The Gold Masters

by Norman Russell

  *

  The City began to panic that very evening, 2 August, 1893. Two famous discount houses, both dependent on Peto’s Bank, suspended business, and by eight o’clock it was learnt that Samuel French, the merchant banker, had ceased trading. It was predicted that there would be further failures, and that the frail structure of financial credit was in imminent danger of collapse.

  The late editions of the newspapers contained a statement from the Bank of England, declaring that Peto’s Bank was still solvent, and that if depositors would only stay their hand, the stricken house would soon recover. The statement was of no avail. The evening crowds in the Strand stopped to look at the black and white posters pasted over the door and windows of Peto’s Bank, looking like newspaper placards, CLOSED. CLOSED. CLOSED. There was a finality about the notices that convinced more than any declaration to the contrary from the Bank of England.

  In Superintendent Mackharness’s mildewed office on the first floor of 4 King James’s Rents, Box listened to his superior officer, who sat behind his big desk. The special warrant to search Sir Hamo Strange’s vaults at Carmelite Pavement lay on his blotter. It was a close, dull evening, with a thin rain falling.

  ‘I want you to tread very carefully over this matter, Box,’ said Mackharness. ‘I may say that I had great difficulty in securing this warrant, which, as you see, has been signed by the Deputy Commissioner. You have told me your suspicions about Strange, and I am inclined to believe you. But I want you to exercise discretion. Make it appear that you are pursuing the so-called robbers, and insist on being allowed to open those chests. I think that’s all. Go down to Carmelite Pavement first thing tomorrow.’

  Inspector Box seemed disinclined to dismiss himself. There was something he wanted to know, and the superintendent could supply the answer.

  ‘Sir,’ asked Box, ‘what are we to think about this failure of Peto’s Bank? Why was there that sudden run? Lord Jocelyn Peto and his affairs have been bound up with this bullion business from the start—’

  ‘Yes, yes, Box, that’s very true, and I can understand your bewilderment at one of these princes of commerce suddenly failing.’ Mackharness folded his large hands together on his desk, and composed himself to deliver an explanation.

  ‘You see, Box, credit survives only on trust. A bank takes your money on deposit, gives you a spot of interest, and expects you to trust them to return your money on demand. Now, no bank, no matter how eminent, can survive the sudden decision of all its depositors at once to ask for their money back. There simply isn’t enough gold in the vault to stock the tills if that were to happen. Do you follow me? Well, Peto’s credit has been assailed in certain quarters recently. Lord Maurice Vale Rose told me that rumours of Peto’s insolvency have been circulating in the City for a couple of weeks now.’

  ‘And were those rumours true, sir?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Box, they weren’t. That’s the tragedy of it. Lord Jocelyn, presumably for reasons of personal pride, agreed to empty his vaults in order to pay his share of the Swedish Loan. He knew that, on application to other private banks in the City, they would transfer part of their own gold to him until such times as the Swedish Loan was repaid. Lord Maurice Vale Rose assures me that it is standard practice.’

  ‘But in this case, news of the empty vault coincided with these rumours of insolvency…. I begin to understand, sir. And once the depositors demand their money back all at once, the bank must fail.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s a precarious thing, this business of credit – taking a man’s word on trust that he can repay on demand the money you’ve lent him. So there it is. Peto’s were never “bankrupt”, as people put it. But now they’ve closed. Sad, but there it is. So get down there to Carmelite Pavement tomorrow, will you? Take Sergeant Knollys and Sergeant Kenwright with you. And be careful.’

  Box opened chest after chest, throwing back the heavy mahogany lids, and in every instance, the harsh electric lights in the ceiling of the Carmelite Pavement bullion vaults revealed not shining ingots of gold, but sullen, lifeless slugs of lead.

  Mr Garner, the chief warden, had received the three police officers with an almost studied calm, in marked contrast to his frantic demeanour on the day of the bullion robbery. He had merely glanced at their search warrant, and then surrendered to them a massive ring of keys.

  ‘You will not want me beside you, Officers,’ he had said, ‘while you conduct your search. You’ll see from the tags attached to those keys that each of them will open the bullion chests in a particular vault, and in a specified row. It is a simple and efficient system for the safe storage of over twelve million pounds’ worth of gold.’

