Smallbone Deceased Page 3

  'I sometimes wonder what we pay you such a princely salary for,' went on Mr Birley.

  This might conceivably have been intended as a joke, and Miss Chittering rewarded it with a nervous titter.

  'If you are uncertain about these things, ask Miss Cornel or someone who knows their job—'

  This was definitely unkind, and Miss Chittering flushed, but was spared the responsibility of answering by the arrival of Mr Craine with some papers.

  She made her escape.

  'I don't know if you've got a moment,' said Mr Craine. 'What is it?' said Mr Birley, in a far from gracious tone.

  Now the real trouble was—and it is pointless to pursue this narrative further without being quite honest about it— that the two partners disliked each other; and the reason for it was inherent in the characters of the men themselves, which were as immiscible as oil and water.

  Mr Craine had performed throughout the 1914 war with some credit in an infantry battalion. Mr Birley had evaded most of the war with an allegedly weak heart. Mr Craine was a cheerful little extrovert, and a heavily-married man. Mr Birley was a confirmed bachelor, who had bullied his adoring mother into the grave and was now engaged in nagging his elderly sister in the same direction.

  Even the type of work in which each specialised reflected their discrepant natures.

  Mr Craine was a devotee of a certain swashbuckling sort of litigation; with occasional forays in the direction of avoidance of death duties and evasion of income tax; twin subjects exceedingly dear to the hearts of the firm's exalted clients. One sub-section of the 1936 Finance Act, it may be mentioned in passing was thought to have been drafted expressly to frustrate Mr Craine's well-meant efforts.

  Mr Birley, on the other hand, was a conveyancer. A pedlar of words and a reduplicator of phrases. A master of the Whereas and Hereinbefore. He was reputed to tie a tighter settlement than any conveyancing counsel in Lincoln's Inn.

  Both men were very competent lawyers.

  'I've had a letter from Rew,' said Mr Craine. He referred to Mr Rew, General Secretary of the Consequential Insurance Company, one of their biggest clients.

  'What has he got to say for himself?'

  'You know what Rew is. He never says very much. But what he seems to want to know is, can Bob Horniman look after their business as his father used to.'

  'I thought we'd argued all this out before.'

  'So we did,' said Mr Craine. 'So we did. And in principle we all agreed that we'd keep the division of work exactly as it was—Bob taking on all his father's clients with Bohun to help him. But I must admit, I'd forgotten about the Consequential—'

  'What about them?'

  Mr Craine nearly said: 'You know as well as I do what about them.' Instead he kept his temper and merely remarked: 'Well, we aren't bound to them in any way, you know. Neither side is under any obligation to the other. They used to give us their business—a lot of business— because Abel did their work as well or better than anyone else could do it. I'd hate to lose them.'

  'Do you mean that Bob doesn't know his job?'

  'No, I don't. I mean that he's young—and, well, Abel taught him a lot about filing systems and the Horniman method of office management, but I sometimes thought he kept him a bit in the dark about the clients themselves.'

  'Yes,' said Mr Birley. 'Well, what do you suggest?'

  T don't suppose you could—'

  'Certainly not. I've got more than enough work as it is. I think you're worrying unnecessarily. He'll pick it up as he goes along. By the way, how's Bohun shaping?'

  'He could hardly be said to have shaped yet,' said Mr

  Craine, 'since it's his first morning in the office. He's got a remarkable record.'

  'First-class honours in his Final, you mean.'

  'Not only that. It's the speed he did it all. He only took up law just over two years ago, you know. He got a special exemption to sit the exam early. He was a statistician before that, and a very brilliant one, I believe. And he holds actuarial qualifications.'

  'Well, he ought to be able to deal with insurance work.'

  'I expect he will, eventually,' said Mr Craine. 'I'll try and make time to keep an eye on him and Bob—'

  'Hrrmph!' said Mr Birley. Having got his own way he became a shade more amiable and the conversation turned to other topics.

  Meanwhile both subjects of this conversation were experiencing their own difficulties.

