The inspector-general turned the page, checked the bottom line of the charge sheet in front of him and reread the words: Hanged by the neck until dead. He looked back up at Daniel.
“A heart attack,” he said.
CHAPTER
31
Daniel took the sleeper back to Sydney but he didn’t sleep. All he wanted to do was get as far away from Melbourne as he possibly could. As every mile slipped by he relaxed a little more, and after a time was even able to eat half a sandwich from the buffet car. When the train pulled into the station of Australia’s largest city he jumped off, loaded his trunk into a taxi and headed straight for the port. He booked himself on the first boat sailing to the west coast of America.
The tiny tramp steamer, only licensed to carry four passengers, sailed at midnight for San Francisco, and Daniel wasn’t allowed on board until he had handed over to the captain the full fare in cash, leaving himself just enough to get back to England—as long as he wasn
’t stranded anywhere on the way.
During that bobbing, swaying, endless crossing back to America Daniel spent most of his time lying on a bunk, which gave him easily enough time to consider what he should do with the information he now possessed. He also tried to come to terms with the anxieties his mother must have suffered over the years and what a fine man his stepfather was. How he hated the word “stepfather.” He would never think of Charlie that way. If only they had taken him into their confidence from the beginning he could surely have used his talents to help rather than waste so much of his energy trying to find out the truth. But he was now even more painfully aware that he couldn’t let them become aware of what he had discovered, as he probably knew more than they did.
Daniel doubted that his mother realized that Trentham had died in jail leaving a string of disgruntled debtors across Victoria and New South Wales. Certainly there had been no indication of that on the gravestone in Ashurst.
As he stood on the deck and watched the little boat bob along on its chosen course under the Golden Gate and into the bay, Daniel finally felt a plan beginning to take shape.
Once he had cleared immigration he took a bus into the center of San Francisco and booked himself back into the hotel at which he had stayed before traveling on to Australia. The porter produced two remaining cards and Daniel handed over the promised ten-dollar note. He scribbled something new and posted them both before boarding the Super Chief.
With each hour and each day of solitude his ideas continued to develop although it still worried him how much more information his mother must have that he still daren’t ask her about. But now at least he was certain that his father was Guy Trentham and had left India or England in disgrace. The fearsome Mrs. Trentham must therefore be his grandmother, who had for some unknown reason blamed Charlie for what had happened to her son.
On arriving in New York Daniel was exasperated to find that the Queen Mary had sailed for England the previous day. He transferred his ticket to the Queen Elizabeth, leaving himself with only a few dollars in cash. His final action on American soil was to telegraph his mother with an estimated time of arrival at Southampton.
Daniel began to relax for the first time once he could no longer see the Statue of Liberty from the stern of the ocean liner. Mrs. Trentham, however, remained constantly in his thoughts during the five-day journey. He couldn’t think of her as his grandmother and when the time came to disembark at Southampton he felt he needed several more questions answered by his mother before he would be ready to carry out his plan.
As he walked down the gangplank and back onto English soil he noticed that the leaves on the trees had turned from green to gold in his absence. He intended to have solved the problem of Mrs. Trentham before they had fallen.
His mother was there on the dockside waiting to greet him. Daniel had never been more happy to see her, giving her such a warm hug that she was unable to hide her surprise. On the drive back to London he learned the sad news that his other grandmother had died while he had been in America and although his mother had received several postcards she couldn’t remember the name of either of the professors he had said he was visiting so she had been unable to contact him to pass on the news. However, she had enjoyed receiving so many postcards.
“There are some more still on their way, I suspect,” said Daniel, feeling guilty for the first time.
“Will you have time to spend a few days with us before you return to Cambridge?”
“Yes. I’m back a little earlier than I expected, so you could be stuck with me for a few weeks.”
“Oh, your father will be pleased to hear that.”
Daniel wondered how long it would be before he could hear anyone say “your father” without a vision of Guy Trentham forming in his mind.
“What decision did you come to about raising the money for the new building?”
“We’ve decided to go public,” said his mother. “In the end it was a case of simple arithmetic. The architect has completed the outline plan, and of course your father wants the best of everything, so I’m afraid the final cost is likely to be nearer a half a million pounds.”
“And are you still able to keep fifty-one percent of the new company?”
“Only just, because based on those figures it’s going to be tight. We could even end up having to pawn your great grandfather’s barrow.”
“And the flats—any news of them?” Daniel was gazing out of the car window for his mother’s reaction in the reflection of the glass. She seemed to hesitate for a moment.
“The owners are carrying out the council’s instructions and have already begun knocking down what remains of them.”
“Does that mean Dad is going to be granted his planning permission?”
“I hope so, but it now looks as if it might take a little longer than we’d originally thought as a local resident—a Mr. Simpson on behalf of the Save the Small Shops Federation—has lodged an objection to our scheme with the council. So please don’t ask about it when you see your father. The very mention of the flats brings him close to apoplexy.”
“And I presume it’s Mrs. Trentham who is behind this Mr. Simpson?” was all Daniel wanted to say but simply asked, “And how’s the wicked Daphne?”