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“Decide about what, Miss Franken? Please do sit down and be comfortable. May I offer you something? At least tea? It is a bitter night outside.”
“I feel guilty that I did not come before, but I was not certain. I was afraid it would be…”
“What is it, Miss Franken?” Celia wanted to be civil to this young woman, but this was trying her patience. Grief dwarfed everything else.
“I work for Mr. Doyle, at Nicholson’s Bank.”
For a moment Celia did not see the connection.
“Which has the money of Mrs. Exeter’s trust…”
“It is not mine to give, or not to give, Miss Franken. I don’t care in the slightest about it. The trustee, my cousin Maurice Latham, did consult me…” She was finding it hard to keep her composure. The whole tragedy was a fresh, deep wound. “I…I hardly care about the loss of the money. Perhaps you don’t understand, but it was never mine.”
“I know that, and I am more profoundly sorry than I can say,” Bella answered softly. “But I have to tell you. I cannot keep it secret. I have reason to believe that there has been steady embezzlement from it, over a period of years. It is quite a large amount, if I am correct. I…I cannot disturb Mr. Exeter over this now.”
“Then Mr. Latham…”
Bella Franken sat motionless, her back rigid, the small muscles in her neck tight. “Mr. Latham and Mr. Doyle, the bank manager, are the trustees.”
“Oh…” Realization washed over Celia in waves. Maurice! A thief! Or Mr. Doyle, the manager? “Could…could either one of them do it without the other knowing?”
“Not if they were taking care,” Bella Franken replied. “Of course, if they were not checking, it might not be noticed.” She looked extremely uncomfortable. “I have to go to the police. I wished to tell you first. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Celia said quietly. “You must do so; it is only right. We cannot overlook theft. Or maybe we can clear it up, find that it is our mathematical error.” She smiled a little weakly. “You must be cold. Will you take some tea? Or even cocoa?”
“Yes…thank you.” Bella Franken glanced at the curtained window, and Celia was sharply aware of how dark and cold it was outside. It must have been a strong impulse that had brought her here.
“Excuse me.” Celia rose to her feet again and left to go and ask Mary to bring two large mugs of hot cocoa. Perhaps tomorrow she should go to Mr. Hooper and tell him about this? Seeing him again was an oddly comforting thought. She found herself smiling when she took the tray from Mary and returned to the parlor.
But after she opened the front door to say goodbye to Bella Franken and felt the icy wind and watched the young woman leave, alone in the dark, she stood in the hall and thought again about going to see Hooper. What would he think of her? That when Kate was killed, all she could think of was the money she was not going to inherit, because it had been taken by Kate’s killers? It was gone anyway. Did it matter? Not in the slightest to Celia. And yet it did matter to her what Hooper thought of her. Let Bella Franken tell the police. She understood it.
CHAPTER
8
HOOPER REMAINED IN THE public house after Monk left, nursing a pint of ale and gazing around the room as if deep in thought. To an extent, that was true, but his eyes kept returning to the figure in the well-cut jacket with the fancy lapels. Was Lister one of the kidnappers? He was thin, narrow-boned with little visible muscle on him, which was why his coat hung so elegantly, but that did not mean he was weak. Hooper had known men like that at sea. They were far stronger than they looked, and they had the endurance that many a heavier man did not. Long-distance runners were made like that!
He did not want to be noticed staring at Lister. He shifted his apparent attention to a spot a couple of yards away, where he could still see him if he moved. On the surface, Lister was not a bad-looking man, but the longer Hooper saw him, the more he noticed a predatory air about him. It was temporarily disguised behind his wide, thin-lipped smile. There was little warmth in it. More like jubilation, as if he had won something.
Hooper remembered an officer like that whom he had known in the Merchant Navy. Mellis was very seldom unfair. The rules were strict and he was very careful about breaking them only when he was certain he could get away with it. And he always did. The thing that first reminded Hooper of Mellis was the way Lister fingered the lapel of his jacket. Mellis had had a similar mannerism: a liking for the texture of fine material, and a certain vanity, a consciousness of how he looked. He was a very good judge of character, most of the time. The only big mistake he had made was in Hooper. And it had cost them all, in the end.
But Hooper did not want to remember that. He had put it so completely out of his mind that years had gone by without his thinking of it, except first thing in the morning, when he had woken from a bad dream. He still had them, saw some of it all over again. But until now, with the question of betrayal so sharp in the air and Monk wanting to know everything about men’s pasts, it came back more often, more easily. He found himself guarding his tongue, keeping silent rather than risk a slip.
Was Lister anything like Mellis? Or was the resemblance coincidental, a trick of the light and a single mannerism, just another man who liked to dress well?
He wondered who Monk would send to take his place following Lister. He would have chosen Laker in other circumstances, but suspicion had rested on all of the men who had been on the kidnap raid. There had not been enough light for any of the kidnappers to recognize them, any more than they could recognize the kidnappers. All they’d been aware of had been shadows, movements, creaks, and splashes, which could easily have been a rat or simply the tide, until the blow came and it was too late. All Hooper knew about the man who had attacked him was that he was not as tall as Hooper, but then Hooper was tall, and the man was fast and strong and had taken Hooper completely by surpr
ise. The other policemen had said the same.
Lister rose to his feet at last, settled what seemed to be a sizeable bill—he must have been buying drinks all round—and then went out a side door to an alley. Did he know he was being watched? Or was that just his habitual way of leaving? If it was nothing more than the closest entrance to the direction he was going, then Hooper would go out of the front door and round the side to the left, quickly, and catch him before he turned off and was lost.
Hooper caught up with him fifty yards later and stayed well back. If Lister was aware he was being followed, he gave no sign of it.
Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at a pawn shop. Hooper waited outside, across the street. After nearly half an hour, Lister came out, holding in his hand a very fine gold pocket watch. He admired it in the streetlight for several moments before slipping it into his inside pocket and attaching the long gold chain through his buttonhole. It would take a fast and very slick pickpocket to remove it, and Hooper imagined Lister would be prepared for that and deal with the man accordingly. He was obviously pleased with his new treasure. He walked down the street as if he owned that, too, a swing in his stride.
Hooper followed him until Lister went to his lodgings at about eleven o’clock that night. It was dark and cold. There was already a frost. Hooper went home, ready to be up at six to find Lister again. He doubted the man would be up early, after the amount he had drunk during the evening. A sharp headache was a possibility.
It took him a long time to fall asleep. His thoughts shifted to the anxiety never far from his mind. Which of his own men had betrayed them, and not only them, but Exeter, and the wife he had loved so deeply? And what other secrets would the search lay bare? Perhaps it was selfish in the face of such grief to think of personal fears, not yet realized, but he could not discard them. When he lay alone and silent in the dark, there was nothing to hold them at bay.
