‘My Lord, gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case!’
Sir William Porteous QC sat down. He was conscious that all eyes in the crowded courtroom remained fixed on him, as though the mesmerism of his oratory still held them under its spell. He attempted to produce a modest, self-deprecating smile, but he was not a modest man by nature. The resultant grimace, he knew, had been described long ago by his fellow benchers as ‘the Porteous leer’.
It had been, he supposed, a minor triumph to add to his tally of successes. The secret was to defer to the judge. Never try to score points off him, but let him think that you bowed at all times to his superior wisdom. Defer to the judge, yes – but let the jurymen think that you were the thirteenth member of their band!
Young Forster, the opposing counsel, began his closing speech for the defence, but Porteous knew that it would be his dramatic words that would be ringing still in the ears of those twelve good men and true. He half listened to Forster’s speech, but made no effort to concentrate on what the young barrister was saying.
The Old Bailey was an exhilarating place in which to ply the lawyer’s craft! Its courts were invariably crammed with curious visitors, expecting a particularly thrilling kind of entertainment. Each court was a theatre in its own right. Its permanent repertory company consisted of the throng of bewigged and gowned lawyers, forever posing as enemies, divided by the need to prosecute and defend, but in reality old friends and allies, engaged in hugely enjoyable battles of words and wits.
There was an audience, too. Not the motley crew of figures in the public gallery, but the twelve good men and true who constituted the jury. One played to them, not to the gallery. Some of the jurors, clad in their sober best black, blended in with the court’s scenery of old oak panelling and cracked plaster ceilings, with the great Sword of Justice hanging above the bench, and the florid Royal coat of arms perched on the pediment above the judgment seat.
Others brought a more secular feel to the place. These were the fellows who came there determined not to be overawed by the ranks of black and white figures in the well of the court. They were free spirits, who would dare to sport a coloured neckerchief, or pretend to glance at a newspaper during the less-interesting passages of the proceedings.
Sir William Porteous knew his audience, and what they demanded from the players. He had contrived to catch the eye of every one of the jurors when he had delivered his concluding speech, and had crafted a telling sentence for each of them. ‘This was a miscreant who valued a man’s life at half a guinea, the price of a watch and chain’, he had told one juror, a thin-faced man, who looked as though he’d put a price in pounds, shillings and pence upon everyone and everything. ‘Poor Hungerford offered no resistance, and for that, he was done to death, for violence and slaughter understand only violence and slaughter.’ That had very much impressed the juror for whom he had designed it – a man who looked as though he might have been a Quaker.
Each of the twelve men had received his piece of oratory gratefully, and had appropriated it to his own store of impressions. ‘Where is the spirit of righteousness and justice?’ he had asked of one tightly buttoned man in black, who might at one time have entertained an ambition to be a clergyman. When finally he had reached the far end of the jury box, where a free spirit who looked like a butcher’s assistant sat with clenched fists and a look of murderous indignation on his red face, he asked the man a question. ‘Will James Hungerford’s blood cry out for redress in vain?’ The man shook his head vigorously, and glared at the prisoner in the dock with undisguised hatred.
Oh, yes, there was a prisoner, too, though he was never allowed to play too great a part in the proceedings. Odd, how commonplace these murderers looked when they sat between their warders in the spike-topped dock! You wouldn’t give them a second glance, under normal circumstances.
Poor young Forster was doing his best. He’d learned already not to overdo it, not to look for virtue where none was to be found. He was talking about Albert John Davidson’s sad childhood in the slums, his mother’s death from gin, and all the rest of it. None of it would be of any avail: that ashen-faced, simian brute in the dock knew he was doomed.
The trial moved to its inevitable conclusion. There was a masterly summing-up and charge to the jury from the Common Serjeant. The jury retired for no longer than twenty minutes. They returned to deliver the inevitable verdict of ‘Guilty’.
The prisoner was brought to stand at the bar of the dock to listen to his sentence. His face remained impassive, his eyes fixed on the Common Serjeant.
‘Albert John Davidson, you have been found guilty of the murder of James Hungerford, a man universally liked and respected, and the father of five children. Throughout this trial you have stubbornly refused to admit that you did this awful deed, and even now your motive for doing so is obscure.
‘Nevertheless, the prosecution has proved conclusively that you committed the crime, and a jury of your peers has found you guilty. Have you anything now to say before sentence of death is passed upon you?’
