1. Unmasking
My conversation with Dennis Gray convinced me that I had uncovered the seedy side of the Seddon case. Still, the picture was incomplete. I wanted to find out more about Seddon. What sort of a man was he? He was prepared to cut corners in his business dealings. But might he, nevertheless, be a decent man? As Jack had pointed out, most people carried out ‘little dishonesties’. Still, they did not turn against their sponsor. Seddon appeared to have done so. “Well,” I asked myself, “would it nevertheless be safe to leave him in charge of your home when you went for a trip abroad?” I felt the urge to meet him.
Searching for him was hard. He had settled all accounts before he departed from London and did not leave a forwarding address. A casual remark of a bank employee directed my glance to Birmingham. For a while, Seddon had operated a small import and export business. The trail, though, ended there. Seddon had left Birmingham. Nobody could tell me where he had gone to.
It was time for the hunter to give up the senseless pursuit. Jack, the publican, smiled sympathetically when I told him.
“I know the feeling. You try to get there but are thwarted on every turn. Eventually you get fed up. Come, have a shandy.” He had spoken warmly but I noticed that, once again, a speculative or contemplative expression had descended on his face.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “Still, Jack, I can’t understand it. People don’t just vanish into thin air: not in a civilized country.”
“Not normally. Usually, you can find them through a telephone directory. Actually, what was that chap’s name?”
“Seddon,” I confided. “Albert Seddon, originally from Manchester.”
Jack did not give a start. But his speculative expression was gone. “Albert Seddon? And the bank? Was it by any chance the Masterman Bank?”
“It … was,” I stammered as the penny dropped.
“You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by telling me the names earlier.”
“Everybody calls you Jack.”
“My full name is Albert Jacob Seddon. When I got the liqueur licence and the pub, I decided to drop ‘Albert’.”
“Why?” I asked perplexed.
“My customers would have nicknamed me ‘Bert’ or ‘Bertie’. ‘Jack’ sounds better. But you, Peter, have gone all pale. You alright?”
“Yes, of course,” I assured him.
“Come, have a coffee.”
2. The Real Story
The story was simpler than I had anticipated. Jack had met Ng during a brief visit to Hong Kong. They became friendly, called on one another from time to time and had a few joint business ventures. Seddon expected to make marginal gains. Actually, the real object of many transactions had been to siphon money out of England. To his disappointment, Albert Seddon soon discovered that remittances of the price of goods to an overseas purchaser were scrutinised carefully by the authorities. When he called on the Masterman Bank to get its advice, they assured him that remittances were not subject to searching scrutiny when made under, or in the context of, a letter of credit.
“Were you surprised?” I wanted to know.
“Not really,” grinned Jack. “I was certain that the banks had angles of their own. You realise, Peter, that the banks make a handsome profit from opening letters of credit and the handling of documents tendered under them. Still, for a time the system worked.”
Jack went to explain that, on the face of all the transactions, Seddon paid for the tea a price higher than the London market rate. Ng retained the amount due to him and remitted the balance to Seddon’s Swiss account. As far as the tax authorities were concerned, Seddon made a net loss on the transactions. In the meantime, his Swiss bank account went from strength to strength.
“I still don’t understand,” I let my surprise show. “How would you have paid Ng without using a letter of credit?”
“I should have made a down payment and the balance after receiving the goods. I should have sent money to my Swiss account by using other means, like travellers’ cheques. The Masterman Bank came up with the new notion.”
For a while, so Jack explained, all went well. Then came the fraud. The ‘tea’ he received was worthless and Ng was not in a position to compensate. Initially, Seddon intended to cut his losses from that deal.
“But why did you try to get the money back from the Masterman Bank?”
“They dreamed up the systems. So, they should have warned me about the pitfalls. Naturally, after we switched to letters of credit, Ng did not go down to China to examine the goods. How could we know that we ought to guard our rear by demanding ‘certificates’ of quality or some other such documents. The Masterman Bank should have advised us.”
Jack added that Mike Smith, the solicitor placed in charge of the file, was bullish about his chances of recovering the loss from the Masterman Bank. Mike was confident that Seddon would be able to convince the Court that the real fault, or lack of vigilance, was due to a shortcoming in the system proposed by the Masterman Bank.
In the event, Jack Seddon decided to go ahead and, as I well knew, lost the case. He also knew that an appeal was out of the question.
“Do you think the Judge knew what had been going on behind the scenes?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.
Jack shrugged. “I have no idea. Still, I found out that, before his elevation to the bench, our judge was a successful Q.C., specialising in commercial cases. I suspect he new what was going on.”
3. Becoming a Publican
As already known, Seddon lost his case. Worse still, he lost all the money he had accumulated in Zurich through a series of ill-advised share investments. Ng, too, had lost all his money, albeit on the Hong Kong bourse. Seddon suspected that the supplier in China had sent rubbish instead of tea because he had not been paid for earlier supplies.
“How did you become a publican?”
“My business was finished. By sheer chance I saw the advertisement respecting a lease of premises with a liqueur franchise. I decided to give it a try.”
“By why did you look for this type of business?”
“I loved to play the role of a bartender in our parties. I enjoyed myself. And people said I was very good. I thought I’d try my hand on it in business.”
“And it became a successful business,” I ventured.
“It has. And I have a good and pleasant life; far more enjoyable than the eternal anxiety associated with dealings in letters of credit, in shares and in currencies.”
“Are you still in touch with Ng?”
“Actually, I am. He, too, brought his ship home. He has become an exporter of exotic food stuffs. He does well out of it. And he still lives in Hong Kong.”
“Do you call on him when you travel?”
“Last time I was in Hong Kong, he treated me to crocodile meat.”
“Oh!”
“It was very good,” Jack grinned.
4. Jack’s Career as Publican
I kept reflecting on Jack the publican as I walked back to my room in Newton Road. During my months in Oxford, Jack had mentioned that he had two sons. The older, Vince, served in the police force. The younger had just completed his A Levels and had enrolled in a red brick university for a course in civil engineering. Jack’s daughter was going steady with an undergraduate. Jack hoped they would get married as soon as the boy found a suitable job as a journalist.
Jack himself enjoyed a steady and pleasant family life. He struck me as a typical member of the lower middle classes. How could he, possibly, have had an alter ego seeking the limelight of financial dealings and the excitement of foreign trade?
5.My Final Assessment of Seddon
In my original perception, the facts did not add up. Albert Seddon, the businessman who wanted to recover his business losses from his bank, was miles apart from Jack, the warm-hearted publican. I should gratefully accept the latter’s offer to look after my affairs if I had to travel overseas. In contrast, Albert Seddon – a dabbler in finance - invoked my distrust.
On further reflection, I decided I was wrong. Albert Seddon’s attempt to recover his losses from the Masterman was understandable. They ensnared him in a quagmire without providing adequate commercial safeguards. Seddon’s interest in commercial dealings was, likewise, not out of the character of Jack. The latter, too, loved to impress his audience by his mastery at darts. Both Jack and Albert were showman. But each was loyal to friends and admirers. The attempt to recover his loss from the Masterman Bank was understandable as, indeed, were Jack’s reservations about his lawyers’ behaviour.