Horatio Lyle (5 page)

CHAPTER 2

The file, Lyle grudgingly muttered as the carriage bounced its way through the grey, cobbled streets, was impressive. He flicked through the pages of notes on the Fuyun Plate, its history, its makers, how it had ended up in the hands of Her Majesty, in the Bank of England, and said finally, ‘Good grief.’

‘What?’ asked Tess, resisting the temptation to chew her fingers nervously, a habit she ’d developed at an early age and never quite kicked. The carriage rattled through the high, narrow streets of the City towards the towering edifice of the Bank of England, stopping and starting among hordes of carts, and cabs carrying the rich and the richer to and from their wealth, while on the river ships rang their bells to summon the sailors, and the factories warmed up for the day, spewing out steam and black soot into the sky.

‘Listen to this: “The Plate was believed by the natives of Tibet to have been forged in the making of the world by and for the ‘Tseiqin’, an ancient and powerful race, some call demons, some angels. On drinking holy water sanctified by the gods and mortal magic, the Tseiqin were said to acquire the powers of gods, and to this day are believed to roam the jungles and forests of the world, in search of their lost magic. The Plate has been valued at two hundred pounds.”’

‘Two
. . .
’ she squeaked. ‘I’ve never even seen a sovereign!’

‘Teresa,’ he said mildly, ‘with respect, you’re in an irregular occupation. You’ve got to try to understand the context. You break into the most secure bank in the world, into a vault said to be impenetrable by mortal man, merely to steal a stone plate valued at the kind of sum that would sustain no more than a single, small industrial family with no servant in moderate comfort for a year.’

‘Perhaps I knew ’bout the whole cultural malarkey.’

He gave her a look. She raised her eyebrows and said indignantly, ‘Well, it’s
possible
.’

‘You want to make odds?’ He flicked through the file again. ‘Ah. This is more like it. Also stolen - three gold goblets from the Hindu Temple of Camdoon, valued collectively at one thousand pounds; a silver ornamental plate presented by the last King of France to the Duke of Buckingham, valued at seven hundred and fifty pounds; a series of ornate gold swans gifted to Her Majesty’s Ambassador in Peking by the Manchu Emperor, valued at one thousand three hundred and fifty pounds.
These
would appeal.’

Her mouth was hanging open. ‘That’s
. . .
that’s like
. . .
like
. . .
’

‘Three thousand one hundred pounds.’

‘That ’s
. . .
that ’s
. . .
’

‘Enough money possibly to justify a break-in. The Fuyun Plate is an anomaly - an item of apparently no value.’

‘Well, that ’s good, though, ain’t it?’

‘Then why did Lord Lincoln ask
us
to find it?’ Lyle looked worriedly out of the window at the dirty streets.

Tess said in the silence, ‘Actually, sir, he asked
you
. That’s probably a bad thing, right?’

‘Thank you for reminding me.’

‘Any time, sir. Are we goin’ to the Bank, now?’

‘Yes. But first we ’ll pick up Tate.’

 

As Tess and Lyle rattled through the streets of London towards the Bank, the Honourable Thomas Edward Elwick stepped out of the family carriage into the grey, filtered daylight of the City. Dressed in a dark morning suit precisely tailored, complete with deep green waistcoat and black leather shoes, he felt ready to take whatever the world could throw at him. He had combed his thin, straight blond hair back from his face, stared into the mirror and wondered how much longer before he ’d have to start worrying about shaving, and hoped it was soon. They’d all said how well he was growing, what a fine young man he was, how proud the family would be. They said it a lot.

Behind him his father got out of the carriage and stared up at the Bank with a grim expression. It towered over the street, all dirty white stone, decked with statues of strange ladies holding spears with slightly odd expressions on their faces, as if wondering exactly what they were doing and why. It was a huge raised slab of stone that dominated the road. The body of the bank, far too large to be meant for ordinary humans, was a mix of stone pillars, iron cages and giant black iron doors. It looked as though it could accommodate an angry mammoth, and in the maze of corridors and halls inside, it might well and no one would ever know.

‘You see this, boy?’ demanded Lord Elwick sharply.

‘Yes, Father?’

‘It’s supposed to be the most secure vault on the planet, a symbol of Britain’s greatness. You know why we’ve been robbed?’

‘No, Father?’

‘Because the people of this day and age don’t give a damn about their fellow Christians!’

‘Yes, Father.’

And only a few hundred yards away, the tide turned by Blackfriars Bridge, and as it did it dragged something up from the depths of the slop-black Thames. It bumped against a bridge support and stayed, too heavy to be dragged further round, too buoyant to sink.

It would take a bored, slightly depressive sempstress several minutes of staring out across the waters to identify the corpse for what it was. By then, of course, it would be far too late.

 

Lyle had said that Tate needed his daily walk. Tate looked no more excited to clamber dutifully into the carriage than he would have been to stay at home. He sat on one of the seats with his nose between his front paws and looked, to Tess’s mind, far too disinterested to be real.

Arriving at the Bank of England, they climbed the stone steps up to the concourse and walked through two giant green-black iron gates to a hall buzzing with confusion. Policemen in their peaked helmets, blue uniforms and capes were looking uncomfortable and hoping no one would ask them for opinions, investigators in long overcoats were trying to radiate authority and the Bank’s clerks were in various stages of panic-induced breakdown.

One man was a picture of calm. He stood in front of a group of clerks, brandishing a pair of callipers, a ruler and a little notebook. To one cowering woman he said, ‘Are you aware that you have the skull of an adulteress?’

