The Gold Masters (16 page)

‘Now stop that, Alice, do you hear? You’ve done nothing wrong. Think of Bert, and the baby. That’s better. You ran into the
conservatory
, Alice. What did you see? Just tell me briefly. There’s no need to take on so.’

‘Sir, I saw my master lying on the floor among the ferns. He’d been shot…. Oh, sir, there’s a curse on this house. First my master was robbed, then poor Mr Vickers was murdered. And now, poor Lord Jocelyn! If my mother had known that it would be like this, she’d never have let me work here.’

‘Was there anyone else in the conservatory? Did you see anyone else?’

‘No, no! It was empty. There was just Lord Jocelyn, lying there dead. There was nobody!’

‘Then why are you so terrified? Lord Jocelyn was murdered. It’s wasn’t suicide. Who did you see, Alice Parkes? You saw somebody. If it was somebody you knew, and you won’t tell me, you’ll make yourself an accessory after the fact of murder, and you’ll stand trial for your life. Think of Bert. Think of the baby.’

Alice began to cry, and her tears seemed to be those of hopeless despair.

‘There was nobody. Nobody! Leave me alone. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Yes, leave her alone!’

The ringing, aristocratic tones of Lady Marion Peto made Box look up in surprise. Already dressed in deepest black, the widowed lady stood, upright and haughty, near the drawing-room door. Alice got hastily to her feet and curtsied.

‘This poor, faithful girl, Inspector, did indeed see someone in the conservatory last night. She saw
me
! Alice, go to the servants’ hall. I’ll talk to this policeman alone. You’ve nothing to fear, girl. Go!’

Lady Marion stood on the threshold until Alice had gone, and then slowly closed the door. In her hour of distress she seemed to have regained some of the beauty for which she had been renowned in her youth. The almost wilful dowdiness of her middle years had disappeared. Box bowed gravely, and Lady Marion favoured him with a formal inclination of the head.

‘Yes, Mr Box,’ she said, in a high, clear voice, ‘she saw
me
. Over the years I had come to accommodate myself to Lord Jocelyn’s vile, low infidelities, his chorus girls and pretty shop assistants – yes, even this last dalliance, which was with a fraudulent medium! I swallowed my pride for the sake of our social position. But when he added total financial ruin to his catalogue of irresponsibilities, I sent him packing post haste out of this world. I rendered him senseless, and then I shot him. The gun was his own. There is,
perhaps, a certain irony in that.’

Box had guessed as much from the heavy hints that Lombardo had dropped. Those hints had enabled him to interpret Alice Parkes’s terror as something more than shock at finding her master dead. The girl had surprised her mistress, perhaps with the pistol still in her hand, but custom and habit had constrained her to hold her tongue.

Half an hour later, as Box led Lady Marion Peto away from the house through a crowd of weeping servants, he saw Inspector Price arriving at the end of Jubilee Road with the police hearse that would convey her murdered husband’s body to the railway, and so to Horseferry Road mortuary.

From
The
Morning
Post
, Saturday, 5 August 1893

The directors of Peto’s Bank followed Sir Hamo Strange
respectfully
along the subterranean passage that gave access to their tiled bank vault. It was cold and cheerless under the pavement, and the bullion racks were still empty and forlorn. Later that day, they would be full again, as staunch allies of Sir Hamo in the banking world shored up Peto’s credit by making loans of gold in
considerable
quantity to the stricken bank.

‘And this, sir,’ said Mr Robert Thorne, the Managing Director, a distinguished, grey-haired man in his sixties, ‘is the late Lord Jocelyn’s private deposit box.’

Sir Hamo Strange looked with kindly concern at the group of men whom, that very morning, he had newly confirmed as salaried directors. They returned his smile with deferential lowering of the eyes. Things, thought Strange, were going well.

‘My dear Thorne,’ he said, ‘I have been greatly moved by your many years of loyalty to my late dear friend Jocelyn Peto, and I feel that a review of your remuneration should be my immediate concern. Further, I should like to make the link between Peto’s and the Strange Foundation closer by appointing you as a voting member of the Board of Strange’s.’

He held up a hand to stem the man’s profuse flow of thanks.

‘And this, you say, is the late Lord Jocelyn’s private deposit box? Mine, now, I think?’

He smiled, and there was just a hint about the set of his right hand to suggest that he was holding it out as though expecting to receive something.

‘Of course, sir,’ Mr Robert Thorne replied. He placed a key in
Sir Hamo Strange’s hand.

