Solomons Seal (7 page)

He had bought Munnobungle early in the seventies, when Australian land prices were almost at bottom. There had been massive inflation since then,
and with a good local agent the price should be very much higher now, even if the exchange rate was against him. As soon as he was in the driving seat, he lowered the electric window. ‘You get a good deal for me and you'll have a nice little packet of Australian dollars. Not a bad start if you're thinking of settling there.' He was looking up at me, smiling. ‘We're having another board meeting day after tomorrow, a lunch afterwards. Why not join us? One o'clock at the factory. That gives you time to think it over.' And he drove off, taking my acceptance for granted.

At the office next morning there was a handwritten envelope marked ‘Personal' among the correspondence lying opened on my desk. It was a brief note from Miss Holland to say she had been offered a job as stewardess on a cruise ship, and would I be kind enough to sell the stamps for her and forward whatever I got for the collection, less commission and any expenses, to the credit of her account at the Southampton branch of the National Westminster Bank?

The writing was small and neat, slightly angular, so that it was not noticeably feminine, and she signed herself Perenna Holland. I had never come across the name Perenna before. There was no address, and the note had been scribbled on what appeared to be a half-sheet of typing paper. The cheap buff envelope in which it had been enclosed was post-marked Southampton. I dialled her solicitor's number, and as soon as I was put through to him, he said in that high, precise voice of his, ‘I was just about to phone you.'

‘You've heard from Miss Holland, have you?'

‘Yes. She's sent me a Power of Attorney and asked me to arrange for the sale of the house as well as the contents as soon as possible. Fortunately I now have the agreement of the mortgagors, so we can go ahead. I'd like you to handle that for us, if you will – since you were kind enough to give us a rough guide to the market value.'

‘Who drew up the Power of Attorney?' I asked. ‘Was it a firm in Southampton?'

‘Ah, you've heard from her, too, have you? Yes, it was a Commissioner for Oaths at Southampton. And you were right when you said she seemed anxious to get away. She's got a job on a cruise ship.'

I asked him for her address, but it was the same she had given me, the bank. She hadn't said what ship she was sailing on or where it was going. It was all ‘very odd', he thought. I told him we would deal with the sale of the house, and after I had put the phone down, I rang Lloyd's Intelligence Services at Colchester. It took only a moment for them to check the Southampton sailings on the computer. A Greek cruise ship, the
Lemnos
, had left at 20.30 hours the previous evening for the Caribbean, calling at Madeira en route. No other cruise ship was due to sail from Southampton for the next eight days.

‘When will the
Lemnos
return?' I asked. But they weren't sure she would dock at Southampton again. It was a fortnight's cruise, finishing up in Bermuda. The ship would then embark mainly American passengers for a further cruise through the Panama Canal to the Galápagos, then down to Callao and Valparaiso,
finishing up at San Francisco on August 2. That was as far as their information went.

It wasn't much, but at least I knew that she had sailed, and on a vessel headed for the Pacific. I sat there for a moment remembering the things she had said, the atmosphere of that house, wondering how much Eric Chandler knew about the family.

I was still thinking about that when the phone rang. It was the chairman of the Rotary Club. Would I take the chair for him at today's lunch as his wife had suddenly been taken ill? There was a lot of work to get through, and it was only as I was leaving that I remembered Berners was coming at three. I gave the two albums to Miss Paget and told her to remain with him the whole time he was looking through them.

By the time I got back from lunch Berners was in my office with Miss Paget, the albums open on the desk in front of him. He was a small, thrusting little man, expensively dressed in a dark grey suit, rather square at the shoulders, and a gaily patterned bow tie. He got quickly to his feet, bowing slightly and giving me a limp handshake. As soon as we were alone, he said, ‘Your description of the last few pages of the collection was exact, Mr Slingsby. They're undoubtedly die proofs, and the stamp is the one that interests my client.' He folded his neat pale hands across his stomach, a signet ring glinting in the sunlight that streamed in through the open window. ‘Now, if I make you an offer, are you in a position to deal?'

