Chapter Four
Sgt Willis reached up to knock on the front door of Crawley House. It wasn't long before it was answered.
"Good afternoon Sergeant" Mr Stokes greeted him "To what do we owe the pleasure?" He glanced briefly at the stranger beside the Sergeant. Decently dressed, with an overcoat that showed the man was used to all weathers, and a perfectly serviceable bowler hat. The kind of fella that you wouldn't remember a few minutes after you met him, Stokes thought to himself.
"We were wondering if Lord Merton is at home Mr Stokes?" Sergeant Willis asked in his own friendly way. "Nothing too serious, just need a quick word is all"
"Yes, his lordship is home. Would you care to step inside?" Mr Stokes stood aside to let the gentlemen pass. "May I take your coat sir? And who may I say is calling?"
"Thanks" said the stranger, with a distinct London accent. "My name's Money."
"If you'd like to follow me, I'll announce you" Stokes led the way through the house to the drawing room. He knocked briefly and entered "Sergeant Willis and Mr Money to see you m'lord"
"Hello gentlemen, how can I help?" asked Dickie as he stood to greet them. "Nothing too dreadful, I hope?!"
"Not at all m'lord" answered the Sergeant jovially "Just some gentle enquiries." He looked at Stokes.
Isobel took the hint that he thought it best this conversation was private "Can we offer you tea gentlemen?" she asked.
"That would be very kind, your ladyship" Said Mr Money "I must admit I've had a long day and no lunch yet. A good brew would be very welcome"
Isobel nodded to Stokes and added "And could you ask Mrs Field to prepare Mr Money some sandwiches as well please? Thank you"
"That's very kind" Mr Money was clearly grateful "Now we're alone, I'll introduce myself properly: my name is Inspector David Money of the City of London Police and I'm hoping you can help me" He briefly showed Dickie his warrant card. "I've been on quite the wild goose chase today, and resorted to asking the local man where I might find my quarry. Sergeant Willis was good enough to suggest I speak to you. I'm hoping to keep my enquiries as quiet as possible for the time being."
"How intriguing!" said Isobel. "Shall I leave you to it?"
"No!" said Dickie rather forcefully. He turned to the Inspector with a serious face "Anything you have to ask me about can be discussed in front of my wife. We have no secrets and nothing to hide"
Just then Stokes arrived with the tea tray, complete with sandwiches and cake. "Thank you Stokes. And thank Mrs Field for me as well, will you?" Isobel asked as she prepared to pour the tea.
"Of course m'lady. Will there be anything else?" Stokes enquired.
"No thanks Stokes." replied Dickie "We're not at home to any further callers until we've finished though please." Stokes nodded his understanding and left.
"Please help yourself to sandwiches and cake gentlemen. How do you take your tea?" Isobel asked "And I suppose you'd better tell us what this is all about"
The Inspector looked at the tray hungrily. "I'm trying to locate a Mr and Mrs Lawrence Grey." He stated as he helped himself to sandwiches. "I tried Merton House first, of course, but the butler there was very unhelpful. Said the family were away and he didn't know when they would be back. Said he didn't know where they'd gone either, although I'm not quite sure I believe that bit" He paused to eat half a sandwich in one bite. Isobel and Dickie glanced at each other in consternation.
"I spoke to my Gaffer and he agreed that I should come up and try the country house, so I was on the early train and got to …" he looked at his notebook " Car-vern-ham, is it? just before lunch. Again, another unhelpful butler. Said he hadn't seen the Greys in months, no idea where they were or when they might be back again. Place seemed to have lots of staff about for a house that hasn't seen it's owners in a while, but then I don't have one of these big houses myself!" He chuckled. Dickie just looked concerned.
" Anyway, rather than go home empty handed, I thought I'd try the local Bobby, see if he knew anything. Sergeant Willis here, was very helpful in letting me know that you lived local and brought me round. So, here I am, enjoying a slap up lunch and asking you: do you know where Mr and Mrs Grey are?" At this last bit, his tone got a bit more serious.
Dickie shared a look with Isobel and answered "In short: no, we don't" He paused "But you do make me a little concerned however. You should know that I'm mostly estranged from my sons Inspector, and haven't heard from either of them in quite some time. In fact, just a few weeks ago a nursemaid arrived on our doorstep carrying a child that turned out to be a grandchild we knew nothing about." The Inspector looked perturbed by this news. "The letter that accompanied John was from my daughter-in-law, Mrs Grey, saying that they were going overseas on urgent business for the bank and she had no wish to take the babe with them. It's the first communication we've had in nearly 2 years."
The Inspector took a long pull from his cup of tea, nearly draining it in one mouthful. Isobel moved to refill it, glad for something practical to do. She had a bad feeling about all this.
"If you don't mind my asking" the Inspector pondered "What has caused the estrangement?" He bit into a piece of Mrs Field's excellent fruit cake. He did love fruit cake.
Dickie sighed "Isobel is my second wife, Inspector. My sons did not approve of us getting married and made our courtship very difficult. In the end, just over 2 years ago I left Cavenham to Larry and moved here to marry." He reached for Isobel's hand "I did try to make contact a few times that autumn, not least to let them know that my health had been misdiagnosed, but never received any response to any of my letters or phone calls. In the end I gave it up as a bad job." He smiled "A sorry state of affairs, but in many ways life is much happier without the constant sniping and critical comments that my son seems to think are humorous".
There was a heavy pause in the conversation. Isobel thought the mantelpiece clock had never sounded so loud. She gave Dickie's hand a gentle squeeze.
