‘This smell,’ began Holmes.
‘Yes,’ interrupted Golightly, ‘the anarchist not only tried to blow us up, but to poison us at the same time.’ Holmes looked at him in a superior manner and shook his head. One sniff, and his extraordinary sniffer told him the identity of the gas still lingering around, which none of the others had picked.
‘Any nincompoop would recognise the smell as that of ammonia gas, which if not in the same league as attar from Araby, is, barring its pungency, as innocuous as they come.’ The older man started blinking and could say nothing.
‘So, sir, I ask you this: why would an alleged anarchist walk into a bank and release ammonia gas?’ But he did not wait for an answer. ‘Simplicity itself, I daresay, sir. He, or they more likely, wanted you to believe that they were trying to poison you. Now, I am told there was a bomb ticking in a box. So, the next question is: why was he bluffing?’ If the banker had any sort of answer, Holmes gave him neither the time to formulate let alone voice it.
‘I will wager a thousand pounds to a shilling that the bomb was no more than a defective clock with a few phials of innocuous chemicals. Besides, I will wager another thousand pounds to a penny that your heroic professor far from exercising his professorial duty, was himself the perpetrator of this outrage.’ Golightly opened his mouth wide to protest, but Holmes cut him short. ‘I am further willing to wager another thousand pounds—’
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Golightly testily, ‘to a penny.’ Holmes stared at him, his brows knitted, as if he had just become aware of his presence.
‘I was going to say farthing actually.’ The banker was lost for words and just grunted.
‘...and that he was tall, well built, had a beard and whiskers,’ Holmes pursued. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ admitted the banker grudgingly. ‘You know who he is?’
‘Yes, sir, Professor James Moriarty.’ This intelligence stunned his interlocutors into silence.
‘And Moriarty does not cause havoc inside a bank just for fun. His purpose was to rob the bank.’
‘But I have told you, Holmes, not one farthing is missing, the gold ingots are there for all to see although the Strongroom was unlocked.’ Holmes shook his head and smiled.
‘That cannot be, he has pulled the wool over your eyes. Look at every coin and every note carefully.’
‘But we have—’
‘You said the Strongroom was left unlocked? Now you say the gold has not been moved?’
‘I checked them myself.’ Holmes closed his eyes and tilted his head upwards, seemingly asking for guidance from the ceiling. Everybody watched him, Golightly with increased irritation. Suddenly he looked at the banker.
‘If you checked them yourself, sir, then there is only one conclusion to draw.’
‘Yes, that as I said, the gold is all there.’
‘No sir, that you did not check properly.’
‘But, but... I... I mean...’
‘Did you count that they were all there? Did you check that they were genuine?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, one did not need to do that, who could possibly have come into the bank with all those coppers outside? There was the evidence of one’s own eyes.’
‘Sir,’ said Holmes, ‘have you heard of mirages? You can see the water but there’s nothing there, you know.’
‘Poppycock! I’ll show you.’ Accompanied by his senior staff, he walked the detective to the Strongroom and opened the safe with a flourish. Indeed to all appearances there gleamed a well-stacked pile of gold ingots exactly as I had left it, and, as Golightly was prepared to swear, in exactly the same position as before the furore.’ Holmes dramatically lifted up one ingot from the top to examine it, but he nearly dropped it as he saw what was in the layer underneath. He bent towards the pile and chuckled as he took in the subterfuge. Our nicely sculptured piece of balsa seemed to wink at him in a complicit manner, whereupon he rather crudely pushed the pile with an angry sweep of his right hand, wordlessly exposing our stratagem to the bewildered men.
‘Now I understand about the suitcase disappearing from my office,’ said Golightly, but once Holmes was focused on his mortal enemy Moriarty, his mind and ears were closed to everything else.
‘Only Moriarty could have thought of that,’ he said.