  He had conducted them to one of the three wide hydraulic lifts, where a pull on a lever had opened the gates with a hiss of released air that had sounded like a sigh of pain. When they reached the brilliantly lit main vault, they saw that the bullion chests were arrayed in long lines on heavy wooden pallets, and that the lines seemed to stretch to infinity in the tunnel-like whitewashed chamber.

  ‘There are two further vaults beyond this one,’ Garner had told them. ‘They are interconnected by short tunnels, and each of them has a lift to the ground floor. When you’ve finished your work, you may take any one of those lifts back to the surface.’

  And now, after nearly an hour, they had opened over a hundred specimen chests, and found each one filled neatly with slugs of lead. The tread of their boots had echoed from the barrel-vaulted ceilings.

  ‘We could stay down here all day,’ Box whispered, ‘and I think we’d find that the contents of all these chests is lead. It confirms my own suspicion that the great Sir Hamo Strange is a fraud and an impostor.’

  ‘Do you think that man Garner knows about it, sir?’ asked Knollys.

  ‘He might do, but I doubt it. All he has to do is move these chests around when he’s told to do so. Don’t forget that Strange seems to have his own gang – the people who carried out the so-called “robbery”, and left their convenient clues for us to find in Corunna Lands.’

  ‘So what do we do now, sir?’ asked Sergeant Kenwright.

  ‘This man Strange, Sergeant, had defrauded the Government and the Prudential Assurance Company of one million pounds sterling, his “compensation” for a robbery that never took place. Others must have been involved, in which case it’s conspiracy to defraud. Our next step is to apply for a warrant. I think the application will have to be made by Sir Robert Bradford. Only the Commissioner could persuade a magistrate to sign a warrant for the arrest of Sir Hamo Strange.’

  Box suddenly shivered. Although it was high summer, it was cold in the vaults, and rather eerie. The place was used to silence, and that silence effortlessly swallowed up their voices. The electric light, a novelty to them all, shone unblinkingly and with an intangible air of menace.

  With a clanking and hissing that made all three men start in alarm, the heavy doors of the lift seemed to close of their own accord. It was then that Box realized that there were no staircases into or out of the vault. They stood for a moment in apprehension, and had begun to hurry towards the lift when all the electric lights went out, leaving them in total darkness.

  None of them spoke a word, but they could hear each other’s breath coming in frightened gasps. Had someone decreed that the Carmelite Pavement bullion vaults was to be their tomb?

  A moment later the lights flickered on again, flooding the vaults with light. Then the doors of the lift rumbled open, as though inviting them to leave. It was an invitation that they hurriedly accepted.

  ‘I’m so sorry, gentlemen,’ said Mr Garner, ‘that you were left in the dark. One of the wardens conducted the daily test of the lift mechanism and the switching for the electric lights without realizing that there was anybody down there. I quite forgot to alert him to that fact. Did you find what you were looking for? Really, this bullion robbery seems to be an impenetrable mystery.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Garner,’ said Box, smiling. ‘We certainly di
d find what we were looking for, but of course I’m not at liberty to tell you what it was.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, I’ll bid you good day, Mr Box.’

  The three officers climbed the steep steps from the yard, walked through the open brick lodge, and passed under the arched iron gate into Tudor Street. Box glanced back, and saw Mr Garner climbing up an outside staircase to a glazed office overlooking the yard.

  ‘So they have taken themselves off?’ asked Sir Hamo Strange.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Garner replied. ‘They seemed quite satisfied.’

  Sir Hamo permitted himself a wintry smile, which was followed by a hearty laugh.

  ‘I’m sure they were, Garner! Well, my little subterfuge seemed to have frightened them out of the vaults a little before their time. Just as well, I suppose. Had they opened every single chest, I should have been mightily embarrassed.’

  ‘They seemed to think that I knew nothing about your customary use of lead when the need arose, sir, and, of course, said nothing.’

  ‘Quite right, Garner. But you knew nothing of the impending charade of the bullion robbery, did you? I thought you were going to die of fright when I came down here that Friday! I should have warned you what was going to happen, but thought you’d be more convincing when the police arrived if you thought that a genuine robbery had occurred.’

