The Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  It was at this precise moment that Ikey saw himself in his old personage walking into the room, with wildly flying grey and gingered hair, scraggly beard and untidy, shaggy brows, his nose rising majestic between two small obsidian eyes looking directly at him. He saw old Ikey reach behind the door and take his beloved coat from its hook and place it upon his thin, angular body. He observed himself at once become stooped, his neck lowering itself tortoise-like into the shiny collar of the coat. His chin came to rest upon his breast, and, most remarkably, how, with all this doing, a sly, furtive expression had crept upon his former face.

  Suddenly his nephew appeared in the doorway, a rude intrusion standing directly behind the vision. Abraham placed a flat-topped, broad-brimmed hat upon the apparition's head identical to the one Bob Marley had discarded at the Academy of Light Fingers. Ikey now observed himself standing in front of himself so completely that he pushed the fingers of both hands deep into his mouth. The astonishing manifestation before him was a more perfect likeness of himself than he knew himself to be.

  'Not the fingers, Uncle Ikey! No gentleman swallows 'is fingers,' Abraham cried.

  'What say you, Ikey?' Reuban Reuban asked. 'Do I well fit your personage? Is the likeness true, my dear?' His voice was thin and carping in the exact timbre of Ikey's own and his hands imitated perfectly the other's mannerisms.

  It was not a moment more than half an hour later when Moses Julian, dressed in the expensive livery of a private house and accompanied by Abraham, similarly dressed as a footman, drew their carriage to a halt in a lane leading directly into the Strand. Inside sat Ikey and his remarkable likeness to his former self, Reuban Reuban, who touched Ikey's knee in a quick salute and slipped out of the coach even before it had completely come to a halt. Whereupon Moses urged the horses on and the coach moved away and soon enough came to the end of the lane and turned into the Strand.

  The afternoon was already beginning to darken from the smog and the general effects of the fog so that the thronging humanity who moved along the crowded sidewalk were of a mind much occupied with their own progress in the failing light, so took no interest in the Jew as he made his way among them.

  Nor, within a moment of turning into the Strand, could the coach have been recognised in the numerous-ness of similar carriages and coaches and hackneys that jammed and pushed their way along the great choked thoroughfare where they were yet further hidden by the smoke from the flares that ostensibly guided their way.

  Abraham had the previous morning posted himself outside the bank to observe the protocol of a gentleman's manner of entering the premises. Thus he observed that, alighting from his coach, a person of quality would be greeted by the doorman, who would summon an usher from the interior of the bank. This bank officer, in all appearance a man of some mature age and authority, dressed in a frock coat and square rigged in the best of form, would immediately appear armed with a small silver salver which he would proffer in an obsequious manner while requesting the gentleman's personal card be placed upon it. At this point, of course, the doors were once again closed and Abraham had no way of knowing the manner of the client's further progress within the august establishment.

  Abraham had returned home by way of Newgate Gaol, where he had informed Ikey of the manner of obtaining entry to the bank and Ikey had instructed him in the exact manner of the cards he required Reuban Reuban to have printed for the occasion.

  It was just before the hour of two o'clock in the afternoon and the more important officers of the bank were returning to work from luncheon at their club when Ikey's carriage approached Coutts amp; Company on the Strand.

  Abraham looked to see whether Reuban Reuban had arrived on foot. When he spotted him standing close to the wall of the bank, half concealed behind a Doric column, he tapped the roof of the carriage to tell Ikey that all was in order, and waited for Ikey's return tap to tell him to signal to Reuban Reuban to proceed. The two return taps came promptly and Abraham signalled to his father to proceed by appearing to rub an itchy nose and then smacking his gloved hands together as though against the cold.

  Reuban Reuban commenced to walk boldly up the steps of the bank to where the doorman waited. Though boldly is perhaps an exaggerated description for he walked in the manner of Ikey, which none could even in their wildest imagination call bold. Ikey, watching from the interior of the carriage, saw the doorman stiffen slightly as Reuban Reuban drew nearer. Ikey, his instincts sharpened by a lifetime of experience with the mannerisms of a policeman, knew at once that he was a member of the constabulary. In as much as it was possible from the interior of the carriage he looked about to see if there were others, but could see no suspicious characters who might be miltonians, that is to say, policemen out of their official uniform.