‘I’ll instruct Labalmondière to apprehend him directly,’ said Golightly. Holmes shook his unsmiling head, opened his eyes wide and asked. ‘Sir, if I may ask, where’s the proof?’
‘Holmes,’ snapped the banker in a desperate attempt to reassert his authority, ‘I pay you handsomely for your services, and give you forty-eight hours to come up with the aforesaid proof.’
‘I am afraid this is something I shall not be able to deliver in the near future,’ Holmes sniffed, looking at the banker in the eyes.
‘But you must, Holmes, you must. Promise me you will.’
‘No sir, I can promise no such thing. You see, Moriarty is no ordinary criminal. The only clues he leaves behind are false ones, calculated to mislead. The police is powerless to act. He sends details of his outrages to the newspapers and then denies that it was him. It’s my enemies in the academic world setting me up to destroy my reputation, he blandly declares when challenged.
‘You’re not suggesting that you’re going to cross your arms and let him get away with murder?’
‘No sir. Rest assured that I won’t rest until I do bring the villain to book for much more grievous felonies.’ Golightly lacked the imagination to conceive what could be more serious than interfering with the Royal Mersey. Holmes now took a more conciliatory tone.
‘I have in my possession a large number of, shall we call them pointers? Which, as matters stand, his clever lawyers will tear apart one by one in a court of justice. All I need is what Mr Darwin calls a missing link, and I am quite sanguine about finding it in the not too distant future. When I do, I will make sure he will either be put away for a long time, or, deservedly, I daresay, end up on the gallows. That’s all the promise you are getting from me.’ Golightly was far from pacified and grunted his disapproval of the man whose reputation he was beginning to believe was greatly exaggerated.
‘Now, if you will excuse me, I’d like to get started on my investigations right away,’ the detective said. Without waiting for acquiescence he took out his magnifying glass, a notebook and pencil, and began by studying walls and floors, door handles. Soon he was on his knees studying marks on the wooden floor, making sketches, taking down notes and asking questions of the employees. He was sure that Moriarty had not acted alone, but my part in the venture seemed to have gone unsuspected—which was something of a disappointment to me. While he went chasing the evil professor, in Water Lane, we celebrated in style.
We revelled until late into the night. Bartola sang Italian madrigals, Coleridge extracts from Otello, and Artémise played the fiddle. Pleasant enough of course, but not commensurate with the triumph of the occasion, thought Vissarionovich. He declared that it was time to change the tempo, and having imbibed a whole bottle of Russian vodka, of which he always seemed to have an inexhaustible stock, he began by showing us that the piano was not just for playing nocturnes and études, and ended up by giving us demonstrations of the Cossack dance, with everybody providing an accompaniment by clapping our hands and hollering.
Later, noticing that Anatole had quietly slipped away, I went looking for him and found him in the library where he was sitting on his own, smoking a cigar thoughtfully. When I tried to engage him in conversation, he surprised me by indicating that he had no wish to talk.
‘I am thinking,’ he replied curtly when pressed. I shrugged and walked away, but before I reached the door he coughed, and I went back towards him. I could not help noticing that his eyes were now twinkling mischievously.
‘I know how to double our loot,’ he said. I sat down opposite him and pressed his arm as a sign of encouragement. Unable to contain his excitement, he explained his plan to me at great length. It was not going to be another
venture, but rather an extension of the one in train. I have always had the greatest respect for our Swiss wizard’s financial acumen, and his proposition seemed sound.
Next day, Anatole explained his plan to the others.
‘In my experience, nobody in the world of finance is motivated by morality when it comes to a deal. The sole concern is profit. The first question anyone asks when faced with a potentially profitable proposition is not whether it is legal, honest and above board, but am I likely to be found out?’
He gave us examples of less than salubrious deals cut between thieves and their victims. Of stolen gold and jewellery being returned to their owners at half their market value after the latter had been generously reimbursed by the insurance companies. A practice as common in his native Switzerland as it is in London, Leningrad or Paris, he assured us.
