The Numbered Account (2 page)

‘No, of course he isn't,' Julia said, with perfect good-temper. ‘But I can't marry him because he's your boss, and you're fond of him. I must want
badly
to marry the person I do marry; it wouldn't be fair to them, otherwise—in fact much more unfair than rubbing them off in good time.'

Colin laughed, rather unwillingly, at the flat way in which Julia brought out this piece of wisdom. Suddenly he gave her a kiss.

‘Oh well, you're not actually a hag yet,' he said, ‘even if you are rather a monster! I daresay you'll find a man
you badly want to marry one of these days. Don't leave it too late, though.'

‘Try not to, darling,' Julia said, returning his kiss.

Julia wondered after this conversation whether Colin's gloom had been about her and Hugh Torrens, his chief in the Secret Service, and hoped that having said his piece, the young man might feel better. But he continued abstracted.

The whole party foregathered for tea in the diningroom, which, Julia observed with nostalgic satisfaction, was as gloomy, shabby, and ugly as ever—woodlice still crawled, and died, between the outer panes and the hideous stained glass which defaced the upper half of the windows; the log fire still spat and fizzled ineffectually—though, thanks to the central heating, this made no difference to anyone's comfort. Half-way through the deleteriously ample Scottish meal of two kinds of scone, four different cakes, assorted jams and jellies and honey in the comb, the telephone rang. Philip Reeder had installed an extension in every sitting-room in the house, as well as in his own and Edina's bedroom, instead of the single inconviently-placed instrument in the chilly cloak-room near the front door; he rose from the table and answered the call.

‘Telegram for you, Julia,' he said, and held out the receiver.

Besides putting in all these telephones, that practical man Philip Reeder insisted that there should always be a writing-block and a pencil beside each machine—woe betide his wife if either were ever missing. Both pad and pencil were in place when Julia went over to the table under the woodlice-laden window; she listened, wrote down, questioned, scribbled again—finally she tore the top sheet off the block, and returned to the table.

‘So sorry, Edina. It's from Mrs. H.'

‘Why does Mary Hathaway need to send you such a huge long telegram?' old Mrs. Monro asked.

‘She's ill, Aunt Ellen, and she wants Watkins to go out and look after her; she's afraid of being a trouble to this old Mr. Waechter and his servants.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' Philip Reeder said—he had soon come to share the Monro family's affection for Mrs. Hathaway, always their prop and stay in any trouble. ‘What's wrong with her?'

‘Congestion of the lungs.'

‘There! What did I say?' old Mrs. Monro exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Switzerland
is
unhealthy. I expect poor Mary went into an ice-grotto!'

‘There are no glaciers within forty miles of Gersau, Mother,' Colin put in.

‘Then I expect old Mr. Waechter, who I believe is extremely rich, drove her to one,' his mother said obstinately. Philip put a more practical question to his guest.

‘Why does she wire to you, Julia? Can't Watkins just take a ticket, and go?'

‘Oh no,' his wife hastily told him. ‘Watkins can't bear travelling abroad—that's why Mrs. H. didn't take her along. Julia, I suppose this means that you've got to drag that spoilt old creature out in person, doesn't it? Oh what misery!—when you've only just come. I can't think why anyone has a lady's-maid!'

‘My dear, when they existed they were a great convenience,' her husband told her—‘though this Watkins person sounds rather an unsuitable type, I must say.'

‘Watkins has been with Mary Hathaway for twentyfive years, Philip,' his mother-in-law pronounced—‘and she is a most faithful and excellent servant.'

‘Well, have you got to go out and take her, Julia?' Colin asked—rather to his cousin's surprise.

‘Yes, I'm afraid I must do just that,' Julia said. ‘Edina, I am so sorry. Philip, may I send a telegram? I ought to do it after tea.'

‘Of course. But send it N.L.T., at half the day price,' her host said, with his usual practicality.

‘Fine. I must wire to old Watkins too, and tell her to pack her traps and be ready to start when I come. Oh yes, and I must book a flight from Renfrew. What a bore! I was so happy to be up here again!'

‘I suppose you'll fly?' her host said. ‘Shouldn't you book plane seats to Switzerland too?'

‘Oh no; Watkins will never fly—we must go by train. Yes, of course we must get sleepers.'

