Trustee From the Toolroom (7 page)

Keith sat down heavily, loosening his muffler. 'It's terrible,' he muttered. 'I never thought anything like this could happen.'

'We must hope that it isn't true,' the solicitor said. 'I thought it was sufficiently serious to ask you to come up, though. I didn't want to read this out to you upon the telephone.'

Keith said, 'Thank you, sir.'

He raised his eyes. ' I've got their daughter staying with us in the flat,' he said. 'I'll have to tell her, won't I?'

' How old is she ? Twelve, is it ?'

'Ten. Only ten.'

The solicitor tightened his lips. 'If it's true, she'll have to be told some time, Mr Stewart,' he said. ' I should talk it over with your wife. When you've had time to think this over for a little you may decide it's better to wait until the news is definite.'

Keith asked, 'You think it's definite now, don't you? I mean, you think they've been drowned?'

'I think the Governor thinks it's definite,' Mr Carpenter said carefully. ' I don't think that he would have cabled quite in those terms unless he was fairly sure.'

Keith laid the cable down upon the desk. 'It's got to happen to us all, some day,' he said. ' It's when it happens suddenly, to your own people, it comes as a bit of a blow.'

'I know.'

The solicitor picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk. 'I don't know if you want to talk about the future just now, Mr Stewart, or if you would rather come up again when we know more. If, unhappily, your sister and her husband should be dead, a new set of circumstances comes into being, as you probably know.'

'I know they wanted us to take care ofJanice if anything happened,' Keith said. 'It might be better if we talk about that now.'

' You know the contents of their wills ?'

' I think so. They wanted me to be trustee or something. I said I would.'

'Yes. That was at our previous meeting, in this office. It was after that meeting that I drew up these wills.' He handled them upon the desk before him. 'They are very simple wills, Mr Stewart. I don't think I should show them to you till the deaths are established, but as you are already acquainted with the most important features I think we can discuss what may arise from them.' He paused. 'Both wills are in identical terms, as perhaps you know. That seems to make it immaterial which spouse died first. Each will leaves the entire estate to the surviving spouse. If the spouse should be already dead, then the entire estate passes to the daughter Janice, to be held in trust for her until she attains the age of twenty-five. You are appointed the sole trustee, and you and I are appointed joint executors to the wills. In consideration of your trusteeship, you are to receive the sum of one thousand pounds from the estate.' He paused.' If the daughter should decease before the expiration of the trust, or if she should be already dead, you receive the same legacy of one thousand pounds, but the balance of the estate passes back to the Dungannon family.'

' That means, I'd have to sort of look after the money for her and give it her when she gets to be twenty-five, does it ?'

' That is correct, Mr Stewart. Both wills name you as the guardian of the child Janice and both wills appoint you as die sole trustee. You would have to invest the money for her in certain selected securities that we call Trustee Stocks, and you would devote the interest to her education and general benefit during the period of the trust. In case of necessity you have power to realize some of the capital for her benefit.'

'I've never had to do anything like that before,' Keith said doubtfully.

The solicitor nodded. 'You may need a little help. I realize that. If you have confidence in your own solicitor he would be the best person to assist you. Otherwise, I should be glad to.'

Mr Cannon had made a nice little model of the Burrell traction engine, but privately Keith did not think that he had handled the purchase of the house at Baling any too well. It had taken a long time and there had been trouble with the Council over the alterations, which might not have

been his fault. ' I'd be grateful, if it's not putting you out.' He meant, if the scale of the business was worth the time of a man like Mr Carpenter. 'Do you know how much money there might be ?'

The solicitor turned over the papers on his desk. ' I hold a power of attorney both for your sister and for her husband,' he said. ' I know of-three bank accounts. Your sister has an account at Southsea, your brother-in-law has one at Alverstoke, and he has another at the head office of the bank here in London, in Throgmorton St. When I began to get troubled about their non arrival at Tahiti I wrote to all three banks for a statement of account and a list of securities that they might be holding on behalf of my clients, using the power of attorney.'

He paused. 'The Throgmorton St office report a credit balance of fifty-six pounds eighteen shillings and four-pence,' he said. 'Your brother-in-law's account at Alverstoke is three pounds four shillings and tenpence in credit. Your sister's account in Southsea shows a debit balance -. that is to say, an overdraft — of four pounds sixteen shillings and fivepence. Adding those up, there seems to be a total credit balance of fifty-five pounds six shillings and nine-pence. All three banks state that they are holding no securities.'

Keith stared at him. 'But that's daft! I mean, they've got more than fifty-five pounds!'

' I have always imagined so, myself,' said Mr Carpenter. ' I must say, at the moment I am perplexed. Do you know of any other bank accounts that they might have had, or where they might have deposited their securities ?'

Keith shook his head. 'They never talked of things like that. Not to me, anyway.'

'Oh. I had hoped that you might have the answer.' The .solicitor paused in thought. 'I have a number of Commander Dermott's papers in my keeping,' he remarked. 'When he gave up his flat he left a suitcase full of receipts and correspondence with me, with instructions to send it to him later on in Canada, or wherever he decided to settle. Probably I shall find the answer in that.' He thought for a moment. 'He certainly told me that the contents were receipts and correspondence. But probably the share certificates themselves are there. I shall have to look and see.'

'That's where they'll be,' said Keith. 'Do you\know how much money they might have left? I mean, if they
are
dead?'

'Commander Dermott gave me to understand that the estate would be between twenty and twenty-five thousand pounds.'

'That's about what I thought,' said Keith.

