Trouble Brewing (13 page)

‘Of course,' said Pat.

Once she had left, Mr Hunt turned to Meredith Smith with interest. ‘Now, m'boy. What is it?'

‘You know you thought there was something amiss in the firm, sir? I think I've discovered what it is. I haven't said a word to anyone, but it's a question of the weight of the coffee sacks.'

Meredith Smith had no reason to complain of Harold Hunt's lack of attention, but, as he outlined his theory, he didn't get the reaction he'd expected. To Merry's surprise, the more he spoke, the nearer Mr Hunt seemed in the grip of what, in a younger man, would be called a fit of the giggles. Not only was it very disconcerting, it made him lose his thread. As he faltered to a halt, he couldn't for the life of him think what the joke was.

‘That,' said Mr Hunt, drawing a flag-sized linen handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his eyes, ‘is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I was seriously concerned when I saw your solemn face. I thought you had discovered something shocking, then to hear what you said . . .' He dabbed his eyes and turned an amused face to Smith. ‘I'm sorry, young man. It's too bad of me. You really have no idea of what this is about, do you?'

‘I'm sorry, sir, no. I haven't,' said Smith, rather stiffly.

Mr Hunt waved him to a chair. ‘Sit down and stop looking as if you're sucking lemons. As far as trying to find if something is amiss, I applaud your undoubted diligence. You interpreted my hints very ably and you acted with great rectitude in coming to me first. There. Have I said enough to smooth your ruffled feathers? I mean every word.'

Smith moved awkwardly. ‘Well, of course, sir . . .'

‘Oh, call me H.R.H. to my face, man,' said Mr Hunt genially. ‘To tell you the truth, I like it.' He put the handkerchief away and leaned forward in his chair. ‘You see, Meredith, I've always had a fairly keen instinct for how things should be. Don't ask me how I know; I can't tell you. Mark had it too. He didn't know what was wrong but he was uneasy. However, this business about the weights is not it.'

He got up and, going to the glass-fronted bookcase, selected a dumpy, calf-bound book blocked in gold lettering. ‘Perhaps I should have shown you this earlier.'

Smith got up and took the book from his hands.
Notes Upon Coffee Growing And Processing In The Southern States of Brazil With Observations on the Prevention of Fungal Growths and Ceylon Coffee-Leaf Disease.
The author was one H.R. Hunt.
‘What will this tell me, sir?'

‘It will tell you how the finest coffees are obtained. A central part of that process is time. Pick a good coffee and you have the makings of a fine roast. Let it mature for two or even three years and you have a great one. It has to do with the amount of oil in the seeds. However, this is not achieved without some loss. Over the maturing period the stored coffee loses weight with great rapidity. It can be as much as a stone in the hundredweight. That elementary fact is what you so sedulously discovered and, quite frankly, why Wilkins, the foreman, didn't tell you as much defeats me. You say you asked him about it?'

‘He said he didn't know why the sacks were always lighter after a long time in storage. He just accepted it, I suppose.'

‘Dear me. No spirit of inquiry.'

He looked up as the door opened and Frederick Hunt came into the room. ‘Ah, Frederick, there you are. Meredith called to see me with some information about this extraordinary situation Patricia finds herself embroiled in.'

‘A situation which I disapprove of intensely,' said Frederick Hunt with a sniff. ‘
Most
distasteful and not one you should be forced to confront at your time of life. I have every sympathy for my niece, but I really cannot see why, with two husbands available, she cannot choose one and leave you in peace.'

‘Perhaps I don't want to be left in peace,' said his father, briskly. ‘And as for Patricia, I enjoy her company. She, at any rate, does not feel the need to shield me from what is going on. Talking of which, I understand that our use of chicory in proportion to coffee has substantially increased. Why is that?'

Frederick Hunt paused with his hand on the sherry decanter. ‘It's . . . it's all this buying on the Brazilian commodity exchange that's done it. A lot of the coffee simply can't meet our standards and we've been forced to bulk it out. Besides that, the French roasts, which call for a lot of chicory, have proved to be very popular. I really don't think you should bother with such small details, father.' He cast a poisonous glance at Smith. ‘I didn't think it important enough to bring it to your attention.'