‘Where to?' Reeder asked.

‘Berne,' Colin pronounced suddenly. ‘You change there for Lucerne, and then take a steamer on to Gersau.'

‘How do you know all this?' his sister asked him. The young man jerked his thumb out of joint as he replied—‘I just
do
know.'

‘Next assignment Switzerland?' his brother-in-law asked. ‘Sounds as if you'd been mugging it up.'

‘It's coming in very handy for me,' Julia said, as Colin merely shook his head, frowning at this attempt at humour.

After tea much telephoning and sending of telegrams took place: a flight was booked from Renfrew for the following afternoon, Cook's promised sleepers from Calais to Berne two days later; Julia just caught her bank manager and organised traveller's cheques. During all this fuss Colin hung about, silent and preoccupied; when Julia said—‘Well, that's that'—after talking to the bank, he put in a word.

‘What about Watkins's passport?'

‘Oh Lord!—I never thought of that. I don't for a moment suppose she's got one. Will they be shut now? What are we to do? We shan't have much time to rake up a Minister of Religion or a Justice of the Peace to vouch for her.'

‘I think I'd better ring up the office. They will probably be able to fix it.'

‘Could you? Would they?' Julia said, immensely relieved. She was also happily surprised by Colin's helpfulness.

‘I expect so. What's her Christian name?'

‘No idea,' and ‘May,' Julia and Edina said simultaneously.

‘Just May? May Watkins? What a name for that old dragoon.'

‘Yes, May,' Edina repeated firmly. ‘Her mother doted on old Queen Mary. Endless girls in Watkins's generation were called after “Princess May”.'

‘All right—though it sounds pretty silly to me. Now you girls can clear out. I'll tell you what happens.'

Julia and Edina obediently removed themselves; they sat on a new teak seat on the terrace, in the westering sun, looking out over the drifts of daffodils in the rough grass round the lawn, where the pink candles on the great horse-chestnut were just coming into flame—its lower boughs drooped down to the ground.

‘How funny that Colin should lend a hand like this,' Edina said, ‘after being so sour when Philip ragged him about Switzerland.'

‘I was just thinking the same thing,' Julia replied. ‘But anyhow, what a boon! That office of his can fix anything. Still, I do wonder what's behind it—it isn't a bit like him.'

A window was thrown up behind them.

‘Where shall May's passport be sent?' Colin's voice enquired.

‘My flat. No, my club; of course the flat's shut.'

‘That grisly place in Grosvenor Street?'

‘Yes.' The window was slammed down again.

‘Good for him,' Julia said.

Presently Colin appeared on the terrace.

‘All fixed, darling?' Julia asked.

‘Yes, darling darling.'

This was another piece of youthful nonsense, dating from the long happy holiday summers when Colin was at Eton, and Julia at a finishing school in Paris; they used the word ‘darling' then as a sort of call-note, like a bird's special note of alarm, for any secret thing between them. This had irritated old Mrs. Monro even more than their speaking Gaelic at meals, but it warmed Julia to hear Colin use the old silly re-duplication now. And when he said, ‘Come up to the azalea glen—they're all out, and you haven't been yet,' she agreed at once.

‘She ought to pack,' Edina said.

‘Oh, I'll pack tonight.' The two young people went off up the avenue, arm-in-arm.

The azalea glen at Glentoran when in flower is something to see. The banks of a narrow ravine, down which a small burn runs, were planted long ago with azaleas which have grown to an immense size; the great rounded bushes overhang the water, sprawl above the path, below the path, and even encumber the small wooden bridges which here and there span the glen—fallen blossoms are carried away by the clear noisy water. It is a most beautiful place, full of all shades of colour from cream to coral; the scent, with its hint of incense, is almost overpowering. And here, on a rather decrepit wooden seat—Philip Reeder had not yet extended his new teak benches as far as the glen—Colin and Julia sat and talked; and what Julia privately expressed as ‘the nub' emerged.

‘If you're really going to Switzerland anyhow, darling, I thought you mightn't mind doing something.'

‘For you?'

‘Well yes, in a way.' His horrible thumb shot out.

‘Tell,' Julia said comfortably.

‘Yes, I will. It's about Aglaia Armitage. Her father's dead and her mother's no good—she ran off to the Argentine with a Dago tenor even before poor Armitage died, four years ago.'