They left it that they would meet again when Mr Carpenter had received further news from the Administration in Papeete, by which time he hoped to have found the missing securities. Keith lunched absent-mindedly in a Lyons cafeteria, and went back all the way to Baling down Oxford Street, through Netting Hill Gate and Shepherd's Bush, on top of a bus, deeply troubled in his mind. He had loved his sister though in recent years he had seen little of her, and he had felt honoured when John Dermott had suggested that he should be their trustee and guardian of their daughter, rather than one of their naval friends or one of their relations in Northern Ireland. They had chosen him, he knew, because of his stable life, because he was always there, in the same place, with the same wife, doing the same things; the Dungannons fell in and out of marriage with the greatest alacrity and
savoirfaire;
their naval friends were apt to uproot and go to Kenya or Hong Kong. They knew that through wars and rumours of war, whatever happened in the greater world, Keith Stewart would go on living at ' No. 56 Somerset Road, Baling, because his workshop was there, built up and established over the years. To uproot all his machine tools and remove the whole of his equipment to another house would mean a dislocation to his work that was unthinkable. He was anchored firmly in the same place by his workshop, and by his own inclinations.

He got back to his house an hour before Janice was due back from school, his mind full of his little niece. If her parents were indeed dead, they would have to tell her, but he could not imagine how they were going to do it. Katie might have some ideas; Katie was good with children. His mind ranged on beyond the bad half-hour to the part that he could play. Janice would have to have something to play with, to take her mind off death. A doll's house ? She · already had one, and was getting a bit old for it. A bicycle ? Not old enough, and children didn't seem to have them nowadays, perhaps because of the traffic. A scooter ? Somerset Road was a quiet by-street that carried no through traffic; she could use a scooter there and be in no danger, and it would take her out of doors, and keep her warm. His rnind ranged over the job. He had a couple of eight-inch, rubber-tyred wheels left over from a little traction engine passenger truck, and he could bore them out to take a ball race each side. Inch-and-a-quarter steel tube for the steering head, parallel five-eighths tubes for the frame; he could braze that up in no time. Make the handlebars first, because they would have to be chrome plated. He had some red paint for the rest of it, which would make it look gay. He went down to the workshop directly he got home and took the little bronze sphere of the automatic pilot from the bench and packed it carefully away in rags in an old cigar box with its tiny transistor rectifier and the delicate relays, clearing the decks for a more mundane job, and started work upon the handlebars. Better to work at something than to sit thinking of Joanna and their childhood together in the Renfrew streets.

When
Janice came in he
suggested that she should draw a farm with all the animals for him, and he took her down with him to the workshop and settled her down at his desk with a large sheet of paper, clearing away letters from Cornwall and Colchester and California to make a space for her. He went on working at the handlebars, which were too immature as yet to draw her notice, and as he worked he measured her furtively with his eye for the height of the steering head. Thirty-two inches from the ground . . . From time to time he stopped work to admire her picture.

That evening, after Janice was in bed, he told Katie all about it. 'This chap in this place Papeete - the Governor - he thinks they're dead,' he said heavily. 'There's no doubt of that.'

' It might have been some other boat,' she suggested.

'They buried two people,' he replied, 'a man and a woman. On this other island, Maro . . . something or other.'

They looked for it on the atlas unavailingly. 'Ought we to tell her?' he asked.

She shook her head. 'Not now. Wait till we know for sure. She's not old enough for things not being certain.'

'I started to make her a scooter,' he said. 'I'll keep it under cover, all in bits, until we know.'

'That'll be nice for her,' she said. 'She can use it up and down the pavement, not in the road.'

He told her about the missing securities. ' He'll find them, all right,' he said. 'I mean, they must be there somewhere.'

'They couldn't have taken them with them, in the boat?'

'That's possible,' he remarked. 'They might have done that. But then, that wouldn't matter, because they'd still be the owner of the shares in companies in England, or where have you. It just means that the lawyers would have to get copies. Be a bit more expense. The money would be there just the same.'

She did not fully understand this, but let it pass. 'Until it's all squared up, though, there's just fifty-five pounds?'

He nodded. ' Not much to bring her up on, not in the way they'd want. But it'll be all right. The money must be somewhere.'

' It's enough,' she said.' She'd live with us till she's grown up, like as if she was our own kid. I don't want any money with her.'

'Be a bit tight,' he said.

She smiled. 'We'll manage.'

He was content with that; if Katie said that they could manage, it was so. He himself had never cared much about money, or wanted it, or taken any interest in it except so far as it controlled the equipment of his workshop. That was very largely over now; the tools he had would last his lifetime and only minor additions would be necessary from time to time. He was content to take what income he could derive from the work he loved and live on that without complaint; the management of the
Miniature Mechanic
knew all about him and gave him just enough to keep him in a very modest way of life, the finances of their magazine allowing no more. He kept no car, drank very little, and hardly smoked at all. Each year they took a fortnight's summer holiday in Cornwall and went for motorcoach rides, but that was only possible because Katie worked. She managed all of their finances and saved about a hundred pounds a year for the gradual repayment of the mortgage.

It was a week before Mr Carpenter rang again, again at about ten o'clock in the morning. He said,' I have a further cable from the Governor in Papeete, Mr Stewart. Could you come up and see me again, do you think ?'

Keith said, 'I'll come up right away. Can you tell me what's in the cable?'

'Not very good news, I am afraid.'

'Oh. They're dead, are they?'

' I am afraid so. The vessel that went on the reef at Marokota Island was undoubtedly
Shearwater.
They have some of the clothing from the bodies.'

Keith said dully, Til come up right away, sir.'

He was sitting with the solicitor in Bedford Square an hour and a half later, reading the cable. 'There doesn't seem to be any doubt about it now,' he said. 'This full report he says he's sending - we haven't had that yet, I suppose?'