Нет возврата - [79]

'Well, then get on to him,' snapped Mrs Armitage. 'Tell him to find where the damned man put all his money.'

Greed, thought Pound. If only Hanson could have guessed how greedy they would turn out to be.

'Very well. There is however the question of his fee. I have to tell you that of the five thousand pounds that was allocated for all expenses, rather little remains. The outgoings have been heavier than usual… And his services are not inexpensive. But then, he is the best…'

Mrs Armitage looked at her husband. 'Norman.'

Armitage senior swallowed hard. He had mental images of his car and the planned summer holiday being forfeit. He nodded. 'I'll… er… take care of his fees when the remaining money from the five thousand pounds is exhausted,' he said.

'Very well, then,' said Pound rising. 'I shall engage the services of Mr Eustace Miller and him alone. I have no doubt he will trace the missing fortune. He has never failed me yet.'

With that he showed them out and retired to his office to ring Eustace Miller, private inquiry agent.

For four weeks there was silence from Mr Miller, but not from the Armitages, who bombarded Martin Pound with their ceaseless clamours for a quick location of the missing fortune to which they were entitled. At last Miller reported to Martin Pound to say that he had reached a watershed in his inquiries and felt he should report his progress to date.

Pound was by this time almost as curious as the Armitages so he arranged a meeting at his office.

If the Armitage family had expected to confront a figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe or any other popular conception of a tough private eye, they were doomed to disappointment. Eustace Miller was short, round and benign, with tufts of white hair round an otherwise bald head, and half-moon glasses. He wore a sober suit with a gold watch chain across the waistcoat, and he rose to his not very great height to present his report.

'I began this inquiry,' he said, surveying them all in turn over the top of His half-moons, 'with three assumptions in mind. One was that the late Mr Hanson had gone through his extraordinary performance in the months before he died with complete deliberation and a firm purpose. Secondly, I believed, and still do, that Mr Hanson's purpose was to deny his apparent inheritors and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue any access to his fortune after his death.

'The old bastard,' snapped Armitage junior.

'He need not have left it to you in the first place,' interposed Pound mildly. 'Do proceed, Mr Miller.'

'Thank you. Thirdly, I presumed that Mr Hanson had neither burned the money nor undertaken the considerable risks of trying to smuggle it abroad, bearing in mind the enormous volume that such a large sum would occupy in cash form. In short, I came to the view that he had bought something with it.'

'Gold? Diamonds?' asked Armitage senior.

'No, I examined all these possibilities and after intensive inquiries ruled them out. Then I found myself thinking of another kind of commodity of great value but relatively small bulk. I consulted the firm of Johnson Matthey, dealers in precious metals. And I found it.'

'The money?' chorused the three Armitages together.

'The answer,' said Miller. Enjoying his moment he drew from his attache case a wad of pieces of paper. 'These constitute sales documents for the purchase by Mr Hanson from Johnson Matthey of two hundred and fifty fifty-ounce ingots of high-grade 99.95 per cent pure platinum.'

There was a stunned silence round the table.

'It was not, frankly, a very clever ruse,' said Mr Miller with some regret. 'The buyer may have destroyed all record of his purchases, but obviously the vendor would not destroy his records of the sales. And here they are.'

'Why platinum?' queried Pound faintly.

'That's interesting. Under the present Labour government you need a licence to purchase and hold gold. Diamonds are instantly identifiable within the trade and not nearly as easy to dispose of as one would gather from some ill-informed thriller fiction. Platinum does not need a licence, is presently about the same value as gold, and apart from rhodium is one of the most valuable metals in the world. When he bought the metal he paid the free market price of five hundred American dollars per fine ounce.'

'How much did he spend?' asked Mrs Armitage.

'Nigh on the whole three million pounds he had secured for all his worldly goods,' said Miller. 'In US dollars — and his market is always calculated in US dollars — six and a quarter million dollars; twelve and a half thousand ounces in all. Or, as I said, two hundred and fifty ingots each of fifty fine ounces weight.'

'Where did he take them all?' Armitage senior demanded.

'To his manor in Kent,' said Miller. He was enjoying his moment and was aware with anticipatory pleasure that he had more to reveal.

'But I have been there,' protested Pound.

'With a lawyer's eye. Mine is that of an investigator,' said Miller. 'And I knew what I was looking for. So I did not start with the house, but with the outbuildings. Are you aware that Mr Hanson had an extremely well-equipped carpentry workshop in a former barn behind the stables?'