An Owl Too Many (25 page)

Putting on the dog for her interview with Debenham had been a smart ploy, she no doubt realized that. She climbed resolutely back into Peter’s car, fastened her seat belt, and sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead, both gloved fists clutching the new leather handbag that no doubt held the fatal letter. Peter couldn’t see her face, he was too busy watching the road; but he had a general impression of flared nostrils and tight lips.

This was surely one hell of a position for Debenham’s long-time client to be in. It was going to be a damned sight worse for the lawyer who’d put in years of hard work on the Binks account without recompense. To lose Winifred just when she was beginning to pay off in a big way wouldn’t be the worst of the matter. His professional reputation would be bound to suffer. If word got out that he’d disobeyed his client’s direct orders and conspired against her with the Lackovites crowd, he’d be lucky not to get disbarred.

Debenham had impressed Peter as being a decent, sensible man. Could he really have been fool enough to let himself get sucked in by knaves like Fanshaw and Emmerick? Had they managed to convince him that Winifred was in fact making a terrible mistake in allying herself so wholeheartedly with the Compotes? Had he some quixotic notion of trying to save her from her own folly? Or did he honestly have bad news about Golden Apples that he hadn’t yet been able to tell her? Was this the reason for his urgent phone calls?

Peter could think of a less creditable but at least equally possible reason for those calls. If Debenham was aware that Winifred had been kidnapped and hadn’t learned she’d got loose from her captors, his leaving those messages might have been an attempt to establish his ignorance of her being missing.

Well, the moment of truth was at hand. Winifred was straightening her hat, dabbing at her lips with a stick of pale-pink salve; flicking, by George, a powder puff across her nose. Gad, she was really going in for the kill. He kept a respectful step or two behind as the heiress sailed into the lawyer’s office with her gunports uncovered and her powder, indubitably, dry.

A young male clerk was sitting in the outer office, looking up torts in a stack of tomes. Disturbed as she was, Winifred did not forget her manners.

“Good afternoon, Frank. Don’t get up, I’ll announce myself.”

She didn’t have to. The lawyer burst forth, evincing glad surprise.

“Miss Binks! Come right in, how good to see you. But you shouldn’t have put yourself out, I’d have come to you.”

She didn’t speak, Peter surmised that she couldn’t; she walked straight into the office and headed for the chair closest to the desk. No doubt this was where she always sat. Thwarted of his efforts to beat her to it and get her settled, Debenham perforce contented himself with fetching another chair for Peter. He then went around behind the desk and sat down in his own swivel chair, looking a trifle fussed, as well he might.

“It’s good of you to come,” he began redundantly. “What we need to talk about—”

Winifred had herself under command now. Her purse was open, the fatal document in her hand. “I am all too aware of what we have to talk about,” she interrupted. “Professor Shandy and I happened to be with the Compotes at Golden Apples this morning when their mail was delivered. Mr. Debenham, can you give me any rational explanation as to why you wrote them this iniquitous letter?”

She handed it across the desk with a haughty sweep of her blue-gloved hand. Debenham picked up his reading glasses, fumbled them into place, and scanned the paper. His mouth flew open. He snatched off his glasses, rubbed them frantically on his tie, put them back on, and read the page again.

“Good heavens! Miss Binks, surely you can’t think I wrote this?”

“If you didn’t, who did?”

“I don’t know! I would never—Miss Binks, look.”

He opened his top desk drawer and took out a piece of writing paper, blank except for the name and address printed in black ink at the top. “This is my office stationery, the kind I have used without change for the past thirty-seven years. Would you kindly run your finger over the printing, then tell me what you feel? Please, I beg of you.”

Winifred hesitated, then drew off her right glove and ran a fingertip gingerly over the letterhead. “It’s full of little bumps.”

“Yes, mine’s done in what they call raised printing because, as you see, it is. Now please be good enough to touch the printing on this sheet you brought with you.”

Less reluctantly this time, Winifred did so. Then her face broke into a smile of ineffable relief. “No bumps!”

“Precisely. Now would you further oblige me by looking at the signature? Here, use this magnifying glass. I ask you to compare the writing with the signature on these checks I’ve just signed for our office expenses. Do you note any discrepancies?”

“Yes, yes! I note them! The signatures on the checks are firm and decisive. This on the letter shows hesitation and wiggles, and there’s something awfully peculiar about the
ham.
Ergo, we deduce that the letterhead has been photocopied from a genuine letterhead and the signature is a blatant forgery.”

