No Comebacks

'Gold? Diamonds?' asked Armitage senior.

'No, I examined all these possibilities and after intensive inquiries ruled them out. Then I found myself thinking of another kind of commodity of great value but relatively small bulk. I consulted the firm of Johnson Matthey, dealers in precious metals. And I found it.'

'The money?' chorused the three Armitages together.

'The answer,' said Miller. Enjoying his moment he drew from his attache case a wad of pieces of paper. 'These constitute sales documents for the purchase by Mr Hanson from Johnson Matthey of two hundred and fifty fifty-ounce ingots of high-grade 99.95 per cent pure platinum.'

There was a stunned silence round the table.

'It was not, frankly, a very clever ruse,' said Mr Miller with some regret. 'The buyer may have destroyed all record of his purchases, but obviously the vendor would not destroy his records of the sales. And here they are.'

'Why platinum?' queried Pound faintly.

'That's interesting. Under the present Labour government you need a licence to purchase and hold gold. Diamonds are instantly identifiable within the trade and not nearly as easy to dispose of as one would gather from some ill-informed thriller fiction. Platinum does not need a licence, is presently about the same value as gold, and apart from rhodium is one of the most valuable metals in the world. When he bought the metal he paid the free market price of five hundred American dollars per fine ounce.'

'How much did he spend?' asked Mrs Armitage.

'Nigh on the whole three million pounds he had secured for all his worldly goods,' said Miller. 'In US dollars — and his market is always calculated in US dollars — six and a quarter million dollars; twelve and a half thousand ounces in all. Or, as I said, two hundred and fifty ingots each of fifty fine ounces weight.'

'Where did he take them all?' Armitage senior demanded.

'To his manor in Kent,' said Miller. He was enjoying his moment and was aware with anticipatory pleasure that he had more to reveal.

'But I have been there,' protested Pound.

'With a lawyer's eye. Mine is that of an investigator,' said Miller. 'And I knew what I was looking for. So I did not start with the house, but with the outbuildings. Are you aware that Mr Hanson had an extremely well-equipped carpentry workshop in a former barn behind the stables?'

'Certainly,' said Pound. 'It was his hobby.'

'Precisely,' said Miller. 'And it was here I concentrated my efforts. The place had been scrupulously cleaned; vacuum-cleaned.'

'Possibly by Richards, the chauffeur/handyman,' said Pound.

'Possibly, but probably not. Despite the cleaning, I observed stains on the floorboards and had some splinters analysed. Diesel fuel. Pursuing a hunch, I thought of some kind of machine, an engine perhaps. It's small enough market and I found the answer within a week. Last May Mr Hanson bought a powerful diesel-fuelled electric generator and installed it in his workshop. He disposed of it for scrap just before he died.'

'To operate his power tools, no doubt,' said Pound.

'No, the ring main was strong enough for that. To operate something else. Something that needed enormous power. In another week I had traced that too. A small, modern and very efficient furnace. It too is long gone, and I have no doubt the ladles, asbestos gloves and tongs have been dumped at the bottom of some lake or river. But, I think I may say I was a little more thorough than Mr Hanson. Between two floorboards, jammed out of sight and covered by compacted sawdust, no doubt just where it had fallen during his operations, I discovered this.'

It was his piece de resistance and he drew out the moment. From his case he took a white tissue and slowly unwrapped it. From inside he held up a thin sliver of congealed metal that glittered in the light, the sort of sliver that must have dribbled down the side of a ladle, coagulated and dropped off. Miller waited while all stared at it.

'I have had it analysed of course. It is high-grade 99.95 per cent pure platinum.'

'You have traced the rest?' whispered Mrs Armitage.

'Not yet, madam, but I shall. Have no fear. You see Mr Hanson made one great mistake in selecting platinum. It has one property that he must have underestimated and yet which is quite unique. Its weight. Now at least we know what we are looking for. A wooden crate of some kind, apparently innocent to look at, but — and this is the point — weighing just under half a ton ..

Mrs Armitage threw back her head and uttered a strange raucous cry like the howl of a wounded animal. Miller jumped a foot. Mr Armitage dropped his head forward into his hands. Tarquin Armitage rose to his feet, his spotty complexion brick red with rage, and screamed, 'That bloody bastard.'

Martin Pound stared unbelievingly at the startled private investigator. 'Good Lord,' he said. 'Oh, my goodness me. He actually took it with him.'

Two days later Mr Pound informed the Inland Revenue of the full facts of the case. They checked the facts and, albeit with an ill grace, declined to pursue.

Barney Smee walked happily and with a brisk pace towards his bank, confident he would just get there before they closed for the Christmas holiday. The reason for his pleasure was tucked inside his breast pocket: a cheque for a quite substantial sum, but only the last of a series of such cheques that over the past few months had ensured him a much higher income than he had ever managed to earn in twenty years in the risky business of dealing in scrap metals for the jewellery industry.

He had been right, he congratulated himself, to take the risk, and it had undeniably been a high one. Still, everyone was in the tax-dodging business nowadays and who was he to condemn the source of good fortune simply because the man had wished to deal only in cash? Barney Smee had no difficulty in understanding the silver-haired investor who called himself Richards and had a driving licence to prove it. The man evidently had bought his 50-ounce ingots years before, when they were cheap. To have sold them on the open market through Johnson Matthey would beyond doubt have secured him a higher price, but at what cost in capital gains tax? Only he could have known and Barney Smee was not one to probe.