The Gold Masters (5 page)

The man standing before them was middle-aged, with an elfish, good-humoured face. Although he was illuminated only by the dim red light near the door, Lane could see that he had blue eyes, greying side-whiskers, and a fleshy, expressive mouth. A white light flickered briefly above his head, and then
disappeared
.

‘That light,’ Portman whispered, ‘shows that this is a true
discarnate
spirit from the other side. A physical manifestation has no such light.’

The spirit’s lips began to move, but the words that he uttered came not from him, but from the entranced medium in the chair.

‘Lewis,’ said the spirit, in a friendly, rich voice, ‘you’ll not
recognize
me, I expect?’

‘No.’ Lewis wondered where he had summoned the courage to speak to this creature. What was it? He longed to fling open the shutters, and reveal the whole damnable business to the light of day. But he was held in thrall by the urge to see his baby daughter again.

‘I am Roger Wilcox, your wife’s uncle on her mother’s side. I was the black sheep of the family, you know—’

‘Roger Wilcox!’ cried PC Lane. ‘Yes, I remember her telling me about you once, long ago, before ever we were married. You did a stretch – I beg your pardon, sir – you went to prison for a year’s penal servitude for larceny. It was before either of us was born. There’s – wait! We have a photograph of you on our mantelpiece, an old, faded photograph….’

‘Yes, you have. And you were right about me being in prison. I was sent out to the Malay Straits, where I died of fever in 1865. But I’m not here, Lewis, to talk about myself. I want to tell you about little Catherine Mary. She’s been with me a lot since she passed over, and has tried to tell me what happened. She says she was playing in Wellclose Lane, near the railway bridge when she felt bad.’

‘Yes!’

PC Lane listened as the spirit of his wife’s uncle told him about Dr Morland, who had attended the case, of the sympathetic sister in the hospital, who had wept when Catherine Mary had died. He, Roger Wilcox, had been present at the little girl’s funeral, and had tried to comfort them both, but to no avail.

‘And now, Lewis, I must tell you that Catherine Mary is wanted
in the Garden of Innocence, where she will be taught to grow and advance. It is a wonderful place, and you must steel yourself to let her go there. I think you will see her today, and then on one more occasion, when she will be able to speak more fully to you. They are teaching her already, you see. Goodbye, Lewis. Trust! All these things that I have told you are true.’

The spirit of Roger Wilcox turned, and walked slowly back into the cabinet, where it was absorbed in the swirling luminous mist. Madam Sylvestris, still entranced, sat upright in her chair. The stream of ectoplasm trailed from her mouth, and PC Lane saw how it disappeared into a denser cloud of mist behind the medium’s chair. Madam Sylvestris began the stertorous breathing that Lane had heard at the Spitalfields seance, and presently the mist parted, to reveal a little girl standing uncertainly in the centre of the cabinet. Lane half rose, but Portman pushed him back almost roughly into his chair.

Lane could not see very clearly, but the little girl was the image of his dead child, and she was wearing her favourite pink flounced dress — the dress in which she had been laid to rest in Putney Vale Cemetery.

‘Dada!’ The lisping voice came not from the child, but from the medium. ‘Dada! Nora Maitland is here. She’s been playing with me. She only came yesterday. Tell Mammy not to cry. Next time you come, I’ll not need to speak through the lady.’

‘Catherine Mary! You’re to be a good girl, and do what they tell you up there. Dada will come to see you again—’

Suddenly, the spirit disappeared, and the medium uttered a long, heavy sigh, and opened her eyes. Mr Portman quickly rose, unfastened the shutters, and rang a bell at the side of the fireplace. The bright morning sunlight flooded into the room. There was nothing to be seen but the empty corner with Madam Sylvestris sitting in her chair. The seance was over.

The door opened, and the foreign maid came into the room, carrying a tray on which stood three glasses of sherry. She placed
them on a table, curtsied to her mistress, and went out, closing the door behind her.

‘How did it go?’ asked Madam Sylvestris. She looked drawn and tired, and to Lane’s amazement seemed to know nothing of the events of the last hour. ‘I do hope the dear child came through. I saw her in the spirit yesterday, but only as a thought-form.’

‘It was a triumphant success, madam,’ said Alfred Portman. He handed her a glass of sherry, and motioned to PC Lane to take a glass himself.

