'Oh, for heaven's sake!'

'Well? What? What did I miss?'

'The ambush, man! The counter-attack! The routing of the forces of dissent! Didn't you understand anything?'

I shook my head.

Wilf sighed sorrowfully. 'You are really not up to this, you know.'

'Just tell me,' I snapped.

'Oh, very well. You noticed, I hope, that the board bought off the shareholders by bunging money at them?'

'The dividend?'

'Precisely. It was clear from the accounts that they should only really increase the pay-out by about 10 per cent. But they increased it by 25 per cent, and they will have to go heavily into reserves to do it. The idea, I'm sure, was to keep the shareholders quiet until the money is paid out in about six weeks' time. That dealt with some of them, and it was clever; cut the ground from under the enemy from the start. But they kept on coming.'

'Did they? How?'

'What do you think all those motions and proposals and questions were about?'

'I've no idea whatsoever.'

'A number of shareholders are suspicious, and others want to take control of the trust. They banded together; there must have been meetings all over the City for the last week. I'm sure they did a deal they thought would hold. Vote in new management, then have a good look at the books. Then, perhaps, dissolve the Trust and pay out the money. I don't know. It doesn't matter, because they were defeated.'

'Really?'

'Yes. They were. That Cardano is not daft; takes after his father, no doubt. But clearly there were other discussions going on as well. The 25 per cent he controls as executor, and other groups of votes, blocked every motion, and voted instead to postpone all decisions until the Ravenscliff estate is settled. Quite a lot of the shareholders were voting against their own best interests, if you ask me.'

'And you are going to tell me you don't know why. I know you are.'

'Precisely. But I will find out, so help me. And I can tell you who, or at least a bit of who. It was Barings, for one. I couldn't quite figure it out, but they seem to have amassed a stake of about 5 per cent. That's a guess, of course. I will be able to confirm that in a few days. I didn't know they had any. They handled the flotation but I assumed they had long since sold any shares.'

'They bought some the day after Ravenscliff died,' I said, feeling quite proud that I knew something Wilf did not. And gratified by his look of interest as a result.

'How do you know it was Barings?' I persisted.

'Oh, well, it was a show of strength, wasn't it? Tom Baring himself came along to cast the votes. So keep your noses out, you're wasting your time. That was the message.'

'Which one was he?'

'About seventy, receding hair, the one with an orchid in his buttonhole.'

'The retired major talking to Cort?'

'Who's Cort?'

'Nothing. It's not important. This Tom Baring, who is he, exactly?'

'One of the Baring clan. Extraordinary man. I know what you mean about being a retired major. He looks the part. But he is one of the country's great experts on Chinese porcelain. Not that I care about that, of course.'

'Of course. So he's a big cheese?'

'One of the directors; it's not a family partnership any more, of course. It's been a company ever since the disaster twenty years ago, but the family still has huge influence. The thing about Tom Baring is that he's lazy. Very good, very effective when he can be roused, but he can't be roused very often. For him to come here is a powerful message. Barings thinks this is important enough for him to abandon his porcelain, get up to London and appear. He only does that when it's really vital.'

'The stuff of dinner conversations for years,' I commented.

'It is. So don't be frivolous. People will be trying to figure all this out for a long time.'

'So what do you think it means?'

'I have no idea. Only that, for the time being, Barings is behind Rialto and wants everyone to know. But there is obviously more to it than that. Someone was trying to launch a coup. Much of the lead was taken by a man from Anderson's . . .'

'Who were also buying Rialto shares shortly after Ravenscliff died,' I put in. Again, Wilf looked impressed. I was rather pleased with myself.

'But who are Anderson's fronting for, eh?' he asked.

'What about the man they proposed as chairman?'

Wilf looked contemptuous. 'A nothing. A face, that's all. No, my friend, it is someone else. And he won't escape me for long. You wait and see.'

He drummed his fingers on the table. A strange light was glimmering in his eyes as he took an enormous swig at his glass. 'Barings wishes to make it clear it is convinced there is nothing wrong with Rialto. But perhaps it is only doing this because it knows full well that there is something very wrong indeed, and it is prepared to risk losing its stake to keep it hidden. What motive could a bank have for being prepared to lose money? Eh? Tell me that.'

'The prospect of losing even more money?'

He rubbed his hands together. 'Ah, this will be fun.'

Well, I thought, I'll let him get on with it. I didn't want to share the crown jewels of my knowledge with him. But I knew, so I thought, what it was all about. In fact, it was obvious. Any proper investigation of Rialto would throw up the fact that the accounts were fictitious, that millions had been siphoned off the underlying companies. But – and it was a fairly sizeable but – what was the point? Wasn't it just postponing the inevitable?

I wandered home, thinking I would have a quiet hour before dinner. A whole evening when I did not have to think about money or aristocrats at all. I almost felt pleasure as I turned the key in the lock of Paradise Walk, and breathed in the foul air of the entrance.

But not for long. Mrs Morrison shot into the hall the moment she heard the door, and bore down on me with a severe, distressed look, quite unlike her normal air of amiability.

'Mr Braddock,' she began, 'I am most upset. Most upset. How you could be so disrespectful, I do not know. I am very disappointed in you. I'm afraid I must ask you to leave my house.'

'What?' I said in shock, pausing as I took my coat off. 'What on earth is the matter?'

'I have always given my boys complete freedom, and expect them to respect this house. To invite unsuitable people is unacceptable.'

'Mrs Morrison, what are you talking about?'

'That woman.'

'What woman?'

'The one in the parlour.'

Lady Ravenscliff, I thought, but the surge of pleasure was quickly tempered by feeling of dismay that she should see the circumstances in which I lived. The meanness, the shabbiness. I looked around, at the brown painted wood, the dingy wallpaper, the cheap prints on the wall, at Mrs Morrison herself, and almost blushed.

'I am sorry she came here,' I said fervently. 'But have no fears. She is entirely respectable. Certainly not unsuitable in any way.'

'She's a trollop,' she said, hesitating a moment before she used the word, and then deciding it was justified. 'Don't pretend to me, Mr Braddock. I know one when I see one, and she is. I won't have it.'

I had rather expected Mrs Morrison to be overcome with the flusters at the idea of having a real Lady in the house, and my relief that Elizabeth had not got the tea and cakes routine was only matched by my dismay that she should be characterised in such a way. Had she been a trollop, she would have been far beyond my purse, even at £350 a year.

'But Mrs Morrison, she is my employer.'

Now she stared at me in blank astonishment. We had reached an impasse, with neither understanding what the other was going on about, until a noise of movement resolved the matter. The girl coming through the door of the parlour was no lady. In fact, Mrs Morrison's characterisation seemed pretty judicious. She was about twenty, I guessed, garishly and shabbily dressed, and moved with an air of cheeky insolence mingled with caution and suspicion. Why I say that, I do not know; but that was my impression.