At first Albert John Davidson simply made some inarticulate noises. Then he found his voice. It was a chilling sound, unnaturally shrill for such a big man, and seeming to come from somewhere far off.
‘Yes, My Lord. I confess the deed, but I will say no more. To this I was born, and to this have I come.’
There was a murmur from the public gallery, which was quickly suppressed by the usher. Porteous looked up sharply, and drew in his breath with a little hiss. He glanced towards the door. Yes; there was Detective Inspector Box. Bless him, he’d kept his promise to come, and it was obvious from his manner that he, too, had understood the hidden meaning of the prisoner’s words.
The Common Serjeant made no comment. He glanced briefly to his right, and the chaplain appeared on the bench.
Sir William Porteous shaded his eyes with his left hand and sank a little further down in his seat. He did not relish this part of the proceedings, and contrived not to look as the judge placed the black cap on his wig.
‘You will be taken from here, to the place from whence you came
Albert John Davidson…. What a stupid, mindless brute! Sent to steal a watch, he had destroyed an innocent life. Now, his own life was forfeit. And those words from the dock…. Inspector Box knew what they meant.
‘and from thence to the place of execution…’
Many people must have wondered why he had volunteered to conduct the prosecution in this case. It was a relatively minor affair for a man of his eminence. Well, it was from a sense of duty, and a passion for justice.
‘… and there, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead.’
How he wished that he could stop his ears! Now it was all over. The condemned man had disappeared with his warders below the dock. It was time for all the rising and bowing, and the usual clatter and chatter as the court emptied.
Sir William Porteous spoke briefly to his junior, and then crossed the court to where Forster, the young defence counsel, was somewhat forlornly ordering his papers.
‘My dear Forster, congratulations! You put up a splendid fight. Splendid!’
The powerful, mellifluous voice filled the court. It usually filled any space in which it was vented. The young counsel’s face registered unconcealed delight.
‘Why, thank you, Sir William. How very kind of you!’
‘No, dear man, no; not kind. Just the truth. You’re going far: you’re one of the coming race. Old fogies like me will soon be taken from the scene. You’ll see.’
Sir William, thought Forster, looked set to occupy the centre stage for a good while yet! He was a big man, well over six feet tall, with a heavy patrician face, pink and clean-shaven. Most people noticed the bright blue eyes and the large smooth chin, and the well-groomed greying hair peeping from beneath the powdered wig before being mesmerized by the famous Voice.
Sir William kept hold of the young barrister’s arm as they moved towards the door, and continued to retain him when he threw a cordial greeting to a lithe man in a curly-brimmed hat who was standing among a knot of spectators in the gangway.
‘My dear Inspector Box! You managed to be here, as you promised. As you have seen, justice has been done. This is my learned friend Mr Forster, who led for the defence, as you no doubt noticed. Forster, would you mind if I had a private word with Mr Box for a moment? Don’t go away, on any account!’
Porteous drew Inspector Box aside into an empty corner of the court. ‘Did you hear him?’ he whispered.
‘I did, sir. “To this I was born, and to this have I come”. And as he said it, a certain villain I know got up and left the public gallery. They’re the words that Percy Liversedge’s thugs use to signal that they’ll never squeal. Which is very interesting, sir, because Percy’s employer is—’
‘Hush, Box! Names! Be careful with names, especially in a place like this. But there. Once again, you and I have been pitted against the same monstrosity. I wondered about Albert John Davidson, but I didn’t actually know that he was one of Gideon Raikes’s creatures until that moment.’
‘Names, Sir William! Names!’ said Box, smiling. ‘This was not one of my own cases – it was a mite too open-and-shut for the Yard – but I never doubted Davidson’s guilt for a moment, and it’s been your skill here today, Sir William, that’s seen justice done for the shooting of James Hungerford.’
The great advocate raised a pink, be-ringed hand in deprecation: it was a favourite gesture of his.
‘To tell you the truth, Box, my learned junior, Mr Fetlock, did most of it. I ran away from time to time to hide in my sister’s house while Fetlock did the unheroic bits. But today’s summing-up for the Crown was reserved for me, and seeing you in court was the icing on the cake.’
The barrister and the detective bade each other farewell. Porteous and Forster watched Box as he bustled out of the court, surrounded by a little throng of reporters. Sir William’s eyes followed him with a sort of tolerant and affectionate amusement.
