The Gold Masters (9 page)

‘Not goodbye, surely? Merely
au
revoir
. Go! Away with you!’

Lord Jocelyn murmured some compliments over her hand, and departed. A few moments later, Madam Sylvestris’s maid entered the room.

‘I don’t know what to think, Céline,’ said Madam Sylvestris. ‘I’m tired of him, and his romantic fantasies. He thinks we’re both in a Jane Austen novel, for ever trading platitudes and elevating small talk to a fine art. What do you think I should do?’

‘This Lord Jocelyn,
madame
,
is a foolish dreamer riding for a
fall. You live well in this house, but the house is
his.
Bah! Does he think that the good Lady Marion will do nothing to avenge her honour? Even now, her spy, the man with the tinted glasses, stands at the road’s end, making notes. And the spirits … well, you’re playing with fire in that direction. There are too many people involved for your safety—’

‘You are right!’ Madam Sylvestris rose from her
chaise-longue.
‘It’s been very good for the last six months, but this business of luring away poor PC Lane was a dangerous risk. The police will become suspicious. So, I think the time’s arrived for me to retire from mediumship, and take up spirit healing. There’s money in that, Céline, and no tell-tale apparatus to cause one
embarrassment
.’

‘You could return to Newcastle,
madame.
Old Mr Ironsides would love to set you up in comfort once more.’ The maid laughed. ‘Those conversations you had with his deceased father! Every morning I would read his father’s letters in the study, where he kept them bound up with tape in a secret drawer, and every evening you would tell him what I had recounted to you! There would still be rich pickings,
madame
,
in Newcastle.’

‘Well, we will see. Or perhaps I should transfer my attentions to Jocelyn’s rival, Sir Hamo Strange? I’ve heard a few rumours about Peto’s Bank, and I’ve no intention of going down with that
particular
sinking ship.’

‘Strange? Bah! He is a dried-up stick, that one! Do not waste your charms in that direction. Heal, if you will: create a healing sanctuary somewhere in the countryside, and summon your clients there. Or go to Newcastle. Whatever you do,
madame
,
get away from Belsize Park. There’s danger in the air.’

‘You were always a blundering fool, Mahoney,’ said Mr Curteis, ‘and now you’ve saddled us all with a murder! He was beside himself with rage when I told him. I thought he was going to have a fit. And then, when he opened the green baize bag, and found a
few bound volumes of magazines in it – well, I feared for his life! He staggered, and clutched at his heart. And then, do you know what he did? He started to laugh. He laughed and laughed, with the worthless books strewn across the desk in front of him. I was relieved to see that he wasn’t going to die, but I thought that perhaps he’d gone mad.’

‘What did he say then?’

‘He said that Peto had won that particular round, but he was damned if he was going to let him win the match. I asked him what he meant, but he just smiled, and shook his head.’

The two men were sitting in a sparsely furnished room above a French polisher’s shop in Islington. It was there that Curteis had hurried the fugitive thug only hours before the police had raided his mean dwelling in Stepney.

Francis Xavier Mahoney seemed to have lost interest in what Curteis was telling him. His brutal face held an expression of sneaking self-pity as he contemplated the events of the last few days.

‘Honest to God, Mr Curteis,’ he said, with the hint of a whine in his voice, ‘I never meant to croak that old parson out at Croydon. Everything had gone well. Snobby Quayle had left the French window open, and the key you gave me, done up in a little parcel, opened the safe a treat. He’s a good boy, that Snobby. He’d make a fine peter man if he put his mind to it.

‘I was coming down the fire escape when I saw this figure lurking in the garden. He came right up to the steps, and I threw the loot down, so that it caught him across the shoulders. I got down to the ground, and there he was, struggling to pick up a walking stick to tackle me with. Well, I took it off him, see, and walloped him across the head with it. How did I know that it’d kill him? The trouble is, I don’t know my own strength. These people just get in my way, and have to be stopped.’

‘I wish
you
’d stop, Mahoney,’ said Curteis, with a mocking smile. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling
me
all this. Anyone would
think I was your father confessor, or the magistrate. “It wasn’t my fault, Your Honour, I don’t know my own strength”. That defence won’t save you from the gallows, you stupid big stiff. And just wait till you get to Heaven!’

With an oath, Mahoney flung himself on his tormentor, and threw him to the floor. He knelt down over Curteis, and clutched his throat with one of his big, sinewy hands.