‘Why not? I'm interested in anything which affects the firm. You must remember the misgivings Mark expressed.'

‘There's nothing to have misgivings about. Please don't upset yourself. You know it isn't good for you. Mark got some odd ideas in his head at times, all of which have proved to be wrong.'

‘Have they?' said Mr Hunt, sharply. ‘I'm not aware you've taken any action to investigate Mark's ideas.'

‘There's no action to take. The profits aren't as buoyant as I would like, but as I've said when we've discussed this previously, we are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. With the present conditions of world trade, exacerbated by the move back to the gold standard, there are forces at work which you never had to contend with. The attempt to restore the pre-war exchange value of sterling and the dollar is, in my opinion, utterly futile and has cost us dear. I have quite enough to do without chasing after some vague, melodramatic notion of Mark's.'

A warning glint came into Mr Hunt's eyes. ‘Mark was not given to melodramatic notions, Frederick. I have wondered if the failure of the profits to rise might be caused by something closer to home than the fluctuations in world trade. Something that you would be well advised to look into.'

Frederick Hunt looked from his father to Meredith Smith and back again. ‘I beg your pardon, father. I think I must have misunderstood you. It sounds as if you believe there might be some form of illicit activity in progress.'

‘That is exactly what worries me. How often do you visit the factory floor and the warehouse?'

‘Why on earth should I visit either? I have too much to do without wasting valuable time replicating my staff's responsibilities.'

‘Maybe,' said old Mr Hunt, unconvinced. ‘How well do you know the men who work for you?'

‘Well enough to assure you there is nothing to worry about. If there was anything wrong, it would have shown up in the accounts long before now.' He turned to Meredith Smith. ‘I take it there's nothing wrong with the books?'

‘Nothing at all.'

‘In that case, there is no cause for concern. You must get this idea out of your head, father. You're talking about nothing less than fraud. It's impossible.'

Mr Hunt sat back in his chair and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘I'm glad you think so, Frederick.'

He didn't, Meredith Smith noticed, say he shared that opinion.

A
lthough Pat was keeping a tight rein on her emotions, her eyes had dark shadows and she was as taut as piano wire. ‘Thank God you're here, Anne,' she said, coming into the morning room. ‘Larry said he'd call this morning.'

Jack very much wanted to meet the mysterious Mr Tyrell, but he had no intention of muscling in on a reunion. He stood up. ‘Perhaps I'd better leave.'

‘Please, Major Haldean, don't go.' She pushed a lock of hair distractedly away from her face. ‘I owe you an apology. I didn't like you nosing around. I thought you did this sort of thing just to get publicity for your books. I hated the idea of you using Mark as part of some sort of stunt, but Anne said you wouldn't do that sort of thing.'

‘Of course I wouldn't,' said Jack. ‘I wouldn't dream of it.'

Her shoulders went down and he realized she was close to exhaustion. She slumped back in her chair. ‘You know what's happened?'

‘Yes. I ran into Jaggard last night at the club.'

‘Oh!' Her eyes widened. ‘How is he?'

‘Upset, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you?'

‘I suppose so. Did Greg ask you to call?'

‘No. I tootled along off my own bat. Jaggard was a bit foggy on the details but he said enough to let me know something pretty cataclysmic had happened. I wanted to see if you were all right.'

‘Thanks.' Pat took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it with shaky hands. ‘It was a terrible shock. I believed Larry was dead. I never doubted he was dead.' She smoked in silence for a while. ‘It seemed so
unfair
that he died. We'd had so little time together.' She looked at him defiantly, eyes suspiciously bright. ‘Grandmama didn't want me to marry Larry in the first place.' There was a hard edge to her voice. ‘Maybe she was right. He left lots of debts – gambling debts. I had to settle them all.'

‘Didn't your Grandmama help you?' said Anne.

‘She would if I'd begged, but you've no idea how grateful I would have to be. She would've never let it drop. It was different when I met Greg. She approved of Greg. He went out of his way to flatter her. She'd been a great beauty in her time and liked it when men paid her attention.'

‘Flattering your grandmother sounds like nothing but tact on his part, but I'm surprised it didn't put you off him altogether,' said Jack.

