“Everyone?”
“Everyone you would wish to meet.”
“Including Mrs Woolf?”
“I didn’t know that you knew Rebecca Woolf.”
“I’ve never met her, but I want to. I’d like the chance of a talk with her.”
“What a curious idea. You realise that she has only one topic of conversation? Her late husband. He was what people call ‘Something in the City.’ Such an odd expression. Almost as though he was an animal in the zoo.”
“In the wolf house.”
“In property, actually, I believe. He died years ago, and she still speaks of him as if it was the day before yesterday. Rather an affectation, I’m afraid. I’m wrong about her only having one interest. She has a collection of Meissen china which she claims to know something about.”
Her grandmother did not ask her why she wanted to meet Mrs Woolf. Susan had reckoned on this. Her grandmother had been properly brought up and did not ask people why they wanted to do things. She usually found out in the end, though.
Breakfast was at eight, and by a quarter to nine Susan was in her car, heading for Winchester. She found the shop she wanted at the third attempt and purchased a cylindrical spill box. At Smith’s bookshop she was able to pick up a book about china.
The tennis in the afternoon was rained off. Susan tucked herself away in her grandmother’s drawing room and imbibed a good deal of information about the products of the Meissen factories at Dresden and their later competitors.
After service next morning she followed her grandmother through the door in the north transept, out into the cloisters and through the slype. It was a slow progress. Her grandmother knew everybody, and most of them had something to say to her. Finally, they reached the Chapter House and joined the queue for coffee. It was as they were coming away, cup in hand, that her grandmother spotted a wrinkled lady, dressed in black, talking to one of the minor canons. She descended on her, cut out the minor canon and said, “Rebecca. This is my granddaughter, Susan. She very much wanted to meet you.”
Mrs Woolf looked surprised, but gratified. Susan got the impression that it was not often that people wanted very much to meet Mrs Woolf. She said, “I believe you’re an expert on Meissen china. I happened to pick up a small piece in Winchester yesterday and would welcome your opinion on it.”
She caught a flash from her grandmother’s eyes which said as clearly as words, what’s the girl up to now?
Mrs Woolf said, “I’d hardly call myself an expert. I have a few little pieces. Most of them were acquired by my late husband. I have added a number from time to time. If you’d care to bring it round, I’d be delighted to see it. Let me think. Would you be free about four o’clock? Then we could have a cup of tea.”
“That would be very nice.”
“I have a cottage near the High Street Gate. Your grandmother will show you where it is.”
“Lovely.”
As they walked back for lunch Mrs Perronet-Condé looked as though she was going to ask questions; but breeding won.
Mrs Woolf’s collection of Meissen china turned out to be an impressive one, occupying two display cabinets and a long dresser. If Susan had been afraid that the gaps in her newly acquired knowledge would give her away, she need not have worried. Mrs Woolf did the talking. Susan’s part was confined to making appreciative noises and occasionally turning a piece over to identify the different designs of crossed batons on the underside.
By the time the tea was on the table they had moved, without effort on Susan’s part, on to the second of Mrs Woolf’s preoccupations.
“Harry was a most unusual person,” she said. “There are men who have a head for business and men who have an eye for beauty. Harry had both. It was a question, I suppose, of instinct. He could detect, at a glance, the difference between something that was genuine and something that was fraudulent, whether it was a piece of china or a property deal.”
“I’d always understood that he was an expert in property,” said Susan. “Wasn’t he the founder of that company that everyone talks about nowadays—Blackford, or some name like that?”
“Blackbird Enterprises. He founded it when he came out of the army in 1945. He put his gratuity and all his savings into it, and I was able to help him with a little money I got from my mother when she died. It was a tiny thing to start with, but it grew.” Mrs Woolf separated her hand gradually, to demonstrate the growth of Blackbird Enterprises. “He used to buy things that are called options. You will understand that better than I do, I expect. He used to say about his options that they were like eggs. Sometimes they went bad, but sometimes they hatched out the most beautiful chickens. Let me cut you a slice of cake. I’m afraid this is terribly boring for you.”’
“It isn’t boring at all,” said Susan truthfully.