‘Yes.' I sat down at my desk, waving him to the chair opposite.

‘So, you have heard from Miss Holland.'

‘This morning.'

‘Then perhaps you will inform me what figure I have to beat.'

‘A high one,' I said, wondering once again whether Tubby really wanted the collection at that price or if I should try to get him off the hook. But looking at Berners, I didn't think I could. He was so obviously a hard bargainer.

He stared at me for a moment, his eyes coldly grey and very shrewd behind thick-lensed glasses. ‘How much?'

‘Suppose you name a figure?'

‘This is not an auction.' His thin lips were compressed into a sour little smile, and he shook his head. ‘First, let me say that the value of this collection for anyone not specifically interested in the Solomons Seal label – and it is no more than that, you understand, it is not in any sense a postage stamp …' He hesitated. ‘The value is perhaps one thousand pounds. That is, to a dealer.'

Allowing for the fact that he was pitching it as low as possible, it was close enough to Tubby's valuation to make nonsense of his subsequent offer. I said, ‘But you are interested. So what is your offer?'

He shook his head, still with that sour little smile. ‘I don't make any offer until I know how much I have to beat. I think in fairness to your client, to Miss Holland, you have to tell me that. You say it is high.'

‘Very high,' I told him.

‘Higher than one thousand pounds?'

‘Much higher.'

He frowned, his hand moving up to his blue jowls and the high dome of his forehead catching the light. The hand came away, the head thrust forward. ‘You have this offer in writing?'

‘Yes.'

‘Show me. I don't believe it.'

I started to tell him that I wasn't accustomed to having my word doubted, but I checked myself. The figure was so preposterous that in his shoes I would have been equally incredulous. ‘All right,' I said, and I took Tubby's letter from the drawer in my desk and handed it to him.

He picked it up, holding it close to his face. ‘
C'est incroyable
!' he breathed. ‘Who is this?' He peered closely at the signature. ‘J. L. Sawyer. A dealer?' he asked. ‘Yes. I remember now. I have met him. An amateur.' He said it half in contempt, half in wonder. And then he looked at me over the top of the letter. ‘Have you had any other offers?'

I shook my head.

‘Then why does he go directly to this very high figure of twenty-five hundred pounds? It cannot be for the “Lady McLeod” Trinidad stamp; that is in too poor condition.'

‘I've no idea,' I said. ‘He just seems fascinated by the collection as a whole, and by the proofs, of course.'

‘Why? What is his interest?'

‘He seems to think it has great curiosity value.'

‘He wants it for himself then, not for a client?'

‘Yes, for himself.'

He shook his head as though in wonderment at the stupidity of it. ‘Well, I'm not sure now. For myself I could not go beyond fifteen hundred pounds, maybe a little more. But above his figure, no – not on my own responsibility, you understand.' He had been speaking slowly, more to himself than to me. Then abruptly he put the bid letter down on the desk. ‘You must give me a little time. I have to consult my client about this.'

‘Miss Holland needs the money,' I said. ‘If you would like to use my phone.'

But he shook his head. ‘My client is not in England any more. He is somewhere in Europe, I think. You must wait a little, until I can contact him.'

‘How long?'

‘A fortnight, three weeks – I'm not sure. Shall we say a month? I expect him to be in England again sometime next month.'

I hesitated. A month would take us to July 23. That would be running it fine if she was leaving the ship at Callao or Valparaiso. ‘I'll give you three weeks.'

He seemed about to argue, but then abruptly he nodded. ‘Three weeks then. Meantime, I have your word that you do not sell to this man Sawyer before I contact you again.'

‘You have until July sixteenth,' I told him. ‘If I haven't heard from you by then—'

‘You will hear from me. That I promise you.' And he got to his feet. ‘It's very strange,' he said, shaking his head and frowning again. ‘I don't understand why Sawyer is making this bid. It can only be that he hopes
to twist my client's elbow.' He suddenly spun round on me. ‘You think he knows who my client is?'

‘I've no idea.'