‘He’ll take those fellows with him to the Clarence Vaults in Victoria Street, and spin them a popular yarn. This wasn’t one of his cases, but they’ll want to hear his impressions. They’ll think he’s told them all. In fact, he’ll simply tell them what they want to hear. But come now, Forster, a spot of lunch with me at my club – I’ll not take no for an answer!’
The debris of a substantial meal lay on the table, together with an assortment of glasses. Sir William sat well back in his chair, and surveyed his guest with an air of becoming gravity.
‘Now then, Forster,’ he said, ‘what kind of tale did that wretched fellow tell you? He confessed at the end, of course, because he’d no option to do otherwise. But surely he tried to persuade you that he wasn’t acting alone? They usually do, you know.’
Young Forster was still savouring the heady delight of a defeat turned into victory by this unexpected invitation to lunch with the great advocate at the Carlton Club. The hospitality had been overwhelming, and he felt disinclined to leave his comfortable chair at the dining-table. He would be happy enough to answer any of Sir William Porteous’s questions.
‘Well, Sir William, he did tell me a story of sorts, but I think it was just a desperate lie. It was so outrageous I refused to put it up in evidence. Another glass? Well, thank you, yes, but just this one, if you don’t mind.’
‘What story did he tell you? This was in the cells, I suppose.’
‘Yes. He must have known the case was hopeless, but he had to protest his innocence, of course. You’ll appreciate, Sir William, that there was little I could do for my client. He was a man of appalling antecedents, and there was scarcely anything that he could tell me in mitigation. But he was stubborn in insisting that he had been hired for ten guineas to shoot Mr Hungerford, and that he was to steal the dead man’s watch. It was nonsense. Davidson was no stranger to picking pockets, and he could have done that without risking his neck.’
‘He could have done that, Forster. Should have done that. I’m inclined to believe that the shooting was an act of venom against a respectable man – the act of a degenerate brute with a grudge against the whole world. He may have been hired – I grant him that – but I think he was hired to rob, not to kill. Killing was his own idea.’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, Sir William. And then, you see, he said that the man who ultimately hired him was Mr Gideon Raikes, the insurance promoter and distinguished connoisseur. He was mad with fright by then, of course, and cried out these pathetic accusations without reason or purpose.’
‘Gideon Raikes? Did Davidson actually say that?’
‘He did. Mr Gideon Raikes is a man of considerable public standing, and a desperate slander of that nature repeated in open court would have made Davidson’s plight even worse. So I made certain there was no mention of that slander in my defence.’
Sir William stared at young Forster with something approaching disbelief. Could a young man fully trained in the law be so naïve? Gideon Raikes was a living disease, raging unchecked against the vulnerable body of society at large, and his power was malign and relentless. To Raikes, murder was a mere commonplace.
‘My dear young man,’ said Sir William, ‘here’s a word of advice. Cultivate the police. Get to know them. Talk to them. They may be a rough lot, but they know things. To do well in our profession, you’ve got to rub shoulders not only with the rogues and robbers, but with their sworn opponents, the police. The police will tell you some surprising facts about Mr Gideon Raikes, if you let them.’
Sir William sipped his claret thoughtfully, then delicately dabbed his lips with his napkin.
‘And in that context, Forster, Inspector Box is a man worth cultivating. He knows all about your distinguished connoisseur, who, at this very moment, is being lauded to the skies by the Duke of Connaught at the National Gallery. But come, that’s no longer any business of ours: Davidson did the murder, and Davidson will hang.’
Sir William’s eyes shifted their gaze from the young advocate and fixed themselves for a few moments on the tablecloth. Forster saw a frown pucker Sir William’s brow.
Finally the great barrister seemed to notice his companion again. He gave him an encouraging smile.
‘There, now, I’ve told you something you didn’t know. But don’t let it upset you. You did splendidly today. A worthy opponent in the making. So do as I say, and cultivate the police. It’ll pay you dividends.’
When Sir William finally left the Carlton Club, he summoned a cab, and told the driver to take him to 14, Bideford Lane, Montague Place. The cabbie turned the horse’s head, and made off at a brisk trot towards Marylebone.
