A Prisoner of Birth Read online

  A two-inch-wide yellow strip had been painted on the ground just inside the doorway. Danny crossed it and walked into a small square room whose walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves, crammed with thick leather-bound books. On each shelf were printed cards, indicating the years 1840 to 1992.

  ‘Please join me,’ said Danny, as he removed one of the thick leather books from the top shelf and began to leaf through the pages. Munro walked in, but de Coubertin did not follow.

  ‘I apologize,’ he said, ‘but I am not allowed to cross the yellow line – one of the bank’s many regulations. Perhaps you would be kind enough to inform the guard when you wish to leave, and then do come and join me back in the boardroom.’

  Danny and Munro spent the next half hour turning the pages of album after album, and began to understand why Gene Hunsacker had flown all the way from Texas to Geneva.

  ‘I’m none the wiser,’ said Munro as he looked at an unperforated sheet of forty-eight penny blacks.

  ‘You will be after you’ve had a look at this one,’ said Danny, passing him the only leather-bound book in the entire collection that was not dated.

  Munro turned the pages slowly, to be reacquainted with the neat, calligraphic hand he remembered so well: column after column listing when, where and from whom Sir Alexander had purchased each new acquisition and the price he’d paid. He handed the meticulous record of the collector’s life back to Danny and suggested, ‘You’re going to have to study each entry most carefully before you next bump into Mr Hunsacker.’

  Mr and Mrs Moncrieff were shown into the boardroom at 3.00 p.m. Baron de Coubertin was seated at the far end of the table, with three colleagues on each side of him. All seven men rose from their chairs as the Moncrieffs entered the room, and didn’t resume their places until Mrs Moncrieff had sat down.

  ‘Thank you for allowing us to inspect your late father’s will,’ said de Coubertin, ‘as well as the attached letter.’ Hugo smiled. ‘However, I must inform you that in the considered opinion of one of our experts, the will is invalid.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that it’s a fake?’ said Hugo, angrily rising from his place.

  ‘We are not suggesting for a moment, Mr Moncrieff, that you were aware of this. However, we have decided that these documents do not stand up to the scrutiny required by this bank.’ He passed the will and the letter across the table.

  ‘But . . .’ began Hugo.

  ‘Are you able to tell us what in particular prompted you to reject my husband’s claim?’ asked Margaret quietly.

  ‘No, madam, we are not.’

  ‘Then you can expect to hear from our lawyers later today,’ said Margaret as she gathered up the documents, placed them back in her husband’s briefcase and rose to leave.

  All seven members of the board stood as Mr and Mrs Moncrieff were escorted from the room by the chairman’s secretary.

  48

  WHEN FRASER MUNRO joined Danny in his room the following morning, he found his client sitting cross-legged on the floor in his dressing gown, surrounded by sheets of paper, a laptop and a calculator.

  ‘I apologize for disturbing you, Sir Nicholas. Shall I come back later?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Danny as he leapt up, ‘come in.’

  ‘I trust you slept well?’ said Munro as he looked down at the mass of paperwork littering the floor.

  ‘I haven’t been to bed,’ admitted Danny. ‘I was up all night checking over the figures again and again.’

  ‘And are you any the wiser?’ asked Munro.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Danny, ‘because I have a feeling that Gene Hunsacker didn’t lose any sleep wondering what this lot is worth.’

  ‘Do you have any idea . . . ?’

  ‘Well,’ said Danny, ‘the collection consists of twenty-three thousand, one hundred and eleven stamps, purchased over a period of more than seventy years. My grandfather bought his first stamp in 1920 at the age of thirteen, and he continued collecting until 1998, only a few months before he died. In total, he spent £13,729,412.’

  ‘No wonder Hunsacker thinks it’s the finest collection on earth,’ said Munro.

  Danny nodded. ‘Some of the stamps are incredibly rare. There is, for example, a 1901 US one cent “inverted centre”, a Hawaiian two cent blue from 1851, and a Newfoundland 1857 two penny scarlet, which he paid $150,000 for in 1978. But the pride of the collection has to be an 1856 British Guiana one cent black on magenta, which he bought at auction in April 1980 for $800,000. That’s the good news,’ said Danny. ‘The not so good news is that it would take a year, possibly even longer, to have every stamp valued. Hunsacker knows that, of course, but in our favour is that he won’t want to hang around waiting for a year, because among other things I’ve picked up from the odd article my grandfather kept is that Hunsacker has a rival, a Mr Tomoji Watanabe, a commodities dealer from Tokyo. It appears,’ Danny said as he bent down to pick up an old cutting from Time Magazine, ‘to be a matter of opinion which one of their collections was second only to my grandfather’s. That argument would be settled the moment one of them gets his hands on this,’ said Danny, holding up the inventory.

  ‘That piece of knowledge, may I suggest,’ said Munro, ‘places you in a very strong position.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Danny, ‘but when you get into amounts of this size – and on a quick calculation the collection must be worth around fifty million dollars – there are very few people on earth, and I suspect in this case only two, who could even consider joining in the bidding, so I can’t afford to overplay my hand.’

  ‘I’m lost,’ said Munro.

  ‘Let’s hope I’m not once the game of poker begins, because I suspect that if the next person to knock on that door isn’t the waiter wanting to set up breakfast, it will be Mr Gene Hunsacker hoping to buy a stamp collection he’s been after for the past fifteen years. So I’d better take a shower and get dressed. I wouldn’t want him to think I’ve been up all night trying to work out how much I ought to be asking for.’

  ‘Mr Galbraith, please.

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Hugo Moncrieff.’

  ‘I’ll put you straight through, sir.’

  ‘How did you get on in Geneva?’ were Galbraith’s first words.

  ‘We left empty-handed.’

  ‘What? How can that be possible? You had every document you needed to validate your claim, including your father’s will.’

  ‘De Coubertin said the will was a fake, and virtually threw us out of his office.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Galbraith, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘I had it examined by the leading authority in the field, and it passed every known test.’

  ‘Well, de Coubertin clearly doesn’t agree with your leading authority, so I’m phoning to ask what our next move should be.’

  ‘I’ll call de Coubertin immediately, and advise him to expect service of a writ both in London and Geneva. That will make him think twice about doing business with anyone else until the authenticity of the will has been resolved in the courts.’

  ‘Perhaps the time has come for us to set in motion the other matter we discussed before I flew to Geneva.’

  ‘All I’ll need if I’m to do that,’ said Galbraith, ‘is your nephew’s flight number.’

  ‘You were right,’ said Munro when Danny emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later.

  ‘About what?’ asked Danny.

  ‘The next person to knock on that door was the waiter,’ Munro added as Danny took his place at the breakfast table. ‘A bright young man who was happy to give me a great deal of information.’

  ‘Then he can’t have been Swiss,’ said Danny as he unfolded his napkin.

  ‘It appears,’ continued Munro, ‘that Mr Hunsacker booked into the hotel two days ago. The management sent a limousine to the airport to pick him up from his private jet. The young man was also able to tell me, in return for ten Swiss francs, that his hotel booking is open-ended