“Are you a businesswoman?”
“That’s as good a description as any. I read Economics at London University and did my accountancy training afterwards. I’ve always been interested in how people make money. I think it can be one of the most fascinating subjects in the world.”
“I should have thought a young girl like you would have had other interests,” said Mrs Woolf archly.
“From time to time. But don’t let’s bother about me. Tell me the rest of the Blackbird story.”
“Harry and I had all the shares, and we were both directors. We used to have directors’ meetings in our drawing room. Once, when he suddenly remembered that we ought to have had one, do you know”—Mrs Woolf gave an almost girlish giggle—“we held the meeting in bed. I sat up beside him and read out the minutes of the last meeting. It was all quite formal. Harry said, Those in favour,’ and we both held up our hands. What fun it all was. Then we got bigger and bigger. More options and more properties. And then Blackett came along. Of course, things changed then.”
“I imagine so,” said Susan. She spoke almost in a whisper.
“After that, meetings were held at the office. And accountants got involved.”
“How did Blackett get in?”
“Harry saw that it was getting too big for him to handle alone. And we wanted more money for one particular deal, and Blackett offered to buy some of our shares. He was in the same sort of business and had his own company, called Argon. I think it was Argon.”
“Argon Investments Limited.”
“That’s right. You see a lot about it in the papers these days. It’s a big affair now, I believe. But then it was only just starting. Blackett had been in the army too. He’d been a prisoner of war, and Harry was sorry for him because of that. I don’t think he really liked him, though.”
“When you said he bought some of your shares, you don’t mean that he took over the company?”
“Oh, no. Harry would never have allowed that. I seem to remember it was thirty per cent he bought. Fifteen from me and fifteen from Harry. And, of course, he became a director. And soon afterwards—well—that was when it happened.”
There was a long silence, which Susan hardly liked to break.
“It was cancer,” said Mrs Woolf. “Cancer of the stomach. Nothing to be done about it. He came home early from the office one day, in the middle of January, and sat down in his armchair beside the fire and told me all about it. He wasn’t worried for himself at all. It was me he was thinking about, all the time. He said, ‘I’ve made Blackett an offer. He can have the rest of the shares, yours and mine, for one hundred thousand pounds. I’ve given him a month to make up his mind. If he doesn’t, I’ll put the shares on the market. We’ll get the money, all right. It’ll buy you an annuity, which will look after you quite comfortably.’ That was the sort of man he was.”
For a moment Susan saw, through the wrinkles of long widowhood, the real Rebecca Woolf, the wife who had held a Board meeting in bed with her husband. She said, “If Blackett was only just beginning, I wonder how he raised a hundred thousand?”
“He very nearly didn’t. It was only a few days before the month which Harry had given him was up. It must have been just before February fourteenth, because Harry came back, with all the annuity documents in a large envelope, and he’d put a Valentine card in with them. It’s there on the mantelpiece. My dear, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’ve never talked to anyone quite like that before. It must be your pretty face.”
When Susan got back, her grandmother said, “Well, I hope you had a good time.”
“I thought she was an interesting woman.”
“I have a great respect for your judgment,” said her grandmother drily. “I must add her to my visiting list.”
What she meant was that she would go round and try to find out what Susan and Mrs Woolf had been talking about and unearth from this the object of her granddaughter’s peculiar behaviour.
Susan doubted whether she would be successful.
The first Italian tour and the second French tour went off smoothly enough. Collings was the only fly in the ointment. It had not taken David long to realise that he had two jobs. One was to drive the coach. The other was to see that David stayed in line. He was obliged to share a bedroom with Collings. His personal habits did not make him an ideal companion. Apart from this minor inconvenience, he had no complaints.
The Chevertons seemed to have accepted him as a regular member of the Rayhome team. It was after the second French trip, when he was being paid off, that Bob Cheverton said to him, “In August and September, with the bookings coming in as they are, we have to squeeze in additional tours. Don’t worry, they won’t affect you. You go on with the regular ones. We’ll probably get Watterson back, on a part-time basis.”
“I’ve heard people speak of him,” said David.