The clouds had blown over, Winifred was radiant. “I should have known. I can only say in extenuation of my obtuseness that I don’t recall ever having received a letter from you. We’ve always communicated in person or by telephone. And this iniquitous message coming just when it did—you know how it’s been these past few days, Mr. Debenham, just one perfidy after another. We’ve been conditioned to expect the worst. Can you ever forgive me?”

“My dear Miss Binks, I honestly think I could forgive you anything. I’m all too aware of your recent tribulations. I must confess that I was seriously perturbed when I telephoned the station this morning and found a strange woman in your place.”

“That was Mrs. Svenson, the president’s wife. As it happened, I’d been abducted from the station late yesterday afternoon and imprisoned on a tugboat tied up at the Clavaclammer Marina. Fortunately Peter and Dr. Svenson rescued me from the kidnappers, one of whom was the Mr. Fanshaw whom I believe you’ve already heard about; although he was at the time disguised as Tugboat Annie.”

“Great Scott!” cried the lawyer.

“You may well say so,” Winifred agreed. “As Fanshaw was being dragged off by the Clavaton police, he contrived somehow to set the tugboat adrift. Trying to land would have been too dangerous, so Dr. Svenson manned the helm, as I believe it’s called, and we sailed all night down the Clavaclammer; which is how we wound up at Golden Apples this morning.”

“Oh, Miss Binks, what next? Let me get you a cup of tea. It’s only tea bags, I’m afraid.”

“Tea bags will be quite acceptable, thank you.”

It was, after all, the gesture that counted. Mr. Debenham plugged in his electric kettle and took a box of arrowroot biscuits from his bottom left desk drawer. A cozy air of domesticity was replacing the tension of so short a time ago. Peter gave himself a mental kick for not having caught on that the letter might be forged; but then he’d never had any correspondence with Debenham, either. He sipped his tea and ate his biscuit and let Winifred do the talking.

Mr. Debenham listened, leaning back in his swivel chair and pressing the fingertips of his two hands together in traditional legalistic style, shaking his head from time to time at the more outrageous revelations. At last he offered his professional opinion. “Miss Binks, this cannot go on. Steps must be taken.”

“I fully agree with you, Mr. Debenham. Peter, have you any thoughts on the matter?”

“I certainly do. What I think is that we’d better hotfoot it over to the bank right now and exchange a few words with Mr. Sopwith. Do you know whether he’s unloaded the Lackovites stock yet, Debenham?”

“He may have done so by now. As of half-past ten this morning, he had not. That was what I wanted to discuss with you, Miss Binks. In my opinion, Sopwith’s unconscionable procrastination in carrying out your instructions raises a serious doubt as to whether he is in fact qualified to handle the Binks Trust. It may behoove us to begin examining those books without further ado. Shall I give him a ring?”

“Is he likely to be in his office?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Then I think we should do as Peter suggests, and call on him forthwith, in person.” Winifred drew on her gloves and pushed back her chair. “Lead on, Mr. Debenham.”

T
HEY HAD NOT FAR
to go. The bank where Sopwith allegedly worked was just around the corner, in one of those blocks of dark-red brick and gray granite in the Victorian style so often to be found in New England towns that have managed to avoid the curse of modernization, built back when banks were supposed to be imposing instead of chummy. Debenham led them past the door to a staircase of polished granite with a wrought-iron, balustrade that had knobs and plaques of well-shined brass worked in among the curlicues.

The trust offices were along the upper corridor, behind oaken doors with frosted glass panels. The officers’ names were engraved on brass plaques. Mr. Sopwith was the third plaque on the left. His secretary regretted that Mr. Sopwith was in conference.

“Then get him out,” said Winifred. “How can he be in conference? I can hear him quite clearly, talking on the telephone.”

“It’s a telephone conference.”

“Tell him to hang up. Better still, I’ll tell him myself.” She headed for the inner office.

“But you can’t just barge in without an appointment.”

“Of course I can. I’m quite strong and very determined.”

Peter started fishing for Fanshaw’s golden coin, but he wasn’t going to need it. This secretary knew when she was licked, she shrugged and punched a button on her intercom.

“Miss Binks is here to see you, Mr. Sopwith.”

They heard a gobbling noise and saw a dark shadow appear for an instant behind the inner door panel. Then Mr. Sopwith spoke more clearly. “I’ll be with her in a moment. Please ask her to wait.”