Strange listened to the retreating footsteps of the directors as they made their way along the dreary tiled tunnel to the stairs. It was nice to have got Peto’s damned bank into his hands. It was even nicer to have got that million pounds insurance for the great and insoluble bullion robbery – the robbery that had never taken place. Then, of course, there’d be another million pounds coming in when the Swedish Loan was repaid. He’d have to do something about that fellow Box, though. A worthy young man, no doubt, but a considerable nuisance. Yes, he’d have to do something about Box.

Sir Hamo Strange inserted the key into Lord Jocelyn’s deposit box, and pulled back the lid. There it was, still wrapped in its protective green baize, the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, the secret edition of 1519, and here, in this first of the six volumes – yes! There it was, in its cardboard pocket, the secret history of Charles the Fifth of Castile. It was his! Destiny had always designed it to be his.

The directors, huddled near the cobwebbed stairs that would take them up to the marbled banking hall in the Strand, froze as they heard the peals of laughter echoing through the vaults, laughter that seemed almost insane in its hooting triumph, and its air of abandoned gloating. The laughter died away at last, and the figure of their benefactor appeared, a bulky parcel in his arms, ready to join them in the banking adventure that lay so enticingly ahead of them all.

Arnold Box walked rapidly along the Strand. Monday, 7 August had dawned grey and rather chilly, and by seven o’clock steady summer rain was falling. He had chosen a devious route from Fleet Street to Great Scotland Yard in order to pass the premises of Peto’s Bank. Would Sir Hamo Strange’s promise to open it for business hold good? Yes. The ‘Closed’ placards had been taken down, the big double doors stood invitingly open, and the windows blazed with light. He turned off the rain-lashed Strand into Adelaide Street.

The murder of Lord Jocelyn Peto by his wife had come as a shock. Lady Marion had behaved impeccably, and had seemed calm and fully collected when he had handed her over into the custody of Inspector Price. Nevertheless, a strange, wild light had suddenly been kindled in her eyes, a light that Box had seen before in others. He thought it more than likely that Lady Marion Peto would be found unfit to plead.

Box turned out of Northumberland Street and into Great Scotland Yard. The granite pavements gleamed in the morning rain. Crossing the cobbles into King James’s Rents, he hurried up the steps into Number 4. The floorboards in the entrance hall were already soaked by the passage of many wet boots, and the few
officers 
assembled there waiting for orders smelt like wet sheep.

Box glimpsed the welcome fire burning in the grate of his office beyond the swing doors, but that Monday his priority was to call upon Superintendent Mackharness, and secure the warrant for Sir Hamo Strange’s arrest on charges of embezzlement, fraudulent conversion, and conspiracy to defraud.

Superintendent Mackharness sat behind his big desk, a number of documents spread out in front of him. His face was stern, and there was a dangerous glint in his eye.

‘Ah, Box! Sit down there, will you, and listen very carefully to what I am going to say— No, don’t ask any questions, or make any requests. Just listen to me. I know how difficult you can be, how determined to thwart me whenever the fancy takes you.’

Mackharness fiddled restlessly with a paperknife, and Box saw the wariness which was always reserved for him alone flicker in his
superior
officer’s eyes. Then he threw the knife down angrily on the table.

‘Box,’ said Mackharness, ‘with effect from this moment, you are to drop all proceedings of any kind against Sir Hamo Strange. You will not seek to harass or question him about the events of these recent weeks. Your task now is to apprehend Francis Xavier Mahoney for the murders of the Reverend Mr Vickers and Police Constable Lane. I think that is all. Good morning.’

‘But sir, those vaults at Carmelite Pavement were full of lead! There was no gold there. The man’s a criminal fraud—’

Mackharness’s face flushed red with anger. He banged his big right fist on the desk.

‘Stop it, will you? I’ve told you that Sir Hamo Strange is not to be inconvenienced. If you think that you saw lead instead of gold, then you must persuade yourself that you were mistaken. I knew that you would forget yourself, and call my orders in question! The robbery at Carmelite Pavement will remain unsolved. There will be no warrant for Sir Hamo’s arrest, either now, or
subsequently
. Do you hear? Do you understand me? That is all, Box. Good morning.’

Arnold Box flung out of his master’s office, leaving the door ajar. It was clear what had happened. Mackharness had received orders from the top, and was content to thwart the demands of justice for the convenience of the established order. What was the point of continuing in the police?

Somebody asked him a question as he reached the hall floor, but he waved the man away, and hurried along the musty passage leading to the ablutions and the exercise yard. He would choke with rage and despair if he stayed any longer indoors, closeted with the stink of corruption.