  He looked at the array of huge ebony and brass electric light switches on the wall, and at the valves and levers operating the lifts and their heavy doors. Yes, it had been amusing to plunge the celebrated Inspector Box and his clodhopping giants of companions into pitch darkness.

  ‘Garner,’ he said, drawing on his gloves, ‘I’ve urgent business to transact in Whitehall, as you’ll readily appreciate. You’ve been with me many years, now, and I’ve found you the soul of loyalty and discretion – both sovereign assets in my line of business. It’s time, I think, that you received a considerable rise in salary.’

  ‘Oh, sir—’

  ‘There, there, Garner, say no more. I must go straight away to Whitehall.’

  As Box, Knollys and Sergeant Kenwright entered the vestibule of 4 King James’s Rents, they were accosted by an elderly police sergeant in uniform, who stepped out of the narrow front office near the door. Like Kenwright he was a heavily bearded man, but he was older, walked with a limp, and regarded Box over a pair of wire spectacles perched on the end of his nose.

  ‘There’s a gentleman to see you, Mr Box. I’ve got him there, in the office. He said he’d wait.’

  ‘Best show him in, Pat,’ said Box. ‘We’re just back from Carmelite Pavement, and there’s a lot for us to do in consequence, but I expect we can spare a few minutes.’

  Box went into his office, and sat down in his favourite chair near the fireplace. Knollys was already writing up an account of their visit to Sir Hamo Strange’s vaults. Sergeant Kenwright had disappeared through the tunnel to the drill hall.

  ‘Mr Arthur Portman, sir,’ said the duty sergeant.

  ‘What? Good Heavens! Mr Portman – what are you doing here? That’ll be all, thank you, Sergeant Driscoll.’

  Mr Portman looked pale and shaken. He glanced uneasily around the rather bare and utilitarian room, and Box saw him make a little wry face when he glanced up at the soot-stained ceiling. Whatever his troubles, he had evidently not lost his aesthetic sense.

  ‘Inspector Box, may I sit down? Thank you. I remember you from your visit to the Temple of Light the other week. You came with poor young Mr Lane. Dear me, what times we live in! What is one to say? And then yesterday, Mr Box, you were present at the collapse of our bank—’

  ‘A disaster for you, Mr Portman, I expect.’

  Sergeant Knollys had been watching the Chief Counter Clerk of Peto’s Bank as though he were a specimen mounted on a slide and placed under a microscope. His sudden question seemed to hold a hint of mockery that Box was quick to detect.

  ‘A disaster? Yes, indeed. I am now quite without employment, and through no fault of my own. Poor Lord Jocelyn! One sympathizes, of course, but a married man like myself, with a handsome town property, has to look to his own interests.’

  ‘And why exactly have you come to see me, Mr Portman? Do you want me to write you a reference?’

  ‘Certainly not. What an extraordinary idea. Evidently you are not able to feel any sympathy for my plight. Well, I’m not here to talk about the fall of Peto’s Bank; I’m here to tell you that I went down on the train to Brookwood last night, and talked to Mrs Pennymint about the, er – raid – that you conducted at the Temple early yesterday.’

  ‘And what do you gather from your talk with Mrs Pennymint?’

  ‘Like her, Inspector, I was shocked and horrified. She was told that quantities of apparatus and other deceitful paraphernalia were removed in a van. In particular, she told me about that whited sepulchre, Almena Sylvestris. Any breath of scandal, as you know, is fatal to the cause of spiritualism. She betrayed a very noble cause with her wicked tricks and deceptions.’

  ‘You knew nothing about that, of course?’ asked Box. ‘Nothing about the secret panels in her house, the devices beneath the floor to produce spurious ghosts—’

  ‘Nothing! I was a trustee of the Temple of Light, and a credulous dupe of that wicked woman. So was poor, feckless Mrs Pennymint. I knew nothing whatever about all this deceit. You must pursue that woman Sylvestris. Do not rest until you have apprehended her. I place all my records at your disposal.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Mr Portman.’

