The Gold Masters

by Norman Russell

  Knollys would lead his opponent into a trap from which there would be no escape. He slowed down his pace, in order to give his pursuer the chance to catch him up. He crossed Upper Thames Street, weaving his way through the traffic, and hurried down the lane that took him out on to the stone flags of Syria Wharf. He glanced up at the looming bulk of the great warehouse, with its stark inscription in huge white letters above the upper ranks of windows: A. BERG. IMPORTER.

  Mahoney was still following him, blundering along the lane. Knollys allowed himself to be seen for a moment, and then stepped into the dark vestibule housing the building’s hydraulic lift. There was a staircase at the other end of the warehouse, but access to Knollys’ apartment was gained from the lift.

  He pulled both pairs of lattice gates closed, and waited until he saw Mahoney enter the vestibule. The man saw him, and rushed forward with a bellow of rage. Knollys pulled the lever that started the mechanism, and the lift began its creaking ascent through the brick shaft. He saw the killer’s wrathful face looking up at him, and when he had passed from sight, he heard the man rattle the outer gates in frustrated anger.

  What should he do? It would be a mistake to let the man gain entry to his own quarters. If there was to be another fight, then it needed to be in the open. He would take the lift up into its weathered cage on the roof, directly under the steel structure that housed the winding-cable and other mechanisms of the lift machinery. An iron arrow in a half-circle of numbers above the lift gates told to what floor the lift had climbed. Whatever the danger, Mahoney, he knew, would come after him.

  The flat roof of Berg’s warehouse held no convenient hiding places. Apart from the structures connected with the lift, it was innocent of any other buildings. It stretched from the river on one side to the crowded thoroughfare of Upper Thames Street on the other, flat and without parapets, lead-covered, and swept by a strong humming wind. Knollys stood at a point midway between river and road, and waited.

  Presently, the winding-wheel and cable began to turn in their housing, and the lift moved down out of its cage to the floors below. The minutes following seemed like hours. All that could be heard was the humming of the aerial wind high above Syria Wharf.

  Then the lift appeared in the cage, and before Knollys could act, Mahoney had ripped open the gates and was charging towards him, his weighted stick flailing through the air. Knollys could hear his heavy breathing, and saw the settled determination in the man’s brutal face. Thr flailing stick struck him a stinging blow across the arm, and he fell down on to the roof.

  Mahoney flung the stick aside, and hurled himself on to Knollys, pinning him to the leads with his bulk, his murderous hands seeking for his throat. Knollys waited for the fumbling fingers to find their mark, and then suddenly jabbed his raised knees into Mahoney’s stomach. At the same time he brought up his massive forearms crosswise over the killer’s chest, and flung him aside like a rag doll.

  Knollys scrambled to his feet, and fumbled for his handcuffs, but in seconds Mahoney had rolled sideways and up on to his feet in a single movement. Evidently, he was far more nimble than his lumbering gait suggested. But Knollys’ action reminded him too closely of Curteis’ physical teasing. Roaring with blind rage, he charged towards Knollys, arms outstretched like the claws of a pair of pincers, only to reel under a sudden and quite unexpected straight left from his opponent.

  Mahoney lurched backwards, his eyes temporarily glazed. Seizing his chance, Knollys rushed to where the weighted stick lay on the roof and, as Mahoney was still trying to recover his senses, he threw the stick between the thug’s unsteady legs. Once he was down on the roof, he could be secured and taken into custody.

  Mahoney seemed unable to steady himself. He staggered backwards towards the perilous edge of the roof, his eyes still glazed, and his arms flailing in the air. Very few men could have withstood a straight blow from one of Knollys’ deadly fists, and Mahoney was no exception. Jack Knollys suddenly realized what was going to happen. Forgetful of his own safety, he darted forward, intending to pull the man away from the edge.

  Mahoney interpreted the move as a further deadly attack, and instinctively retreated. He uttered a kind of strangled bleat of fear, and toppled backwards, arms flailing, off the roof. His shocked opponent waited for the high scream of a doomed man, but no such harrowing sound came to his ears.

