The Numbered Account Read Free Page B

Aglaia?’
    â€˜M’m’m—after a fashion.’
    â€˜Is she sweet?’ Julia asked, with warm interest.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Where did you meet her?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜No, of course I don’t, and anyhow I want to go on working. But that doesn’t bring in much.’
    â€˜Does that matter, if Aglaia’s got plenty?’
    â€˜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 wantsto 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.’
    â€˜Of course, darling.’ Julia reflected for a moment, sniffing at a spray of azalea which she had picked off the nearest bush. ‘What I don’t quite see,’ she said then, ‘is why your Aglaia can’t simply go out with a copy of the will in her hand, walk into the Bank, give the secret number, and get the cash. How much is it, by the way?’
    â€˜About half a billion dollars, I believe.’
    â€˜That says nothing to me,’ Julia stated airily. ‘I never can remember if a billion is a hundred million, or a thousand million, or a million million. And anyhow I can’t really think in dollars—‘divide by three’ is what I say when I place an article in America. But it sounds quite a nice little lump sum, whichever it is! Well, why can’t she do what I say?—just go and collect herself?’
    â€˜Well for one thing she’s a minor, under 21; and for another, she doesn’t know the account number.’
    â€˜How ridiculous! Who does? Don’t the lawyers or the executors?’
    â€˜No. It seems these things are kept pretty dark—no one in London has the faintest idea. But there is someone out there who quite certainly does know; her godfather, a Swiss Pastor, who is also her guardian.’
    â€˜Why a Swiss godfather? Oh well, never mind; no odder than a Greek grandfather—all international! Well, can’t she go and get it from him?’
    â€˜Not at the moment, no. For one thing her mother has just sent for her to go and pay a dutiful visit in the Argentine—she’s sailing this week.’
    â€˜Colin, what nonsense! Why must she go to her unpleasant mother?’
    Colin hesitated. ‘Well, it might be a wise move. The lawyers think her mother may have an idea that the numbered account exists—Aglaia has told them, of course—and that if she goes out there it might put the motherand her Dago husband off the scent, and prevent them from trying to get hold of the money. The lawyers have been wondering, and so has Aglaia, how to set things in train in Switzerland in the meantime, very discreetly and quietly, of course—and now that you’re actually going to be out there, it struck me at once that you could have a try. Your lovely silly face is such a help!’
    â€˜Beastly child!’
    â€˜Well, would you?’
    â€˜I don’t see why not, when I’ve got Mrs. H. all settled. It might be rather fun, really—and in Morocco I seemed to have quite a light hand with bankers, like some women have for pastry. Have you got the guardian’s address, who has