An accidental portrait

"Might I trouble you for an opinion?"
My employer was uncharacteristically tentative in his approach. Samuel Webster had not risen to his respected position in London's underworld by being cautious. And my opinion was, along with my time, his to demand or command. He showed me a postcard of a busy sea-front and a newspaper clipping showing the crowd at some sort of road-opening. "Is this the same man?"

He pointed to a figure in each of the pictures. A tall man wearing a dark hat. I admitted that they might be the same person. But, truth to tell, it was hard to be sure. The man wasn't the subject of either picture and his face was partially obscured.

My employer considered and then, reaching a decision, shared his concerns with me.

It emerged that, before the war, whilst building up the foundations of his organisation, Webster had worked for a certain Mr Pilkington who ran an assortment of enterprises down in Brighton. And, after a while, My employer had decided that it was time to take over this Pilkington's concerns. Mr Pilkington had disappeared and Samuel Webster had assumed control. I nodded. I was familiar with my employer's methods. In time, Webster had moved his organisation to London and had scarcely been back to Brighton in the last fifteen years.

But he had recently noticed what he assured me were pictures of Pilkington in the background of half a dozen pictures from Brighton - news reports, the postcard that he had shown me and even a snapshot taken by one of his men on a day trip.

Webster told me that he had decided to go down to Brighton himself. He would check Pilkington's resting place. "Just to set my mind at rest, Joe!"

I never saw him again. He drove down to Brighton the next day and his car was involved in an accident - crashing into one of the arches on Marine Parade. His death received a lot of coverage in the London papers. He was described as a "successful businessman" which would have pleased him. There were some photographs. One of them showed the scene of the accident with the nose of his Daimler wrapped around an ornate pillar. And, in the background, there was a tall man wearing a dark hat. His face was half turned away so that it was impossible to identify him conclusively.