Page 166 of A Debt Inherited

“Where is he?”

Armitage removed his spectacles and folded them with care. “That is the difficulty.”

Ballantyne stared at him.

“His last certain address was London. Upper Gower Street. The tenancy was granted through his father’s people. There are old accounts, a few letters, little more. He had no settled profession when last he wrote to this office.”

Ballantyne looked down at the tree. “When was that?”

“Several years past.”

Ballantyne’s face darkened. “Several years?”

“Gentlemen who are inconvenient to their families are not always encouraged to maintain a correspondence.”

“That may be true in drawing rooms, Mr Armitage. It is less useful in a succession.”

“Most truths are.”

Rain struck harder against the windows.

Ballantyne bent over the chart once more. “If he cannot be found?”

“Then notice must be made. Edinburgh, London, perhaps the principal papers. Creditors, parish records, old landlords, army lists, court entries. Any man who bore the name Alexander Kerr, son of Lady Marjorie Ashby and Major Robert Kerr, must be traced, questioned, or disproved.”

“And if another claimant appears?”

“He must answer this blood first.”

Ballantyne tapped the margin where Kerr’s name had been written small, almost apologetically, years before. “How long?”

“The estate cannot hang in uncertainty indefinitely. The rents must be collected, leases renewed, servants paid, creditors satisfied. Six months may be defended. Twelve will invite challenge.”

“Then we have six.”

“We have less,” Armitage said. “The longer a title lies unattended, the more eager men become to attend it for themselves.”

The factor straightened. “I shall send expresses to Edinburgh and London. You will write to the Kerr connection.”

“I shall write to every connection that ever denied having him.”

A faint bitterness touched the words and vanished at once.

Ballantyne looked at him sharply. “You knew of him?”

“I knew the allowance.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Armitage folded his spectacles and laid them beside the tree. “I knew that Lady Marjorie’s son existed. I knew that the law had no present use for him. The law has discovered its use rather late.”

Above them, the painted Ashbys held their old silence.

Ballantyne turned back to the window. Beyond the glass, the firs bent beneath the rain, black against a colourless sky.

“Find him,” he said.

Armitage looked down at the small name in the margin.