He was once again all professional formality. “Mrs Pargeter, that is not a word whose use I can condone in relation to my clients.”
“What word do you prefer then? Illegal? Illicit? Felonious? Crooked?” Mrs Pargeter grinned. “Do stop me when you hear one whose use you can condone.”
Mr Fisher-Metcalf cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, perhaps one could say that Chris Dover was then at a stage when he was still… er, finding his way in life.”
“All right. Let’s say that. We both know what we mean, after all, don’t we?” She paused as a new idea struck her. “Ooh, I’ve just had a thought… Did Chris Dover pay to put you through law school?”
The solicitor shifted uncomfortably and Mrs Pargeter knew that she had again stumbled on the truth. The late Mr Pargeter had done the same thing – that’s what had made her think of it.
In spite of the demands of his many and varied activities, her husband had always found time for charity. He had put two young men and one young woman through law school and philanthropically continued to support them by keeping them continuously in work from the moment they had qualified as solicitors. It was clear that Chris Dover had also seen the two-way benefits to be achieved by training his own tame lawyer.
“Yes, I understand,” said Mrs Pargeter. “You were with him all the way. You knew all about his business dealings, didn’t you?”
“I can assure you,” he began, a little of his bluster reasserting itself, “that from the time of Mr Dover’s setting up his company in 1963, nothing occurred that would not withstand the most detailed scrutiny by any kind of investigating authority you care to mention.”
“No. I’m sure. Though the same couldn’t be said of his activities before 1963.”
A sly look came into Mr Fisher-Metcalf’s eyes. “Of that period, I’m afraid, there are no records that could be investigated.”
“No, there wouldn’t be, would there? Still, you can talk to me about that period, can’t you?”
“I’m not sure that it would be proper for –”
Mrs Pargeter pointed to the papers on his desk. “Would it be more ‘proper’ for the police to read what ‘Pincer’ Cartwright and ‘Dumptruck’ Donnellan had to say about the Harry Thackeray case?”
He knew she held all the cards. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know about Chris Dover’s early life.”
“He was brought up in Uruguay.”
“I know that. I want more detail.”
Mr Fisher-Metcalf spread his hands apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t have any more detail. He never talked about it.”
“Never?”
“Not a single word.”
Mrs Pargeter reckoned that the solicitor was telling the truth. Conchita had said the same thing, after all.
“You said that all records of his early years in London have been destroyed?”
Even with his back against the wall, the solicitor did not abandon his professional tendency towards nit- picking. “I said in fact that there are no records that could be investigated.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Oh yes,” he replied with the satisfaction of the nitpicker rewarded. “Oh yes.”
“So you mean that there were records?”
“For those who knew where to look for them, yes.”
Mrs Pargeter had had enough of this coyness. “You’re saying you have got records of Chris Dover’s gun- running then?”
He winced at this indecorously specific mention of the crime. “Well… Yes, certain details were noted down, but… er, not in a way that many people would be able to understand them.”
“In shorthand, you mean?”
“Not shorthand, no.”
Mrs Pargeter picked up the papers on his desk and reasserted her dominance. “Listen, you tell me exactly what you mean or this lot goes straight to the police!”
He looked like an Islamic Fundamentalist who had just been made to swallow a large Scotch. “Oh, very well.”
“So how did Chris Dover keep these records?”
“If there was ever something that he needed to send me, some information that he wanted kept secret, he would hide it on a totally innocuous document.”
“Hide it? In code?”
“Not code, no. What he would do was send me a letter about something totally mundane, an acknowledgement of a letter from me, that kind of thing… but the important information would be written on the back.”
Suddenly a whole sequence of logic clicked into place in Mrs Pargeter’s mind. “In invisible ink?” she breathed softly.
“Effectively, yes. Chris knew a certain amount about chemistry, I think he’d experimented with it as a child. And he found out that he could write something in one chemical which was completely invisible until it was washed over with a solution of another chemical.”
Her violet blue eyes sparkled. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“The chemical he used for the writing was phenolphthalein,” said Mr Fisher-Metcalf, “and the solution which had to be washed over it to bring out the information was –”
“Sodium carbonate,” said Mrs Pargeter.
? Mrs Pargeter’s Package ?
Twenty-Seven
Mr Fisher-Metcalf gaped in surprise, but Mrs Pargeter didn’t give him time to respond. Her mind was moving too quickly to be delayed by pedestrian explanations.
“Listen, Chris Dover left a letter for his wife, didn’t he? A letter that was to be given to her after his death?”
“Now I’m not sure that –”
“I know he did. Joyce mentioned it to me.”
“Oh.”
“By the way, did you know that Joyce was dead?”
“I had been informed, yes. It’s very sad, isn’t it?” he said with formality untinged by sincerity.
“What’s sad?”
“That someone could be in so reduced a state, have such low self-esteem, actually to get to the point of killing themselves.”
Mrs Pargeter didn’t contest this interpretation of the death. She knew she should minimise the number of people with whom she shared her suspicions. It was interesting, though, to see how quickly Sergeant Karaskakis’ version of events had become the accepted one, even before it had been officially sanctioned.
“Yes, very sad,” she agreed briskly. “Did Joyce stand to inherit a lot of money?”
“Well…”
Mr Fisher-Metcalf had come over all cautious and solicitorlike again, but Mrs Pargeter wasn’t standing for any of that. “Come on, what was Chris Dover worth?”
“He was an extremely wealthy man.”
“So Joyce was a very wealthy woman and would have been even wealthier after his death?” And yet, Mrs Pargeter mused, she still chose a relatively cheap package tour to Corfu as a holiday.
“Well…” Mr Fisher-Metcalf started to equivocate again.
“There wasn’t anything funny about the will? She would have got the lot?”
“The bulk of the estate, certainly.”
