The Gold Masters

by Norman Russell

  There was a police constable standing at the foot of the steep flight of steps leading down from the miniature lodge behind the iron gate. He was a heavy, ungainly fellow, his arms dangling at his sides, his huge fists clenched. His uniform seemed too small for him, and he was writhing in what looked like impatient discomfort.

  The constable looked up towards the road, and Knollys saw a brutish, pock-marked face, sweating beneath the regulation helmet. Something about the man suggested that he had just experienced an enervating shock. As the constable began to run up the steps towards him, alarm bells began to ring in Knollys’ head.

  The man disappeared into the lodge, and a moment later a stout door behind the iron gate was thrown open. Knollys saw the silver letter Ns on the collar of the constable’s tunic, and wondered what he was doing so far out from Islington, where he must have been stationed. Still keeping his eyes on the pockmarked face, Knollys showed the constable his warrant card.

  ‘PC Edwards, Sergeant,’ the man said. ‘You’d better come inside the lodge. All’s well down at the pier— But look, who’s that, lurking in the doorway over there? Surely that’s the glint of a pistol?’

  Later, Knollys was to wonder ruefully how he had allowed himself to fall for such an old trick. For a brief moment he turned his back on the pockmarked constable, and was instantly felled by a terrific blow to the back of his head. As he began to lose consciousness, he was dimly aware of a pair of strong hands dragging him by the ankles, and face down, into the lodge.

  Morgan’s Lane Pier was a stubby stone construction jutting out into the river from the grass-grown yard of Morgan & Company’s burnt-out warehouse. A hundred yards to Box’s right, Tower Bridge rose in all its pristine glory of iron, steel and masonry, 120 feet up to the summer sky. They said it would be opened next June.

  Box’s vantage-point lay among a medley of trawlers and strings of barges, looking as though they’d been tossed carelessly towards the bank by the strong river currents. Black, soot-caked smoke stacks rose from the open decks, visible through the forest of slender masts. A smell of tar and coke fumes mingled with the strong salty tang of river water and rotting flotsam moving around the vessels. Men seemed to be at work everywhere, but no one paid the slightest attention to the solitary man in smart overcoat and curly-brimmed hat, standing with binoculars at the ready on Morgan’s Lane Pier.

  At 8.30 the first of the steam launches came into view. Box could see it through his binoculars, moving low in the water, its gleaming white funnel with the red band standing out clearly against the drab warehouses on the opposite bank. The inscription C2 painted on the funnel told him that this fast and powerful boat held the consignment of gold from N.M. Rothschild & Sons. It would have left Swan Lane Pier, beside London Bridge, some ten minutes since.

  The launch proceeded under Tower Bridge, and was lost to sight. Some ten minutes later, an identical steam launch hove into sight, escorted by a flock of screaming gulls. From a list of timings that Mackharness had given him, Box knew that this was Sir Abraham Goldsmith’s offering, from Queenhythe Steps. Yes, there was the inscription C3 on the funnel. All was going well.

  The next two launches, C4 and C5, arrived in procession, the vessel from White Lion Quay having caught up with that from Grant’s Quay. The precious consignments of Brown’s of Lothbury and Thomas Weinstock & Sons proceeded safely and securely under Tower Bridge.

  At 9.15, Box began to feel uneasy. Where was C6, the launch from Peto’s Bank? It had been due to appear at 9.10. Had something happened? Nonsense! It was all this Croydon business, and the rumour-mongers gossiping at the newspaper stand that was making him nervous.

  There! The sixth launch suddenly came into sight, chugging merrily towards the bridge. Lord Jocelyn Peto’s consignment had arrived safely. Box slipped his binoculars into one of his overcoat pockets, and felt in the other for a packet of cheroots that he’d bought earlier that morning at a tobacconist’s in Fleet Street. Somewhere nearby, a clock struck half past nine.

  From the knot of trawlers and barges below Morgan’s Lane Pier a long, black rowing boat appeared. It moved heavily, propelled by three oarsmen wearing the heavy black serge uniforms and low-crowned peak caps of the River Police. A fourth man, dressed identically to his companions, sat on a narrow seat in the stern, guiding the police galley by means of rudder strings. The man in the stern caught sight of Box, and shouted an order to his crew. They immediately rested their oars, and looked up at Box where he stood in splendid isolation on the stone pier.