The Inspector looked at Sergeant Willis and seemed to come to a decision "Sergeant Willis told me he didn't think you could possibly know anything about the case I'm working on, and hearing your story, I'm inclined to agree." He took another large bite of cake, then dusted his hands before flicking through the pages of his notebook. "Earlier this week my Boss, Chief Inspector Whittaker, got a call from one of the partners at Greenall's bank"
"That's who Larry works for" Dickie mentioned to Isobel.
"Quite so. They were concerned they may have found an ongoing fraud within the bank and asked us if we would take a look. Now, very often, if the losses are within certain parameters and they can clearly identify what happened, these things are cleared up 'in house'. No bank wants it's investors to know that there's money missing or any kind of wrongdoing. It's bad for business." He paused and Isobel nodded to show she understood. He continued "The fact they called us at all shows how concerned they were. I went to visit with my Chief, and it quickly became clear from the little evidence they had already found that this was a widespread issue. I won't go into technicalities and the like, but effectively someone had created accounts in fictitious names and used those accounts in various ways throughout the bank to obtain funds, play markets, hide losses and generally use the bank's funds as their own plaything. There are some of our expert accountants assisting the bank now to find out the extent, but there may be more than one such account operated by the same person. That allowed him to move money from one account to the next so that each showed it was receiving funds, thus avoiding suspicion."
"So if this fraud was operating successfully, how did the bank suddenly come to notice?" Isobel asked
"It seems a new clerk joined, or moved from a different section, or something. He queried a transaction because it was outside the bank's internal procedures. It would appear that the regular department clerks had become used to the activity on this particular account and hadn't noticed that the transactions were getting out of hand. It was raised with a supervisor. We were called in the following day once the managers had been made aware and temporarily frozen the account."
Dickie swallowed hard. He thought maybe he knew the answer to his next question, but it needed to be asked "So, why are you looking for Larry?"
"The day the account was frozen, Mr Grey failed to show up for work. No one thought much of it at the time: after all, he could have been ill, or at a meeting, or something. But then the management started to get more concerned and asked all staff to account for themselves. It was then the bank tried to contact Mr Grey with no success. His manager checked, and it appeared his personal account had been emptied the day the initial transaction was queried. No one they tried to contact had seen or heard of him since. We took up the enquiries: as you can imagine, nothing makes a copper more suspicious that someone who absconds without trace just as a case starts." He looked grim.
"You really think Larry is involved?" Asked Isobel "Truly?"
"He's our strongest lead, Lady Merton. He's the only person we can't find to talk to, and our initial enquiries into his life and finances do not make for happy reading" The Inspector replied. "It's hard to find anything to suggest he's not somehow involved."
She clung to Dickie's hand as he asked "How can we help? What do you need from us?"
"I need anything you might know, although from the sounds of things that might be very little. You said your grandson arrived unexpectedly?"
"Yes" said Isobel weakly "The letter from Amelia makes more sense now, if we consider they are guilty of something." She moved across to her writing desk and pulled out the letter "This letter was given to Emma, the nursemaid, to bring to us with John. If this letter is correct, I believe your birds may have flown Inspector"
The Inspector read the letter and sighed "Yes, it does. We'd already put a port call out, but if he'd always had this planned then they could have left the country before we even thought to do that. Or have travelled on false papers. Still, we'll have to try to trace them" He made a few notes. "Would I be able to talk to Emma?"
"We don't have a nursery here, and John is only 5 months old. Isobel's extended family live at Downton Abbey where there are other children, so Lord Grantham offered for him to stay there. Emma is helping Nanny. I'm sure Sergeant Willis will be able to arrange a discreet interview for you" Dickie nodded to the Sergeant.
"Yes, that shouldn't be a problem" piped up Sergeant Willis, pleased to have a part in the conversation "Mr Barrow, the butler at Downton, can help us with that easily enough."
"Good. Although I do still want to keep this quiet. Might be a bit of a shock for the girl too." The Inspector nodded to himself "Now, Cavenham. From what you've said, you wouldn't have any idea when the family were last up?"
"No, I'm afraid not. It's been 2 years, but I know at least some of the old staff are there. Would you want to look through the study in case there are any papers?" Dickie asked.
"Ideally, yes. I don't have a search warrant, but if we can convince the staff to let us in without a fuss, then it could be very helpful." the Inspector looked at his watch "Is there somewhere I can stay tonight? It would be a pain to go back to London tonight, just to have to come back up tomorrow."
"Don't worry, you can stay with us" offered Sergeant Willis "I'm sure the missus will be delighted. A London man! She's always wanted to visit, so you might have to talk about the sights and all the famous people you've met!" he chuckled.
"Give me a moment." said Dickie "I'll ask Stokes to drive us over. And I'll call the Agent to meet us there. It might be worth looking at what kind of state the Park finances are in." He paused "You might be interested to know that, although Larry lived at Cavenham and ran the estate, the nature of the property deeds meant I couldn't sign it over to him. It's tied to the baronetcy so I couldn't grant him full control: he won't get that until he inherits. We are named jointly on the household accounts which are held at a bank in York, but I just left him to run it all himself. As I'm still named on everything to do with Cavenham, I'm quite happy to give you full access."
"I'm very grateful m'lord. I know this must be difficult, even with the estrangement" noted the Inspector.
"What leaves me cold at this moment is that I have worked to preserve the estate and the family holdings for the better part of my life. I can't help fearing what we will find" Dickie said quietly, before leaving to speak to Stokes.
Isobel watched him go with a lump in her throat. Life at Crawley House had been wonderful, but should she have taken on Cavenham? Have fought Larry and Amelia on their own turf? What if Cavenham was nothing but a shell of it's former self and she'd caused it by fracturing Dickie's family beyond repair. How would they cope? Had their golden days just disappeared?