‘Everybody knows this happens, but turns a blind eye as it is something that enriches all parties concerned.’
‘My contacts,’ he added, ‘people who have worked with him, have always been of the view that Golightly is the sort of man who would make a deal with the devil if it would bring him some dividend be it ever so modest.’ After a short discussion, the plan met with unanimous approval. All we needed to do was sit down round a table, polish the nuts and bolts of the operation, and then tighten them up.
There was not much point in wasting time. We planned the action for Monday. Early in the morning we accompanied Ivan Vissarionovich to Lombard Street, but the rest of us made our way to the Parasol whilst the Russian climbed the marble steps leading into the bank. I have reconstructed the events after hearing what all involved had to say.
Ivan began by making his way to one of the tellers and gave him the note below which we had composed together on Sunday night:
Dear Mr Golightly,
I take it that as one who deals with all sorts of risks, you must be something of a sportsman. You and I played one set, and I won. You might still be angry and want me hung drawn and quartered, but before you do anything to initiate this, think of what you would lose should you embark on anything rash. You and I know that you are not going to end up one farthing the poorer as a result of our recent little mise-en-scène, as Messrs Lloyds’ will be bearing the brunt of it all. We both know that profit and loss must be the most important consideration to someone in whose hands rests the financial health of the country. Now I have come with a proposition which will result in our mutual enrichment. I ask for nothing more than to have a tête-à-tête with you in your office where I shall expose to you the wherewithals of the transaction I have in mind.
You struck me as a man who will never allow sentiments to hold sway over common sense.
As expected, Golightly himself appears, looking out of sorts but trying hard to control his anger. Ivan knows that he would have to deal with this, and had come prepared. We are sanguine about the banker giving the nod to the deal we were waving in front of him, but for our plan to work, we need him to agree to the mode of exchange we had chosen. Obviously, Algernon, because his face was well-known in some circles in view of his background, preferred to operate behind the scenes, but his input was crucial. He has instructed Vissarionovich into the best approach to the wily nonagenarian. An Englishman, he had opined, would rather be thought of as a traitor than as someone without a sense of sportsmanship or of humour. Play on this, he had instructed.
He will find your urbanity disarming, exploit it. You are both men of the world. Imply that you view the venture as a battle of wits and that you are someone who respects the rules of the game. Make him believe that you think of him as a sharp operator, but stop short of suggesting that he is dishonest. This will bounce him into believing that you are the same. Your aim is to make him trust you. Only then will we be able to betray this belief. As we must.
Ivan begins by beaming a disarming smile at the ex-Mayor that catches the latter unawares, but he resists the temptation to reciprocate this outer sign of goodwill. Our friend extends both his arms towards his host in a grand effusive gesture but again this leaves the banker cold. Nevertheless he invites the Russian to follow him into his office. He then frostily shows his guest to a plush armchair opposite his desk and pings on a bell summoning Nancy his secretary to order her to brew some tea.
‘It is common knowledge that the Royal Merseyside has a branch in Colombo. I expect your people there send you the best Ceylon...’ begins Ivan, undaunted. Golightly looks at him, frowns and nods almost imperceptibly.
‘I would have thought you’d express a preference for Russia tea,’ says the banker sourly, but Ivan interpreting this as a sign of humour pounces on it, laughing loudly, nodding and shaking his index finger merrily, muttering, ‘I like that, eh, that’s funny.’ Golightly keeps a straight face.
‘Oh Nancy, use the tea which we received from Ceylon last week,’ the old man says curtly, still not disarmed. Vissarionovich then produces an ingot from his pocket and passes it over to the banker who receives it with a nod and proceeds to look at it from all sides, a faint smile lighting up his near centenarian face, the first chink in his armour.
‘Bite it,’ suggests Ivan in jest. The banker begins by demurring and frowning, unsure about what to do. He ends up by following the facetious suggestion, a glint in his eye suggesting that the test has proved conclusive.