  Henry Bohun, having dismissed Mrs Porter, was once more staring thoughtfully at the little stack of cards on the desk in front of him, trying to relate them in some comprehensible manner to his allotted share of that morning's post. The more he read them the less they seemed to mean, but finding that there were fifty-two of them he dealt out four bridge hands and came to the conclusion that he could make three no trumps without difficulty on his holding, which included such obvious winners as 'The Duchess of Ashby de la Zouche—(questions relating to her claims for Dower)', 'Lieutenant-General Fireside's Marriage Settlement No. 3)' (his third marriage or his third settlement, Henry wondered), and most promising, 'The Reverend the Metropolitan of Albania—Private Affairs.' He reshuffled the cards and started a card house, which was destroyed at its fourth story by the interruption of Miss Cornel in search of the Law List.

  'Never mind,' he said, 'it couldn't have gone much higher. We shouldn't have got planning permission for more than six floors. Now that you are here perhaps you can help to sort things out. Start from the beginning and go slowly.'

  Miss Cornel suspended her search in the Law List and said: 'Well it would take all morning to explain the office system in detail—'

  'Horniman on Office Management I have already had from John Cove,' said Bohun. 'What I really want to know are the more practical points. Who works for who? Who am I under? Who signs my letters for instance—'

  This simple question seemed to give Miss Cornel considerable food for thought. I'm not sure,' she said. 'In the old days it was quite straightforward. Mr Duxford—I don't think you've met him—works under Mr Birley. John Cove with Mr Craine. And young Mr Horniman of course, worked under his father. If they're going on with that, I suppose you will be working under Bob Horniman.'

  'You sound doubtful.'

  'You must forgive an old retainer's licence,' said Miss Cornel. 'I've known Bob since he was a prep-school boy in shorts when he used to come up here on the day he travelled back to school, and swing his legs in the waiting-room until his father was free to take him out to lunch—'

  'Those awful last-day-of-holiday lunches,' said Bohun. 'Indigestion tempered by the hopes of an extra ten shillings pocket-money.'

  'Yes—well, he came in here as soon as he left his public school which, in my humble opinion, was a mistake. Then he'd only just qualified when the war broke out, and he went straight into the Navy. So what with one thing and another he doesn't know all he might about the practical side of a solicitor's work. He did very well in his exams, I believe— but that's not quite the same thing—'

  'You're telling me.'

  'If it hadn't been for his father, I think he'd have stayed on in the Navy. He was doing very well—'

  Miss Cornel broke off rather abruptly—possibly with the feeling that she had said more than she intended. ('He's got such a damned insinuating way of saying nothing,' she confided afterwards to Anne Mildmay, 'that you find yourself telling him the most surprising things.')

  'I see,' said Bohun. 'But look here, if Bob's taking over his father's work, and I'm taking over Bob's work—what are all these cards? Are these the things Bob used to do himself, because if so—'

  Miss Cornel picked up some of the cards and ran an expert eye over them. 'Well,' she said. 'You've got some soft options to start with. There's nothing much here to worry about. "Lady Buntingford—Affairs." That practically only means we pay her laundry bills once a month. "The Marquis of Bedlam, deceased." That's a probate matter, but the accounts have all been settled. If you really want some stuff to get your teeth
into, I'll slip you some of Bob's. He's got some matters there that—why, they even tied his old man

  UP-'

  Something in the tone of this last remark led Bohun to say: 'You liked working for Abel Horniman, didn't you?'

  'Well, yes, I did,' said Miss Cornel. 'He was a great man, he really was. And a good man to work for, too. I ought to know—I was his secretary for nineteen years.'

  'He certainly seems to have been a man of method.'

  'Now you're laughing at him,' said Miss Cornel. 'Perhaps he did overdo order and method a bit. Usually it made things easier. Of course, it didn't always work that way.' She gave a particularly masculine chuckle. 'I expect you've grasped that we've got rather a peculiar type of client here—upper five hundred and so forth. When Abel or his partners were dictating the letters themselves it was all right. They put in all the correct little twiddly bits and personal touches. Some of the assistants we had didn't quite get it—I mean, their law was sound enough, but you need something more than law when you're writing a personal letter to a duke. Of course, Abel tackled the problem in his own unique way. He sat down and made out a list of suitable sentences for ending every letter with—you know the sort of thing: 'I hope the pheasants are coming over strongly this year,' and 'Did you have any luck with your runner in the National?' and so on. Of course, the first thing John Cove did when he arrived in this office was to include the whole boiling lot in all the letters he wrote—and it just happened that Mr Craine was away that day, so John signed his own letters and sent them off. When Abel saw the carbons next morning he nearly had a fit. . . . Well, I mustn't stop to gossip. Ask me if you want anything.'