‘Maybe it’s time I did for
you
, as well,’ he snarled. ‘I’m going to choke the life out of you—’

The next moment he found himself flying though the air. He landed with a clatter of fire irons in the empty fireplace. Curteis, in time-honoured manner, hauled him to his feet.

‘No doubt the exercise will do us both good,’ he said. ‘Now, we were able to rescue your police uniform from Stepney before the Law descended. Make sure you’re there at Carmelite Pavement on the twenty-eighth. Portman and his friends arranged to keep PC Lane busy in Belsize Park while the job’s done.’

‘Old Strange – do you think he’ll dump me, after this business in Croydon?’

‘He may, and who’d blame him? But if it’s any consolation to you, you murderous thug, I’ll never “dump” you, as you so elegantly put it. So lie low here, and make sure you’re sober and diligent on the twenty-eighth. Just do as you’re told this time and all will be well.’

At the house of a great merchant prince in Brook Street, Mayfair, a small but exclusive dinner party was nearing its end. Dessert had been cleared, and the deft waiters had brushed away the imaginary crumbs from the table with folded white napkins. Soon, the ladies would retire, leaving the men to their port, but conversation lingered for a while.

Sir Hamo Strange sat back in his chair, and regarded his host, hostess and fellow guests with an almost proprietary air of
satisfaction
. Sir Moses and Lady Herscheimer, whose home this was,
were old acquaintances, and it was they who had arranged this dinner at Sir Hamo’s request. Herscheimer was London’s most celebrated commodity broker, and a noted arranger of desired meetings.

Sir Hamo had been placed to Herscheimer’s right. To Sir Hamo’s right sat the Russian Ambassador, Prince Orloff, looking, as always, very stiff and proud in his evening dress, and sporting the star and ribbon of the Order of St Stanislaus. His wife, the elegant and cultured Princess Orlova, sat opposite him across the table, and to Lady Herscheimer’s right. Between her and Prince Orloff sat Count Kropotkin, the Head of Mission. They had all, Sir Hamo mused, been carefully set in their respective places like the pieces on a chess board.

Prince Orloff had proved a cheerful guest, despite his natural hauteur, and had joined in the conversation at dinner with gusto. Whenever he failed to catch a remark, he would turn to Kropotkin, who would rapidly translate it into Russian for the Prince’s benefit.

At last, everyone rose as the ladies prepared to retire to the drawing-room. As the port decanters were placed on the table, Sir Moses Herscheimer asked to be excused, as he had one or two important letters to write. Everyone colluded in this fiction, and the great merchant prince followed the ladies and the waiters out of the dining-room.

‘The Emperor,’ said Prince Orloff, without preamble, and glancing benignly at Sir Hamo Strange, ‘occasionally does me the honour of confiding in me. Yesterday, he sent me a cable at the embassy, instructing me to give you his personal greeting and
felicitation
.’

‘I am deeply honoured, Your Excellency.’

Was that the right answer to give? He was unused to the
many-tiered
and nuanced language of diplomats. Yes; Prince Orloff looked even more cheerful, and Count Kropotkin was smiling quietly to himself.

‘In addition,’ Prince Orloff continued, ‘the Emperor mentioned to me a singular service that you had rendered him, so much appreciated, indeed, that he has decided to confer on you a
knighthood
in the Order of the Holy Seraphim, First Class.’

In the approved Russian manner, the Prince and the Head of Mission clapped their hands for a few moments as a sign of congratulation. Sir Hamo’s head spun. He deeply valued his own title of Knight Bachelor, which the Queen had bestowed on him for his part in averting the collapse of Baring’s Bank in 1890. But a Russian title, conferred upon him by the Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias – well, there was something headily exotic about that!

‘Prince Orloff could bestow the honour upon you here in London, Sir Hamo,’ said Count Kropotkin in his quiet tones. ‘That would be entirely in accordance with protocol, as you are not, of course, a Russian subject.’

‘However,’ said Orloff, ‘the Emperor is anxious to award the honour in person. So, later in the year, you will receive an
invitation
to come to St Petersburg, as a guest of the Grand Duke George Constantine. It is he who would present you formally to the Emperor when he conducts you by railway to the Peterhof Palace.’

The port circulated, cigars were lit, and the conversation turned to politics and money. Later, they joined the ladies, and talked of the more exciting events of the London season. At half past eleven the carriages arrived, and Sir Hamo Strange began his journey across town to Medici House.