Lyle saw him and scowled. Before Tess could protest he grabbed her arm and dragged her behind a large white marble statue of some Greek warrior. Tess peered out between its legs across the room. The man, a precise gentleman, had an unhealthily sweaty white face, topped with greasy thinning black hair running to a pink bald spot. When he spoke, every syllable was pronounced sharply through his nose, as if he felt the listener was too slow to understand his words in any other way.

‘Who is it?’ she hissed.

‘Inspector Vellum,’ Lyle answered bleakly. ‘Satan’s answer to scientific advance.’

‘What ’s he doin’?’

‘Measuring people’s skulls.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he believes in phrenology.’

‘What’s that?’

He looked at her crookedly. ‘For a thief, you don’t know much about the police, do you?’

‘And that ’s surprisin’?’

He sighed. ‘Phrenology is where the size and shape of your skull determines whether you dunnit or not.’

‘Oh.’

Her reaction didn’t seem nearly as outraged as Lyle felt it should be. He said, in a slightly strained voice, ‘Teresa, the size of your skull is
not
proof of murderous tendencies.’ He thought about this statement, and then added, almost to himself, ‘Especially not if it’s been sat on.’

An indignant voice said, ‘Will you move on, please?’

The speaker was a flustered man with a huge gold fob watch suspended from his waistcoat, a scarlet face, a beetroot nose and thin grey hair. He looked like someone with an itch in the small of his back that he couldn’t scratch, and had a constant pained twitching in his eyes. Waving a sheet of paper at them, he exclaimed, ‘Unless you have business here, please move on!’

Lyle and Tess exchanged looks. Tate, as if sensing that here was someone who developed allergies, snuffled busily at his feet. The man paled. ‘It’s a dog!’

‘Well, actually, if you kinda look at him out of the corner of your eye
. . .
’ began Tess.

‘Teresa,’ said Lyle in a low, warning voice. He turned to the clerk and put on his best smile, which wasn’t very good. Horatio Lyle was not a very sociable person, and lacked practice. ‘Sir, I am Special Constable Horatio Lyle and this lady is
. . .
’

‘Her Ladyship Teresa of
. . .
’ began Tess brightly.

‘She ’s my assistant. And the canine in question is my loyal bloodhound
. . .
’ he hesitated, ‘
. . .
“Smells McNasty”, famed throughout the known world for his ability to track a thief through flood, storm and fire, responsible for the capture of Daniel “Devil” Derbish, notorious murderer of the axe school of psychopathy.’

The clerk just stared. Tate rolled on to his back, legs in the air, tongue lolling slightly in expectation. Not knowing what she did, Tess bent down and scratched his stomach. Lyle’s smile stretched just a little bit further, wrinkling his eyes from the strain. ‘We ’re on special commission from the Palace. Might we inspect the vault, please?’

They were led down a flight of stairs into a corridor which grew ever narrower as it wound through the building. Within a few turns Tess had lost all sense of direction and her attempts to count steps from place to place, doors and turns, had failed. The first door to the vault was a square iron thing, black and solidly constructed, which the clerk unlocked with a fat iron key. Lyle glanced at Tess, who shrugged and said, ‘Might be able to do something with it.’

Beyond this door there were no lights except for a few orange lanterns burning in a cold, dead air, at intermittent points along the corridor. A door led off halfway down, to a small room divided in two by a large iron cage. On one side crates were piled up wall-to-wall, and on the other a single stall and rickety wooden table sat, a guard standing just behind it looking like a man trying to impress. They passed to a large, circular room, against which a half dozen large, circular doors were butted, five of them locked tight. The sixth, directly at the end of the corridor, stood slightly open, and above it a wooden placard declared that this was ‘V18E’. Outside it a constable stood, looking uneasy. Lyle put his head on one side and looked very long and hard at the door. On the front was a large central wheel, with two keyholes on either side of it. Inside, three heavy round bolts ran across the door, hinged together on the same iron arms, which, when the wheel turned, locked them into grooves in the wall.

Lyle said briskly, ‘Who has the keys?’

‘There are only three copies
. . .
’

‘Who has them?’

‘I have one, the manager has another and the duty manager on shift has the third for the primary lock
. . .
’

‘Can you account for your movements last night?’

The clerk flushed indignantly. ‘Absolutely.’

‘And the manager?’

‘Definitely.’

‘What about the secondary lock? I assume you need both keys to open the door.’

‘Well,
quite
.’

‘Who has both keys?’

‘The duty manager on shift - the guard, if you like, although personally I feel it is such an imprecise definition of the many complexities of—’

‘Who was the guard last night?’

‘Bray.’

‘I’d like to talk to him.’

‘Constable Lyle,’ he said indignantly, ‘if you are in doubt as to the loyalty of my—’

‘I’m not doubting it, sir, I’m just a little
. . .
curious. How was the crime discovered?’

The clerk, feathers ruffled, muttered, ‘V18E is shared by the Elwick family, representatives of Her Majesty’s Government, and the Molyneux family, both of upright repute and
. . .
’

‘Yes, but how was the crime discovered?’

‘Lord Molyneux arrived this morning to retrieve an item of personal value from the vault. On examining the door, we discovered that it was unlocked and that several items of immense value were missing.’

‘Including the Fuyun Plate.’

‘Uh
. . .
’

Lyle raised his eyebrows. ‘The Fuyun Plate? Stone bowl, cultural significance?’

‘Quite possibly, the item was never of principal concern in this matter.’

‘Really? Why not?’

‘Sheer
financial
considerations, Constable Lyle,’ the clerk said, managing to imply that such matters were probably above the understanding of the uninitiated. ‘The Plate is not valued to nearly such an extent as many items which were
. . .
’

‘You never received any special instructions regarding it?’

‘Never.’

‘Who put it in the vault? Is it Elwick or Molyneux property?’

‘I believe the object was placed on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government by Lord Elwick.’