  'Right,' said Henry. 'Yes, I will.' After she had gone he sat for some time, then resummoned Mrs Porter and dictated a vigorous letter to Lady Buntingford's laundry.

  Ill

  Bob Horniman was reading slowly through a letter and frowning as he did so. When he had finished it, he pushed back his rather long black hair and read it through again. Then he placed it in the In-basket, regarded it with distaste, transferred it to the Out-basket, where it looked no better, and rang the bell for his secretary.

  'This Anthrax-Plumper insurance, Miss Cornel,' he said.

  'I'll get you the file,' said Miss Cornel, lifting down a fat-looking folder.

  'I don't think I'll tackle the file yet,' said Bob hastily. 'It looks a very complicated business. I wondered—I mean, you used to look after these things for my father—'

  'I just wrote down what I was told,' said Miss Cornel dryly.

  'Oh quite. Yes, of course. I just thought that perhaps father might have said something—given some opinion—'

  'The only thing I can remember him saying about Mrs Anthrax-Plumper was that she was a woman who would mortgage her own virginity, if she could persuade anyone she still possessed it—'

  'She certainly mortgaged everything else,' said Bob, running a finger distastefully through the bloated file. 'It's this reversionary business I can't get hold of. Perhaps I ought to go to Counsel—'

  'You could do that, of course,' said Miss Cornel. 'But the

  Consequential are very sticky about paying Counsel's fees unless they have to.'

  'Oh well,' Bob sighed again. 'I'll see what I can ferret out.'

  Miss Cornel turned to go, but relented at the last moment and said: 'I seem to remember the same problem on double reversion cropping up—oh, about ten years ago. The client was Lady Bradbury. And that time, we did go to Counsel. There's a copy of his opinion in the 1937 file.'

  'I don't know what I should do without you,' said Bob. He took a key-flap from his pocket. 'What's the number of Lady Bradbury's box?'

  'Seventeen.'

  Bob thumbed through the ring. 'Why the douce they all had to have different keys!' he said. 'Here it is.' He snapped the box open and picked out the file whilst Miss Cornel withdrew to the secretaries' room to try and make up on her morning's work. Five minutes later the bell went again. She suppressed an unladylike exclamation and picked up her shorthand book.

  Bob had apparently abandoned Mrs Anthrax-Plumper and was reading another letter.

  'What do you think of this?' he asked.

  Dismissing the temptation to say that she wasn't paid to think, Miss Cornel dutifully perused the letter which was from Messrs Rumbold & Carter, solicitors, of Coleman Street

  , and was headed 'Stokes Will Trust'.

  'According to your request,' it said, after the usual preliminary flourishes, 'we endeavoured to contact Mr Small-bone to secure his signature to the proposed transfer of Stock. We wrote to him enclosing the transfer form (in duplicate) on the 23rd February and sent him a further communication on the 16th ultimo and the 8th inst., in all three cases without receiving any answer. If Mr Smallbone is absent abroad or indisposed possibly you could so inform us—'

  'Isn't that the funny little man whom father used to dislike so much?' said Bob.

  'I don't think your father and Mr Smallbone got on very well. Unfortunately they were co-trustees—' 'The Ichabod Stokes Trust?'

  'Yes; otherwise I think he'd have refused to have anything to do with him. Seeing that he was a fellow trustee, though, I expect he felt he could hardly refuse to look after his private affairs too—'

  'Did he have any private affairs? I mean—'

  'He isn't a person of very great substance,' said Miss Cornel, interpreting this remark accurately. 'He was involved in some litigation just before the war, and we look after his annuity for him, and I think we made his will.'

