Page 2 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘New lad, Robinson. Only a few pounds, but more than what most start with. He’s still young. A shake-up might be enough to set him straight.’
‘They all start small. That’s what gives them courage. You know the rules.’
‘Of course I know them. I wrote them.’ Phineas tapped at the column. ‘It’s too clumsy to be committed. His mother’s sick. Maybe a reminder that a long-term position will do her more favours than a short-term windfall will be enough to steer him straight? Look at the boy. Newgate would break him.’
And not just mentally. Physically, too. Robinson was all twig, his limbs as spindly as the legs of the tall stool he perched on. He took a sheet of blotting paper and laid it across his work with focused particularity. Given time, he’d make a good clerk, and if he found someone to share his life with, he’d likely not be too miserable about it.
Taylor watched the lad over the gold rim of his glasses, then rolled his eyes and sat back. ‘Make conversation with him before he leaves. See if you can nudge him into line. But one penny more, and I’ll report him up the line. Then they can deal with him.’
With a dutiful nod—as if he really was a clerk speaking with a slightly more experienced clerk, and not a bank-employed spy sniffing out fraud before it got out of hand—Phineas folded the ledger closed. He was about to slide it off the desk when Taylor thumped another tome on top of it.
‘My turn. Check my figures, Babbage.’
Phineas’s fingers brushed over suede leather as he traced the bright foil stamp on the cover. The Argonauts Trading Company must be an important client. A new one too, judging by the brightness of the marbled paper on the inside. Phineas flipped through the pages, scanning each row.
‘They used to be Abberton & Co.,’ Taylor continued. ‘Changed the company name last year and brought in a new board member. Some buy out.’
‘It was a takeover, and a bastard one at that. Are they in trouble? They deserve to drown for what they did.’
Abberton & Co. had been the company run by his neighbour Iris and her father, Albert. She’d hidden her father’s illness from the board and had gradually taken on the work herself. The board had only noticed when she’d been caught in a scandal, and when her father’s declining mental state had become known, they had voted to strip the Abbertons of their position, claimingthat the company could not be associated with a woman with a reputation. While Iris had found her feet with a new business that Phineas and many of the neighbours on Honeysuckle Street were investors in, the loss must have been hard for her to take. How were those buffoons faring now, without her?
‘They’re not in trouble,’ Taylor said. ‘Quite the opposite. What do you know about them?’
‘Abberton & Co. were a trading company,’ Phineas explained. ‘Abberton imported high-quality goods and sold them to London businesses. He ran a tight business, but never a greedy one. He always said he was happy working in the middle.’
‘Argonauts are aiming far higher than the middle. They’re looking to open their own department stores, modelled on the Whiteley, only bigger. They’ll use all their export chains, but without a middleman. They plan on charging the same prices and keeping the profit. A modest share offer to the public to fund construction of the building, the promise of fantastical returns… the usual. They’ve asked the bank to sell on their behalf and extend their credit.’
‘Not using the Stock Exchange?’
‘They’re too small for the exchange. And given the offer, my hunch is that they’re hoping to encourage women investors who have a harder time finding a broker willing to represent them on the floor. And who might be excited by the prospect of shopping.’
It was a risky move, but if it paid off, likely to be highly profitable. It might elevate the company from its place as a wholesale supplier to a household name.Ifit paid off.
Phineas glanced over each page, searching for the telltale smudge of an erased number or a wobbly line that revealed a hesitant hand. For all their grim muteness, the numbers on the page held as many tells as an amateur at cards. But each number had been written with confidence, every sum was correct, every column ran straight. So precise it could have been his own work.
‘Who’s the new board member?’ Phineas asked.
‘Lord Richard, one of the Marquess of Hanley’s sons.’
‘Compulsory aristocrat?’
Taylor chuckled. ‘Likely.’
There wasn’t a board in England that dared to sell shares to the public without an aristocrat on the board. For reasons he’d never understood, the stamp of a noble increased public confidence and made investors more willing to open their purses. But then, the average man or woman didn’t see the books thathesaw.
Phineas scanned the list of investors. The regular mix of toffs making side investments, pretending they didn’t need new money, and new money trying to make more money, in the hopes of impressing the old money.
Phineas slid his finger over the page in a snake trail.
‘Nothing out of place. Everything is in order.’ Phineas turned another page. Lists of income and expenses, withdrawals and deposits, taxes and wages. He flipped the book closed. ‘All in order.’
‘Nothing else?’ Taylor remained impassive.
‘Nothing.’
‘And yet?’
Phineas tapped the cover. And yet. ‘Too perfect. No one in here does work like that. Except me.’
