Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (20 page)

Morant-Barham snorted with laughter at the absurd deftness of the plan.

'They have a box which won't open,' said Dacre smoothly, 'and for which we shall give them a key last of all. And by the time they find a clay brick inside it, where they thought they saw a gold ingot, you and I shall be away, Joey.'

'Stop a bit,' said Morant-Barham reasonably. 'A man could never have walked in and out of the Mint yesterday with a gold ingot in his pocket, not with all the poking and searching every time he walked out.'

Dacre began to dry his face.

'Did I ever, Joey? Did you not see that from the office we must walk down to the wagon and the loading without going into the Mint proper? Was it not then that I slipped the little box into my own bag for you to bring back here ? And ain't it been here ever since? The job's done, Joey, done long ago!'

Before dressing himself fully, Dacre walked through to the back window, which looked down into the dark, cobbled mews yard at the back of the houses. The wagon, its shafts empty, stood there in the faintly-lit dampness of early morning. Below the window, the drop to its roof was sheer. Joey Barham moved with hardly a sound, down the stairs and out at the back, until Dacre could see him standing by the vehicle some twenty feet below. Now it was all to be the easiest thing in the world.

Morant-Barham opened the back of the hearse-like wagon and presently, with the faint scraping of wood against wood, Dacre heard the rear portion of the wagon roof being slid open. They had taken great care in the positioning of the vehicle and now they were to be rewarded. As Dacre lowered the first of the carpet-bags with a doubled rope, it bumped gently and then disappeared neatly through the open roof of the wagon. He gave Morant-Barham time to load it in its place, then prepared for the second. It was full daylight, though the yard was still deserted, when the last of the boxes and bags had made its descent.

Dacre dressed himself in the full colonel's regimentals, gathered up his few remaining possessions in the room and stuffed them into his bag, then took a final look about him, drew back the other curtains, and made his way once more down the stairs. Joey Barham had closed the roof of the wagon and was preparing to cover over the ranks of carpetbags and boxes which covered the floor of the vehicle, two deep. When this was done, he began to button on his staff officer's uniform with its wine-coloured sash.

'Two nags ain't going to shift this weight,' he said, shivering in the early chill.

Dacre remained unmoved.

'Which is why Lucifer is under instruction to bring four,' he remarked, as if the precaution were the most natural thing in the world.

They closed the back of the wagon and waited. It was almost eight o'clock when Lucifer arrived from the direction of Chestnut Street, leading four horses with the aid of a stable-boy. The greys were less elegant than the black geldings of the previous day but they were a good deal more powerful. Dacre looked up from his labour of sticking labels on the boxes to identify them as the baggage of various clients of the Continental Hotel en route for New York. Lucifer harnessed the four greys and the entire equipage pulled slowly out of the yard.

Turning into Juniper Street, away from Chestnut Street, he followed Dacre's instructions, which were to drive in the opposite direction to the Mint, crossing the river to the north and coming to the railroad depot from that quarter. It had been Lucifer's task for several days to watch the delivery of luggage from the Continental, for shipment by-railroad freight, and he was well-accustomed to the routine. Dacre and Morant-Barham dropped down from the wagon at a little distance, ready to support Lucifer, if necessary, as emissaries of the Prince of Wales to whose retinue the luggage belonged. Even this was not needed. The bags were entered, the dues paid, and the wagon turned back once again toward Chestnut Street and the Mint.

It was a few minutes after nine when they drew up at the main portico and the two uniformed officers stepped down. James Ross Snowden received them, as before, in the vestibule. After the formal greeting Dacre underwent the bizarre experience of revisiting the rooms in the calm of an official call, which he had left as a burglar, blackened and exhausted, several hours before.

He looked carefully but without exciting Snowden's interest, as they walked through the refining-shop and the corroding-house, for any sign of the fugitive coins which had burst from their bag. He saw nothing. In the rolling-shop the bars which he had taken from the furnace were still not replaced, though the furnace had not been lit and, possibly, the oddity of the missing bars would not be noticed for some hours. Here and there, on the weighing-room floor, he saw faint smears of soot, left by his own feet. Yet they could so easily have been trodden there by others who had come from the furnace areas that they, too, would pass unremarked.

At the great steel door with its million combinations, Dacre had his first misgivings, the sudden fear that he had not left all as it should be. At the same time, he tried to reassure himself that no suspicion would fall on him. How-could he have penetrated the time-lock, the combination-lock, and the other defences of the building?

Snowden pulled the steel door open by its bar, and Dacre's pulse became steadier. The interior of the stronghold was just as it had been on the previous morning. Dapper and courteous, Snowden was at that moment apologizing for the absence of Willson Moore, delayed bv some unavoidable circumstance, which the Director was careful not to specify further. Dacre heard his own voice keeping pace mindlessly with these pleasantries.

'Greatly disappointed to - aw - not to take leave of the gallant young officer. Trust if you - aw - he in London, dine as guest of Prince of Wales's Own and - aw - St James's Palace guard.'

The black-lacquered boxes were being loaded on to three trolleys and Dacre was delighted to see that they were all to be taken out in a single journey. At the weighing-room he watched with some anxiety as the coffin-like boxes were loaded on to the pontoon again to be checked. Either he had been scrupulously accurate the night before, or the clerks failed to be scrupulously accurate now. At all events, the weights were confirmed and the boxes wheeled out through the semi-circular vestibule to the steps and the waiting wagon.

Dacre turned to James Ross Snowden for the last time, taking from his pocket a small gold key.

'My promise to Captain Moore, sir, to obtain for you the key which belongs to the box containing His Royal Highness's token of amity. My humblest apologies, sir, that it escaped my notice the other day.'