  'I remember the fellow,' said Bob. 'A scrawny little brute with an eye like a rat. I could never understand how Dad put up with him.'

  'I think,' said Miss Cornel, 'that he found him very tiresome. If it hadn't been that the Stokes Trust was such a big thing—and of course it was tied up with the Didcots and Lord Hempstead—I think he might have refused the trusteeship, rather than be forced to work with Mr Smallbone.'

  'As bad as that, is he,' said Bob. 'It must be a deuce of a trust. What does it figure out at?'

  'We've sold the real property now,' said Miss Cornel. 'It's all securities. At the last account they were worth just under half a million pounds.'

  'I expect you can put up with a lot for half a million pounds. But the point is what's happened to the little blighter?'

  'He really is a hopeless person,' said Miss Cornel. 'He never answers letters. Whenever we didn't particularly want to see him he'd be round here every day, and when we did want him, when we were selling the real estate, to sign the big conveyances and so on, as likely as not he'd disappear altogether and go on a walking tour in Italy.'

  'Italy?'

  'Yes. He's a great collector of pottery, though your father used to say he's got as much knowledge of it as a market gardener. I believe that the two little rooms in the house in Belsize Park where he lives are full of urns and statuettes and heaven knows what.'

  'Well,' said Bob. 'I can only see one thing for it. If the mountain won't come to Mahomet—you know. You'd better slip over to Belsize Park and stir him up.'

  'What, now, Mr Horniman?'

  'Why not—go after lunch.'

  'I've got an awful lot to do—'

  'Take a taxi,' said Bob. 'The firm will pay.'

  'Yes, Mr Horniman.'

  IV

  Accordingly, that afternoon, Miss Cornel made her way out to Belsize Park. She went by Underground. She was not by nature dishonest over small matters, but she reckoned that if she was prepared to put up with the discomfort and pocket the difference, that was her affair.

  Wellingboro' Road was some distance from the Underground station, and her search for it was made no easier by the fact that the first two persons of whom she enquired appeared to speak only Czechoslovakian, the third, a large and helpful lady, chiefly Polish, and the fourth, a starved-looking Indian, seemed willing to commit himself only to the language of signs.

  Eventually, more by good luck than judgment, she discovered herself outside No. 20 Well
ingboro' Road.

  A grey-haired lady opened the door, said, 'No, Mr Small-bone was not at home,' and prepared to shut it again.

  Twenty years of miscellaneous experience in a solicitor's office had hardened Miss Cornel to this sort of thing. She placed herself in such a position that the door could not be shut without actual violence, and said: 'It's rather important. I come from his solicitors, you know, Messrs Horniman, Birley and Craine, of Lincoln's Inn.'

  She produced from her handbag an impressive piece of the firm's best headed notepaper, addressed to the 'Occupier, Head-Lessor or Sub-Lessor as the case might be of 20 Wellingboro' Road' and authorising him (or her) to permit the bearer to make all proper enquiries as to the whereabouts of one of the firm's clients, viz. M. Smallbone of the same address, etc. etc. Miss Cornel had actually typed it out and signed it herself with a thick nib in a flowing hand, and altogether it looked rather good.

  It was good enough for Mrs Tasker, anyway. And Miss Cornel was allowed to enter. It was not, she reflected, the type of tenement or dwelling-house usually associated with the clients of the firm. The front hall exuded that unforgettable miasma which clings to a certain type of north London residence which has been built too long and interiorly decorated too seldom: a smell altogether different from, and more repellent than the racy odours of the slums. The whiff of decayed gentility was almost physical. It was as if some very faded spinster had been allowed to fade away altogether and her body had been laid to rest beneath the floorboards.

  'The first floor he has,' said Mrs Tasker. 'Two rooms and the use of the gas-ring in the back room, which he shares with the second floor. This way, and mind the edge of the linoleum, some day 'twill be the death of us all.'

  Miss Cornel found herself on a narrow landing. Mrs Tasker led the way to the front room. Looking over her shoulder Miss Cornel could see a card pinned to the door— 'Marcus Smallbone, B.A.'—and, in smaller writing in the bottom corner, 'and at Villa Carpeggio, Florence.'