All was going well. After years of total devotion to the creation and distribution of money, he was beginning to show himself in Society. He had long ago outclassed Jocelyn Peto as a financier; soon, he would outclass him as a nobleman. The Order of the Holy Seraphim…. Exotic. Wonderful. Evidently the Tsar had appreciated the great loan that would let him play with his new Trans-Siberian Railway! Yes, all was going well.

What about the wretched impasse at Croydon? Could that be in
any way traced back to him? Perhaps. He would hope and pray that everything went well on the twenty-eighth, when the great movement of bullion took place. A great deal depended on the success of that operation. Till then, he would occupy himself with his daily business. The Holy Seraphim…. The Grand Duke George Constantine…. Tomorrow could take care of itself!

When Box left his lodgings in Cardinal Court, a quiet enclave of old houses behind the
Daily
Telegraph
offices in Fleet Street, the gas lamps were still glowing, but a rosy flush had already appeared in the eastern sky as the morning of 28 July dawned. He imagined the early sunlight spreading its rays across Borough and Southwark, before making its strong assault on the early morning gloom and mists of the City.

As he made his way down Bouverie Street, turning up his collar against the early morning chill, he thought of the six forays that he’d made during the week, three on foot and three by omnibus, tracing Superintendent Mackharness’s carefully planned routes for the movement of the four million pounds’ worth of bullion down to the waiting steam launches. Apart from a dug-up gas main at the opening to New Change Lane, there had been no impediments to any of the planned movements. The whole exercise, given a reasonable measure of luck, should pass off without a hitch.

Box turned abruptly left into Tudor Street, where he paused for a minute or two at an arched iron gate, giving immediate access to a small brick-built lodge. A steep flight of granite steps led down from the back of the little lodge to a deserted paved yard in front of what at first sight looked like a warehouse. A notice fixed to the iron gate read:

It was here that Sir Hamo Strange kept his unimaginable stores of gold and silver. It was just half past six. In half an hour’s time, that empty yard at the foot of the steps would be a hive of activity as one million pounds in sovereigns was conveyed through a tunnel under the Embankment and so on to Sir Hamo’s private pier, where the first of the six special steam launches would be waiting. It would be numbered C1 on its white funnel.

He’d detailed Sergeant Knollys to keep an eye on the morning’s work at Carmelite Pavement. According to information passed to them from Inspector French at Whitehall Place, poor young PC Lane, who was well known to Sir Hamo Strange and his staff, would be on duty. It might be prudent to have the massively strong Jack Knollys down there to give him some kind of reassurance. Young Lane, grieving for his baby girl, and seduced by spiritualists, would not be at his best that morning.

Although it was very early, Blackfriars Bridge was carrying a brisk stream of horse-drawn traffic, mainly canvas-covered vans and lorries coming across with goods from the Surrey side, though one or two early omnibuses were running. At that time of morning, as Box noted with wry amusement, the companies tended to put on their old white-painted ‘bone-shakers’, perhaps on the assumption that as it was so early, the yawning passengers wouldn’t notice the discomfort.

Everything was going to be all right. Box smiled to himself as he recalled something that Mackharness had told him at the end of the previous day’s shift. ‘I think it would be prudent, Box,’ he’d said, ‘to provide each police detail with a Very pistol and cartridges, so that, if anything goes amiss, the other details can be immediately alerted.’ Where on earth could Old Growler have got such a far-fetched idea as that? Perhaps he’d also hired the band of
the Irish Guards to play a little victory march when the operation was concluded!

Still, where these bankers were concerned, there were some very odd things going on. How had Sir Hamo Strange managed to secure the services of Snobby Quayle, and the Milton Fisher gang? There was nothing of the amateur about those shady folk, and you had to know where to find them before you could do business with them. Snobby was still locked up in Croydon, stubbornly refusing to say anything. When this bullion business was done, Box would go after slimy Milton Fisher.

The very idea of Sir Hamo Strange contemplating burglary was grotesque in itself, but then, he’d somehow become involved with Basher Mahoney, first-class burglar, and unconvicted killer. As far as Box knew, Mahoney didn’t work for the Milton Fisher gang. It was time to cast a discreet eye over the private activities of Sir Hamo Strange.

As Box neared the end of Blackfriars Bridge, the sun finally won its victory over the early morning gloom. He stopped for a moment and turned to look back at the dome and towers of St Paul’s Cathedral, towering over all other buildings in its vicinity, and bathed in a splendour of golden light. What a marvellous city London was!