He seemed puzzled and uneasy as I showed him to the door. I, too, was beginning to wonder about that client of his. I was wondering about a lot of things, particularly the sheets Tubby had talked about. If the proofs were worth this sort of money, what would a whole sheet be worth, a solid block of 120 or 240 of the printed stamps?

Though Packer was back by then, I decided to deal with the sale preliminaries myself. I could then have a look at that loft. A lot of papers and records are usually left behind by the occupants when the house and its contents are up for sale. There was sure to be something there, and a closer look at those old photographs might help. But first I needed more information about the family's background. I rang Chandler and asked him to have a drink with me before lunch at the County Hotel next day.

I thought he might be a little less reticent over a drink than if I saw him at his office. Unfortunately I was delayed, and he had already bought his own drink by the time I got there. It started us off on the wrong foot. ‘I can only give you a quarter of an hour,' he said primly.

‘And I've got to be at Rowlinson Fast Freeze by one.' I wasn't in the best of tempers. I'd just had a long session with Sam Baker, who had told me bluntly that if I went off to Australia to do a job for Rowlinson on my own account, it would be the end of our
association. With business the way it was I knew he was taking advantage of the situation to edge me out. In the end we had had a blazing row, and I had walked out, telling him he'd better start advertising for another office boy right away. I got myself a drink and steered Chandler to an empty table.

‘So you're lunching with Chips Rowlinson.' He was looking at me the way a thrush eyes a worm, his eyes bright behind his glasses. ‘There's talk that they're expanding again. If I can assist in any way …' He left it at that. ‘Well now, you want some information on the Hollands. May I ask why?'

I explained briefly about the stamps, but when I asked him about Carlos Holland, he said, ‘I wouldn't know about that. Before my time. In any case, I'm not at all sure I'm at liberty to discuss their affairs with you.'

‘Then why did you agree to meet me?'

He smiled suddenly, his glasses catching the light. ‘Like you, perhaps I'm a little curious. Also, I don't like loose ends. I ought to have been informed. She should have told me she was going abroad, not written to me so that I only received the letter after she had sailed.'

I asked him how long his firm had been acting for them, and he said, ‘Since January 1922. I had one of my juniors check through the files. Fortunately they were in store here when our Moorgate office was gutted in the Blitz. The first conveyance we handled was for the sale of a London office property, then
shortly afterwards a house in Surrey. Of course, the partner who dealt with that is dead now.'

‘Presumably he was acting for Miss Holland's grandfather.'

‘Yes. Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence Douglas Holland. He sold up and went abroad shortly after the First World War.'

‘Do you know where he went?'

‘Singapore. His address was care of a bank in Singapore. We had to have his bank address, as he had arranged for us to manage his affairs. At that time all his funds were invested in this country. Later he instructed us to sell most of his investments and remit the proceeds to a bank in Sydney, Australia. In 1923 he changed his address again to a Post Office Box number at Port Moresby in Papua. After that there's nothing on the file until his son, Captain Philip Holland, arrived in England with his family and we handled the conveyancing, first for a farm near Snape, and then, when he sold that, for the purchase of the house at Aldeburgh.'

‘I take it her grandfather was dead by then?'

He nodded. ‘Apparently Colonel Holland disappeared the same year they came to England.'

‘When was that?'

‘About six years ago.'

‘You say he disappeared.'

‘Yes. Made an end of it, that was what she said. He took a native boat and just sailed off into the blue.'

‘Did she say why?'

‘No. She wasn't there at the time. Anyway, she had
come to see me on business, and that was a private matter. I didn't ask her.' He was silent for a moment. ‘I don't know whether I should tell you this, but she was badly injured, and her mother was killed, in some sort of an outbreak of native hysteria. I think perhaps this preyed on the old man's mind. He must have been over eighty, and at that age, nearing the end of his life …' He sighed, a solicitor's acceptance of the vagaries of elderly people. That's what decided Captain Holland to sell up and come to England. Wanted to get away from it all.'

‘You met him, did you?'