Adelaide would scold him for missing the girls’ departure! No, not scold – that was quite the wrong word. Whatever possessed him to use it? Adelaide was not that kind of woman. She would simply grow insufferably calm and polite, and for the rest of the day she would experiment with little sarcasms at his expense. She would stop the game tomorrow, but he would have been made to feel uncomfortable at his neglect of family duties.
Quite right, too! Whatever chiding came his way, he deserved! It had been wonderful having the girls and their husbands to stay for the week, helping them to celebrate their Silver Wedding. And Baby would be home from Paris today – a delightful bonus. But the celebration had clashed awkwardly with the Davidson trial, and there could be no question of dereliction of duty in that matter.
So, he’d missed luncheon at home, because he wanted to hear what young Forster had to say, and he’d miss not only the departure for Cannes of Mary Jane and her husband, but also that of Lydia and John Bruce for their home in Northampton. And Adelaide would be cool and detached, hiding her anger behind that infuriating aloofness. Still, surely he’d be back for afternoon tea? Baby would have arrived home by then. She and her mother would have so much to chat about that he might sneak into his own house unobserved, and so unscolded….
*
How kind! thought Mrs James Hungerford. Sir William is coming to tell me the result of the trial. Coming personally. She had heard the grating of iron tyres at the kerb, and had seen Sir William Porteous getting out of his cab. That was him now, executing a vigorous assault on the front-door knocker.
Anticipating her little maid, who was busy upstairs, Mrs Hungerford hurried out into the passage, and opened the front door.
‘Sir William! How very kind of you to call.’
Sir William took Mrs Hungerford’s hand. She thought: How infinitely sad he looks…. He’s eyeing my black dress, and the jet mourning beads that Mother left me. He seems so sad – almost anguished, as though my sorrow were his, too.
As Mrs Hungerford invited him to sit down on a velvet chair near the window of her front sitting-room, she saw Sir William’s eyes swiftly appraising the room and its contents. Well, he was more than welcome to do so. They were not wealthy, but they were comfortable people. He was admiring the Sheraton desk in the window…. She’d left it open, and some of poor James’s papers were spread out, together with some old family miniatures, and his watch.
‘My dear Mrs Hungerford,’ said Porteous, ‘I have come to tell you that justice has been done. My small efforts have not been in vain, and your husband’s murder will now be avenged.’
Mrs Hungerford went very pale, and was silent for a moment. She felt quite overcome by the earnestness of his words.
‘You are too kind, Sir William. I have been very much moved by your personal interest and concern. After all, we had no claim upon you—’
‘Oh, but you did! You had the claim of an innocent party for justice. Your husband was innocent of any crime. He had no association with criminals. And yet he was done to death. The widow cried out for justice, I was the instrument of that justice.’
‘You are too kind,’ Mrs Hungerford repeated. She motioned towards the open desk. ‘At a time of great agony and worry, you sent a cheque…. Such kind and selfless men as you, Sir William, are rare.’
She saw a very becoming blush suffuse the ample features of the great advocate. He looked modestly to the floor and said nothing.
Mrs Hungerford picked up the watch, only half realizing what she was doing. Sir William was watching her with a kind of expectant interest. She held out the watch towards him.
‘This was his watch,’ she said.
‘And you are giving it to me!’
Mrs Hungerford was suddenly embarrassed. What on earth should she do? There had been a tone of infinite appreciation and thanks in Sir William’s voice. It hadn’t been a question, it was a statement, a belief that she wished to give him an intimate and personal token of her gratitude for his services.
She placed the watch in his pink, pudgy hand, noting idly the number of rings he wore, some set with precious stones. He put the watch away in one of his waistcoat pockets. Had he realized that it was the very watch for which her husband had been murdered?
‘Will you take some refreshment?’
He could see that she was embarrassed – that would be part of his forensic skill, she thought, to detect the various moods and emotions that people hid behind the formality of their words.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hungerford,’ he said, ‘but no. I must get back to my house in St John’s Wood, where more labours, alas, await me! Meanwhile, remember: if you need help, or if you need advice – I am at your service. You must think of me in future as a friend.’
He bade her goodbye with infinite charm.
Mrs Hungerford resumed her seat at the open desk. Her mind was far away in earlier times, and she jumped slightly as the door opened to admit a girl of twenty or so.
‘Was that Sir William Porteous, Mother? How kind of him to call.’