By the time Box came off the bridge, the lamplighters had begun their task of extinguishing the gas lamps along the magnificent sweep of the Embankment, though the morning chill still held. He took out his watch and flicked open the lid. A quarter past seven. Plenty of time for him to take a leisurely walk along to Morgan’s Lane Pier, where Mackharness had told him to position himself at a quarter to eight, in order to watch the six bullion launches sail safely under Tower Bridge.

He made his way along Bankside, and stopped to refresh himself at a working-men’s coffee stall that was still open for
business
. He cradled the thick mug between his hands, and watched a couple of City gents buying newspapers from a crippled vendor
who had stationed himself beside the man who was dispensing coffee.

‘Still nothing much in the papers about this robbery at Peto’s,’ said one man to the other. ‘I expect the police know more than they’re prepared to say.’

‘Funny about Peto,’ said his companion. ‘There’s a rumour running round our place that Peto is in Queer Street.’

‘You don’t say! Peto the man, or Peto the banker? I’ve not heard anything.’

‘It doesn’t make much difference which Peto. There’s some say that he’s been riding for a fall for the whole of this past year.’

The two men hurried off towards the bridge, and Box made his way thoughtfully to Morgan’s Lane Pier.

Sergeant Jack Knollys came into Tudor Street at 7.35. He was surprised how quiet it was, but then saw that most of the buildings lining the narrow thoroughfare were shops and warehouses, most of them still shuttered.

He’d promised to take Vanessa to the Palace Theatre of Varieties in Cambridge Circus that evening, and had bought two 2 tickets in advance. He’d learnt late last night that he would be on duty all Friday, including the evening until nine, and had sent his fiancée a note, cancelling their treat. That had not been the first time.

Would Vanessa tire of his constant submission to the demands of duty? He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Before her previous fiancé had been killed he had started to neglect her, and she had begun to realize that poor Arthur Fenlake was not the right fellow for her.

Suddenly, Knollys felt a warming conviction that all was well between him and Vanessa Drake. At the same time, he was convinced that someone unseen had tried to reassure him: it was almost as though a voice had spoken in his ear. But the street was quite deserted. He shivered, but not from cold, and dismissed his personal preoccupations from his mind.

Knollys walked across to the arched iron gate, which was set in stout railings rising from low brick walls. He looked down through the railings to the yard below.

There was a police constable standing at the foot of the steep flight of steps leading down from the miniature lodge behind the iron gate. He was a heavy, ungainly fellow, his arms dangling at his sides, his huge fists clenched. His uniform seemed too small for him, and he was writhing in what looked like impatient
discomfort
.

The constable looked up towards the road, and Knollys saw a brutish, pock-marked face, sweating beneath the regulation helmet. Something about the man suggested that he had just
experienced
an enervating shock. As the constable began to run up the steps towards him, alarm bells began to ring in Knollys’ head.

The man disappeared into the lodge, and a moment later a stout door behind the iron gate was thrown open. Knollys saw the silver letter Ns on the collar of the constable’s tunic, and wondered what he was doing so far out from Islington, where he must have been stationed. Still keeping his eyes on the pockmarked face, Knollys showed the constable his warrant card.

‘PC Edwards, Sergeant,’ the man said. ‘You’d better come inside the lodge. All’s well down at the pier— But look, who’s that, lurking in the doorway over there? Surely that’s the glint of a pistol?’

Later, Knollys was to wonder ruefully how he had allowed himself to fall for such an old trick. For a brief moment he turned his back on the pockmarked constable, and was instantly felled by a terrific blow to the back of his head. As he began to lose consciousness, he was dimly aware of a pair of strong hands
dragging
him by the ankles, and face down, into the lodge.

Morgan’s Lane Pier was a stubby stone construction jutting out into the river from the grass-grown yard of Morgan & Company’s burnt-out warehouse. A hundred yards to Box’s right, Tower
Bridge rose in all its pristine glory of iron, steel and masonry, 120 feet up to the summer sky. They said it would be opened next June.

Box’s vantage-point lay among a medley of trawlers and strings of barges, looking as though they’d been tossed carelessly towards the bank by the strong river currents. Black, soot-caked smoke stacks rose from the open decks, visible through the forest of slender masts. A smell of tar and coke fumes mingled with the strong salty tang of river water and rotting flotsam moving around the vessels. Men seemed to be at work everywhere, but no one paid the slightest attention to the solitary man in smart overcoat and curly-brimmed hat, standing with binoculars at the ready on Morgan’s Lane Pier.

