Page 80 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

Montague nodded. “Most likely it’s something to do with the estate. Lady Halstead, and even Tilly, might have been murdered for other reasons, but there’s simply no reason to kill a man-of-business, especially not one as relatively unacquainted with his client as young Runcorn was, unless there is, indeed, something hidden in the accounts. Something that would have been uncovered during an extensive review—possibly something Lady Halstead would have known to question. And no”—Montague glanced at Penelope—“as yet I have no idea what that something might be.”

Penelope sighed heavily.

Griselda eyed her friend, then glanced at the others. “The girls we rescued last night have all settled in with Mrs. Quiverstone and her people at the Athena Agency. Mrs. Quiverstone is sure they’ll be able to find suitable and safe employment for all the girls.”

“I had no idea such places existed,” Violet said.

“Oh, the Athena Agency has been in business for . . . well, it must be nearly two decades now.” Montague glanced at Violet and smiled. “I recall being consulted over it by Deverell before he married his wife—Miss Phoebe Malleson, as she then was. It was she and her aunt who founded the agency, and it’s now supported by quite a large network of fashionable households.”

Reaching out, Stokes linked the fingers of one hand with Griselda’s. “Despite not having yet caught our murderer, we shouldn’t lose sight of what would otherwise rank as a signal success.” His gaze traveling the group, touching on each face, he raised his glass. “To us, to the girls we’ve rescued, to the good we’ve done, to the villains we have succeeded in putting behind bars.”

“Hear, hear,” Barnaby said, raising his glass in response.

The others drank, then all lowered their glasses.

A short silence followed, then Penelope said, “All right. Now let’s find the murderer.”

Chapter 15

The following morning, as soon as the last member of his staff had come through the door of Montague and Son, Montague called everyone into his office and explained his current thinking regarding the Halstead file.

“So,” he concluded, “we need to ascertain if any documents are missing, and if none are, we’ll need to cross-check everything to determine if there’s some other irregularity.”

“But there has to be, doesn’t there?” Gibbons said from the chair beside Montague’s desk. “If, as you say, Runcorn was murdered because of something to do with the accounts, then somewhere buried in all of that”—Gibbons nodded at the three large piles of documents sitting on Montague’s desk, the accumulated financial records of the Halsteads—“there must be some trace, some clue. No matter if the murderer did attempt to remove the evidence, no matter how thorough he thought he was, unless he was a man-of-business, too, he would have overlooked something.”

Phillip Foster nodded. “Quite a challenge, even for one of us, to eradicate all sign, all the footprints of any particular transaction.” Raising his gaze from the piles of documents, he met Montague’s. “So where are we at present with our searching?”

Montague glanced at Pringle.

Pringle grimaced self-deprecatingly. “I’m still less than halfway through reassembling the main file. I’ve been working backward, but thus far I haven’t found any document that’s missing.”

Slocum looked at Montague. “So where would you like us to start, sir?”

Montague considered, then said, “Let’s see what we can accomplish today. I need you and Foster to take on as much of our scheduled work as possible. Gibbons and I will need to attend any meetings we have scheduled, but beyond that . . .” Montague considered the stack of papers, then said, “Pringle can continue reassembling the file, searching for any missing document, working backward. Mr. Slater?”

Montague’s junior clerk straightened, his expression eager. “Yes, sir?”

“You will watch Mr. Pringle until you have the knack of what he is doing, how his numbering system works, then, under Mr. Slocum’s oversight, in the time in which he doesn’t require your services, you will commence reassembling the file, but working from the earliest documents forward.” Montague looked at Slocum and Pringle. “At this point, we have no notion of when in the timeline of the Halstead documents the vital clue resides, so by having Slater work through the documents from the other end, as it were, we should double our chances of discovering if any documents are missing, and subsequently which documents they are.”

Slocum, Pringle, and Slater all nodded.

Montague glanced at Foster. “Your first task, along with Slocum, is to keep the office functioning as usual, servicing all our other clients.”

Foster grinned and saluted.

“If you have any time left over after that, you can help Gibbons compile a complete listing of the Halsteads’ investments, past as well as present.” Montague glanced at Gibbons. “Fred, you’ll have to work with the file as Pringle reassembles it, and also with the earlier documents as Slater gets those in order.”

Gibbons nodded. “How detailed a list?”

“Everything you stumble on, regardless of whether it paid a dividend, was sold at a profit or a loss, or was simply held and forgotten about. Cross-check with the bank accounts, all of them.” Montague paused, then added, “Given there’s nothing obvious about this—given we have no idea what particular investment or even type of investment, or style of fund or instrument, was of interest to our murderer—then we have to cover absolutely everything. Something that may appear minor and of no real account to us might, for reasons we do not know, be of vital importance to him.”

“Right then.” Gibbons rose. “I’d better get started.”

“So what angle will you be tackling, sir?” Foster asked as he straightened away from the bookshelf he’d been leaning against.

Montague hid a wry smile; Phillip Foster was keen and eager to learn, something Montague was happy to encourage. “I’m going to work my way through the copies of the documents Runcorn had Pringle make for me. Those copied documents should at least touch on all the active sources of income to the Halstead estate.” He paused, then explained, “What I identify through income and expenditure should reconcile with what Gibbons and you put together. If we come up with any anomaly, then we’ll be on to something. But it’s possible we’ll end with a complete match, in which case, it’ll come down to whether Pringle and Slater find something missing. Essentially, I will be working on the money itself, while you and Gibbons identify the sources, and Slocum, Pringle, and Slater will analyze the documentary records. Somewhere in all that, there has to be something missing.”

“Indeed.” With a nod, Gibbons led the way out.