Chapter 10 #2
“I’d like to see both.” That he’d accede to her request so easily astonished Hope and made her bold. “I’d also like to see my payment balance as it compares to the mortgage sum still owing.”
“I might have to dig a bit for that. As you know, Mr. Peters handled your accounts personally.”
“Sooner begun is sooner done,” Hope replied sweetly while Joshua pretended to absorb himself with the view of the street below.
“Quite right, ma’am. Mrs. Plodgely reminds me of the same frequently.” He went to his shelves, extracted a volume bound in green leather, and passed it to Hope. “Patent revenues from inception to date, in chronological order. Mr. Burdette’s talents were substantial.”
On that note, he decamped.
“Either Plodgely is the best actor ever to avoid Drury Lane,” Joshua said, “or he’s a complete dupe.”
Hope set her reticule atop the law books on the standing desk, and Joshua held a chair for her at the head of the table.
“How can you tell?”
“I offer only a guess based on observation.” Joshua took the chair to her right.
“If Plodgely knew Peters was stealing from you, and Peters had any indication that his scheme had been detected, Peters would pay Plodgely enough to keep silent. I grant you, raising three children takes coin, but a solicitor who cannot afford new heels or a clean blotter is in straitened circumstances.”
“My thought as well.” Though she hadn’t noticed the blotter. “He needs a new jacket too.”
Joshua nodded at the ledger. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Five minutes later, with Joshua on hand to confirm the significance of the numbers, Hope was in shock.
“All this money. All this money earned by Edwin’s inventions, and I’ve seen not a penny of it. I’ve paid Peters… He said any patent revenue, however small, would go toward paying off the mortgage at the time of sale.”
Joshua extracted from his tail pocket a little book of bound blank pages such as an artist would keep handy. He penciled figures in a rapid, tidy hand.
“I suspect,” he said as he wrote, “there is no mortgage. Peters doubtless created a document for Edwin to sign that looks like some sort of loan agreement, and the word ‘mortgage’ might appear in the language somewhere, but it’s a complete work of fiction.”
“A work of fraud, you mean, while my life for the past two and a half years has been very nearly a tragedy, Joshua. Peters can be hanged for this, can’t he?”
“Transported, possibly, but the crown’s chief witness, your late husband, is not available to testify. Proof becomes an issue, though not an insurmountable one.”
If anybody knew how to address that issue, Joshua did. That he was Hope’s banker of the moment gave her inordinate comfort.
“I don’t want him to hang, Joshua. I want him to pay.”
“He shall.”
Plodgely bustled back in, a slim red volume in his hands. “I found it! Up to date and in Mr. Peters’s own hand. Every penny of the mortgage payments.” He passed Hope the ledger and hovered like a schoolboy awaiting praise.
Hope scanned the last page, recalling fingers aching with too many hours of fine stitching, a mind clouded with endless worry, Holly sighing at the empty larder and promising Heifer a lick of butter when next they had any.
“And what is the unpaid mortgage balance?” she asked, passing the ledger to Joshua before she yielded to the impulse to heave it through the window.
“Beg pardon? The unpaid balance?”
“The amount still owing on the loan secured by the house where I now dwell,” Hope said, keeping her voice level with effort.
“My late husband paid a substantial sum to complete the sale of the premises, and I was made aware of the mortgage only after Mr. Burdette’s passing.
What is the outstanding principal still owing? ”
Plodgely gazed out the window. He rocked up and down on his worn heels. He considered the portrait of Mad George on the far wall.
“I do not know why Mr. Peters hasn’t listed a running account of the mortgage balance,” Plodgely said. “The figure is of concern to most clients and certainly to any lenders.”
“As to that,” Joshua said, closing the book with a snap, “who is the lender? Who holds Mrs. Burdette’s mortgage?”
Plodgely smiled. “That’s a simple explanation, sir.
Mrs. Burdette’s house is the former residence of the banker Mr. Joshua Penrose, who sold the property through intermediaries some years after he decamped for the colonies.
Mr. Penrose was moved by Mr. Burdette’s situation, according to Mr. Peters, and offered to hold the mortgage personally rather than through his bank.
This has allowed Mr. Peters some discretion in the area of late payments and such. ”
He beamed at them with all the goodwill of the season and then some.
“How generous of Mr. Penrose,” Joshua muttered, rising. “We’d still like to know the amount owing.”
“I can do the calculations,” Plodgely said. “I simply need to find the mortgage document, which will tell us the interest rate, the initial sum establishing the borrower’s equity, and other relevant terms.”
“Five percent per annum,” Hope said, “according to Mr. Peters. Mr. Penrose wasn’t really all that generous, was he?”
Plodgely’s good humor faded. “That doesn’t make sense.
If the interest is that high, and you have all this revenue…
I don’t understand why you haven’t been given an opportunity to purchase the house outright, unless there’s a non-acceleration clause.
Those are very dirty tactics, and I cannot imagine Mr. Peters allowing any client of ours to agree to such language. ”
Hope should have boxed Plodgely’s ears or launched a tirade at him for his gullibility. Instead, his earnest acceptance of the situation at face value was reassuring.
A solicitor, a man who transacted business every day and who was the support of three children and a wife, hadn’t detected Peters’s schemes when they were hatched beneath his very nose.
“Mr. Penrose,” Hope said, “would you explain the situation to Mr. Plodgely as succinctly as possible? I would like to make the acquaintance of his children. I’m sure they are darling boys, and I have seen enough figures for one day.”
Joshua bowed. “Of course, ma’am. This shouldn’t take long.”
Hope left as Plodgely sank into the chair by the window. “Beg pardon, sir, but did Mrs. Burdette say your name was… Penrose?”