Читать книгу The Carson Loan Mystery - Aidan de Brune - Страница 7

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THE SUMMONS to the Balmain and South Assurance Company astonished the investigator. He had laughed when Harry Sutherland affirmed he would be involved, officially, in the Little Bay Murder, within a short time. Now had come a request to attend the managing director of the largest and wealthiest of the companies retaining his services. That request had been coupled with the direct intimation that the Little Bay Murder would be the subject of the interview.

Leaving his offices, abruptly, Rugh went down to the assurance company in Elizabeth Street. Wilbur Orchard was awaiting him, striding agitatedly up and down his room. When Rugh entered the private office he came to meet him with outstretched hand.

"Glad you were able to come right away," he said, curtly. "I rang up directly I knew the tangle we were in. Sit down, Mr. Thornton."

Rugh looked curiously at the managing director of the Balmain and South. Although that company was a prominent member of the syndicate he served, this was the first time he had come in touch with Wilbur Orchard, its controlling genius. He saw a short, thickset man of about fifty years of age. The face was square, clean-shaven, and dominated by a forceful chin. Prominent eyebrows, thickly sprinkled with grey, shaded keen grey-blue eyes. The forehead was high, and surmounted by closely cropped hair, almost white.

"Curiously, I have been making a few enquiries into the Little Bay Murder this morning," replied Rugh.

Wilbur Orchard turned abruptly to face the assurance investigator.

"What for?"

"A journalist friend is on the case for his newspaper. His statements of certain aspects of the case aroused my curiosity." Rugh spoke formally. He rather resented the autocratic tone of the question.

"That all?" Wilbur Orchard crossed to his desk and sat down. "Sorry if I am somewhat abrupt this morning. Had some news that upset me."

"I presume it is because of that news you sent for me?"

"Yes." Wilbur Orchard fumbled on his desk for a few moments. Then he passed a postcard-size photograph across to Rugh. "Know that woman?"

"Ruth Collins, the woman who was murdered two days ago on the sandhills at Little Bay." Rugh smiled, and produced from his pocket a similar photograph. "I am curious to know where you obtained your copy of the photograph, Mr. Orchard. When I was given my copy I was informed only a few copies had been printed."

"Never mind that. Yes, I will tell you. I sent over to the Inspector-General for it."

"You must have had a very strong reason for so unusual an action," commented Rugh.

"I had. I believe this company is to be the object of a deliberate fraud."

"Is to be," repeated Rugh. "Then any scheme to defraud has not yet been put in operation?"

"Not so far as we are aware of." Wilbur Orchard picked up a panel photograph from his desk and handed it to the assurance investigator. "Do you know that woman?"

It was the portrait of a girl in her early twenties. Rugh thought he had never seen a more beautiful face. The steadfast eyes looked out from a pure, oval face, framed in a wealth of wavy hair drawn low over the forehead. A slender, rounded, neck held the beautiful head proudly on well-shaped shoulders. The dress was short, revealing graceful legs, slender ankles, and well-formed feet.

"No." Rugh surrendered the photograph, reluctantly. "If your story connects these two photographs it will be, indeed, strange."

"It does." Wilbur Orchard leaned forward across his desk, drumming on the wood with the tips of his fingers. "Are these photographs of the same woman?"

Rugh looked up, startled.

"What exactly do you mean, Mr. Orchard?" he asked, deliberately.

"Answer my question. Would you take these photographs to be of the same person?"

"No." The assurance investigator spoke emphatically. "No sane person would suggest such a thing."

"I believe within a very short time such a claim will be made on this office." Wilbur Orchard smiled grimly as he spoke. "In fact, I have received information to that effect."

"You wish me to understand a claim will be made on this office for an assurance on Ruth Collins, the woman murdered at Little Bay?" asked Rugh, incredulously. "You know the history of that woman?"

"The Inspector-General sent over certain details. Her husband is a carpenter. She left him, lived with other men up to the time or her death. Do you know more?"

"No. You have all the information at present available. Such a woman would hardly be assured for a sum worth fighting about?"

"Do you call two hundred thousand pounds a trifle, Mr. Thornton?" Wilbur Orchard uttered the words in a low tone.

"Two hundred thousand pounds!" Rugh stared at the managing director amazedly. "Do you mean to say that woman was assured in your office to that amount?"

"I have not made such a statement." Wilbur Orchard became peculiarly calm. "I said a claim for that amount will probably be made on this company, within a few days. Perhaps I had better tell you the story in proper sequence. I intend to fight that claim, with your assistance, Thornton."

Turning to a wall safe behind his chair, Wilbur Orchard took out a bundle of papers, and opened them on his desk.

"Twelve years ago the Balmain and South Assurance Company was young and struggling." commenced the managing director. "We had only a small capital and assurance was difficult to write. Money was scarce at that time. It became necessary to raise a sum of fifty thousand pounds. Applications to the banks were unsuccessful. A financial house offered an accommodation, but the terms were extortionate. We had almost decided, however, we must accept these terms when an offer of the sum we required came from a private source."

The assurance director turned over the papers on his desk and selected a legal looking document.

"The offer came from a Mr. Colin Carson, of Roxine Chambers, Pitt Street, Sydney. He described himself as a financier. The offer was a good one."

Again Wilbur Orchard paused, and consulted the document he held.

"The terms were extremely good," he continued. "Unusual in some particulars. I will grant, but faced with the alternative of paying nearly seven times the interest per annum and hampering conditions, from the financial house we had been negotiating with, my fellow directors agreed with me that our best course was to close immediately with Mr. Carson's offer, and ignore anything unusual."

"Wait," exclaimed Wilbur Orchard, as Rugh was about to speak. "There was a condition Mr. Carson insisted on having inserted in the deed, although we assured him we did not require the money for more than a few months; six at the outside. He stipulated that if the money was not repaid to him, personally, or to his heirs, personally, on the due date, the interest should automatically increase by one per cent for every year the loan was outstanding, and interest at the same rate be paid on all interest due."

"The interest for the second year would be seven per cent.," suggested Rugh.

"Precisely. For the third year, eight per cent., and so on. Of course, a like interest would be payable on the interest outstanding."

"Your directors made no objection to so unusual a condition?" asked Rugh.

"We never contemplated the possibility of the loan standing longer than twelve months," replied Orchard.

"From your remarks I judge the loan has not yet been repaid," said Rugh. "With a company as financially strong as the Balmain and South I am surprised. The interest to-day must be very large."

"Last years interest on the accumulated sum of the loan was at the rate of seventeen per cent. As you have stated, the loan has never been repaid."

"For what reason, Mr. Orchard?"

"The absence of the lender. He disappeared. At the end of the first twelve months I wrote to the address given in the deed, informing Mr. Carson the company proposed to repay the loan on due date."

"Yes?"

"That letter was returned to me, by the Postal authorities, marked 'addressee unknown.'"