‘Yes, Kate, it was…. It’s very embarrassing, really, though he’s so thoroughly kind. I gave him your papa’s watch. I was holding it, you see, when Sir William was talking to me, and I just said, “This was his watch”. “And you’re giving it to me”, Sir William said. He thought I’d looked it out in order to make him a present of it! So what could I do? I had to give it to him, and of course, I was so grateful for what he’d done, and so touched that he had come to visit us.’
‘Well, Mother, that’s all right. That man murdered Papa in order to steal his watch, so I’m sure Sir William is more than welcome to it.’
‘You’re right, my dear, and I’m glad to be rid of it. There was a curious tale attached to that watch. Your father found it, you know. One day I’ll tell you the whole story.’
Mr Gideon Raikes leaned back against the leather upholstery of his carriage, and listened to the rhythmic trot of the horses taking him back home to Grosvenor Square from the National Gallery. It had been a grand affair. The Duke of Connaught had shown himself surprisingly knowledgeable about medieval art. Surprising, really, considering that His Royal Highness was a professional soldier.
The Director of the National Gallery had formally named the new Medieval Room the Raikes Salon. Raikes, in his turn, had presented to the gallery his own collection of Italian primitives.
The carriage skirted Piccadilly Circus, and turned into Regent Street. His eye caught a newspaper vendor’s placard, and he frowned in anger. ‘Albert John Davidson found guilty.’ The fool! He would hang, and the world would be well rid of him. He had no time for mindless brutes and bunglers.
Sir William Porteous QC would be preening himself in front of his cronies in one or other of the clubs in Pall Mall. Well, pride, so they said, came before a fall. Porteous was becoming a dangerous nuisance.
The carriage turned out of Brook Street into Grosvenor Square, and drew to a halt in front of Raikes’s imposing residence. A footman emerged to let down the carriage step, and an imposing, white-gloved butler appeared at the door, to bow Raikes into the house. It was at moments like this that he felt the glamour of his own peculiar powers. He was a man of substance, principal owner of one of the most successful insurance companies in Britain, and a renowned patron of the arts.
The butler preceded him up the wide staircase, past Botticelli’s Coronation of the Virgin, glowing in its gilt frame above the half-landing, and bowed him with supreme deference into his fascinating library on the first floor, where he housed his renowned collection of rare bindings and illuminated manuscripts. Over the course of many years, Raikes had turned the substantial town house, which was usually swarming with connoisseurs, into a magical palace of art and sculpture.
The library formed an ideal setting for its owner, who was himself a parchment-pale man in his fifties with wavy hair illuminated by tints from the palette of his hairdresser. He was very handsome, and dressed in beautiful clothes of foreign cut. There was a suggestion of perfume about him.
Gideon Raikes took his seat behind a gilt French Baroque desk in the centre of the library, and looked in silence for a moment at a man who stood to the right of the fireplace, biting voraciously into a leg of chicken. A plate of salad, and a silver salt cellar, had been placed on the end of the mantelpiece, near to one of a pair of Sevres porcelain vases.
Percy Liversedge looked very much out of place in the exotic surroundings of Raikes’s house. He was a large man, who looked as though he had been reluctantly confined in his tight serge suit. Men like Percy, thought Raikes, would feel less inhibited if Society permitted them to wear animal skins. His squeezed-up face and puffy eyelids had earned him the nickname of Percy the Pug.
‘So, Percy,’ said Raikes, ‘Albert John Davidson will hang. I can’t say that he’s much loss. He was dangerously stupid, silencing the inconvenient James Hungerford instead of simply retrieving the watch that our client had requested. I wonder who our client was? These things are done so discreetly! I assume poor Albert John Davidson will keep his lips sealed? He’s not likely to blab on the scaffold, is he?’
Percy Liversedge tossed the gnawed chicken bone into the plate of salad, and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief. At the same time, he pulled the bell rope that hung near where he was standing.
‘Blab? No fear of that, Mr Raikes. He done the murder, and he’ll pay for it. He exceeded his brief, and must take the consequences. Besides, he’s got a wife and bairns. If he keeps mum, as he signalled from the dock that he would do, he knows they’ll be looked after. If he blabs – well, he also knows that accidents can happen.’ The door opened, and the immaculate butler appeared.
‘Brucchiani,’ said Liversedge, ‘remove this plate, if you’ll be so good.’