She looked at him in sharp surprise. ‘So you do understand? I wouldn't have thought anyone would. Greg was – well, nice. I did like him. He even looks a bit like Larry. It never struck me until last night, but he does. I think I was tired. Tired of always having to fight everything and so desperately tired of being broke. It's not much fun, you know.'

‘I know,' said Jack with a certain amount of ruefulness.

‘Greg sorted everything out. He was ever so decent about it and there were no strings attached. I honestly think I married him more out of gratitude than anything else.'

Anne and Jack looked at each other. ‘I wouldn't have thought that was an awfully good reason, if you'll excuse me mentioning it,' said Jack, shifting in his chair.

‘It's a rotten reason,' she agreed vehemently. ‘And damned unfair to Greg, too. I always knew he was just a substitute.'

‘That sounds very harsh,' said Anne. ‘I can't believe that's all it was, Pat.'

Pat drew hard on her cigarette. ‘You always did think the best of people. Well, it went wrong, badly wrong. What I really wanted was Larry.' She tried to smile. ‘I got what I wanted.'

The doorbell jangled in the hall.

Pat crushed out her cigarette. ‘That'll be Larry.' She looked at them anxiously. ‘You will stay, won't you? It's stupid but I feel nervous about being alone with him.'

The door opened and Fields entered the room. ‘Mr Tyrell, madam.'

A fair, grey-eyed man followed Fields into the room. Jack was immediately struck by the truth of Pat's remark. He did bear a superficial likeness to Gregory Jaggard but it was a likeness of colouring only. He wasn't as tall as Jaggard and there was a glint of wary humour in his expression that was quite missing from Jaggard's face. There was a squareness about his shoulders which hinted at hard muscle earned by hard work.

‘Pat, I . . .' He stopped short when he saw Jack and Anne, his eyebrows lifting inquisitively.

‘This is Major Haldean and my friend, Mrs Anne Lassiter,' said Pat hurriedly. ‘Major Haldean's really here on business, Larry. H.R.H. asked him to find out what happened to Mark. He was asking me a few questions.'

Tyrell sat down on the sofa beside Pat. He reached out and gave her hand an affectionate squeeze. ‘You'll appreciate my wife and I would like some time together, but I suppose there's plenty of time for that. Funnily enough, Haldean, I was going to look you up. I understand you're the feller who discovered Valdez. I don't know how much you've heard of my doings, but I worked with Valdez in Branca Preto, on the Hunt plantation in Brazil.'

‘Did you? I'd heard you worked for Hunts in Brazil, but I didn't know you knew Valdez.'

‘I knew him quite well. He was officially in charge, but, once he saw I was competent enough, he let me do things my own way. When he didn't show up, I assumed he'd got a job in Rio or somewhere. He had quite a taste for the high life. He used to complain about being stuck out in the coffee country, miles from anywhere. I never dreamed anything had happened to him.'

‘Can you think of anyone who might have had it in for him? Who might have borne him a grudge?'

Tyrell shook his head. ‘I can't say I do. However, he had quite an eye for the ladies and was a keen gambler. He might have fallen foul with someone over a dispute about cards, say.'

‘That would clear Mark altogether,' said Pat eagerly.

‘Mark?' asked Tyrell with a frown. ‘What's Mark got to do with it?'

‘It's nonsense, of course,' said Pat, ‘but the police suspect Mark of killing Valdez. They think that's why Mark disappeared.'

‘What? That's crazy. Mark wouldn't do a thing like that. Why on earth should he?'

‘It was just a theory,' explained Jack. ‘The two men disappeared at more or less the same time and the coincidence of the dates seemed significant.'

‘That's all it ever was,' said Pat firmly. ‘A coincidence, nothing more.'

‘Mr Tyrell, did Valdez get on with Mark Helston, do you know?' asked Jack.

‘I haven't a clue,' said Tyrell with a shrug. ‘He never mentioned him.'

Anne looked at him with a puzzled frown. ‘I don't understand. How did you come to be in Brazil?'

‘Why don't you tell Anne and Major Haldean the whole story, Larry?' said Pat.

Laurence Tyrell gave a world-weary sigh, then laughed. ‘If you say so. I seem to have gone through this about a hundred times already.' He looked at Pat affectionately. ‘All right. Once more won't hurt.'