‘Is Aglaia in Switzerland?' Julia had visions of a girls' school near Lausanne or Ouchy.

‘Oh no. But her grandfather died the other day.'

‘Was he looking after her?'

‘Not much, no—she lived with an aunt in London, her father's sister. But'—Colin paused, and his thumb jerked out again. ‘He left her quite a lot of money, and she ought to be sure of getting it,' he said.

‘Well, can't the will simply be proved, if he left it to her?' Julia asked, puzzled by Colin's obvious anxiety.

‘The money isn't in a will. It's in Switzerland.' He stuck again.

‘Darling, do be a little more clear. Why no will?'

‘Oh, there's a will all right, and she's his heir. But—did you ever hear of numbered accounts?'

‘No. What are they?'

‘Well people all over the world, if they want to have some of their funds safe and sure, put them in Swiss Banks.'

‘Oh, funk-money. Yes, very sensible. I expect masses of Levantines and Armenians and rich ones from those unreliable South American republics have millions stowed away there. But what are these numbered accounts?'

‘Accounts with a number, but no name. Anonymous, you see.'

‘No I don't, quite. Unless somebody in the Bank knows which name is attached to what number, how does Mr. Sophocles Euripides or Senhor Vasco da Gama get his money out when he wants it?'

Colin laughed.

‘I don't know the exact mechanism, but there's some sort of secret record, or code, and the owner can touch his cash in need. Only it's not quite so easy when the person who made the deposit is dead, and that's the case with Aglaia's fortune.'

‘What was her grandfather's name? Armitage? The English do this too, do they?'

‘I wouldn't know. He wasn't English, and his name wasn't Armitage; that was her father.'

‘Then what was the grandfather's name?'

Colin hesitated; he gave a curious youthful giggle of embarrassment before he said—‘Thalassides; Orestes Thalassides.'

‘Oh Lord, not the old shipowner? He must have been worth a packet.'

‘Yes he was. And he did make a will all right, with proper legacies—don't you remember, half a million to Cambridge alone for science fellowships?—and more to various Redbricks. But although the papers called her a great heiress, all that didn't leave an awful lot for Aglaia except this Swiss money. And—' again he checked—‘you see he may not have told the Swiss Bank that she is his heiress.'

‘Won't the will show that?'

‘We hope so, but it isn't dead certain.'

‘If the will makes her his residuary legatee, or whatever they call it, surely she's on velvet?—except for death duties.'

‘That's just the point. The lawyers seem to think that the will may have been left a bit vague for that very reason.'

‘Oh, these smart foreigners! Here are all our own Dukes and peers selling their family portraits to pay those revolting death-duties, and Mr. What's-it-ides puts his dough in a foreign bank to escape paying.'

‘Don't be nasty, J.,' the young man said, mildly and rather sadly.

‘Sorry—no, I won't.' She considered. ‘But Aglaia knows this money has been left to her?'

‘Yes.'

‘And told you?'

‘Yes,' Colin said again, blushing.

Julia pounced, so to speak, on the blush.

‘Colin, are you engaged to Aglaia?'

‘M'm'm—after a fashion.'

‘Is she sweet?' Julia asked, with warm interest.

‘Yes, incredibly sweet. I want to marry her, if only to get her away from this dim aunt she lives with since her mother ran away. Well not ‘if only'—I long to marry her.'

‘Where did you meet her?'

‘Oh, in London, like one does. She knows some cousins of the Macdonalds.' He paused. ‘But you see I've really nothing to marry
on.'

‘Well I suppose you really have Glentoran—though of course you don't want to call that in, with Philip and Edina so blissfully happy here, and making such a go of it.'

‘No, of course I don't, and anyhow I want to go on working. But that doesn't bring in much.'

‘Does that matter, if Aglaia's got plenty?'

‘Only that everyone will think I'm marrying her for her money—which I'm not. I'd marry her if she hadn't a single Swiss centime, if I could support her. And she wants
to marry me,' Colin added guilelessly, ‘so she might just as well have her own cash, since it's there. But you do see, darling, that all that is just why I should like someone like you to go and
aborder
the Swiss Bank. I mean, you know I'm not after her money.'