned, but Montague resisted. There was one other effort he could and should make, an avenue he could pursue to directly identify the odd payments. Returning to his copy of Lady Halstead’s bank statement—the document that had given rise to the intrigue of money and murder—he made a neat list of all the odd deposits stretching back over the last fourteen months.

List completed, he studied it, then called in Slocum and dictated four letters.

Each letter was a separate request, reminding the recipient, each of them one of his peers, of a past favor done for them by Montague or his firm, before describing the pattern of deposits into the Halstead account and asking whether the recipient was aware of any similar deposits made into their clients’ bank accounts, and, if so, if they had identified the source and the purpose behind said deposits.

Within the circle of select men-of-business to which all those he’d elected to contact belonged, absolute discretion was assured.

As Slocum retreated to dispatch the letters, Montague stared at the list of deposits, then grimaced. “Who knows? Perhaps this is a more widespread occurrence, something that’s happening to others as well.” Alternatively, one of his peers might have some insight into possible sources of such not-quite-regular mystery deposits.

Inwardly sighing, he turned to the Halstead records, the pile comprised of the papers Runcorn had initially given him, as well as those documents Pringle had subsequently copied and sent; lifting the inches-thick pile, he placed it squarely on the center of his wide blotter. Leaning back in his chair, he considered the stack.

Could Runcorn have been a party to whatever scheme the murderer had been running?

In his mind, Montague returned to his meeting with the younger man-of-business, studied again his fresh, open face, reviewed again his eager expression, his patent wish to please . . . the touch of awe he’d accorded Montague.

Everything Montague had sensed about Runcorn had rung true; even in hindsight, he could see no reason to change his assessment of the honesty and trustworthiness of the younger man.

“So”—Montague refocused on the pile of papers—“Runcorn had no idea what was going on, but the murderer believed that when Runcorn reviewed the file to get Lady Halstead’s affairs in order, he would discover something, enough to be alerted to whatever illegality the murderer was engaged in.”

Getting a client’s affairs in order involved, among other things, a complete listing of all assets, including all investments currently held, an estimate of their current capital worth, and an accounting of the income deriving from them, as well as a complete reconciliation of bank accounts and monies in the Funds and similar deposits. The last review of the Halsteads’ affairs would most likely have been done ten years earlier, at the time of Sir Hugo’s death.