Trehannoc was not a very handsome house. A black door, a nondescript window looked over the winding street. Leopold Harrison opened the door. He was a short tubby man in his late forties or early fifties.
‘You must be Powerscourt. Come in, please.’
He was wearing a suit that looked as though it came from one of London’s finest tailors and should have been walking along Lombard Street or Piccadilly rather than the twisting lanes of Cornwall. His shoes gleamed. His hair was immaculate.
Harrison brought Powerscourt along a passageway, past a dining room where he spotted a fine Regency dining table and chairs, into a drawing room that looked out over the sea. Then Powerscourt understood. The house was built back to front. Trehannoc stood at the apex of the promontory that ran between the twin villages. The front door was really the entrance on the little slipway on the rocks below. When you sat down in the corner of the room, all you could see was the ocean. In winter, Powerscourt realized, the spray from the storms must come right up to the top of the windows, encrusting them with salt.
Powerscourt could sense the tubby little man recoiling from him as they sat in the twin leather armchairs, looking out towards the grey waters where the Spanish Armada had passed by long ago. Maybe he’s wearing that suit as a defence.
‘Lord Powerscourt,’ Harrison spoke in clipped tones, ‘the family have insisted that I should see you. How can I be of assistance?’
Powerscourt thought he should begin with expressions of sympathy. Then he could spring his surprise.
‘Naturally, Mr Harrison, I am very sorry about the terrible death of your uncle. I have been asked to investigate the matter.’
‘The death has nothing to do with me,’ said Harrison quickly, distancing himself from his family. ‘I was here in Cornwall at the time.’
‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt, smiling sympathetically. ‘Tell me about the family feud.’
There was a silence. Leopold Harrison turned rather red. His paunch seemed to expand with indignation. A little way out to sea, beyond the window, Powerscourt spotted a triumphant cormorant rise to the surface, a small fish wriggling in its beak.
‘It was a very long time ago. It wasn’t really a feud. That’s all I wish to say.’ Leopold Harrison sounded guilty.
‘Most family feuds go back a long way,’ Powerscourt said gently, wondering if he was about to be thrown out into the street. ‘But they may still be relevant, even today.’
He waited. Harrison had a superb collection of paintings of sea battles on his walls, Powerscourt noticed, guns blazing, rigging falling into the sea, ships blown up in terrible explosions of red and black as their magazines took a direct hit. In happier times he could have spent a long time looking at them.
‘It was a very long time ago. I repeat, that’s all I wish to say.’
Powerscourt wondered if fear would work on Leopold Harrison. ‘I have to tell you, Mr Harrison, that so far there has been little progress in this inquiry. The murderer or murderers may strike again. They might strike anywhere. Cornwall is not so very far away these days.’
The cormorant rose to the surface again. This time it had caught nothing.
‘I do not see how those matters can have any bearing on the terrible killing,’ said Harrison. ‘I will tell you one thing and one thing only.’
He thinks I will go away with one small crumb of information, Powerscourt said to himself. He wondered what his morsel would be.
‘It had to do with . . .’ Harrison paused. He was finding this very difficult. ‘It had to do with a woman,’ he said finally. He said the word as though it were something terrible like bankruptcy or mental illness. He was panting slightly as if the word woman made him out of breath.
‘Who was the woman?’ Powerscourt asked very quietly, wondering if a latterday Medea or Clytemnestra was about to land in Cawsand Bay.
‘I cannot say. I have promised not to say. Please.’
Please leave me alone, he’s asking to be left in peace, Powerscourt said to himself. I’ll just try one more question and then I’ll stop. ‘Did the events surrounding this woman take place here, or in Frankfurt?’
‘Both,’ said the little man bleakly, as if he had just broken all the promises he had ever made.
‘Thank you for that, Mr Harrison. Could you tell me if the feud had anything to with the two separate branches of the bank being formed?’
There was another pause. A small sailing boat drifted past the windows. The sea murmured on against the rocks.
‘It did and it didn’t,’ said Harrison. ‘Please, please don’t ask me any more about that feud. It makes me so upset. Promise me that,’ he said weakly, ‘and I’ll tell you anything about the bank.’
Powerscourt wondered briefly if he could now have access to the financial secrets of the great of England, the debts of Cabinet Ministers, the real wealth of the new millionaires, the payments made by the aristocrats to their mistresses in Biarritz or Paris. He desisted.
‘All I need to know is why there are two separate parts of the bank. Leaving aside the feud, of course.’
Leopold Harrison was looking happier now. ‘It’s very simple, really, Lord Powerscourt. It all depends on how you want to make your money.’
Powerscourt looked confused. The little man’s cheeks were returning to their normal colour. The hands were stroking his stomach in a satisfied fashion, as if he had just eaten a very good dinner.
‘How is that?’ said Powerscourt.
‘I like money. I am devoted to it.’ Powerscourt thought he could hear greed in Leopold Harrison’s voice. ‘This house here may not seem very much, but I have a house in Chester Square. I have a villa in the hills just north of Nice near Grasse. Do you know Grasse, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘Fragonard’s birthplace?’ asked Powerscourt. He couldn’t see Leopold Harrison on a swing, surrounded by the tributes of love and the foliage of desire.
‘Fragonard. Exactly,’ said Harrison. ‘I have a couple of them in the hall of my villa. But let me return to money and banking. There are two kinds of banking at present, Lord Powerscourt. Harrison’s City, the parent firm of my own, deals in financial instruments. They trade in bills of exchange. They launch risky foreign loans. They lend money to governments. All of this is complicated and very hazardous. You could be wiped out in a moment. Barings were very nearly wiped out seven years ago. It took the City of London years to recover.’
‘So what do you do?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘We lend people money,’ said Harrison happily. ‘We take in money from one lot of people as deposits. We pay them as little interest as we can. Then we lend it out to other people. We charge them as much interest as we can get away with. That’s all.’
‘But surely,’ said Powerscourt, ‘the people you lend it to could go broke or refuse to repay it, just like those foreign governments sometimes do?’
Leopold Harrison laughed. He patted Powerscourt on the shoulder like an uncle with a favourite nephew.
‘Not so, Lord Powerscourt. Security, that’s the key, security. Let me put it very simply. Suppose you want to borrow ten thousand pounds from me. Fine, I say. But I must have some security for a loan. You have a house somewhere worth ten thousand pounds? You do? Excellent. Just let me have the deeds of ownership, a mere formality you understand, and then you can have the loan. Would you like the money all at once?’