‘It was wonderful, ma’am,’ said Lewis Lane. ‘It was my baby, right enough. She mentioned poor little Nora Maitland, a
neighbour’s
child who was run over and killed by a runaway horse and cart only yesterday. I don’t know how you do it, ma’am, but it’s a miracle!’

The handsome woman smiled, and sipped her sherry.

‘I don’t “do” anything, Mr Lane, I’m simply a medium, a channel, if you like, through which the so-called dead can
communicate
. Did you see a man called Roger Wilcox?’

‘I did, ma’am, and he told me that I’d see Catherine Mary only once more, before she went off to the – what was the place called?’

‘The Garden of Innocence,’ said Portman gravely, though Lane thought he saw a spasm of amusement cross the man’s face.

‘That’s quite true, Mr Lane,’ said Madam Sylvestris. ‘And on that last occasion Catherine Mary will appear as a detached entity, who will be able to speak independent of my voice-box, and come close to you, with all the semblance of a child still living in the flesh. By then, too, she will have mastered the art of speech quite dramatically, and she will be able to take a loving farewell of you in more understandable language. Please come here, to my house, at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday, the twenty-eighth of this month.’

‘The twenty-eighth? But, ma’am, my work—’

‘I know your work is terribly important, Mr Lane,’ said Madam Sylvestris sharply, ‘but surely you can find a substitute for that
morning? It cannot be any other time but that which the spirits have decreed. It is the last time that you will see the fully evolved spirit of your child on this side of the grave.’

‘Yes…. Yes, ma’am, you’re right, and I’m sorry if I appeared ungrateful. I thank you for your goodness and kindness to me from the bottom of my heart, and I shall be here without fail on the morning of the twenty-eighth.’

‘Curteis,’ asked Sir Hamo Strange, as his confidential secretary came into the study after dinner that evening, ‘is there anyone waiting for me downstairs? I fancy I heard the front-door bell ringing a minute ago.’

‘There’s a gentleman newly arrived, sir, who said that he was expected. He wouldn’t give his name, and I humoured him by not pressing the point. I’ve settled him in the writing-room.’

Curteis made no attempt to suppress a rather contemptuous smile.

‘Narrow-faced man? Black whiskers?’ asked Strange. ‘Very well. Bring him up here, will you, Curteis. You know who he is, I expect?’

‘Yes, sir, but I thought it advisable to pretend that I didn’t
recognize
him. That kind of silly pretence seems to satisfy the fellow’s vanity.’

‘Yes, well, never you mind about his vanity. He’s a man with many uses. Bring him up here, now, and then make yourself scarce.’

When Curteis returned with the visitor, he ushered him into Sir Hamo’s study, closed the door silently, and went downstairs. Strange told the visitor rather curtly to sit down.

‘Now, Portman,’ said the great financier, ‘have you carried out the little commission I entrusted to you? Or did you have scruples in the matter? Maybe it’s of no significance, but it’s as well to cover all eventualities. Whatever the outcome, you won’t lose by it.’

‘I have undertaken the commission, sir,’ Arthur Portman replied, ‘and I’ve come here this evening to tell you the result. Our vault at Peto’s Bank in the Strand contains just over half a million pounds in gold. When the Swedish consignment leaves there on the twenty-eighth, there will remain nine hundred pounds in sovereigns, sufficient to stock the tills, but nothing else.’

‘Hm … You do appreciate, do you not, that when you come to work for me, you will receive double at least what Peto pays you as chief counter clerk? Good, I see you do. All I ask in return is discretion. And the Temple of Light – all went well there, I trust?’

Mr Arthur Portman smiled, and his smile was met by that of Sir Hamo Strange.

‘Oh, yes, sir. All went well in that direction. If I may say so without disrespect, the spirits have been very much on our side this month.’

Sir Hamo Strange motioned towards a fat envelope placed on the edge of his desk. Portman picked it up, put it without comment into the pocket of his well-cut morning coat, and walked softly from the room.

‘
Sir
’, Box read in a note that had been brought across to him from Whitehall Place,
‘it was all true. I saw the spirit of my wife’s uncle, who talked about things known only to our family. And then Catherine Mary appeared, looking just as she did in life. She was wearing the dress in which we buried her. I saw her lips moving, but the words came from the mouth of Madam Sylvestris. It’s all true, Mr Box. I’ve been promised that at the next seance Baby will speak in her own little voice!’