  Reuban Reuban halted beside the doorman and while Ikey could not hear what he said the doorman allowed that he should enter without apparently requesting his personal card or summoning an usher or in any manner following the form which Abraham had so carefully observed the previous morning. The door opened and Reuban Reuban disappeared into the interior of the building followed closely by the doorman. A few moments passed and a new doorman was seen to take the place of the old one, a man who stood more easily and assumed more naturally the accustomed nature of his task.

  The interior of the bank comprised a large central hallway which at first seemed entirely composed of marble, with huge pillars of the same material supporting two storeys of gallery above which the offices of the partners were located and where the clerks worked at their ledgers. At one end of the impressive hallway were a set of brass tellers' cages and a stairway leading downwards, presumably to the underground vaults. At the other end was a similar stairway, though this one led upstairs to the galleries and carried a heavy banister of gleaming brass and was carpeted in brilliant red. Brass rods secured the carpet to the hinge of each step and they too shone with a brightness which gave the effect of a pathway leading heavenwards to untold wealth.

  Reuban Reuban barely had time to take all of this in when he was accosted by an officer of the bank whose quick, sharp steps tapped out on the marble floor showed him to be most purposeful in his confrontation. Reuban Reuban was also aware that the doorman had remained and stood directly behind him as though to block any retreat he might contemplate. Several other men seemed now to have mysteriously emerged from behind the marble columns and were seen to be pacing the polished marble floor, although no work of banking seemed to be taking place in his immediate vicinity.

  'Good day to you, sir,' the bank officer greeted Reuban Reuban. 'May I be of service?'

  Reuban Reuban smiled unctuously and shrugged his shoulders in an admirable imitation of Ikey. 'Some other time maybe. I 'ave just remembered, uh… all of a sudden, if you knows what I mean. With the greatest respect to yourself, sir, I 'ave urgent business I must complete elsewhere!' Reuban Reuban turned towards the door again, only to see several of the men who had but a moment ago been contemplating their own business converge on him. He started to run towards the door but in a moment was grabbed from behind. It took only a few moments longer for several of the men to reach him and he was thrown roughly to the floor where he was quickly manacled by the doorman.

  Reuban Reuban was pulled to his feet and immediately observed a small man with a very large red nose wearing a top hat exceedingly tall for the remainder of his size, approaching him.

  'Ikey Solomons, in the name of the law, I arrest you,' Sir Jasper Waterlow shouted, so that his voice echoed through the hall and up into the galleries.

  As they led Reuban Reuban away the galleries overlooking the entrance hall were soon filled with clerks and bankers observing the dramatic arrest. Even the partners had emerged from their offices to share in the excitement.

  Sir Jasper Waterlow, not wishing to let the auspicious moment pass without some show on behalf of the Bank of England and his own future prospects, had deliberately shouted his orders of arrest at the uppermost tone of his voice so
that all within the Coutts amp; Company bank might witness his triumph over Britain's most notorious villain and know that the Bank of England, like God, is not mocked.

  Indeed, Sir Jasper Waterlow had just reason to congratulate himself. He had only a matter of some two hours to prepare his entrapment of Ikey. Hannah had informed him of the possibility of Ikey's escape that very morning, after Ikey had left the King's Bench courts upon the postponement of his hearing. By pre-arrangement she had met Sir Jasper in a coffee house on the Strand and acquainted him of Ikey's intended escape and his need to visit the premises of a certain bank, though she did not inform him of the name of the establishment until she had extracted in writing from Sir Jasper certain assurances and conditions. The first of these was that Ikey should be allowed to visit the bank and transact his business and that he would be arrested only on his way out. The second was that regardless of the outcome of Ikey's trial for forgery, he receive a sentence of transportation for his attempt to escape from custody.