  ‘What’s the matter, Arnold?’ shouted the man in the stern. ‘Has Mackharness banished you? What did you say to him?’

  ‘You cheeky man, Inspector Cross,’ Box called back. ‘I’ll have you know I’m here on very important business—’

  ‘I know you are, Arnold. I’ve heard all about it. Counting launches, isn’t it?’

  Inspector Cross of the River Police seemed to have been rolling in mud. His uniform was wet and stained, and his narrow, saturnine face was smeared with black oil. These men, Box mused, spent their whole working life on the river, rowing in an open boat. They were rough and irreverent, constantly suffering from bronchitis, and liable to die an early death. The luxury of a steam launch with an awning was not for the likes of them. One of the constables tied up the boat to a mooring ring. Inspector and men produced pipes and spirit flasks, and enjoyed a morning break, leaving Box to his own devices.

  It was 9.45, and Sir Hamo Strange’s launch, C1, had not yet arrived from Carmelite Pavement. It should have passed under Tower Bridge at 9.30. Box threw his half-smoked cheroot into the river, and glanced nervously towards the opposite bank. There wasn’t much to see, apart from the shining roof of Billingsgate Market, and the splendid façade of the Customs House. Strain your eyes as much as you liked, you couldn’t see Blackfriars Bridge from this far up the river.

  At 9.50, Box called down to Inspector Cross, who was sitting once more on his little seat in the stern of the galley.

  ‘Bob, would you be prepared to row me across the river to Blackfriars? There’s something wrong. There were six launches, and five of them have passed safely under the new bridge. But the sixth— There’s something wrong. I’d be easier in my mind if I was on the river, and going in the direction of Blackfriars. Perhaps the launch had to set off late from Carmelite Stairs.’

  Inspector Cross looked thoughtfully at Box for a moment, and then made up his mind.

  ‘There’s an iron ladder just below where you’re standing, Arnold,’ he said. ‘Climb down that, and step into the galley. Step, mind! Don’t jump, or you’ll have us all in the drink. You’ll have to crouch down here with me, in the stern. Right, you lot, pipes out, and back to your oars. Keep on this side until we’re under Blackfriars Bridge, then strike out across the river to Carmelite Stairs.’

  It was as they emerged from under Southwark Bridge, hugging the embankment wall along Bankside, that they heard a sudden loud report. It was followed by the explosion of a scarlet Very light, which hovered eerily, as though suspended in the air, high above Blackfriars Bridge.

  The first person Box saw when he clambered up an iron ladder and on to the stone flags of Carmelite Pier was Sergeant Knollys, a bloodstained bandage round his head, talking to an old acquaintance of theirs, the patient and quietly spoken Inspector Saville of Thames Division. A dozen police officers were stationed in the yard, apparently taking written statements from a number of men in overalls. Presumably, they had been summoned to the scene by Mr Mackharness’s Very light. The unthinkable had happened. Inspector Cross waved a nonchalant farewell to Box, and then his galley struck out once more for the Surrey side.

  Carmelite Pier, Box saw, was entirely enclosed by the blank walls of the surrounding buildings. The only ways off the pier, then, were the river, and a low tunnel facing it, which he knew led under the Embankment to the Bullion Vaults on Carmelite Pavement. It was through this tunnel that the bullion consignment would have been wheeled – to where?

>   This, thought Box grimly, is no time for formal niceties.

  ‘So the bullion’s been stolen, has it, Mr Saville?’ he asked.

  ‘It has, Mr Box, and your Sergeant Knollys here was battered about in the process. He’ll tell you all about it in due course. For the present, I want you to come with me to ask a few questions of the man in charge here. He’s waiting up above in his office.’

  The three men hurried through the tunnel to the main building of the bullion vaults, where a further phalanx of policemen thronged in the big yard, talking to some of the workmen. An audience of gaping civilians lined the railings along Tudor Street above them. They entered a vast empty hall, where they glimpsed stacks of wooden pallets and an orderly line of heavy iron trolleys. The gated entrances to a number of wide lifts filled one entire wall.