‘Certainly, Mr Liversedge. I trust everything was to your satisfaction?’
‘It was. Very nice. Very tasty.’
Brucchiani deftly cleared the mantelpiece, bowed to both men, and silently retired. The great connoisseur was frowning. Speaking about Albert John Davidson had made him think again of Sir William Porteous.
‘Sir William Porteous,’ observed Gideon Raikes, ‘receives plaudits from all sorts and conditions of men as a matter of course. He will have received a few more for today’s work at the Old Bailey. But there are some folk, Percy, among whose number I would include myself, who are growing tired of his continuing successes. I’m beginning to wonder whether he isn’t ripe for a fall. It’s just a thought. A philosophical speculation, as it were.’
The connoisseur darted a keen glance at Percy, and then looked out of the window.
Percy Liversedge still stood where Raikes had first seen him. He was content to stand virtually motionless until told to do otherwise. That disciplined stillness, thought Raikes, was part of his deadly nature. Murder sat lightly on his broad shoulders, and it was certain death to cross him. Percy the Pug, they called him. Ravening Wolf would be more to the point.
‘I take it, guvnor,’ said Percy, ‘that you’re just thinking aloud? I don’t suppose I was meant to hear what you said? About Sir William Porteous, you know.’
‘You’re right. I didn’t, in fact, say anything at all. So you heard nothing. Least said, Percy, soonest mended.’
Raikes fished out a slim gold hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened the cover. Part of the escapement was visible through a crystal window, and a little enamel jester eternally nodded his head. It always made Gideon Raikes smile. He snapped the watch shut and returned it to his pocket.
‘Nearly two o’clock. Mr John Ruskin is coming at half past to look at my Venetian oils. I don’t think he’s very well. He looks terribly frail.’
Raikes’s mind seemed to wander for a moment. He bit his lip and drummed his long slim fingers on the table. He was making up his mind to broach an unpleasant topic.
‘Percy, you know what Porteous’s next brief is, don’t you? He’s prosecuting in the Mounteagle Substitution affair. He skirted very near me in this last business of the shooting of James Hungerford, but if he delves deep enough into Mounteagle he’ll lay everything bare. That will be the end for me. And for you.’
Percy the Pug moved ponderously across the hearthrug to the other side of the fireplace, where he fixed his eyes on a round miniature of Charles I. He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a leering laugh.
‘Well, now, guvnor, you know how things are shaping in that direction. We’re all doing our bit, you included, if I may say so without disrespect. It’s all going very smoothly. Smooth as oil. Prestidigitation is what they call it: the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. So, don’t you worry!’
Percy turned round and looked directly at his employer.
‘We’re living in dangerous times, guvnor, and there’s a lot of political trouble about, especially from the anarchists and the Russians and the likes of them. Explosions in post boxes, explosions in stations – well, I needn’t tell you what a lot of trouble there is of that kind. I shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t hear of more outrages of that nature in the coming weeks.’
The piggy eyes glanced at Gideon Raikes briefly, and then returned to their contemplation of Charles I. Gideon Raikes began to chuckle. Of course, Percy was right! It had been only recently that they had arranged to receive supplies of explosives from people Percy knew about, people who carried on their business in obscure streets in Elephant and Castle and Newington – and further afield, which was more to the point.
And then, Inspector Box of Scotland Yard had followed them so assiduously around London, that it had been positively difficult to shake him off … Always supposing, of course, that one wanted to. Yes; Percy was right!
Gideon Raikes rose from his chair. He slid aside a panel in the wainscot to reveal a small safe built into the wall. He opened it with a key, and took from it a fat wad of Bank of England notes. Still holding the notes, he closed and locked the safe, and slid the panel back into place.
‘I’m afraid my mind was preoccupied just a little while you were talking, Percy, so I didn’t really hear what you were saying. Something about anarchists, wasn’t it? But I’m in a generous mood today, Percy, and I’ve been really cheered by your little visit. I want you to speculate a bit – to branch out in various directions. Here is five hundred pounds, Percy. Invest it how you like, and with whom you like. I won’t ask you how you invest it, and I certainly don’t want any of it back!’
He handed the notes to Percy and resumed his seat behind the ornate desk. Percy Liversedge glanced inscrutably at his employer, then placed the money carefully in the inside pocket of his coat.