At 8.30 the first of the steam launches came into view. Box could see it through his binoculars, moving low in the water, its gleaming white funnel with the red band standing out clearly against the drab warehouses on the opposite bank. The inscription C2 painted on the funnel told him that this fast and powerful boat held the consignment of gold from N.M. Rothschild & Sons. It would have left Swan Lane Pier, beside London Bridge, some ten minutes since.

The launch proceeded under Tower Bridge, and was lost to sight. Some ten minutes later, an identical steam launch hove into sight, escorted by a flock of screaming gulls. From a list of timings that Mackharness had given him, Box knew that this was Sir Abraham Goldsmith’s offering, from Queenhythe Steps. Yes, there was the inscription C3 on the funnel. All was going well.

The next two launches, C4 and C5, arrived in procession, the vessel from White Lion Quay having caught up with that from Grant’s Quay. The precious consignments of Brown’s of Lothbury and Thomas Weinstock & Sons proceeded safely and securely under Tower Bridge.

At 9.15, Box began to feel uneasy. Where was C6, the launch from Peto’s Bank? It had been due to appear at 9.10. Had
something 
happened? Nonsense! It was all this Croydon business, and the rumour-mongers gossiping at the newspaper stand that was making him nervous.

There! The sixth launch suddenly came into sight, chugging merrily towards the bridge. Lord Jocelyn Peto’s consignment had arrived safely. Box slipped his binoculars into one of his overcoat pockets, and felt in the other for a packet of cheroots that he’d bought earlier that morning at a tobacconist’s in Fleet Street. Somewhere nearby, a clock struck half past nine.

From the knot of trawlers and barges below Morgan’s Lane Pier a long, black rowing boat appeared. It moved heavily, propelled by three oarsmen wearing the heavy black serge uniforms and
low-crowned
peak caps of the River Police. A fourth man, dressed identically to his companions, sat on a narrow seat in the stern, guiding the police galley by means of rudder strings. The man in the stern caught sight of Box, and shouted an order to his crew. They immediately rested their oars, and looked up at Box where he stood in splendid isolation on the stone pier.

‘What’s the matter, Arnold?’ shouted the man in the stern. ‘Has Mackharness banished you? What did you say to him?’

‘You cheeky man, Inspector Cross,’ Box called back. ‘I’ll have you know I’m here on very important business—’

‘I know you are, Arnold. I’ve heard all about it. Counting launches, isn’t it?’

Inspector Cross of the River Police seemed to have been rolling in mud. His uniform was wet and stained, and his narrow,
saturnine
face was smeared with black oil. These men, Box mused, spent their whole working life on the river, rowing in an open boat. They were rough and irreverent, constantly suffering from bronchitis, and liable to die an early death. The luxury of a steam launch with an awning was not for the likes of them. One of the constables tied up the boat to a mooring ring. Inspector and men produced pipes and spirit flasks, and enjoyed a morning break, leaving Box to his own devices.

It was 9.45, and Sir Hamo Strange’s launch, C1, had not yet arrived from Carmelite Pavement. It should have passed under Tower Bridge at 9.30. Box threw his half-smoked cheroot into the river, and glanced nervously towards the opposite bank. There wasn’t much to see, apart from the shining roof of Billingsgate Market, and the splendid façade of the Customs House. Strain your eyes as much as you liked, you couldn’t see Blackfriars Bridge from this far up the river.

At 9.50, Box called down to Inspector Cross, who was sitting once more on his little seat in the stern of the galley.

‘Bob, would you be prepared to row me across the river to Blackfriars? There’s something wrong. There were six launches, and five of them have passed safely under the new bridge. But the sixth— There’s something wrong. I’d be easier in my mind if I was on the river, and going in the direction of Blackfriars. Perhaps the launch had to set off late from Carmelite Stairs.’

Inspector Cross looked thoughtfully at Box for a moment, and then made up his mind.

‘There’s an iron ladder just below where you’re standing, Arnold,’ he said. ‘Climb down that, and step into the galley.
Step
, mind! Don’t jump, or you’ll have us all in the drink. You’ll have to crouch down here with me, in the stern. Right, you lot, pipes out, and back to your oars. Keep on this side until we’re under Blackfriars Bridge, then strike out across the river to Carmelite Stairs.’