  ‘Not at all, Inspector. I am armed in innocence, and place myself entirely at your disposal. Here is my card. I will bid you good day.’

  ‘So there it is, Sergeant,’ said Box, when Portman had left the office. ‘He’s going to wriggle out of it. He’s got in with his story first, and there’s no concrete evidence that he was in any way involved in all that chicanery. He’s wriggled out of it.’

  ‘He’s a liar, sir, and a rogue. He’ll cross the wrong fellow’s path one of these days, and find himself floating in the river with a knife in his back.’

  ‘Maybe so, Jack. But for the moment, he’s “armed in innocence”, as he kindly informed us. We’ve lost him, I think. But never mind. We’ve bigger fish than him to fry.’

  15

  Profit and Loss

  ‘Oh, Mr Box! Have you heard the news?’

  Mrs Peach, Box’s landlady, deposited a freshly fried kipper on his little round table in the sitting-room of his lodgings in Cardinal Court. As Box had not yet left the house for work, Mrs Peach must have known that he had not heard the news. But then, he mused, there was a delicious thrill in making people wait until you chose to tell them.

  ‘What news, Mrs Peach?’ he asked, knife and fork poised to tackle his breakfast.

  ‘Lord Jocelyn Peto! He’s committed suicide, Mr Box. Shot himself in the conservatory of his house in Croydon.’

  ‘Who told you that, Mrs Peach? I saw the poor man only yesterday—’

  ‘The milkman told me. He’s up so early that he can buy the three o’clock edition of the Daily Chronicle from old Anderson’s shop in Shoe Lane. I expect Lord Jocelyn couldn’t face the shame of being ruined, poor man.’

  Box made as though to rise from the table, but his landlady was not going to allow him to waste a perfectly good kipper, to say nothing of freshly made toast and tea.

  ‘Now, don’t go rushing out like that, Mr Box,’ she said. ‘You can’t bring poor Lord Jocelyn back to life. Sit down and eat your breakfast. You’ve got to keep your strength up.’

  When Mrs Peach had left the room, Box did as she’d commanded, and ate his breakfast which was always something tasty and nourishing, followed by quantities of tea – proper Londoners’ tea that you could stand your spoon up in – and buttered toast. His landlady, who took only gentlemen boarders, was a firm believer in feeding the inner man.

  So Lord Jocelyn Peto, a ruined man, with his credit as a banker shattered, had taken the gentleman’s way out…. Box had
thought him to be a flippant, trivial sort of man when he’d first met him, but in the end he’d succumbed to the banker’s boyish directness and charm. Yesterday, he had looked both desperate and frantic. It was a sad and terrible end to a once honourable career.

  Box buttered a piece of toast. Louise had emerged physically unscathed from her ordeal. Jack Knollys had accompanied her out to Finchley, where he had abandoned her to the tender ministrations of little Ethel, the maid. Had she been ruined by Peto’s fall? How was he going to find out?

  The little clock standing on his mantelpiece among a welter of ornaments and photographs told him that it was already half past seven. Time to walk into work. As he left the table, and picked up his overcoat, there came a businesslike rap on the door. A telegraph boy had called with a message.

  ‘Mr Arnold Box?’ asked the smart lad in uniform and pill box hat who stood on the landing. ‘A message from Inspector Price, of Croydon. No answer expected— Oh, thanks very much, sir.’

  Box had given the boy a threepenny bit. He tore open the flimsy telegraph form, and read Inspector Price’s message.

  Box, King James’s Rents, SW. Come at once to Duppas Park House Croydon. Advice urgently needed – Price.

  Within the minute, Arnold Box had hurried out of secluded Cardinal Court and into the noise and bustle of Fleet Street, where he hailed a cab to London Bridge Station.

  Box was admitted to Duppas Park House by the butler, Tanner. No longer calm and aloof, he looked shocked to the core. And well he might, thought Box. This was the second violent death to occur at Lord Jocelyn’s elegant house. Box put a finger to his lips to prevent the butler from bursting into speech. A sound of uninhibited sobbing had come to his ears from somewhere along the rear passage.

  ‘Who is that sobbing, Mr Tanner? Is it Lady Marion Peto?’