  Sir Jasper had no choice but to accept. The sentence Hannah had asked for was more or less a foregone conclusion and so presented no barriers. Furthermore, an arrest made after they had Ikey trapped within the confines of a building which could be easily surrounded, with additional men also placed within its interior, seemed much the better method of operation. Therefore, he issued Hannah with the written assurances she required. He told himself that she had previously delivered Ikey, as she had promised, with the counterfeit notes planted on his person. Now, when he might well have successfully escaped, she was once again informing on her husband. He therefore had no reason but to accept her information as genuine.

  Sir Jasper told himself that whatever Ikey's business with Coutts amp; Company, it could hardly be the concern of the Bank of England. He had therefore given the chairman of Coutts amp; Company permission to process the transaction. This had occurred in a hastily contrived briefing when he had arrived at the bank with twenty City policemen in plain clothes. The senior bank officers were to allow Ikey to enter the premises and to afford him the normal protocol involved in making a transaction. Sir Jasper insisted that refusal by the bank to comply with this instruction would only be permitted if the transaction Ikey Solomon required was not a legitimate request for the bank's services, or would in some way threaten or undermine the safety or finances of Coutts amp; Company or of the Bank of England itself.

  To ensure that the staff would go about their business in a normal manner Sir Jasper requested that one of his policemen, dressed in the uniform of a doorman of the bank, should replace the doorman on duty and that the doorman, along with the remainder of the bank's staff, be told nothing, other than that he should resume his normal duty when the policeman at the door was seen to escort Ikey into the interior of the bank.

  The arrangements had all been finalised in great haste and Sir Jasper had no opportunity to consult the directors of the Bank of England. He was well aware that his instructions to Coutts amp; Company might have been beyond his authority as chief City policeman and Upper Marshal of London. With Ikey's sudden and most fortuitous panic and resultant attempt to escape the premises of the bank, Sir Jasper had even more reason to be pleased with himself. There would now be no awkward official enquiries as to why Ikey, upon visiting the illustrious private bank, had been allowed to make a transaction which, in every likelihood, resulted in remuneration to him as a consequence of a crime against the people. He had fully met Hannah's requirements, both as a gentleman and a police officer, and it had cost him no compromise with the law.

  Moreover, there was much talk in parliament by the supporters of Sir Robert Peel of the organisation of a new police force, and Sir Jasper could see his candidacy for the position of its head much improved by both the first and second arrests of Ikey Solomon.

  Ikey watched from the carriage as Reuban Reuban was led out of the bank manacled and surrounded by a dozen police officers out of uniform. A black maria, that is to say, a horse van drawn by two well-conditioned horses and built in the manner of a closed box with a door at the rear and no windows excepting narrow ventilation slits, appeared from the alley beside the building. Reuban Reuban was unceremoniously bundled into the back of it, whereupon the door was locked and three of the policemen mounted the platform protruding from the back of the van to further guard the villain residing within.

  The crowd had halted and immediately formed around the van and on the steps of the bank and someone shouted, 'It be 'im, Ikey Solomon, the Jew forger!'

  Almost at once the crowd grew angry and converged on the black maria. Despite the plain-clothes policemen who attempted to protect the van, part of the crowd pushed past and beat their fists against and commenced to rock the black maria, threatening to overturn it, so that the horses grew restless and began to stamp upon the ground and throw their heads up in alarm. The three men on the platform at its rear were forced to use their truncheons with fierce abandon, raining blows down upon the shoulders and heads of the angry attackers. The crowd had commenced to chant, 'Ikey! Ikey! Ikey!' and the coachman, working his police rattler so that the other coaches in the vicinity might move clear, finally managed to get the horses underway and direct the van into the stream of passing traffic. Though several urchins, skilled in the ways of dodging the traffic, followed the police van, they were quickly discouraged by the three policemen protecting the artful Reuban Reuban within.

  Ikey watched until the crowd began to disperse, but with the sidewalk still somewhat crowded, Moses Julian moved Ikey's carriage forward to come to a halt directly outside the bank, whereupon Abraham alighted from the rear of the carriage, opened the door and with some ceremony, took Ikey's elbow in his white-gloved hand and guided him with care to the surface of the cobbled pavement.