Arnold Box put away PC Lane’s hastily scribbled note in the desk drawer. It was after nine, and the usual evening calm had settled over 4 King James’s Rents. Box sat in thought, watching the flames leaping in the fireplace. Could it be true? No … These people had all kinds of subtle and not so subtle ways of parading their deceit. Lane was an “A” Division man, no concern of his;
nevertheless, he’d keep a careful eye on the police constable who had witnessed the apparitions of folk who were supposed to be dead.

Lady Marion Peto was still distinguished enough to find her portrait reproduced in the better society magazines, but since turning fifty she had begun, so her sister declared indignantly, to ‘let herself go’. Her fashionable clothes had yielded to a wardrobe of plain greys and browns, and her hair, once tended by a
celebrated
London coiffeuse, was now pulled back sternly from her forehead, and tied in a bun.

‘Lord Jocelyn came home at an odd hour this afternoon, Marion,’ said Lady Marion’s sister, Lady Riverdale, putting down her tea cup on its saucer. It sounded like a statement, but it was, in fact, a question.

‘Lord Jocelyn keeps bankers’ hours, or so he tells me, Cornelia,’ said Lady Marion drily. ‘Far be it from me to inhibit his freedom. But then, Jocelyn has always done just as he liked. He decided long ago that I was a credulous fool, and it suits me at present to let him go on thinking that.’

She glanced at her younger sister, and thought: she looks more like my daughter, beautifully dressed,
soignée
, what their father used to call ‘an ornament of society’. That’s because Lord Riverdale dotes on her. She’s no need to run charities and sit on committees, as I do, to mask my sense of worthlessness.

‘Well, my dear,’ said Lady Riverdale, ‘I still wish that you’d come to stay with us at Rivermead Place for a few weeks. Alfred would be delighted to have you, so think about it. I’m your only sister, and I’d like to see more of you.’

‘Well, Cornelia, I’ll think over what you’ve said. It’s very kind of you both, but I have many projects on hand at the moment that can’t be left. I’ll write and let you know.’

When her sister had made her farewells, Lady Marion sat in thought. What was to become of her? She was fading visibly, and very soon whatever slender bond still existed between her and her husband would be broken. He knew that, too, and had already made the necessary arrangements….

She knew nothing for certain, but she would not be long in that state of ignorance. To judge from his air of smug contentment, his latest abandoned female was someone more distinguished than his usual flower-shop girls and minor actresses. He thought she was a fool. Did he also think that she was harmless? Did he—?

The door of her sitting-room opened, and a young housemaid appeared.

‘Shall I clear away, your ladyship?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Alice, you can clear, now. Have the ladies from the Dorcas Society arrived yet?’

‘Yes, madam. They’re ready in the drawing-room.’

Lady Marion watched the housemaid as she left the room carrying the tea things on a silver tray. Alice despised her, of course, for failing to please her lord and master. They all despised her for abdicating her role as gracious companion of a
distinguished
public figure, and chatelaine of Duppas Park House. Well, she didn’t blame them. Her own sister despised her, and Clemency, who was her father’s daughter in every respect, treated her with a mixture of pity and impatience. But then, she despised herself.

Rising from the table, she went downstairs to meet the dull and worthy women of the Dorcas Society.

Arnold Box stepped down from the omnibus that had brought him out to Finchley, and made his way along pleasant roads of red brick houses adjoining a number of playing fields and small public gardens. Turning into a brand-new avenue of modern villas, he knocked at the door of the third house on the right-hand side, and waited for Ethel, Miss Louise Whittaker’s trim little maid, to admit him to the house.

Over the two years since Box had encountered Louise Whittaker, the London University scholar and he had become firm friends. It was his habit – and his great pleasure – to go out to Finchley to consult her, whenever he wanted a female slant on some aspect of a case.

The door opened, and little Ethel, as neat as ever in cap and apron, stepped out into the front garden. She put a finger to her lips, and setting convention aside, drew Box by the sleeve into the shade of one of the laurel bushes flanking the path.

‘Oh, Mr Box,’ she whispered, ‘Missus has got a young gentleman with her this morning. Do you still want to come in? Or will you leave your card?’

‘A young gentleman?’ asked Box truculently. ‘What kind of a young gentleman? What are you talking about, Ethel?’

He was conscious of how ridiculous his jealous resentment must have sounded to the 14-year-old girl who was still clutching his sleeve, and viewing him with an infuriating air of compassion. Ethel giggled.