  Waiting for them in a glass-walled office near the entrance was an anguished, middle-aged man dressed in a black suit, who was clutching the rim of his bowler hat so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

  ‘Mr Garner,’ said Inspector Saville to the elderly man, ‘this plain-clothes officer is Detective Inspector Box of Scotland Yard. The injured man, as you know, is Detective Sergeant Knollys. I want Mr Box to hear your story from the beginning. Mr Box, this is Mr Horace Garner, Chief Warden of the Carmelite Bullion Vaults.’

  ‘I came down here to Carmelite Pavement, gentlemen,’ said Horace Garner, when the four men had sat down at a table in the little office, ‘at seven o’clock sharp. Everything was in order. The consignment had already been brought up from Number 3 vault on the hydraulic lift. Let me be quite precise about this consignment. It consisted of seventy-eight mahogany bullion chests, each eighteen and a half inches square, secured with flat iron bands, and fastened with padlocks. Each chest contained twelve thousand eight hundred and twenty pounds in gold sovereigns, all minted in the same year: 1858. What we call “old specie”.’

  ‘Why were there so many chests, Mr Garner?’ asked Box. ‘Surely larger containers would be preferable to all those little boxes.’

  ‘Gold is a very dense metal, Inspector, as well as being very heavy. Those “little boxes”, as you call them, each weigh two hundredweight, and need two strong men to lift them. It’s very interesting, working out all these precise details for each major movement—’

  The chief warden’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, and his face was contorted with anguish. He was, Box judged, well over sixty, and his neatly trimmed hair was turning white.

  ‘What will Sir Hamo Strange say, when he comes down here? We’ve already sent messengers up to Medici House. I’ve worked here since I was twenty years old. He’ll dismiss me without a character—’

  ‘Of course he won’t,’ said Inspector Saville. He sounded to Box like a kindly schoolmaster coaxing a frightened boy to tell the truth. ‘Why should he? It’s not your fault, Mr Garner, and the more you tell Mr Box and me now, the easier it’ll be for us to find out what’s happened to all that gold.’

  ‘So there were seventy-eight mahogany bullion chests already waiting to be shifted?’ asked Box.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. They were laid out here in the main shed on eight pallets, all ready to be lifted on to the trolleys, and taken down to the pier.’

  Horace Garner stopped, and the two policemen could sense that he was recollecting the events of the morning.

  ‘There was a policeman – I stepped out from this office into the yard at half past seven, to see that all was well, and was reassured to see a police constable in uniform standing halfway up the flight of steps to the public road. I mention him, because….’

  Garner’s voice died away, and he seemed once again to be plunged deep in thought. Arnold Box looked at the sorely tried chief warden and, with a sinking heart, he suddenly sensed the truth.

  ‘This policeman whom you saw, Mr Garner: had he replaced another man who’d come earlier?’

  Garner’s face lit up with something approaching pleasure.

  ‘Why, yes, Mr Box. How did you know that? When I came in at seven o’clock, I was greeted in the yard by Police Constable Lane, who is very well known to us. Seeing him there reassured me, I must confess. Well, by seven-thirty the complete assignment of gold was ready to be lifted on to the trolleys and taken through the tunnel on to the pier.

  ‘I went out into the yard, and saw that PC Lane had been replaced by this other man, a big, lumbering fellow who saluted me, and then ran up the steps to the lodge. I saw that another man, a giant of a fellow, was opening the gate from Tudor Street. Presumably, the new police constable was going up to find out what he wanted.’

  ‘The “giant of a fellow” was me,’ said Sergeant Knollys. ‘I felt there was something wrong about him at once. He was nervous — shivering, almost. In any case, I wondered what a constable from “N” was doing this far out. Well, he got me to turn away from him for a moment, giving him the chance to flatten me with a baulk of timber. When I came to, I found myself lying in a corner of that lodge on the road. That was when I staggered out on to the steps and fired the Very pistol.’

  ‘Dear me, Sergeant,’ said Box, shaking his head, ‘you shouldn’t have fallen for his tricks. Always trust your sixth sense.’

  The chief warden seemed to be recovering from the shock of the daring robbery.

