The Lorimer Line (21 page)

‘I have no right,' said Margaret. ‘I can bring you nothing. I am no longer the woman you asked to marry you.'

‘You are the woman I love, and nothing in you has changed.' He kissed her gently, and she clung to him for reassurance. Half an hour earlier, as she described the birth of the new baby, she had felt all the confidence of a grown woman; now, suddenly, she was young again, and insecure.

‘There may be a few weeks' grace before the first call is made on your father's property,' David said. ‘I will use the time to make some definite plans. Meanwhile, I am sure your brother values your presence here.'

He stood up to go, but he had reminded Margaret of another fear.

‘You speak of my brother,' she said. ‘Surely he too is a proprietor of the bank, I remember my father making
over some of his own shareholding when William became twenty-one. Is his property also at risk?'

David gave an incredulous gasp and began to laugh, with bitterness rather than amusement. Margaret looked at him in perplexity, waiting for an explanation.

‘William is safe, and I am the one who saved him,' he said. ‘The situation is ironical. Only a short while ago I forced him to sell his shareholding in order to reduce the Lorimer Line's debt to the bank. The Line will be called upon to repay the rest of what it owes, but only in the normal course of business. Your brother has no personal liability for any of the bank's debts. Fifteen hundred citizens of Bristol may curse the name of Lorimer as they consider their ruin, but Mr William Lorimer will not be among them.' He stopped apologetically. ‘I must learn to control my tongue. It was not your brother's own idea to relinquish his interest in the bank. He was angry, in fact, and would have resisted me if he could. He is not to be blamed for what in the circumstances is the greatest good fortune which could have befallen him. I hope he will remember that I, who so much angered him, was the one to do him so great a favour.'

The doorbell of the house rang as they used their last moment of privacy to say goodbye. By the time they arrived in the hall the front door had already been opened to show three men standing on the doorstep. One of them removed his hat and took a step inside. He took no notice of Margaret, but looked straight at David.

‘Are you Mr David James Gregson?' he demanded.

‘I am. What of it?'

‘You may perhaps wish the young lady to withdraw, sir,' he suggested.

‘No,' said Margaret. Suddenly frightened, she gripped David's arm more tightly than before. ‘What is your business here?'

‘I'm afraid we have to ask Mr Gregson to come with us, ma'am. I have a warrant here for his arrest.'

A man who knows his own guilt will evade arrest if he can, but one who believes himself innocent may feel a kind of relief when suspicion hardens to the point of accusation. David heard Margaret gasp with horror at his arrest, but his own feelings were more complicated. In one way he was as incredulous as she, and as sure that there must be some terrible mistake. Yet he had been expecting something of the sort ever since the police sergeant's visit to the bank. He could not be happy that the challenge had come, but it meant that there was now something more concrete to fight than his own apprehensions.

‘On what charge?' he asked quietly.

The man who appeared to be the spokesman of the three pulled a paper from his pocket and read in a sing-song voice.

‘You are charged with the felonious fabrication and falsification of the balance sheet of a joint-stock banking company trading under the name of Lorimer's Bank, with intent to defraud. And further with theft and embezzlement through the continued trading of the aforesaid company when known to be in a condition of insolvency.'

‘Theft!' exclaimed David. ‘I have never had a penny …' He stopped himself in mid-sentence. This man was merely a servant of the court, neither knowing nor caring about the details of the case. David forced himself to speak calmly.

‘Am I the only one to be so accused?'

‘No, sir. Mr John Junius Lorimer was arrested earlier this evening.'

This time Margaret cried out in distress. David turned quickly to support her in case she should faint, but her face showed only bewilderment.

‘Send at once to William,' he told her. ‘He must find a lawyer. Ask him also to arrange bail.'

Margaret nodded her understanding, but her hand continued to grip his arm so tightly that he could not move away until he released her hold.

‘There must be an investigation, and this is the way to start it,' he told her, with more confidence than he felt. ‘A formality, nothing more. But send for William.' He took his coat and hat and stepped out of the house.

Margaret obeyed him at once, and William worked fast. Early the next morning an application for bail was made at the preliminary hearing as soon as the charges and pleas had been heard. David knew that two of the magistrates were friends of John Junius Lorimer, men of his own generation, who were likely to regard it as unthinkable that a man who had led a respectable life for seventy-eight years should be forced to stay in jail while the lengthy preparations for a trial were made. Because he was too old and well-known to run away, there could be little point in refusing bail - and then David must have it too, or the magistrates would seem to be pronouncing in advance that one of the accused was less trustworthy than the other.

He was right. It was as a free man that he attended his first conference with the Lorimers' family lawyer. But it was as a worried man that he left it. He had hoped that the case could be defended in the same manner that the chairman had defended his actions to David himself, with a general argument about the benefits which would have accrued to everyone concerned if the bank could have maintained public confidence in its solvency for only a few months longer. But the solicitor, Mr Broadbent, dismissed the possibility from the start.

‘I fear, Mr Gregson, that the law does not recognize an
end as justifying a means. You will be examined on your figures and required to explain them in the light of the bank's situation at that time. We shall be briefing counsel, of course, and he will need to know in advance detailed answers to the most detailed questions which the Crown can put. Let us take an example - one which may prove central to the whole charge. At the beginning of May you recommended to the directors that they should declare a dividend of twelve per cent. The effect of such a declaration was to attract an increased volume of deposits, and this was presumably its intention. We may take it that the prosecution will scrutinize with particular care the accounts by which this dividend was held to be justified.'

‘The recommendation of such a high dividend was not mine,' said David.

‘It bears your signature.'