The rain poured down relentlessly. Box crossed the secluded yard, and stood under the colonnade, looking back at the
soot-blackened
buildings of Number 4. He must control his rage! But one thing was certain: the time had come for him to quit the Metropolitan Police. It would be more wholesome to work with men like Paul Lombardo, men who could exercise their skills and talents free from political pressure. Yes; perhaps that was the way forward.

There was a noise behind him, and Superintendent
Mackharness
appeared from a door at the back of the colonnade. His face was no longer red with anger, but his wrath had not entirely abated. He seized Box by the arm, and shook him as though he were a recalcitrant little child.

‘Do you think I like it?’ he hissed. ‘To have to stand there, saying nothing while I’m told that the Government has ordered me to drop a case? How do you think a man of my age and background feels? I have to swallow my rage and obey, because I’m there to obey orders as well as to give them to others. And the same applies to you. So get back in there, Box, and get on with your work.’

‘I’m sorry, sir—’

‘It makes me feel that I’m simply in charge of a box of
marionettes
,’ Mackharness continued, looking not at Box but at the vertical summer rain washing across the yard. ‘I’m allowed to pull the strings for a while, but when someone more important wants
to take over, he pushes me aside. The commissioner himself is angry, and is going to storm the Foreign Office this very morning. That might afford us both a grain of comfort.’

‘Sir Edward himself is going to complain? That certainly helps me, sir. Sir Edward Bradford is the best commissioner we’ve had for years.’

‘He is, Box. Nobody would disagree with you on that. So, let us both move forward. I’ll get over today’s humiliation, Box, and so will you. Now, get back in there, do as you’re told, and go after Mahoney. Leave Sir Hamo Strange alone.’

Sir Charles Napier sat sphinx-like behind his vast ornate desk in the Foreign Office, and listened gravely to the angry voice of Sir Edward Bradford, Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis. Few men had earned so much public and private respect, but his world was not the world of politics. It would be difficult, if not
impossible
, to give him a soothing answer to the question of Sir Hamo Strange.

‘My officers had concluded a brilliant investigation,’ Sir Edward was saying, ‘in the course of which they had proved beyond doubt that Strange had engineered a fake robbery, and calmly pocketed the insurance paid to him for his non-existent loss. Inspector Box discovered that the man’s vast bullion vaults were filled with nothing more precious than lead. It’s just possible that he was on the periphery of the murder of one of my constables. And yet you tell me that I must drop all proceedings against Strange. Why?’

‘Because, Commissioner,’ said Sir Charles Napier, ‘it is in the national interest to do so. The consequences of interfering with Sir Hamo Strange would be of the gravest import, doing enormous damage to Britain and her standing in the world.’

‘Incalculable damage,’ echoed the other man in the room.

Colonel Augustus Temperley, strategic adviser to the China Desk, felt the same distaste as Napier at the prospect of fencing with Sir Edward Bradford. He looked at him now, his empty left
sleeve pinned to the lapel of his frock coat, his firm features adorned by a white cavalryman’s moustache. He was the very portrait of integrity. He and Napier must tell him the truth. But would he ever understand?

‘You see, Commissioner,’ said Temperley, ‘Sir Hamo Strange has only recently co-operated with us in a special act of secret
diplomacy
which has triumphantly strengthened our unwritten agreements with the Russian Empire. You know all about India. You served in the Madras Cavalry, and you understand the
situation
on the Sino-Indian border—’

‘Colonel Temperley is referring to our attempts to keep Russia’s eyes away from Afghanistan,’ said Napier. ‘Last time they crossed the border it cost us eleven million pounds to repel them. This time, Sir Hamo Strange raised private money to render Russian interest in the area quiescent. His power and influence stretches far beyond the United Kingdom.’

‘Some parts of Britain’s foreign policy, Sir Edward, are carved in letters of stone,’ Temperley continued. ‘One such part is, that the borders of India are inviolable, and not open to negotiation. Any violation of those borders will lead to war. Sir Hamo Strange has helped us to avert any such possibility.’

‘How did he do that?’ asked Sir Edward Bradford. Despite himself, he was becoming absorbed by the way in which these two men thought.

‘He did it, Commissioner,’ said Napier, ‘by raising an enormous sum of money at practically no notice to buy a railway for the Tsar of Russia, which will carry him – and his subjects – away from India and towards China. Hamo Strange does things like that. He never says “No”, and his word is as good as his bond. He’s vital to Britain’s interests, both at home and in the Empire.’

Sir Edward remained silent for a long while, mulling over what the two professional diplomats had told him. Napier and
Temperley
waited.

‘Very well,’ said Sir Edward at length in a tired voice. ‘I can see
your point of view – no, I’m sorry, it’s more than that, isn’t it? You have a long view of Britain’s vital interests denied to the layman. But you can’t get away from the fact that my officer, Inspector Box, was not exaggerating when he said that Strange’s vaults were filled with worthless lead. You may know all about India and China, but I’m quite sure that you didn’t know
that
.’