“Nothing complimentary, I imagine. He wasn’t really satisfactory. But he did the job for three years and he knows the ropes. By the way, he can use your bag. It’s getting a bit scruffy. We like our regulars to have the best kit. Order yourself a new one. That’s the man who makes them for us.” He showed David a card which had the name “Egbert Smiles” printed on it, followed by an address in Leather Lane. “If you go straight down now, he’ll have it ready for you by Thursday morning. He makes them for us specially. He’s a real old-fashioned craftsman. You’ll have to pay him in cash. They cost one hundred twenty pounds, and we add a fiver for him.” He took an envelope out of the desk drawer and pushed this across. “The money’s in there. Bring back the receipt.”
Egbert Smiles took some finding. There was no sign of his shop in Leather Lane, but David finally located his card, tacked up beside a door in one of the tiny streets which lie behind the Lane, relics of gas-lit Victorian days. The premises were in darkness, and the door was locked.
David rang the bell, waited patiently and rang it again. He had just concluded that Mr Smiles must be out when there was the sound of approaching steps, the light went on and the door was unlocked and opened.
The room, two steps down from the street, was a shop of sorts, with a collection of sandals, belts and handbags, arranged on shelves and looking as though they had been there for some time. Egbert Smiles was a small, bent man with a white beard. Six more like him, thought David, and he wouldn’t be surprised to find Snow White asleep on a couch at the back.
“I’ve come about the bag,” he said. “The bags you make for Rayhome Tours.”
“That’s right,” said the old man. “I’ve made a lot of them.”
“They want another.”
“Satisfied customers, eh?”
“Highly satisfied. There’s a bit of hurry about this one. I’ve got to pick it up on Wednesday evening.”
“No problem. I have the pieces ready-cut. Just a matter of sewing them together. Might I know your name?”
“The name’s Morgan. David Morgan.”
The old man had produced an order book. It looked newer and more business-like than anything else in the shop. There was fresh carbon paper between the pages. Mr Smiles pressed heavily on a stub of pencil as he wrote, “One special courier’s bag, ordered by Mr David Morgan. For delivery Wednesday evening.” He pushed the book across to David, who signed it. He then tore out the top copy, handed it over to David and seemed to be waiting for something.
David said, “Do I pay you now or when I collect the bag?”
“Usual thing is, you pay me now. I’ll give you a receipt.”
“If that’s the arrangement.” David got out the envelope which Bob Cheverton had given him and handed it across. Mr Smiles counted the money twice. When he had satisfied himself that there were twelve ten-pound notes and one fiver, he recovered the copy of the order form which he had given David and scribbled on it, under David’s signature, “Paid cash £120 E Smiles.” This seemed to conclude the transaction. As David left he heard the sound of the door being locked behind him.
Making his way back, on foot, towards the British Museum he thought about Egbert Smiles. There had been something offbeat about the whole scene. It was difficult to put a finger on it. He stowed it away in his memory as one more oddity about Rayhome Tours—which he was beginning to think was rather an odd outfit altogether.
Back at the office he handed over the receipt to Bob Cheverton. “Odd sort of cove, Mr Smiles,” he said. “Does he do anything except make bags for our couriers?”
“One or two other jobs, I imagine. Special orders. That sort of thing. He’s a fine workman.”
“He does a good job,” agreed David. On his way out he met a middle-aged man, with a sour face and a cavalry moustache, propped up against the reception desk.
“Meet your predecessor,” said Paula. “Bill Watterson. He had three years of it and still comes back for more.”
“You the new boy?”
“The very latest thing,” said David. “If you’re not doing anything at this very moment, why don’t we go out and have a small drink? Then you can tell me all the snags. The ones I haven’t encountered already, that is.”
Watterson looked at his watch and seemed to be debating which of a number of important engagements he would have to postpone. “Just a quick one, then,” he said.
The quick ones started at noon in a public house in New Oxford Street and were still going strong at four o’clock in a small club behind the British Museum which was patronised by ladies with crew cuts and artists with beards. It was not clear whether Watterson was a member, but he seemed to be on Christian name terms with the proprietor.