‘You’d better come in, Mr Box,’ she said. ‘This young gentleman is another scholar, come to talk about books and suchlike. They’re having morning coffee and biscuits in the study, so I’ll fetch another cup. Mr James, he’s called, this young gentleman. Mr M.R. James, it said on his card.’

Box followed the little maid into the house, where he was conducted without ceremony to Louise Whittaker’s study, which occupied the spacious front room of the house. Serenely beautiful as ever, the lady of the house rose to greet him. She had been
sitting at the round tea table near the fireplace, upon which stood a silver tray bearing a tall coffee pot, cream jug, sugar bowl, and two china cups and saucers.

‘Why, Mr Box!’ cried Louise. ‘How kind of you to call.’ Her voice, amused, musical and educated, carried its own subtle authority. She fixed Box with what seemed to be a limpidly
innocent
smile, a technique of hers that never failed to make him feel awkward and foolish.

‘May I introduce Mr M.R. James, of King’s College, Cambridge?’ she said. ‘Mr James, this is my friend Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard.’

A fair-haired young man in a dark suit half rose from a chair by way of greeting, and there was something nervously awkward about the gesture that told Box that he was not in the presence of a rival for Miss Louise Whittaker’s affections.

‘Box?’ said James. Are you
the
Inspector Box? The man who exposed that confounded rogue Gideon Raikes, and solved the 25-year-old murder of Henry Colbourne? My dear sir, I’m honoured to meet you.’

M.R. James sprang to his feet, and shook Box heartily by the hand. At that moment Ethel entered the room bearing an extra cup and saucer, which she placed on the table. She contrived to ignore Box, as though she had never seen him before in her life.

‘Sit down, Mr Box,’ said Louise, ‘and I’ll pour you some coffee. What dramatic police business brings you out to Finchley?’

‘I’m engaged on an investigation that’s taking me into the murky realms of spiritualism, Miss Whittaker,’ Box replied. ‘I don’t mean the usual knavish tricks, like spirit writing, or table turning. They’re all in a day’s work, so to speak. And spirit photography, likewise – all those little faces cut out from
magazines
, and stuck on cotton wool. I could do those myself.’

‘This is something more serious, isn’t it, Mr Box?’ asked Louise, setting his coffee cup beside him, ‘Something sinister, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘It is, Miss Whittaker. The medium I’m investigating has produced the spirit of a dead child, who spoke to her father in such a way that he was convinced that the manifestation was real. I was there myself, and witnessed it. The father has since attended a second seance, and once again the child appeared, and spoke to him through the medium. He sent me a note to tell me all about it. What I want to know, is whether such things are possible.’

All three were suddenly quiet, as though some unseen presence had joined them. A horse and cart trundled slowly along the road, the sound of hoofs muffled by the heavy velvet curtains half-drawn against the strong sunlight. The silence was broken by M.R. James.

‘Spiritualism, Mr Box,’ he said, gravely, ‘came to England from America, bringing with it a whole baggage of crudity and vulgarity. From the start, it’s been shot through with chicanery and fraud. For that reason most educated people disdain to examine its phenomena. For the man of science, to do so would be to invite professional suicide. However, there are a number of courageous people at Cambridge and elsewhere who are determined to examine the phenomena of spiritualism in the cold light of reason. Professor and Mrs Sidgwick spring to mind, and Professor Barrett, of course.’

‘Do
you
think there’s any truth in it, Mr James?’ asked Box.

‘I think there must be some truth lurking behind all the fraud and deceit. One does hear of the strangest things happening at seances.’

While James was speaking, Box caught Louise’s eye, and read there a plea that he would change the subject. He suddenly
realized
that she was uneasy with, and perhaps a little frightened by, spiritualism. An innocuous question was in order.

‘Do you live in London, Mr James?’ he asked.

‘No, indeed. I’m a Fellow of King’s College, in Cambridge, but I’ve come up to London at the behest of Sir Hamo Strange, the famous bibliophile. I’m by way of being an expert on the
provenance
of ancient books and manuscripts.’

‘Sir Hamo Strange? It’s odd that you should know him, sir. I’m engaged on some very important police work for him this very week. Work to do with his banking interests. I didn’t know that he was a collector.’