‘That was a formality. The decision was the chairman's.' He looked across the table at John Junius. The old man had not spoken since the meeting began; he did not speak now. David turned back to the lawyer. ‘I must remind you, Mr Broadbent, that my responsibilities as manager took effect only from the first day of May this year.'

‘And you accepted the situation as you found it on that day. Your promotion, I understand, Mr Gregson, was earned by your ability as an accountant. We may take it that you understood the figures which you were asked to approve?'

David looked for a second time at the chairman's massive figure. John Junius neither met his gaze nor turned his head away. He continued to stare straight ahead as though what was going on in the room was no concern of his. Was it the look of a man who might still be in a state of shock at the collapse of his empire and the attack on his own reputation? Or was it the defence of a man who had already decided on a way of escape from his predicament and was not prepared to jeopardize it by any show of
sympathy. Search as he might, David was unable to decide which was the more likely judgement. He pushed back his chair and stood up.

‘What I understand now is that my interests may not run with those of Mr Lorimer,' he said. ‘It will be more satisfactory for all parties, I imagine, if I engage my own lawyer.'

He left the room with as much confidence and dignity as he could summon, but inwardly he was trembling. It seemed inconceivable that the man who had welcomed him as a son-in-law should be preparing to place the blame for the collapse of the bank on his shoulders, but it was difficult to interpret the chairman's silence in any other way. As David paced the streets, trying to unravel his thoughts and emotions, the realization came to him that he could state the position in an opposite way. Could it be that John Junius had accepted his relationship with Margaret precisely in order that he could be used as a scapegoat in a situation already recognized as almost hopeless?

Such a possibility was too villainous to be accepted at once, but David's anxiety increased as he considered its likelihood. Back in his room, he began to make notes of dates and conversations, trying to establish the order of events and to see through them to the motives behind. As he did so, he came near to panic. Everything that had happened had two possible explanations. Who would believe the version of a stranger to the city, who had lost nothing but his employment, if it was opposed by the word of a man who had always been respected and who was now old? When a rich man claimed that he had been duped by the young upstart to whom he had delegated business which in his declining years had become too much for him, the very men who today were cursing the name of Lorimer might even be persuaded to sympathize with his ruin.

David had said that he would engage his own lawyer,
but the defiance was a toothless one. He had no money to pay the bill for what was bound to be a complicated and costly case. Even if his defence proved successful, he would win back nothing but his good name. William had backed his application for bail, but would no longer support him once it became apparent that his interests directly opposed those of John Junius. Such was David's state of mind that he could not even bring himself to visit Margaret again. Days passed as he scribbled calculations which increasingly revealed to him the complexity of his involvement.

Of all the Lorimers, it was the least expected one who made the first friendly gesture. William appeared without warning in his lodgings one evening. He made no comment on the shabby furnishings or the empty grate which David could no longer afford to fill with coals, but kept his top coat on against the cold. David found it difficult to realize that he and his visitor were much of an age. William's small, precise body and tightly controlled emotions expressed themselves in a clipped voice which had the coldness of a far older man. But the offer he had come to make, though he couched it in businesslike terms, was not a cold one.

‘You will appreciate, Mr Gregson, that at the time of my father's arrest, and your own, I had little knowledge of the true position at Lorimer's. I have never involved myself in the affairs of the bank. My father would not have taken kindly to such interference, and I have enough to do, looking after the Lorimer Line. What I have learned recently has come as a shock to me.'

He paused, allowing David to bow his head in acceptance of the fact, which did not seem of any great importance.

‘It seems to me likely, Mr Gregson, that the prosecution case will be proved. I understand very well the motives from which my father and yourself acted …' he swept away David's attempt to interrupt - ‘but I am afraid that a judge may hold them to be irrelevant. It is possible that
all may go well. What I have come here to discuss is the other possibility.'

David waited. He had no liking for William, but at this crisis in his life he could not afford to be proud.

‘If my father were to be the only defendant,' continued William, ‘the verdict would still, in my reading of the situation, go against him. But it is possible that in such a case the sentence might be mitigated by sympathy. He may have been responsible for the bank's collapse, but he is quite clearly the one who has lost most by it. No one in his senses could impute an unworthy motive to such a man, even though his legal responsibility is admitted. It would be recognized that the failure is in itself almost a sufficient punishment. Although no doubt a token sentence of imprisonment might be imposed, we could hope that in view of his age it would be for a short period only. Do you agree with me so far?'

‘Yes,' said David shortly. He had realized from the start that the chairman's best defence was the loss of his own fortune as a result of the bank's failure.

‘But your own case is different. The facts and figures remain the same, but the motive for their manipulation will be represented differently, and the element of sympathy will be lacking. The case will be tried in Bristol, and you have no claim on the mercy of a city which already finds itself in great economic difficulty. A sentence in your case might be vindictive, longer even than the charge justifies. Yet British justice must be seen to be fair. If you and my father are judged to be equal in guilt, there will no doubt be some equality of sentence. If so, it seems to me more likely on balance, that my father's sentence might be increased to equal yours than that yours would be cut to match his.'

‘You are making a good many assumptions, Mr Lorimer. I cannot follow you in all of them.'

‘Then I will make the proposition which I came here to
offer, and leave you to consider it on its own merits. What I have been saying is only to explain why I believe it to be in the interest of my family. I have brought with me, Mr Gregson, a paper authorizing you to take passage on any ship of the Lorimer Line which leaves Bristol within the next fourteen days. You have only to present this to the captain; and you may use what name you choose. There will be no formalities.'

‘The bail which you yourself have guaranteed would of course be forfeited in such a case.'

William shrugged his thin shoulders.