“I do not intend to wait.” Winifred spoke loudly and distinctly. “Mr. Sopwith, unlock this door at once. If you don’t, we’ll break the glass.”

“Miss Binks, you mustn’t,” hissed Mr. Debenham. “That would constitute breaking and entering.”

“And what is the penalty for breaking and entering?”

“As a first offender, you would probably be fined enough to cover the damages and court costs, and possibly be given a short suspended sentence.”

“Oh well, then.”

Winifred slipped off one of her new leather pumps, clasped it by the toe, and took a lusty swipe with the heel. The glass made a satisfying tinkle; she put her gloved hand in through the hole and turned the knob.

“Voilà, gentlemen. Shall we? Watch out for the glass on the floor. Mr. Sopwith, whatever are you doing up there?”

These offices had been constructed long before a room with a view had become a sign of prestige. Ventilation had been achieved by transoms over the doors and high windows on inside walls that opened out into air shafts. Below one of these archaic ventilators lay a chair, tipped over on its side. Above the chair, two legs in respectable banker’s gray with a faint pinstripe thrashed the air in futile agitation. Winifred looked up at them with amused interest.

“Mr. Debenham, do you remember that time you escorted Aunt and me to a performance of
Iolanthe
at the high school? Doesn’t this remind you of Strephon complaining that, since he’s only half a fairy, his upper half can slip easily through the keyhole but his nether half is left kicking on the wrong side of the door? Do quit squirming and flailing, Mr. Sopwith, you’re only making a bad job worse. Peter, if you’ll bring that other chair over here”—as she spoke, she was straightening up the one Sopwith had tipped over—“you and I can each get hold—”

“Please allow me, Miss Binks.” Quite nimbly for a man of his years, Lawyer Debenham sprang up on the chair. Peter mounted the other, each seized one of the pinstriped legs. From the doorway, the trust officer’s secretary stared, aghast.

“Ready?” said Winifred. “One—two—THREE!”

Sopwith didn’t come without a struggle but he came, landing in a heap on the wall-to-wall carpeting and glaring up at his rescuers with crass ingratitude. “This is assault and battery! Miss Ledbetter, call the police.”

“But they were only trying to help you, Mr. Sopwith.”

“Help me? Help me?” To everybody’s embarrassment, the trust officer rolled himself into the fetal position, put both hands over his face, and burst into loud sobs.

Calming him down took quite a while. Winifred lamented the dearth of chamomile tea, Peter recommended a stiff belt of something alcoholic. The secretary shook an assortment of pens and pencils out of a pottery mug that sat on Mr. Sopwith’s desk, took a bottle of brandy from a file cabinet, and half-filled the mug. The brandy helped some, but it was the hint Lawyer Debenham dropped about plea bargaining that finally brought Sopwith around.

“Er—um. If I might just have another wee drop of—thank you, Miss Ledbetter. I—er—hope you people haven’t drawn a false conclusion from my little—ah—misadventure just now. What happened was that I had one of my asthma attacks. They come upon me unawares, suddenly, without warning. Don’t they, Miss Ledbetter?”

“Um—ah—oh yes. One minute Mr. Sopwith’s bright as a button, next thing you know he’s gasping like a blowfish. So he jumps up on a chair and sticks his head out the ventilator to get a breath of fresh air. I’m always having to haul him down.”

“Ugh—er—” Sopwith shot her a baleful glance. “It’s quite a joke between us. Miss Ledbetter, have we received that report yet on the sale of Miss Binks’s Lackovites shares?”

“The—her Lackovites shares, Mr. Sopwith?”

“Certainly her Lackovites shares. I specifically told you to get hold of that broker again and demand to know why the sale had been held up. It’s not like you to forget, Miss Ledbetter.”

“No, Mr. Sopwith. I don’t forget.”

The words were not spoken with the subservient respect a trust officer of the old school might expect from his female underling. Sopwith winced. Winifred pounced.

“Miss Ledbetter, it does not appear to me that Mr. Sopwith is evincing any symptoms of asthma. What he is doing is trying to make you take what I believe is called the rap for his own derelictions. If you are not involved in his chicanery, it would be an insult to womanhood for you to let yourself be manipulated in this demeaning and underhanded manner. It would also, I should point out, put you in an extremely sticky position. Now would you care to tell us the truth, or do you prefer to take your chances?”