As the Crow Flies

“Before my time,” I said taking a swig from my beer, “but they still talk about him back at the ministry. Must have been a tough customer if half the stories about him are true.”

“Bloody right,” said Wrexall. “And but for him I’d be a rich man.”

“Really.”

“Oh, yes. You see, I used to own a little property in London before I moved up here. A pub, along with an interest in several shops in Chelsea Terrace, to be exact. He picked the lot up from me during the war for a mere six thousand. If I’d waited another twenty-four hours I could have sold them for twenty thousand, perhaps even thirty.”

“But the war didn’t end in twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, no, I’m not suggesting for one moment that he did anything dishonest, but it always struck me as a little more than a coincidence that having not set eyes on him for years he should suddenly show up in this pub on that very morning.”

Wrexall’s glass was now empty.

“Same again for both of us?” I suggested, hoping that the investment of another half crown might further loosen his tongue.

“That’s very generous of you, sir,” he responded, and when he returned he asked, “Where was I?”

“‘On that very morning…’”

“Oh, yes, Sir Charles—Charlie, as I always called him. Well, he closed the deal right here at this bar, in under ten minutes, when blow me if another interested party didn’t ring up and ask if the properties were still for sale. I had to tell the lady in question that I had just signed them away.”

I avoided asking who “the lady” was, although I suspected I knew. “But that doesn’t prove that she would have offered you twenty thousand pounds for them,” I said.

“Oh, yes, she would,” responded Wrexall. “That Mrs. Trentham would have offered me anything to stop Sir Charles getting his hands on those shops.”

“Great Scott,” I said, once again avoiding the word “why?”

“Oh, yes, the Trumpers and the Trenthams have been at each other’s throats for years, you know. She still owns a block of flats right in the middle of Chelsea Terrace. It’s the only thing that’s stopped him from building his grand mausoleum, isn’t it? What’s more, when she tried to buy Number 1 Chelsea Terrace, Charlie completely outfoxed her, didn’t he? Never seen anything like it in my life.”

“But that must have been years ago,” I said. “Amazing how people go on bearing grudges for so long.”

“You’re right, because to my knowledge this one’s been going on since the early twenties, ever since her posh son was seen walking out with Miss Salmon.”

I held my breath.

“She didn’t approve of that, no, not Mrs. Trentham. We all had that worked out at the Musketeer, and then when the son disappears off to India the Salmon girl suddenly ups and marries Charlie. And that wasn’t the end of the mystery.”

“No.”

“Certainly not,” said Wrexall. “Because none of us are sure to this day who the father was.”

“The father?”

Wrexall hesitated. “I’ve gone too far. I’ll say no more.”

“Such a long time ago, I’m surprised anyone still cares,” I offered as my final effort before draining my glass.

“True enough,” said Wrexall. “That’s always been a bit of a mystery to me as well. But there’s no telling with folks. Well, I must close up now, sir, or I’ll have the law after me.”

“Of course. And I must get back to those cattle.”

Before I returned to Cambridge I sat in the car and wrote down every word I could remember the landlord saying. On the long journey back I tried to piece together the new clues and get them into some sort of order. Although Wrexall had supplied a lot of information I hadn’t known before he had also begged a few more unanswered questions. The only thing I came away from that pub certain of was that I couldn’t possibly stop now.

The next morning I decided to return to the War Office and ask Sir Horace’s old secretary if she knew of any way that one could trace the background of a former serving officer.

“Name?” said the prim middle-aged woman who still kept her hair tied in a bun, a style left over from the war.

“Guy Trentham,” I told her.