that a number of bills were due at about this time, some for very large sums of money, and in the normal course of affairs, they would have been extended. But no: the creditors wish to be paid immediately. And then, to make matters worse, we had assumed – indeed the whole world had assumed – that Mr Wavenhoe was a very wealthy man. But it appears that this was no longer the case at the time of his death.’
‘I’m sorry to hear this. May I ask why –?’
‘Why I am telling you? Because I – I was concerned about what happened on the evening Mr Wavenhoe died. My father often appears high-handed, I regret to say. He is a man who is used to his own way. Those of us who know him make allowances, but to a stranger it can seem – it can seem other than it really is.’
‘I witnessed a signature, Miss Carswall. That is all.’
‘You saw Mr Wavenhoe sign, did you not? And you yourself signed immediately afterwards? And you could testify that there was no coercion involved, and that Mr Wavenhoe was in his right mind and knew what he was doing?’
Until now her hands had been inside her muff. As she spoke, in her agitation, she took out her right hand and laid it on my sleeve. Almost immediately she realised what she had done and with a gasp she withdrew it.
‘I can certainly testify to that, Miss Carswall. But surely others can do the same? The doctor’s word would naturally carry more weight than mine, and Mrs Frant’s, too.’
‘It is possible that Mr Frant may dispute the codicil,’ she said, colouring again, and more deeply. ‘You know how it is with families, I daresay: a disputed inheritance can wreak the most fearful havoc.’
I said gently, ‘This codicil, Miss Carswall: why should Mr Frant wish to dispute it?’
‘I will be frank with you, Mr Shield. It concerns the disposition of a property in Gloucester which had belonged, I believe, to Mr Wavenhoe’s grandmother, that is to say to the grandmother whom he shared with my father. Mr Wavenhoe was sentimentally attached to it on that account, for he had childhood memories of the place. I understand from my father that it is in fact the only one of his properties that is not encumbered with a mortgage. And the codicil now bequeaths it to me.’
‘May I ask who would have received it if Mr Wavenhoe had not signed the codicil?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps my cousin Mrs Frant would have held it in trust for her son. There are a number of small bequests, but apart from those, she and Charlie are the co-heirs, and Mr Frant is appointed the executor. My father and Mr Wavenhoe had quarrelled over a matter of business, you see, so he was not mentioned in the will. Yet, in my uncle’s last hours, when Papa represented to Mr Wavenhoe that he had no quarrel with me, my uncle was much struck by the force of the argument and desired the codicil to be drawn up there and then.’
‘And Mr Frant?’
‘Mr Frant was not there. Sophie was in and out of the room but her thoughts were otherwise occupied.’ Miss Carswall hesitated and then added in a voice not much above a whisper, ‘In fact, she put quite the wrong construction upon it. She thought that she was the beneficiary of the codicil.’
I remembered her words to Mr Carswall before Mr Wavenhoe had signed the codicil: We must do what my uncle wishes. And thank you. You are very good.
Miss Carswall edged a little closer to me and lowered her voice. ‘I understand that Mr Frant does not believe my uncle was in a fit state to make a decision of this nature, that indeed he had no idea what he was putting his name to.’
I nodded without committing myself. Was it possible that Mrs Frant had been tricked, and that I had been an unwitting agent in a scheme to defraud her of an inheritance? Did that explain her altered behaviour to me on the morning after Mr Wavenhoe’s death?
‘It would not matter so much,’ Miss Carswall burst out, ‘if my uncle’s affairs were not so embarrassed. My father believes that once his debts are paid there will be scarcely enough to settle the household bills. As for the bank – there is such a run on it at present that my father says there is sure to be a suspension of payments and perhaps even a commission of bankruptcy. It will go very hard on Sophie, I fear.’
‘And on Mr Frant.’
‘If the bank has run into difficulties, then he must be held at least partly responsible,’ Miss Carswall said tartly. ‘Since my father withdrew from the partnership, Mr Frant has been largely responsible for the conduct of business.’
The carriage had left the village, and was now proceeding down a country lane at a walk.
Miss Carswall looked up at me. ‘I must go to the school.’ Her voice had softened, had become almost pleading. ‘I – I scarcely know how to say –’
‘To say what?’
‘It is so absurd,’ she replied, speaking in a rush. ‘And in any case it may be quite untrue. But Mr Frant is said to nurse a grudge against you.’
‘But why should he do that?’
‘It is said that he feels you should not have witnessed my uncle’s signature.’
‘It is said? By whom?’
‘Hush, Mr Shield. I – I heard him talking with my father and the lawyer on the morning after my uncle died. That is to say, I was in the next room, and they did not trouble to lower their voices.’
‘But why should Mr Frant object to my witnessing the signature? If I had not done it, someone else would have. Does he hold a grudge against the physician as well?’
Miss Carswall did not reply. She covered her face with her hands.
‘Besides, your father was so pressing that I could hardly refuse him,’ I said, my mind filling with the memory of Mrs Frant’s cold, pale face in the breakfast room at Albemarle-street. ‘Nor was there any reason why I should do so.’
‘I know,’ she murmured, peeping at me through her gloved fingers. ‘I know. But men are not always rational creatures, are they?’
ON TUESDAY THE 23rd November, Wavenhoe’s Bank closed its doors for ever. On the same day, two of its customers committed suicide rather than face ruin.
When a bank fails, the consequences spread like a contagion through society: fathers rot in the Marshalsea or blow out their brains, mothers take in sewing or walk the pavements, children are withdrawn from school and beg for pennies, servants lose their places and tradesmen’s bills go unpaid; and so the plague spreads, ever outwards, to people who never heard of Wavenhoe’s or Russell-square.
‘Frant burned his fingers badly when the tobacco market collapsed,’ Dansey told me as we smoked our evening pipes in the garden. ‘I have it on good authority that he had to turn to the Israelites to keep his head above water. Oh, and the servants have left. Always a sure sign of a sinking ship.’
On Wednesday there were more suicides and we heard that the bailiffs had gone into that opulent house in Russell-square. Dansey and I stood at a window and watched Charlie Frant, arm in arm with Edgar Allan, marching round the playground and blowing plumes
