Whip Hand

The wax is packed in quarter-kilo tins, and is of the quality used by expert restorers and museum curators.

If you should wish to buy, we are offering the wax at five pounds a tin; and you may be sure that at least threequarters of the revenue goes straight to Research. The wax will be good for your furniture, your contribution will be good for the cause, and with your help there may soon be significant advances in the understanding and control of this killing disease. If you should wish to, please send a donation to the address printed above. (Cheques should be made out to Research into Coronary Disability). You will receive a supply of wax immediately, and the gratitude of future heart patients everywhere.

Yours sincerely,

Executive Assistant

I said 'Phew' to myself, and folded the letter and tucked it into my jacket. Sob stuff; the offer of something tangible in return; and the veiled hint that if you didn't cough up it could one day happen to you. And, according to Charles, the mixture had worked.

The second big box contained several thousand white envelopes, unaddressed. The third was half full of mostly handwritten letters on every conceivable type of writing paper; orders for wax, all saying, among other things, 'cheque enclosed'.

The fourth contained printed Compliments slips, saying that Research into Coronary Disability acknowledged the contribution with gratitude and had pleasure herewith in sending a supply of wax.

The fifth brown box, half empty, and the sixth, unopened and full, contained numbers of flat white boxes about six inches square by two inches deep. I lifted out a white box and looked inside. Contents, one flat round unprinted tin with a firmly screwed-on lid. The lid put up a fight, but I got it off in the end, and found underneath it a soft mid-brown mixture that certainly smelled of polish. I shut it up, returned the tin to its package, and left it out ready to take.

There seemed to be nothing else. I looked into every cra

I picked up the square white box and went back slowly and quietly towards the sitting room, opening the closed doors one by one, and looking at what they concealed. There had been two which Louise had not identified: one proved to be a linen cupboard, and the other a small unfurnished room containing suitcases and assorted junk.

Je

A white bathroom. Huge fluffy towels. Green carpet, green plants. Looking glass on two walls, light and bright. No visible tooth brushes: everything in cupboards, very tidy. Very Je

The snooping habit had ousted too many scruples. With hardly a hesitation I opened Louise's door and put my eyes round, trusting to luck she wouldn't come out into the hall and find me.

Organised mess, I thought. Heaps of papers, and books everywhere. Clothes on chairs. Unmade bed; not surprising, since I'd sprung her out of it.

A washbasin in a corner, no cap on the toothpaste, pair of tights hung to dry. An open box of chocolates. A haphazard scatter on the dressing chest. A tall vase with horsechestnut buds bursting. No smell at all. No long-term dirt, just surface clutter. The blue dressing gown on the floor. Basically the room was furnished much like Ashe's: and one could clearly see where Je

I pulled my head out and closed the door, undetected. Louise, in the sitting room, had been easily sidetracked in her tidying, and was sitting on the floor intently reading a book.

'Oh, hallo,' she said, looking up vaguely as if she had forgotten I was there. 'Have you finished?'

'There must be other papers,' I said. 'Letters, bills, cash books, that sort of thing.'

'The police took them.'

I sat on the sofa, facing her. 'Who called the police in?' I said. 'Was it Je

She wrinkled her forehead. 'No. Someone complained to them that the charity wasn't registered.'

'Who?'

'I don't know. Someone who received one of the letters, and checked up. Half those patrons on the letter-head don't exist, and the others didn't know their names were being used.'

I thought, and said, 'What made Ashe bolt just when he did?'

'We don't know. Maybe someone telephoned here to complain, as well. So he went while he could. He'd been gone for a week when the police turned up.'

I put the square white box on the coffee table. 'Where did the wax come from?' I said.

'Some firm or other. Je

'Invoices?'

'The police took them.'

'These begging letters… who got them printed?'

She sighed. 'Je

'You bet he was,' I said.

She was half-irritated. 'It's all very well to jeer, but you didn't meet him. You'd have believed him, same as we did.'

I left it. Maybe I would have. 'These letters,' I said. 'Who were they sent to?'

'Nicky had lists of names and addresses. Thousands of them.'

'Have you got them? The lists?'

She looked resigned. 'He took them with him.'

'What sort of people were on them?'

'The sort of people who would own antique furniture and cough up a fiver without missing it.'

'Did he say where he'd got them from?'

'Yes,' she said. 'From the charity's headquarters.'

'And who addressed the letters and sent them out?' 'Nicky typed the envelopes. Yes, don't ask, on my typewriter. He was very fast. He could do hundreds in a day. Je

'Signing her name?' That's right. He copied her signature. He did it hundreds of times. You couldn't really tell the difference.' I looked at her in silence.

'I know,' she said. 'Asking for trouble. But, you see, he made all that hard work with the letters seem such fun. Like a game. He was full of jokes. You don't understand. And then, when the cheques started rolling in, it was so obviously worth the effort.'

'Who sent off the wax?' I said gloomily.

'Nicky typed the addresses on labels. I used to help Je

'Ashe never went?'

'Too busy typing. We used to wheel them round to the post office in those shopping bags on wheels.'

'And the cheques… I suppose Je

'That's right.'

'How long did all this go on?' I said.

'A couple of months, once the letters were printed and the wax had arrived.'

'How much wax?'

'Oh we had stacks of it, all over the place. It came in those big brown boxes… sixty tins in each, ready packed. They practically filled the flat. Actually in the end Je

'He meant to stop anyway,' I said.

Reluctantly, she said, 'Yes.'

'How much money,' I said, 'did Je

She looked at me sombrely. 'In the region of ten thousand pounds. Maybe a bit more. Some people sent much more than a fiver. One or two sent a hundred, and didn't want the wax.'