‘You’ve got excellent teeth,’ observes the Russian with a smile. Golightly nods and twitches his lips. Was it a smile? Ivan wonders.
‘And they’re all my own,’ lies the man from Liverpool. It was a smile after all.
‘Shows what good living can do for one’s constitution,’ says Ivan. Golightly chuckles half-heartedly.
‘Obviously there are fifteen more at hand,’ Ivan says. This produces the first hearty smile on the face of the man opposite.
‘You said nearby? How near?’
‘Not too near ... obviously.’
‘Oh yes, I see, you think I might be tempted to use force to wrestle them from you,’ ventures the not so decrepit old man, whereupon the Muscovite explodes with laughter, raising his finger and waggling it gently as a mute appeal to the banker to temper his witticisms in order to save him from choking with laughter.
‘Ha, ha, ha! You English! I was warned about your capacity to make jokes even when you’ve got your back to the wall. They say it is your greatest gift.’ He is now thinking that his attempt to bounce the austere financier into the right mood for the transaction has worked.
At this point Nancy comes back with tea things and by now the original tension has given way to a more relaxed ambiance.
‘My dear Count, can I ask you a question?’
‘Please do, but I might choose not to answer it.’ Golightly laughs and shakes his head merrily.
‘You’re obviously a man of means, so why do you have recourse to skulduggery? If I might be so bold...’ Ivan guffaws.
‘Your worship, you define me as a man of means, ha! ha! ha! How did I acquire my wealth do you think? No sir, the jewels of the Romanovs belong to my cousin the tsar. I had to use my brains,’ adding after a pause. ‘Isn’t that how you acquired yours?’
‘We employ accountants of course, but we always stick to the rules.’
‘Which are subject to bending.’
‘We don’t breathe over their necks, if that’s what you mean,’ concedes the banker.
‘You realise that I will be instrumental in saving you a not inconsiderable sum of money. That should cheer you up no end.’
By now, the banker appears more relaxed and seems to be basking in the warmth generated by his acknowledged membership of the human race. He has been recognised as a true Englishman with a sense of humour. The atmosphere Ivan had wished for being achieved, he thinks that it is high time they began discussing the where and when of the transfer.
‘You’re getting your ingots back on top of the insurance and after paying me fifteen hundred pounds, you will end up with a net gain in excess of one thousand pounds,’ Ivan suggests to the
man opposite him. ‘You should be grateful to me.’
‘But I am,’ says the banker.
‘And I am grateful to you too of course, for it would not have been easy to dispose of hot loot, so you are saving us a lot of trouble.’ Admitting to your opponent something that he already knows is unlikely to hurt you.
‘My pleasure.’
Golightly then suggests that Ivan brought the gold back to the Royal Mersey for the trade-off at a time of his convenience, but our friend demurs. This was not in our plans.
‘Why, my friend,’ asks the Liverpudlian, using that appellation for the first time. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘Trust you? Of course I do dear friend. I subscribe fully to the notion of Honour Among,’ he hesitated before adding, to Golightly’s relief, ‘gentlemen. Honour Among Gentlemen. Don’t you?’ He nods.
‘My partners have suggested that for a game to be entirely fair, no one must have a home advantage. They insisted on the deal taking place on neutral grounds. You put the money in this small brown case and bring it to a place like...’ he hesitates, ‘eh... the Parasol down the road. I will have an identical case with the gold in it. We shall then share a pot of tea and some of the excellent pastry that the place is famous for, while I surreptitiously move the cases so that when we leave each gets possession of the appropriate bag. No eyewitnesses.’
‘How do you know that I will have put money in the case and not some rubbish?’ asks the man behind the desk.
‘Honour among thieves,’ says Ivan blandly, but quickly bursting into laughter added, ‘I know where your bank is, and we also know how to make real bombs.’ The dose of menace was just right.
The Memoirs of Irene Adler: The Irene Adler Trilogy Page 11
