Chapter 14
Mr. Steele arrived back at the agency in the same rush than he left. Without stopping in his tracks, he just greeted Mildred with an "I'm back, Mildred", and closed his office door behind him. Mildred decided to wait for his intercom call. She didn't have the need to be mixed in his game. If he didn't want her in it, she wasn't going to be the one begging. Once his voice sounded through the intercom she started with the usual routines of the day …again.
They studied the new information the secretary found. She had a hunch that if the money was rushing out of the dead man's accounts, it was being introduced into another known one. Maybe it was into the widow's one; but that was too obvious. As the dead man had a prior family, with two sons and a daughter, she decided to give it a chance there, and ran an investigation about their current financial situation. Edward, the older son, was the one going to the police suspecting something out of control in his father investments. Phillip, the younger one, was distanced from his father since a long time ago, and living somewhere in Europe without a known address. And the daughter, Catherine, was finally the one Mildred's target was on. She was married and her husband Paul owned a trading company in the stock market. Last year it hadn't been the best for Mr. Patterson's business and at the end of the year the company was going fast to bankruptcy. After a strong liquid investment into the company, the actions bounced up, and the risk descended. Even with that, the company was again in financial trouble. The clues that took Miss Krebs attention were that the dates of the route of the money were simultaneous with Mr. Bell's bank account debts, and Mr. Patterson's company's foreign investments. It seemed that Mr. Bell was discreetly injecting money into his son-in-law's company, without allowing the other members of the family to give an opinion about that decision. Death surprised him and he drove the secret into his grave. Nobody in the family was able to decipher the route of the money, except for the ones who had received it. And they were trying to keep the secret under lock and key. They weren't thinking about returning the money in the near future to have it distributed among every member of the family. The last thing Mildred had resolved was the name of the company. As Mr. Bell was putting a lot of his own money directly in the coffers of his old family, not giving his current wife and new sons the chance to grab a cent of it, R.I.F. would mean Returning Investments to Family. Bingo. The guilty one was supposed to be Mr. Bell's son in law, Mr. Patterson.
"Well done Mildred. I knew we were right onto the target. Perhaps we should put everything together and make a visit to Detective Jarvis in the afternoon. That would leave us in front of a free weekend!" he finished his words raising an eyebrow.
"But Mr. Steele, we will still be working on Miss Holt's case," said the secretary.
"You said the accurate words Mildred. It's Miss Holt's case, not ours. If she wants to work over the weekend, I will not complain about it. But since the agency is usually closed on weekends, and there is no more case catching our attention, she would have to allow us to help her."
"You are right boss. Let me wrap this whole thing and then we'll go to see Jarvis."
The races were over and the Red House was the winner house of the morning. The spirit between the members of the team was splendid, and the next task after lunch was the swimming routine. The girls were getting ready for the next challenge in the dressing room, and everybody was euphoric commenting on the last event. Laura was feeling really good because her old school spirit was still alive, and she was having a great time while working, as always.
The swimming schedule was ready to start, and the whole Red House Team was waiting at one side of the swimming pool. The swimming coach called the swimmers, and everybody walked to the start line; everybody but one swimmer, June Patterson. Laura was checking over everybody's movement all around the place looking for her, when she saw June coming from the dressing room. The girl seemed to be in a hurry and a bit flushed. "June! Hurry up! Your race is ready to start. Go to your place! Laura shouted at her, not being able to stay out of the spirit of the competition. The girl ran to take her place, and right after putting her body into the start position, the signal sounded and everybody jumped into the water. The race was started. It was a very hard competition, but June swam with such a style. She won by one second. Miss Holt went to congratulate her, and within two minutes, the next race was started with everybody's eyes following it.
After the swimming routine was over, with the Blue House as a winner this time, the team went to the dressing room again, to change and be ready for the tennis challenge. Six girls were on charge in this one. The first match started, and the Green House won against the Red one. When the second one was going to start, the team asked Laura to play this one to avoid being out of the competition after two consecutive defeats. She agreed, and of course, the match finished with the Red Team as a winner. The afternoon went on, and by the end of it every competition was over right on schedule. The Red House didn't end as the winner, but they arrived in second place after the Green House. This seemed to be not bad at all. Once everything was over, Miss Holt returned to her classroom to take a look at her trap. The papers were back in place. The job was done.