Snowden warbled his gratitude and his pleasure at having made the acquaintance of so fine and distinguished an officer as Colonel Dempster. Verney Dacre brought his heels together and inclined his head a last time.

'Aw, servant, sir. Command me at any time. Beg to take leave. Major Morant, if you please!'

The marble floor of the vestibule rang with the footsteps of the two uniformed equerries, marching in time, as their straight backs disappeared down the steps. Then ducking their heads, they took their places at the rear of the wagon and the door slammed behind them. The liveried driver cracked his whip, the grey horses lurched forward, and the polished wagon dwindled from sight in the busy perspective of Chestnut Street.

It was on the following morning, by the unimpeachable agency of the postal service, that the Director received a flat, unmarked package. It contained a black-framed portrait photograph of a youth with bright eyes and heavy jaw. The likeness, in similar versions to this, was widely displayed in shop windows and public places. This copy, however, was finer, and it bore an ink inscription upon its lower right-hand corner.

To James Ross Snowden, Esquire, Director of the Federal Mint, with the good wishes and personal acknowledgements of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

13

                                                                        British Embassy
CIPHER                                           
Washington

12th of October 1860

Lord Lyons presents his compliments to Lord John Russell and begs to furnish a further despatch in amplification of his telegraph of last evening.

The disaster at Philadelphia, which so unhappily coincided with the visit of the Prince of Wales to that city, has assumed a graver aspect. Captain Willson Moore, the private secretary to the Director of the Mint, has evidently absconded. Since he alone knew which numbers would open one of the vital locks, he must necessarily have been an accomplice in the robbery. The perpetrators, however, appear to have been two Englishmen who passed themselves off as equerries to the Prince of Wales, and who have robbed the Federal Mint of a sum estimated at one and three-quarter million dollars in gold coin.

Lord Lyons need not say how unfortunate it is that the name of Great Britain, and of His Royal Highness himself, should be associated with a crime of such enormity committed against the United States government and its people. This is especially the case at such a delicate stage in the relationship between the two countries.

It is greatly to be regretted that the crime should have appeared to be connected in some way with the election of Mr Lincoln and the likelihood of secession by those slave-states who believe that England will support them in the matter. It is consequently thought, if not said, by some of the United States government, that this was a blow aimed to undermine the financial strength of the Union in the event of civil war. There is natural resentment that it should have been the work of Englishmen. There are those who will even suggest that they were secretly the agents of the British government. Lord Lyons cannot too strongly emphasize the damage which is likely to result from this affair.

The United States Treasury, which has the investigation in hand, has undertaken not to make the robbery public knowledge for the next few days. This is in part to prevent harm being done to friendly relations between Britain and the United States, during the visit of the Prince of Wales, and in part to retain public confidence until the gold may be recovered.

The present state of the case is that the conspirators are known to have stayed in a suite of rooms at the Continental Hotel, where the Prince and his retinue were also lodged. There were some lesser accomplices and two young women, apparently held against their will. When the party left, these two young persons were quickly smuggled out in a drugged condition by the assistance of a hotel porter who was assured that they were fugitive slaves who must be got beyond the reach of Pennsylvania law to be safe from return to their masters.

The United States Treasury officials, on the basis of 'Colonel Dempster's' appearance and the mode of the crime, which showed great ingenuity, seek to identify him as Lieutenant Verney Maughan Dacre, late of Her Majesty's 19th Dragoons. Lord Lyons is in some difficulty. He understands that Dacre is credited with robbing the South Eastern Railway bullion train in 1857 but that Scotland Yard insists that he committed suicide while being arrested. Though desiring to assist the investigation in any way, Lord Lyons is reluctant to condone criticism of Her Majesty's servants at Scotland Yard or elsewhere.

The Treasury officials further suggest that there is one man, a detective sergeant from Scotland Yard, who investigated the
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bullion theft and, perhaps alone, could identify Dacre. He is at present one of those officers guarding the Prince of Wales and his transfer to the new investigation has been requested. Lord Lyons understands that the American authorities have some hope of recovering the gold at St Louis, Missouri on Saturday next, for reasons to which he is not privy.

Lord Lyons is once again in a difficulty, being informed that the detective officer in question is not well thought of by his superiors, and that he has frequently had to be reprimanded for wilful or insubordinate conduct, as well as for two assaults upon members of the public. At the same lime, Lord Lyons must repeat that the recovery of the missing gold, by any means, within the next few days, is the one hope of averting a crisis in the affairs of our two countries, fraught with the most dire consequences.

Lord Lyons prays Lord Johns urgent attention to this matter and begs to remain his lordship's obedient servant.

The Rt. Hon. the Secretary for Foreign Affairs

The Foreign Office London, W.

PER DIRECT TELEGRAPH

OPEN CODE                        
Pembroke Lodge

Richmond Surrey

13th of October 1860

Do as you think best - R

The Right Hon. Earl Lyons Embassy of Her Britannic Majesty Washington

4

NEVER CALL RETREAT

Sergeant Verity, in a new frock-coat, stood, bare-headed but at attention, to one side of the double doors which led to the opera box. At the far side, Sergeant Crowe, lean and sunburnt, brought himself up tall and stiff. Two footmen with powdered wigs opened the baize-lined doors and the young Prince passed rather self-consciously into the box with the grave, bearded figure of the Duke of Newcastle. The dark plump Lord Lyons accompanied the Mayor of Philadelphia and his guests. At the rear of the procession, Colonel Grey and Major Teesdale appeared in plain civilian evening clothes, as if to disclaim any association with the uniforms used by the bogus 'equerries' in the robbing of the Mint.