"You never know, sir," said Hemingway, polite but discouraging.
The contents of Nathaniel's desk, however, afforded little of interest. Evidently Nathaniel had been a methodical man who kept his papers neatly docketed, and did not hoard correspondence. A letter from Paula was discovered, bearing a recent date. Paula's wild handwriting covered four pages, but apart from one petulant reference to her uncle's meanness in not instantly agreeing to support Willoughby Roydon's works there was nothing in the letter to indicate that she felt any animosity towards him. None of the other private letters seemed to have any bearing on the case, and after glancing through them the Inspector turned to the business letters, which Blyth was sorting. These too were uninteresting from Hemingway's point of view, but while he was running through them, Blyth, who had been studying some papers which were clipped together, glanced fleetingly towards Mottisfont, and then silently laid the papers before Hemingway.
"Ah!" said Mottisfont, with a slight laugh. "I fancy I see my own fist! I can guess what that is!"
Hemingway paid no heed to this remark, but picked up the sheaf, and began to read the first letter.
It had apparently been written in reply to a demand for information, and the terms in .which it was couched were too guarded to afford the Inspector any very precise idea of the business the firm of Herriard and Mottisfont had been conducting. Attached to it was the rough draft of a further letter from Nathaniel. Such intemperate expressions as crass folly, unjustifiable risks, and staggering impudence abounded, and had called forth a second letter from Mottisfont, in which he suggested rather stiffly that his partner was behind the times, and had, in fact, been out of the business for too long to realise the exigencies of modern times, or the necessity of seizing any opportunity that offered for lucrative trading.
The fourth and last letter in the clip was again a copy, and in Nathaniel's hand. It was quite short. It stated with crushing finality that "this business' would be brought to an immediate conclusion. Plainly, although Nathaniel might of late years have taken but little share in the working activities of the business which bore his name, his veto was final, admitting of no argument.
The Inspector laid these papers to one side, and would have continued to run through the dwindling pile before him had not Mottisfont said, with another of his mirthless laughs: "Well, if that's my correspondence with Mr. Herriard over the China business, as I can see it is, I've no doubt you must want to know what the devil it's all about, Inspector!"
"Not now!" Joseph said. "This isn't quite the moment, do you think?"
"Oh, so Nat told you about it, did he?"
"Good heavens, no! Nat knew me too well to do that! I knew you'd had some sort of a disagreement, of course." "Well, I've no objection to having the thing out now, or at any other time."
"If you feel like that, sir, what is it all about?" asked Hemingway.
Mottisfont drew a breath. "My firm - it's a private company - deals with the East Indies trade."
"Just what is the composition of the company, sir?"
"Private limited liability. The shares were held by the three of us: Nathaniel Herriard, Stephen Herriard, and myself."
"In what proportion, sir?"
"Nathaniel Herriard held seventy per cent of the shares, myself twenty, and Stephen Herriard ten. When Nathaniel virtually retired from active partnership, I became managing director."
"And you, sir?" asked Hemingway, looking at Stephen.
"Nothing to do with it. Shares wished on to me when I was twenty-one."
"Oh no, the business was just Nathaniel and me!" said Mottisfont. "Well, he more or less retired some years ago, leaving me to carry on."
"What does more or less mean, sir?"
"Less," said Stephen.
Mottisfont pointedly ignored this interruption. "Well, I don't suppose anyone who knew Nathaniel will deny that he was by nature an autocrat. He never could keep his fingers out of any pie."
Joseph protested at this. "Edgar, I must point out to you that this pie was of his own making!"
"Oh, I'm not saying he wasn't a very clever business man in his day! But you know as well as I do that he was getting past it. Couldn't keep up with the times: lost his vision."
"Any disagreements between you and Mr. Herriard on the firm's policy?" asked Hemingway.
"Yes, many. Trade has been very bad during the last few years, particularly bad for our business. The Sino Japanese war was a crippling blow. Nathaniel had been out of things for too long to be able to cope with the new situation. I always had to fight to get my own way. Dear me, I can recall occasions when he's threatened me with every kind of disaster! But that was just his way. If you let him bluster himself out, in the end he always listened to reason. Those letters you have under your hand refer to a deal I wanted to put through, and which he was frightened of. I could show you dozens of others just like them, if I hadn't destroyed them."
"What was this deal, sir?"
"Well, unless you're a business man, I don't suppose you'd understand it," said Mottisfont.
Stephen's bitter mouth curled. "Nothing very difficult to understand about it," he said, his voice harsh enough to make Mottisfont start.
"I was not aware that you were in Nathaniel's confidence!" Mottisfont said, his eyes snapping behind their spectacles.
Stephen laughed. Joseph laid a hand on his arm. "Gently, old man! We don't want to make mischief, do we?"
"Damn you, don't paw me about!" Stephen said, shaking him off. "I've been quite sufficiently nauseated by Mottisfont's pretty picture of his own totally non-existent influence over Uncle Nat. So you could handle him, could you? You just let him bluster himself out, did you? By God, I won't have the old devil belittled by a damned little worm like you! You went in mortal dread of him, and well you know it!"
"How dare you speak to me like that?" stammered Mottisfont. "You know nothing about my relationship with Nat! Nothing! Because you knew no better than to quarrel with him, you think no one had more sense! Well, I was dealing with Nat when you were at a kindergarten! Puppy!"
"Edgar! Stephen!" implored Joseph, wringing his hands. "This isn't worthy of either of you! What must the Inspector think?"
The futility of this agonised enquiry drew a sound like a snarl from Stephen, but only made Hemingway say cheerfully: "Oh, you don't want to worry about me, sir! Perhaps, since Mr. Stephen Herriard seems to know all about it, he'd like to tell me what this new deal was that his uncle didn't hold with?"
"Gun-running," said Stephen.
Mottisfont grasped the arms of the chair he was sitting in as though he were about to jump up, and then relaxed again. It isn't difficult to believe that you'd stab a man in the back!" he said, in a trembling voice.
"I'd already noticed that you found no difficulty in believing it!" retorted Stephen.
"Stephen, Stephen, don't let your tongue betray you into saying what you can only regret! That was unpardonable of you, Edgar, unpardonable!" Joseph said.
"Oh yes, what I say is unpardonable, but what your precious nephew says is quite another matter, isn't it?" Mottisfont sneered.
"Edgar, you know what Stephen is just as well as I do! I'm not excusing him. But as for letting him get a rise out of you with his absurd, nonsense about gun-running - ! For shame, Edgar! Of course, no one believes you were mixed up with anything of the sort! Why, it sounds like one of those lurid films which I, alas, am too much of an old stager to enjoy!"
"Only it happens to be true," said Stephen.
"Really, Stephen! I hope I'm as fond of a joke as anyone, but is this quite the time, my boy?"
The Inspector, who had been watching Mottisfont, said: "I don't want to interrupt you gentlemen, but perhaps we'd all of us get along better if I made it plain that I'm not at the moment interested in gun-running, which is what I thought this "China business" of yours might be, Mr. Mottisfont."