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members. There was one brief moment, however, when I was sitting alone with the young man who was the focus of the confusion and had a chance to talk to him. He spoke surprisingly good English.
    â€˜I am no firebrand,’ he said, looking at me steadily. ‘But I cannot just stand by and see injustice done to one of my people. There was a widow, you see, who they were trying to remove from her house because she could not pay the rent. I stood beside her and tried to resist the bailiff’s men at her request. Surely, any English gentleman would have done exactly the same?’
    I thought about that and then nodded slowly. ‘It is what I hope an English gentlemen would have done,’ I said with sincerity. And then I had held out my hand. ‘Good luck, Mr . . .?’
    â€˜Srinivasan,’ the young man said, taking my hand. ‘Rajeev Srinivasan.’
    The first thing I asked Dr Mahmood when I was finally admitted to his office was what had happened to Rajeev in court.
    â€˜Remanded in custody until the hearing, Miss Roberts,’ Dr Mahmood said, shaking his head. ‘The police magistrate indicated that he would have given bail, but Rajeev has of course no funds.’
    â€˜I have no money myself at the moment,’ I said frankly. ‘But I am going to see Mr Mayhew on Wednesday afternoon. If I can, I will get him to give you the bail money for Mr Srinivasan. How much is owing?’
    Dr Mahmood spread his hands. ‘Bail was set at ten dollars. It is a kind offer you have made, but I do warn you that there is little chance you will see the money again. These people have no opportunity to earn money in Penang, and if Rajeev were to be released he would leave for Kedah immediately. In fact, that would be my advice to him. There are only so many bench warrants that can be executed, and there are so many issued these days that the chances of anyone executing one on Rajeev are remote in the extreme.’
    Ten dollars! I was a schoolgirl with only pocket money to my name – remitted by postal order whenever my mother thought about it – but even to me the amount was so contemptibly low that I blushed with shame. To value a man’s freedom at ten dollars seemed the height of indecency.
    We turned to the matter that had brought me to Dr Mahmood’s office, and I told him the whole story of Saturday evening, beginning with Molly telling me that Burnbrae was to be sold. ‘I had no idea it had been left to me by my stepfather,’ I said. ‘Nobody ever told me it was mine, and now that I know about it I don’t want it to be sold.’
    Dr Mahmood folded his hands together on his blotter and leaned back in his rather squeaky bentwood chair. ‘The nub of the matter is whether your trustee is doing the right thing by you,’ he said. ‘Or whether there has been some hanky-panky. I find it hard to believe that Peter Mayhew woulddeliberately set out to breach the conditions of a trust that had been given him. He is an arrogant and often thoughtless man, but there has never been any accusation made against his integrity.’
    â€˜So what should I do?’ I asked.
    â€˜You will be seeing Mr Mayhew on Wednesday. You should ask him to tell you if he is administering a trust of which you are the beneficiary. You must ask him the details of any such trust. Then you must ask him to put his answers in the form of a letter to you, signed by him. Then you can come back and see me and we will take it from there.’
    â€˜Is that all?’ I asked. It sounded an extraordinary simple solution.
    â€˜That is all. If we have any doubts about what Mr Mayhew puts in his letter, I will make inquiries at the Probate Court. But why waste money making those inquiries if everything is above board and to our satisfaction?’
    I still hesitated. I had built such significance into this interview that I could not believe it was already over. But Dr Mahmood was firm.