Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (10 page)

3

CRACKSMAN

Verney Dacre tucked away the blue silk handkerchief in the pocket of his fawn-coloured summer jacket. Even in September the stateroom of the Philadelphia Packet, now-approaching New York, was warm enough to warrant a linen coat with matching waistcoat, cream trousers, and a cambric cravat in pink stripes. His lavender gloves and round silk hat lay with his cane on a small occasional table of pale mahogany. Behind him, the wake of the paddle frothed and rushed past the curtained window. Before him, the remains on the dinner-table consisted of an empty bottle in its silver ice-bucket, a pile of smoke-grey oyster shells, and a scattering of silver cutlery.

The stateroom panelling was of rosewood and bird's-eye maple, the wood polished, and gilded along its cornices. Cut-glass handles adorned every door and cupboard, while the velvet of the sofa and lounging chairs was a rich port-wine tone by comparison with the lighter cerise of the carpet. A pair of handsome pier-glasses flanked the door which communicated with the retiring room.

Ignoring Joey Morant-Barham, who reclined with his feet on the sofa, trailing greenish-grey smoke from his cheroot, Dacre opened the communicating door an inch or two. Maggie had straightened the white satin of the bedcover and had begun to dress herself. She had on her short white vest and a pair of close-fitting pants in light blue cotton, enclosing her from waist to ankles. Dacre's eyes narrowed in curiosity at the sight of her on all fours, brushing at the thick carpet. The blonde curtains of Maggie's hair fell forward, almost hiding her straight firm features. She scrubbed at the carpet with her hands, moving backward on knees and palms. With a whore-master's instinct, Dacre stood behind her and assessed the appeal of her figure in this posture. Her lack of height gave a slight heaviness to her hips and buttocks, which made him wonder whether she might not have dropped a cub on the sly. Presently she clawed up from the pile of the carpet a bright yellow circle, like a small wedding-ring. Dacre knew it for a 'hollow' half-dollar lately coined in this form. No doubt it had dropped from his pocket during his earlier enjoyment of her. He quelled an urge to treat Maggie like the thieving little shop-girl she might once have been. A fellow who was to have millions of such coins had better mind that business first. Moreover, experience had taught him not to strike a woman until she was of no further use to him. He closed the door on her and turned the key. The wash of the paddle-wake against the hull was ample security against Maggie hearing the conversation in the next room.

'They'll have us berthed in an hour, Joey Barham,' he said sternly. 'So give your best attention to this for a while.'

He unfolded a drawing in his own hand and spread it on the littered table. The square building with its central courtyard had been adorned by marks and shapes representing the contents of its rooms and the massive doors behind which they lay.

'Charley Temple's legacy and Miss Jennifer's confession,' he said softly. 'Just half a promise of being set free with Miss Mag as her bride and the Khan doxy couldn't talk fast enough. Now, put your mind to one door, plated steel with a time-lock, and one vault door of steel with a combination of numbers set to one in a million. This paper shall turn up treasure or turkey, old fellow, according to how we play the game now.'

Morant-Barham suppressed both his dismay and his scepticism. He knew how uncertain Dacre's temper might be and, after all, the Lieutenant had lightened a ferry train of half a ton of bullion three years before. The United States Federal Mint was hardly more than a bullion train on a larger scale.

'Three months' reserve of gold, Joey,' said Dacre softly,

"and the one day in the century is next Tuesday as ever is.'

'There's a rope for us both if it don't go smooth,' said Morant-Barham peevishly. 'I ain't that partial to go in there until I know the rig.' With that he had pressed his opposition as far as he judged prudent. Dacre's lips curled in a smile.

'Trust me, old fellow, it shall go as smooth as oil on glass. And you shan't go in, Joey, only in the properest way. I must shift for myself in this, with you outside. Now, oblige me by attendin' to this paper.'

Dacre had meditated so long on the design of the building that he hardly needed to look at the drawing as he spoke. The Federal Mint at Philadelphia had been built in the form of a Grecian temple, at the corner of Chestnut and Juniper Street. Its four sides enclosed a central courtyard, and Dacre had paced out the dimensions of the place as one hundred and fifty feet by two hundred.