  Ikey moved quickly up the steps to the doorman, who, as is the nature of his profession, had been alert to his arrival at the moment his coach had pulled up. He had tugged at the lapels of his overcoat and adjusted his gold-braided top hat, conscious of the well-polished carriage and the livery of its retainers, and was therefore hardly surprised at the conservative, well-dressed gentleman who stepped from it onto the sidewalk.

  'Good afternoon, sir!' he had offered in a manner akin to the military and which suggested both efficiency and respect, saluting Ikey.

  Ikey grunted, though it was a well-modulated and upper-class grunt. 'Foreign transactions?' he asked, in a clipped and imperious voice.

  'I shall call you an usher at once, sir.' The doorman opened the door, lifted his hand and crooked a finger to denote a requirement from someone within, whereupon he further opened it for Ikey to pass through.

  It had all occurred just as Abraham had suggested and was quite unlike the reception Reuban Reuban had received. Ikey breathed a silent sigh of relief; the bank, it seemed, had assumed its normal routine. It felt like his lucky day.

  • • •

  Nathaniel Wilson, Coutts amp; Company's foreign transactions officer, had spent the morning with the ambassador from Chile, who had wanted to discuss the final interest rate for the public issue of a loan for his government, a part of which was being underwritten by the bank. The ambassador had plied him with glasses of an atrocious sherry he claimed was the pride and joy of the pampas and Wilson, who had finally departed to take luncheon alone at his club, in an attempt to be rid of the taste of bad sherry had imbibed rather too generously of a bottle of excellent burgundy, and followed it with two glasses of vintage port. The wine had left him thoroughly disgruntled and a little inebriated. The ambassador had demanded a shaving of one-tenth of one per cent of interest off the loan and towards the end had stamped his feet and brought his fist down several times hard upon the table and behaved in an altogether inappropriate manner. Wilson did not find foreigners in the least agreeable. Furthermore, he was not looking forward to facing the bank's senior partners with the Chilean ambassador's demand. He had returned only a few minutes after Reuban Reuban had been taken away in the police van and, as was his
usual custom, entered the building through a private entrance to the side of the bank. He had repaired directly to his office on the first gallery, taking the back stairs used by the staff, and was therefore quite unaware of the excitement which had taken place in the bank before his return.

  The usher knocked on Nathaniel Wilson's door, the two rapid knocks required to indicate a bank employee of inferior status to the occupant.

  'Come!' the banker called.

  Wilson looked up as the elderly usher opened the door and observed that he was carrying a salver.

  'What is it, Coote?' he said with annoyance. 'I was not aware of any appointment at this hour.'

  'No, sir, gentleman says he's from Germany.' Coote placed the salver containing Ikey's card on the desk. 'He requests an urgent interview, sir.'

  Wilson reached for the card with obvious distaste. Ikey's card was well printed on expensive board and, in the manner of a man confident of his position in life, it contained no detail other than a name and address.

  Herr Isak Solomon 114 Bunders Kerk Strasse, Hambourg Nathaniel Wilson looked up at Coote. 'German Jew?'

  'No, sir, English. Well spoken, proper gentleman.'

  Nathaniel Wilson threw Ikey's card back into the tray. 'You will inform Mr Isak Solomon that I shall see him, but that I regret it must be a short interview as his appointment comes as an unexpected but not entirely convenient pleasure.'

  Coote returned shortly with Ikey and Nathaniel Wilson rose from behind his desk to greet him. 'Ah, Mr Solomon, are you aware that the name Solomon has much been in the news lately?' He offered his hand to Ikey. 'Indeed a coincidence, what?'

  Ikey removed his pigskin gloves, then his top hat and placed the gloves within the interior of the hat and gave it to Coote together with his cane, deliberately keeping the banker waiting. 'Oh? And why is that, Mr Wilson?' he replied in an incurious voice as he moved forward and finally took Wilson's hand, barely touching it before releasing it again.