Sir Charles Napier blushed scarlet. For once, his diplomatic mask failed to conceal his embarrassment. He glanced briefly at Bradford, and then looked away.

‘Of course I knew,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Everybody here knows about Strange’s disappearing gold. And nobody
cares
, I tell you! Perhaps he arranged a fictitious raid on his own empty vaults, and perhaps he claimed the insurance – and perhaps Her Majesty’s Government quietly made good the loss! It’s because he knows that we will turn a blind eye to some of his peculiar habits, that he is able to organize these instantaneous loans of unimaginable sums to the Government.’

‘You
knew
his vaults were empty?’

‘Yes. They frequently are. And then, as year succeeds to year, the gold comes in again, the lead disappears, and the vaults beneath Carmelite Pavement are once more as fabulously rich as the mines of Southern Africa. Meanwhile, Sir Hamo Strange continues to be of national and international value. Leave him alone. Mr Gladstone wishes it, and so does Lord Salisbury. I know Inspector Box quite well. Let him pursue the murderers who were peripheral to this business, and bring them to justice. But once again let me repeat my injunction: leave Sir Hamo Strange alone.’

‘It’s high time, Mahoney,’ said the urbane Mr Curteis, ‘that you quit these shores for foreign climes. Or, to put it in words that you’ll understand, it’s time for you to cross the Channel, where friends of ours will see that you come to no harm.’

Francis Xavier Mahoney looked at the man who was both his friend and tormentor, and felt as grateful as such a man could be
for the chance he was being given to escape the gallows. What cursed luck! Dead men told no tales, which is why he’d finished off that old clergyman and the dangerous PC Lane. He’d made a mistake, though, with Knollys. He’d crossed his path, but had lived to tell the tale. Curse him! There was unfinished business there.

Curteis had found a set of rooms on the third floor of one of a number of tumbledown tenements in Garlick Hill, and here he had installed the fugitive Mahoney.

‘Let me tell you what you must do,’ said Curteis. ‘At the bottom of this street, and on the far side of Upper Thames Street, you’ll find a place called Syria Wharf. There are a lot of tall warehouses there, and beyond them you’ll find a private landing-place called Stew Lane Steps. On this coming Friday, the eleventh, make sure that you are there, on the steps, at seven o’clock in the morning. A tug boat, the
Mary
Barton
, on its way out for duty at Sheerness, will pick you up and take you out to a French freighter lying off the Isle of Grain. It will convey you to Boulogne, where friends will be waiting for you.’

‘Thanks, Mr Curteis. I’ll be there, never fear. How are things with old Strange? Has he managed to throw the vultures off his back?’

‘He has. Everybody’s praising him to the skies for rescuing Peto’s Bank. He and I went there on Tuesday, the day after they’d reopened for business. A crowd of customers caught sight of him, and gave a rousing cheer.’ Curteis laughed. ‘Sir Hamo actually blushed, and made them a little speech there and then. “This is my confidential secretary, Mr Curteis”, he said, realizing that I was standing there, smiling like an idiot. So I got a rousing cheer as well!’

‘So you should, so you should. And Spooky Portman? What’s happened to him?’

‘Mr Arthur Portman’s been transferred to Sir Hamo’s central business room at Medici House, on three times his former salary.
He’s to be in charge of day-to-day administration. I believe he’s going to drop spiritualism, and join the Church of England. Very wise of him.’

‘Some people have all the luck.’

‘Well, you won’t do so badly. When you get to Boulogne, you’ll find a bank account opened in your name, with a thousand pounds in it. Well, I must be on my way. Goodbye, Mahoney. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Meanwhile, let’s shake hands.’

Mahoney grasped the secretary’s hand, and a moment later found himself lying in a crumpled heap across the ash-strewn hearth.

‘A letter for you, sir. With an Austrian stamp.’

‘Thank you, Portman,’ said Sir Hamo Strange. ‘Are you enjoying your work here at Medici House?’

‘I am, sir. I can hardly believe my good fortune. You have been very kind.’

‘Not at all. Curteis tells me that you have already improved some of the daily procedures here in the business room.’

Mr Arthur Portman placed the letter on Sir Hamo Strange’s desk, and returned to his own business table, which stood like an altar on a dais surrounded by wooden rails. What wonderful luck! It was fascinating to work in this long Renaissance room, with its ancient frescoes and painted ceilings, and the battery of telegraph machines and telephones at the far end, bringing financial news from the four corners of the world!