‘Oh, yes, Inspector, he’s very well known in that sphere of activity, and he recently acquired a set of volumes that were lost to sight for nearly two hundred years. They began their wanderings again earlier this month, after a long and secret rest in Spain. I heard on the rumour mill late last year that its owner, Count Fuentes de la Frontera, was about to part with it, and that Sir Hamo Strange, and his great rival, Lord Jocelyn Peto, were both determined to acquire it—’

‘Lord Jocelyn Peto is another of my customers, sir, if I may put it like that.’

‘Indeed? Coincidence is a curious thing, Inspector. But let me tell you about this celebrated book. The six volumes comprise a unique copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, which was printed in six volumes in 1520. “Polyglot”, of course, means simply “many languages”, and this Bible was printed in Latin, Hebrew, Chaldaean and Greek, arranged in parallel columns. It was printed in the Spanish town of Alcala de Henares, the Roman name for which was Complutum. And thus the work is called the Complutensian Polyglot Bible.’

‘And Sir Hamo Strange was the successful bidder?’ asked Box.

‘He was, and he wants me to verify that the volumes that he had acquired are genuine. You see, it’s a unique and very special copy of the Polyglot Bible. It was pulled from the press in 1519, a year before the general publication, and set into the front board of the first volume there is a pouch or pocket, containing a document actually written in the Chaldaean script, and printed with the same fount of type as that used in the Bible itself—’

‘The Chaldaean Cipher!’ cried Louise. ‘Of course, I’ve heard about that, but I thought it was just a legend.’

‘No, Miss Whittaker, it’s real enough, and Sir Hamo Strange
now has it in his possession. This secret document – no one knows who composed it – reveals many personal and secret details about the life of Charles the Fifth of Castile, and also private and
intimate
facts relating to Queen Isabella. It surfaced briefly in France in the early 1700s and then was lost to sight again until quite recently.’

‘A rare treasure, then, sir,’ said Box. ‘And you say it had gone on its travels from Spain? How were you able to track its movements? I’m interested in the detective side of things, as you’ll appreciate.’

‘Well, Mr Box, there’s a man called Aaron Sudermann, who’s known as “the shop-keeper of princes”. It was he who obtained the lost Leonardo from the Sultan of Turkey last year, at the request of the King of Italy. Now, I happen to know that Aaron Sudermann was in Vienna at the end of June, where my friend Professor von Metz saw him setting out for the hill town of Regensburg on the Styrian coach. Styria is where Sudermann likes to meet his more reclusive clients. It was there that he handed over a bundle of rare Greek manuscripts to Sir Hamo Strange in the autumn of 1890.’

‘And how does all this fit in with this Count Fuentes and his Polyglot Bible?’

‘As to that, Mr Box, Aaron Sudermann was in Andalusia for most of June, and Andalusia is where Count Fuentes lives. All interesting parts of a minor puzzle!’

‘I find it very difficult to fathom people like Strange,’ observed Louise. ‘To see a book merely as a collectable object is very alien to my habit of mind. Books to me are sources of knowledge. I can see no virtue – or pleasure, even – in merely owning them.’

M.R. James laughed.

‘That’s because you’re not a dedicated book collector, Miss Whittaker. There are two varieties, you know. One is the bookseller, a man who loves all the books that he acquires, and knows all about them, their contents, their history, and the history of their various owners over the centuries. When a client picks up one of
his treasures, he longs to cry, “No! Please, sir, put it back on the shelf. I love that book. It is part of me.” But then, the voice of commerce prevails, and he immediately urges his customer to buy. And so he parts with what he loves.’

‘And the other variety?’ asked Louise.

‘The other variety is the man who wishes to acquire a volume in order never to part with it. Its value to him lies in its rarity, its uniqueness, and its monetary value. It is virtually certain that he will never read it! I call such men bibliomanes, because they are afflicted with the disease of bibliomania. Such a man is Sir Hamo Strange, and, to a lesser extent, his dreaded rival Lord Jocelyn Peto. Like all obsessions, bibliomania can de dangerous.’

When it was time for Arnold Box to leave, Louise Whittaker preceded him into the narrow hallway of her house, closing the study door behind her. Little Ethel was evidently engaged
elsewhere
, and it was Louise who handed Box his hat. She opened the front door, and walked with him down the garden path to the gate. The road was deserted, and the strong summer sun made the white shale of the carriageway glow, so that Box’s eyes were dazzled.