Trouble Brewing Read Free Page A

though.’
    â€˜Me too. This case is growing on me, Bill.’
    He stopped as the red-headed man who had been talking to Gregory Jaggard stood up and, seeing Jack, started in pleased surprise and came across the room.
    â€˜It’s Meredith Smith,’ said Jack in a low voice. ‘He’s an old pal.’
    Meredith Smith greeted Jack warmly. ‘I haven’t seen you in absolutely ages, Jack. The funny thing is, I was going to look you up.’
    Jack bowed to the inevitable. ‘Take a pew, Merry. This is William Rackham of Scotland Yard and this, Bill, is Captain Meredith Smith.’
    â€˜Pleased to meet you,’ said Smith, tidying his gangly limbs into a chair. ‘Excuse me butting in, won’t you? I’m at a bit of a loose end. Scotland Yard, eh? My guv’nor was in the police over in Hong Kong.’ He looked at Jack, steepling his fingers together. ‘I can do the Sherlock Holmes stunt as well, you know. And I deduce, my dear Watson, that you had a letter today inviting you to a certain house in Belgravia to investigate the disappearance of one Mark Helston.’
    Jack and Bill stared at Meredith Smith in astonishment.
    â€˜How on earth d’you know that?’ asked Jack.
    â€˜You know my methods,’ said Smith with a laugh. ‘To come clean, I wrote the letter. How d’you get on in your audience with H.R.H.?’
    â€˜With the King?’
    â€˜Idiot! Harold Rushton Hunt, commonly referred to as H.R.H., also known to minions, such as myself, as The Boss. Nice old boy, isn’t he?’
    â€˜Very. But look here, Merry, old fruit, I thought you worked for the Chicago and Mid-Western Bank.’
    â€˜You’re behind the times. They wanted me to move to Detroit or somewhere equally foul, and I wasn’t having it at any price. Things were said on both sides and we came to a parting of the ways. After a couple of months of wondering where the next three squares were coming from, I was beginning to think Detroit might not be such a bad notion after all, when, like an angel from heaven, I received an invitation from H.R.H. to pop round and see him. I duly popped, with such satisfactory results that you are now, I’m glad to say, looking at the chief financial wizard and general factotum of Hunt Coffee Limited.’
    â€˜Well done. Er . . . what on earth made him pick you?’
    Meredith Smith’s eyebrows rose. ‘You could find a more flattering way to phrase that.’ He laughed. ‘Actually, I wondered as much myself when I got the letter. Believe it or not, I’m related to him.’
    â€˜Good grief! Are you?’
    Smith nodded. ‘Yes. There was always a sort of cloud over it at home, so I never knew the ins and outs of it, but my grandmother was H.R.H.’s sister, Enid. She married my grandfather, who was also called Meredith Smith, but she abandoned the family and ran off with Jonathan Burbage, the actor-manager chap. Having seen a photo of Grandfather Smith, I don’t know if I blame her. He seems to be all beard and whiskers. Jonathan Burbage owned a string of theatres and was quite disgustingly rich. It was their daughter who was Mark’s mother. I didn’t have a clue about any of this. I thought my grandmother had died long before I was born.’
    He laughed. ‘The funny thing is, that as far as H.R.H. is concerned, it could have happened yesterday. He pumped my hand, and asked me to overlook the grave injury his family had caused mine and all that. Well, what with not knowing the first thing about it, and having to go and fight the Great War and being rather more concerned with finding some way of keeping body and soul together, I hadn’t done a frightful amount of brooding on the flighty goings-on of my grandmother in 1880 or thereabouts. After I worked out what he was talking about, I said not to worry, it was all water under the bridge and all that. H.R.H. brightened up and told me