Gold bullion, arriving at the Mint, went neatly round the four wings of the building. It was received at the south portico on Chestnut Street. This wing contained the public vestibule, the Director's office, and a small coin-museum. The bullion passed the main steel doors, along an arched subterranean corridor to the weighing-room. Moving to the west wing, the gold was melted and refined. It was first melted in crucibles with three parts of silver. The refiner would then dip his ladle into the molten mass, skim off the gold and throw it into vats of cold water. The lumps of cooled gold were then passed to the corroding-house to be further refined. This was done by placing them in porcelain troughs of nitric acid, which were in turn set in boiling water. After six hours, the gold had lost most of its impurities and was reduced to a dull, dark brown gravel. This was placed in hydraulic presses to be compacted into 'cakes' or 'cheeses'.

Before beginning the coining process in the north and east wings, the cakes of gold were covered with charcoal to prevent oxidization and were again melted to be cast as ingots. The north wing housed the great rolling-machines with their massive wheels which would flatten an ingot into a strip from which the planchets or blank coins could be cut. In convenient lengths, the strips of gold were passed through the steam-driven planchet-cutters in the east wing and the blank circles of gold were punched out. These were then stamped with the design of the coin, milled by hand, and their weights checked. After stamping and milling, they were passed to the stronghold in the east wing.

'Now Joey,' said Dacre reasonably. 'What we must have is finished coin from the stronghold. There's a million or two at least, all in bullion chests, waiting there to be shipped to banks and private clients of the Mint. Double eagles at twenty dollars a touch. Ingots is too deuced heavy, old fellow, you have my word upon it. And they need melting and getting rid of at a poor price. But with coins of the realm, Joey! Why, a chap might carry ten thousand dollars in his pockets almost! And a dollar will pay a dollar, devil-may-care where he got it from!'

'It ain't that I wish to be churlish,' said Morant-Barham, with a good-natured laugh to prove it, 'but how is all this money to be got?'

Dacre smoothed the plan flat.

'It's to be got in the course of one night, Joey. Between six in the evening, when the locks go on, and seven the next morning when they come off. There's a night-watch, but they ain't trusted near the gold. They're carrying guns, of course, but they can't get into the refining-shops or anywhere but the outside offices.'

'Why not?'

'Here,' Dacre's bony finger traced a line just behind the entrance vestibule. 'Short of a ton of gunpowder, a man won't get near the gold except through that door. Plated steel and weighs several tons. It ain't just locked, Joey. A fellow might soon come to terms with a lock. There's a devilish clever cove by the name of Sergeant who built this one and geared it to a clock. From six in the evening until seven in the morning, there's three inches of solid steel, tight as a curate's purse, closing the keyhole on the inside.

A fellow can't even chisel out the entire lock, for it's fitted from the far side of the door. At seven in the morning, the wheel that the clockwork keeps turning will move round so that the steel is clear of the keyhole. And then you may open it with a key. It ain't to be broke, Joey!'

'Then you'll never see inside!' said Morant-Barham peevishly.

'It ain't to be broke, Joey! But no more am I! Now, have the goodness to attend to me again. A fellow that
could
get past the time-lock might get to the refining-shop and the rest of the machinery. Not that he'd find gold there, unless he could scrape a peck off the crucibles. Between him and the stronghold wing stands another door with a lock that never saw a key. It's all numbers, Joey. A man that knows the seven figures he must turn the dial to can open it in a minute. Otherwise, he might as well go home and forget it.'

'And you know it, Dacre! You must, by God!' Dacre shook his head.

'I don't, Joey. No one knows it. The man who closes the lock may choose any figure in a million and may alter it every time he closes the lock. Once it's shut, he must either tell you what the secret is, or you must break into his skull for it. It's a lock that is never set except by the Director himself or his private secretary.'

'Then you must rack it from them!' said Morant-Barham furiously.

Dacre laughed.