  Knollys stood in stunned silence for a while, listening to the high wind moaning across the rooftops. Above him, a few small white clouds scudded across the tranquil blue sky. Not trusting his own legs to do his bidding, he fell to his knees, crawled towards the edge of the roof, and looked down. Far below, a shapeless figure lay on the flags of the wharf, and a stream of men was running towards it, like a column of ants drawn to one of their number that had been crushed and killed.

  The convalescent home in the pleasant little Surrey town of Esher was a long, two-storeyed mansion in five acres of wooded grounds. Mr Toby Box, Arnold Box’s 73-year-old father, sat in his wooden wheeled chair under the shade of a stately oak tree, talking to his son, and his son’s lady friend, Miss Louise Whittaker. A rustic table near his right hand held a number of letters and a few books. It was the hot and hazy twelfth of August.

  ‘I don’t know how this Mrs Pennymint of yours found out about it, Arnold,’ said Toby Box, ‘but it’s quite true. They’re coming to measure me for a false leg next Wednesday. I thought it was going to be a timber toe, like Long John Silver’s got in Mr Stevenson’s tale. But no, it’s a proper leg, with a real shoe at the end. Wonderful what they can do, these days.’

  He turned an appraising eye to Louise, who was looking very cool in a long linen dress and matching white, wide-brimmed hat.

  ‘So everything turned out well for you in the end, didn’t it, Miss Whittaker? Arnold was telling me that Peto’s Bank was taken over by Sir Hamo Strange. So you’ll be spared the workhouse, God be praised!’

  Louise Whittaker laughed, and glanced at her friend Arnold Box. He had blushed to the ears at his old father’s quaint way of putting things. This was her second visit to Esher. On the first occasion, she and the old retired police sergeant had taken to each other immediately.

  ‘I’ll leave you two together,’ she said, rising from the basket chair in which she had been sitting. ‘I want to examine that fine herbaceous border across the lawn.’

  When Louise had gone, old Toby Box fixed a quizzical eye on his only son.

  ‘Arnold,’ he said, ‘are your intentions to that young woman honourable?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ cried Box confusedly, blushing again. ‘At least—Well, you know what I mean. Really, Pa, the things you say! And she’s not a young woman. Well, she is in one way, of course, but she’s a friend, that’s all. She’s far too good for me—’

  ‘Dear me, Arnold, if you blush any more like that, you’ll make me think you’ve swallowed a beetroot! Of course she’s too good for you, but that shouldn’t stop you proposing when the time’s right. She likes you, you know. She’s told me so. And she admires you, too, which is understandable—’

  ‘Have you finished, Pa? All this is very embarrassing.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve finished. Now, here’s something that will interest you.’ Toby picked up an envelope from the table, and extracted a letter. ‘This came only yesterday from Australia, Arnold. It’s from a parson in Adelaide to say that your Uncle Cuthbert’s dead.’

  ‘Cuthbert?’ said Box faintly, recalling Mrs Pennymint’s revelation. ‘I haven’t got an Uncle Cuthbert.’

  ‘We never mentioned him in the family, Arnold. Your poor mother would never allow his name to be spoken in the house. Bless the boy, he’s gone pale, now! First red, then white. What’s the matter with you? You’d better get back to London: I don’t think the air here agrees with you. Here’s Miss Whittaker now. Go on, take her back with you to London. And remember what I said. When the time comes, pop the question. I think you’ll be very surprised at the answer.’

  Louise Whittaker cam
e smiling to him across the grass, and when they had said farewell to Toby Box, they passed through the gate and into the winding country lane that would take them to the station of the London and South Western Railway.

  By the Same Author

  The Dried-Up Man

  The Dark Kingdom

  The Devereaux Inheritance

  The Haunted Governess

  The Advocate’s Wife

  The Hansa Protocol

  The Ancaster Demons

  Web of Discord

  Evil Holds the Key

  Copyright

  © Norman Russell 2006

  First published in Great Britain 2006

  This ebook edition 2012

  ISBN978 0 7090 9677 1 (epub)

  ISBN978 0 7090 9678 8 (mobi)

  ISBN978 0 7090 9679 5 (pdf)

  ISBN978 0 7090 8020 6 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Norman Russell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988