  ‘At ten minutes to eight, gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘the seventy-eight bullion chests were put on to the trolleys by my twenty gangers, and wheeled down through the tunnel and on to the pier. The steam launch was waiting – a white-hulled boat with specially strengthened bulkheads – and the loading of the bullion proved to be a smooth and efficient operation, lasting no more than half an hour.’

  ‘Did you notice the funnel?’ asked Box. ‘Was there a number painted on it?’

  ‘There was, Inspector. The funnel was white, with a red band, and the inscription “C1” was painted on it.’

  ‘Then it’s the genuine launch, right enough,’ said Saville, ‘which makes me wonder what happened to its legitimate crew. We’d better find out. What did the strange policeman do, Mr Garner?’

  ‘He climbed into the launch, and stayed on board. The launch already had steam up, and at eight-thirty it moved away from the pier, and I watched it chugging out across the river. How on earth was I to know that anything was amiss?’

  ‘A little question, Mr Garner,’ said Box. ‘When the launch was moored at the pier, was it pointing upstream or downstream? By which I mean, was it pointing towards the Tower Bridge end of the river, or towards Waterloo Bridge?’

  ‘Well, of course, it was pointing towards the Tower Bridge end. What a peculiar question! But when it left the pier, I must admit, it struck across the river towards Stamford Wharf, on the Surrey side. I assumed it was some special manoeuvre.’

  All three police officers rose from the table, as though by common consent. There was nothing further to be learnt from Mr Garner. Once outside in the yard, Inspector Saville glanced anxiously towards the tunnel leading to the pier.

  ‘If we’re to catch these villains, Mr Box, it’s up to Thames Division to move into action. We’ll get after them straight away, before the trail goes cold. Garner thinks they crossed the river towards Stamford Wharf. There’s a lot of derelict property and disused basins between there and Hungerford Bridge. Our own launch will be in the river by now. Never fear, Mr Box, we’ll get them before the day’s out.’

  Saville almost ran down the yard, and was lost to sight in the tunnel. Box turned to his injured sergeant.

  ‘Are you all right, Sergeant?’ he asked. ‘That bandage is clotted with blood.’

  ‘I’m fine, sir. It’ll take more than a crack on the head by a hulking brute like that fellow to put me out of action.’

  ‘You know who that so-called constable was, don’t you?’

  ‘I can guess, sir, though you must remember I’d never seen him in the flesh before. It was Mahoney, the man who murdered the Reverend Mr Vickers out at Croydon. It looks as though our ugly friend
is a maid of all work – robber and killer combined.’

  ‘Francis Xavier Mahoney’s a high-class burglar – beautiful work he does – but he’s always been a dab hand at murder. Maybe we’ll get him, this time. I think his number’s up.’

  ‘What are we going to do now, sir?’

  ‘I’m going out to the West India Import Dock, to find out what happened there. I’d like to know whether those other five launches that passed under Tower Bridge actually arrived at their destination safely!’

  ‘And what do you want me to do, sir?’

  ‘You? I want you to go back to King James’s Rents. You’d better take a cab. And when you get there, go and find Dr Cropper in Whitehall Place, and get him to fix your head properly. You’re no use to me, bleeding all over the place.’

  ‘But, sir—’

  ‘Do as you’re told, Jack. Go and see Dr Cropper. You and I will discuss all this business later. I’m off now to the West India Docks.’

  10

  In Corunna Lands

  From where he stood on the roof of one of the eleven huge warehouses rising up on the north side of the West India Import Dock, Box could see the Swedish merchant steamer Gustavus Vasa lying at anchor in Limehouse Reach. Her masts and spars gleamed in the mid-morning sun, and a plume of black smoke hung over her dark-red funnel. It was just after eleven o’clock.

  Out beyond Tower Bridge there was a strong breeze, which was a welcome change from the smoke-filled carriage of the little train that had brought Box along the dock railway to the gritty and grimy platform of West India Dock Station. Behind the breeze Box could discern the unmistakable salty tang of the sea.

  ‘So all went well at this end of things, Captain Mason?’ he asked of the dock supervisor standing beside him on the roof. A gnarled, bearded man in faded Merchant Navy uniform, his eyes were quick and intelligent. He was smoking a short clay pipe.