'If you suppose, Joey Barham, that I shall do anything of the sort, y'are most monstrously misled. I trade in masterpieces, old fellow. When this crib has been cracked, there's not a soul who shall know when or how. Not a lock forced, not a door scratched, not a man spoken to in ill-temper. That's the art of it, Joey. After the time-lock and the figure-lock, however, there's nothing but a Double Treasury lock in the door of the vault, and one of Mr Yale's cylinder locks on each of the bank boxes. If I ain't sprung that lot in five minutes, Joey, then I deserve to be hung.'

'May I be damned if it's to be done!' said Morant-Barham, sitting down heavily on the sofa again. 'There isn't a way past that time-lock. The night ain't long enough for you to try every setting of the figure-lock, even if you'd nothing else to do. And if you found it in the end, they'd change it before the next night! Where's the good of being able to open vault doors and cylinder locks, when you'll never so much as see them? I don't mean to cavil, old fellow, but it
can't
be done - any of it!'

'Joey, Joey,' said Dacre gently, as if he were soothing a crying child, 'ain't that the beauty of it? It
can't
be done! You might go to the Treasury or the police tomorrow and tell them the tale. They'd laugh in your face. It can't be done, old chum. And that's why I shall do it. By God, I ain't come this far without knowing what needs doing in the matter. The Khan girl's plan was a gift from the gods, and damned if they ain't given me one other.'

'You've a partner inside?'

'Just you and me, Joey. One week from today!'

'Time-locks that can't be broke?' said Morant-Barham sceptically. 'And a figure-lock that must be set at one in a million ?'

Verney Dacre brushed his fair whiskers gently against the flush of excitement in his spoilt, petulant face.

'Joey, Joey,' he murmured to himself, 'I'm through those locks already, as sure as I stand here!'

Morant-Barham lay on the sofa in the stateroom as the steamer carried them past the Battery and towards their landing. He listened to the details of the plan, sometimes gasping, mouth gaping with delight, sometimes sniggering with sheer pleasure at the neatness of it. He thought that even if the gleam in Dacre's eye bordered on derangement, there was after all a way through the time-lock and the figure-lock, as the scheme unfolded. Once the cracksman had mastered the locks and was in that part of the building where even the most trusted officers of the night-watch could not follow, he was master of the place until morning.

And when Dacre described the means by which the entire contents of the gold vault might be shipped effortlessly out of the Federal Mint, Joey Barham rolled hopelessly about the sofa, roaring and tearful in an ecstasy of mirth. His scepticism had gone. It
could
be done - every last half-dollar of it, Joey thought.

Dacre left him and slipped into the adjoining room. Maggie was still in her short white vest and close-fitting cotton pants, though now she was standing before a long mirror, shaping her hair on top of her head, as though trying a selection of styles. She let it fall, so that it hung in a blonde tail behind her, down to the level of her shoulder-blades. Dacre knew- that the next few minutes were as important in his plan as any time which might be spent in manipulating a mere lock. Maggie was a pet English-born acquisition, a common shop-girl whom he had drilled until she was the most expensive young whore in the house which he operated in New York. There was a sulky petulance about her but she had learnt not to show it to the man who was virtually her master. Not that Dacre had so far broken her lips for her, but Maggie maintained a romantic attachment to another girl of the house, 'Tawny Jenny', and Dacre had left her in no doubt that Jennifer, with her Indian beauty, would suffer for the blonde girl's sins.

He stood behind Maggie, holding her jaw firmly with one hand, keeping her face to the mirror so that he could watch her expression as he spoke. With his other hand he undid her pants and let them fall, so that she stood only in the short vest. Maggie stood tense but still, knowing that she had little choice in the matter.

'Now, miss," said Dacre softly, 'you know what must be done?'

'Yes,' she said, in a low soft voice with the hint of a Celtic lilt, 'I know. I've been told often enough.'

Dacre's hand caressed the pale satiny warmth of Maggie's bare hips.

'Y' love Jennifer, do y' not? There ain't much doubt, to judge by the way you sniff that young Bengali bitch's tail half the day and most of the night!'

The anger in Maggie's eyes was quickly subdued.

'Very well,' Dacre continued. 'Now, Miss Jennifer ain't exactly a free agent in the matter, having cost me money to buy in the South and bring here. And if you think you may walk off the premises with her, miss, you shall find that Cowhide and Lucifer will contradict you both.'