She shook her head. I sighed. 'Tell me,' I said, very dispirited, 'do you recognise any of these people?'

I showed her a picture of Lady Ravenscliff. She shook her head. Then I offered the group photograph of the Beswick board, and she looked and shrugged again.

CHAPTER 25

It turned into an eventful evening in Paradise Walk, perhaps the oddest the little house had ever known. I had just managed to persuade Mrs Morrison that the reputation of her house really wasn't under any serious threat when the doorbell rang, a fact unprecedented and unimaginable. Respectable people do not ring the doorbell, unannounced, at eight o'clock. Respectable people do not have unexpected visitors at eight o'clock. The very sound caused consternation and excitement.

Even more the visitor. It was Wilf Cornford, who had a look of beatific pleasure on his face, except when he looked at me. Then he frowned in disapproval.

'I do believe you have not been keeping to your side of the bargain, young man,' he said sternly. 'I assumed that you would tell me things of importance. And I find, or at least I suspect, that you have not been.'

'Why is that?'

'Because I have been talking to a sales manager from Churchill's, the machine-tool people. And he told me that Gleeson's had ordered, near eighteen months ago, three new lathes, the sort used to bore gun barrels.'

'So?'

'And then I dropped into a pub in Moorgate, and talked to a broker who deals in such things, who told me quite categorically that Gleeson's had not sold off its old lathes. In fact, that the lathes it already possessed were exactly the same as the new ones.'

'Is this interesting?'

'Why would Gleeson's need eight lathes? For boring guns for battleships, when it has no orders for battleships?'

'I am truly not dissimulating when I say I haven't got a clue.'

'I want a little bit more information from you, if you please. What else have you found out that you haven't told me?'

I thought for a while, then decided to take the plunge. 'I have discovered that a couple of million has been sucked out of Ravenscliff's companies in the past eighteen months, and that the shipyard is awash with spare parts.' I described the scene as best I could. 'Also that every politician in the land has shares in Rialto. And, if you want minor details, that Ravenscliff had discovered some hole in his management structure that he couldn't understand, and that the estate is tied up because of a bequest to a child who is probably dead.'

Wilf leaned back and sighed with contentment. 'Ah, yes,' he said. 'A great man, even in his fall.'

'Pardon?'

'Had you told me all of this when you started, I could have put all the pieces together very much faster, you know.'

'I didn't want the pieces put together at all,' I said crossly. 'My job was to find this child, not investigate his companies. I couldn't give a hoot about Beswick or Rialto. Anyway, what pieces have you put together?'

'Ravenscliff was a gambler. He took the biggest gamble of his life and was losing. I wonder how much longer he could have kept it going.'

'Could you just tell me what you are talking about?'

'Don't you realise? He was building himself a battle fleet.'

'What?'

'Obviously. He had no new orders, profits dwindling, shipbuilders everywhere are in despair. And yet he was ordering new lathes, new armour plate, the factories are bursting with parts. What do you think these are all for? How many spare guns do you think anyone needs? Three maybe. No, my friend, he was building ships. He committed five, six million pounds, and didn't stand a chance of getting it back. It was simply a question of how long he would manage to keep going before everything came crashing down. What is remarkable is that the likes of Barings are still pretending there's nothing wrong.'

'You are sure that he'd lost his bet?'

'Did you not read the last Budget?'

'No.'

'The Government has spent so much money on old-age pensions that there is nothing left at all. The only thing that could possibly change the situation is if a war broke out, and that doesn't seem likely at the moment.'

'But Ravenscliff was a clever man.'

'The cleverest.'

'And he wasn't worried. If you were him, and you were in that situation, what would you do?'

'Nothing. Nothing I could do. Except jump out of a window maybe.'

'Or keep going and hope for a war.'

He stared at me. 'That's absurd,' he said. 'There must be another explanation. Besides, how does it explain the shareholders' meeting?'

'I was merely repeating what you said, not advancing my own opinion, you know. What about the shareholders' meeting?'

'I have discovered who was behind the attempted coup d'état.'

'I do very much hope you are going to tell me.'

'Theodore Xanthos.' He looked dreadfully smug as he said it.

'But he's just a salesman,' I said scornfully.

Wilf was now the one to adopt a looked of superior condescension. 'Just a salesman? Xanthos is responsible for about half of Rialto's sales. Eleven million a year. For the last twelve years.'

So?'

'He gets a commission of one and three-quarter per cent. Figure it out.'

I shut my eyes and tried to use my newly learned financial skills. 'That's about . . . Heavens! That more than two million pounds!'

'So, not just a salesman, eh? Admittedly, he has to pay all his own bribes out of that . . .'

'Really?'

'Of course. You wouldn't want them traced back to the company, would you?'

'I suppose not.' The comment, however, made me think.

'No. But even if he's been spending at the rate of £50,000 a year . . .'

'In bribes?' I said incredulously.

'Oh, yes. At least that,' Wilf said airily. 'It's quite normal.'

I shook my head. It wasn't my idea of normal. 'The point is, Xanthos often operates through a bank in Manchester, which was where the payments to Anderson's to buy the Rialto shares came from. A few favours called in, and they confirmed it. Which means that Xanthos was trying to take control of Rialto.'

'How does this fit in with anything?'

Wilf was standing now and reaching for his hat. 'My dear boy, I have no idea. I was hoping you could tell me that.'

CHAPTER 26

I arrived to see Elizabeth the next morning. There was nobody around, so I let myself in and went up to the little sitting room to wait for her. And got a shock when I walked in. Sitting on the settee was Theodore Xanthos.

'Mr Braddock,' he said amiably as I entered. 'What a pleasant surprise.'

'I'm surprised to see you, as well,' I replied. 'Have you come to visit Lady Ravenscliff?'

'Ah, yes, but I fear we will both be disappointed. I have just been told she has gone.'

'Really?'

'Yes, quite gone. To Cowes, so I am told. For the week. She and John went every year. It was one of Lord Ravenscliff's great pastimes. He loved the sea. Which I always found curious.'

'Why?'

'Well, he was not one of nature's sportsmen, you know. Nor a great romantic. The lure of the elements did not burn brightly in him. We once crossed the Alps together in a train and I do not think he looked up once. All that scenery, that magnificence and grandeur, and he never once took his nose out of his book. The sea, on the other hand, had a very strange effect on him.'

'In what way?'

'It hypnotised him, almost. Something about it. You English and your sea. Very peculiar. Now we Greeks are quite immune, you know, even though we were a seafaring nation while your ancestors were still grubbing around in forests.'

'When did she leave?'

'Early this morning, I believe. I imagine all her bags went yesterday.'

'And she comes back?'

'I don't know. Last year they spent a week there, then travelled to France for a month.'