The Gold Masters (13 page)

‘Hold on, sir! With all due respect, haven’t you considered the possibility that a professional gang as yet entirely unknown to us
engineered this robbery? After all, no other launch was affected. Maybe this unknown gang planned all along to seize this huge assignment of bullion.’

‘You’re not thinking straight, Jack,’ Box interrupted.
‘There
was
no
original
crew.
You won’t find ten sailor men with their toes turned up, floating down towards the sea. These villains were the intended crew all along, and they were hired by the man who started this whole operation – the man whose bullion chests contained not gold, but
lead.’

‘Sir Hamo Strange.’

‘Yes, Sir Hamo Strange! There, that’s in the open, so we can pause there, Sergeant, and pass on. Twenty-five chests were
recovered
, artistically smashed, and with some of the locks still open on their hasps. Fifty-three chests went missing. But we know where they must be, don’t we, Sergeant? Go on, don’t be shy: tell me!’

‘They’re at the bottom of Parr’s Basin, sir, in Corunna Lands. They sailed the launch into that wilderness, and threw the whole lot, apart from the twenty-three they kept back to create the
illusion
of a robbery, into the deep water of the basin.’

‘And why did they do that?’

‘Because to them, those chests of lead were quite worthless.’

‘And why did they pretend to force open twenty-five of the chests in the gully?’

‘Because, sir, they’d already opened them on the launch, and thrown their contents into the river. Those empty boxes were there to create the illusion that a robbery had taken place.’

Box offered his cigar case to Knollys, who accepted a thin cheroot. Box lit both cigars with a wax vesta, which he dropped into the dregs of his beer. He sat back luxuriantly on the settle, and regarded his sergeant with twinkling eyes.

‘You’re doing very well, Sergeant Knollys,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s see whether you can complete the theory. You said that the villains wanted to create the illusion that a robbery had taken place. So are you saying that
no
robbery took place? That
no
gold was stolen
from Sir Hamo Strange’s vaults? In that case, who’s gained from all this rigmarole? As far as I can see, no one’s gained anything at all.’

Knollys drew thoughtfully on his cigar. It was some time since the guvnor had subjected him to one of his splendid barrages of questions. They were designed to clarify matters in a case that was particularly obscure, but they were also part of a conscious effort to refine his sergeant’s skills in the art of detection.

‘Who’s gained? Well, sir, I’d say Sir Hamo Strange has gained, because the whole consignment of the Swedish Loan was insured by the British Government. For reasons of his own, Sir Hamo Strange had kept his million pounds in gold intact, and defrauded the Government of one million pounds.’

‘Well done, Jack! So our great financier has cheated the British Government of one million pounds by a very clever and very dangerous piece of villainy. Others are involved, including Mahoney, and possibly our prim and proper Mr Arthur Portman, spiritualist and bank clerk. Excellent, Sergeant! But you still haven’t seen what it’s really about, have you?’

‘What do you mean, sir? What else is there to see?’

‘What was in the chests?’

‘Lead.’

‘Well, then. What if Sir Hamo Strange’s vast holding of gold below Carmelite Pavement is
all
lead? Perhaps the colossus of finance is down to his last few pounds, Sergeant, and defrauding the Government of a million pounds may be the first step in rebuilding a battered fortune. If that’s true, then it’s gaol for our Sir Hamo.’

‘We’ll never know what’s really in those vaults, sir. What you say can only remain supposition.’

‘Oh, no, Sergeant Knollys. Remember, we’re still investigating this so-called robbery, so it would be entirely in order for us – and Sergeant Kenwright – to carry out a thorough inspection of all the chests held in Sir Hamo’s vaults. I’m going to tackle
Superintendent Mackharness about it. He’s had his own suspicions from the start, and I think you’ll find that in this matter of the fake bullion robbery, he’ll be entirely on our side.’

Box stood up, and brushed some imaginary breadcrumbs from his fashionable overcoat.

‘Come on, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘it’s getting late. Time that you and I set out for Rotherhithe.’

The boat-yard of Moltman & Sons lay alongside one of the many large basins of the Surrey Commercial Docks, near the opening of the Grand Surrey Canal. In a brick-walled office reached by means of a flight of steep wooden steps, Box and Knollys found the yard foreman, a heavy, hunchbacked man who introduced himself as John Hodge. His sun-bronzed face looked as though it had been sculpted from mahogany, but his bright blue eyes were alert and humorous. Box had never before seen a man who stowed the
stub-end
of his current cigar behind his ear.

‘Inspector Box, hey? And Sergeant Knollys?’ said Hodge. ‘Well, this is an honour! I suppose you’ve come about our scuttled launch? Disgraceful. Mr Moltman’s very angry about it, as well he should be. Still, it can be salvaged, and we’ll make it as good as new in a couple of weeks. The insurance will cover the cost.’

Mr Hodge glanced out of the office window at the busy yard. Three new launches were taking shape on the stocks, and beyond them, lying at anchor, lay a dozen trim craft, part of Moltman’s celebrated boat-hire business. Finally, he gave his full attention to Box.

‘So what can I do for you, Inspector?’

‘Mr Hodge, I want to know why Moltman’s didn’t provide the crew for launch Cl, the vessel assigned to collect Sir Hamo Strange’s bullion from Carmelite Pavement, and deliver it to the West India Docks. All the other launches in the operation had crews provided by you.’

For answer, John Hodge began to rummage through a pile of
dog-eared letters lying in a wooden tray on his desk. His fingers, Box saw, were heavily stained with tobacco, the nails bitten and cracked. Perhaps being foreman of a large boat-yard affected the nerves? With a little yelp of triumph Hodge found the document that he was looking for, and handed it to Box.

‘Here we are, Inspector. Here’s your answer. On Wednesday, the twenty-sixth, two days before the gold was moved, that letter was delivered by hand. It came from Mr Horace Garner, Chief Warden of the Carmelite Pavement Bullion Vaults. You can read what it says yourself.’

The letter, written by hand on the printed notepaper of the Vaults, begged to inform Messrs Moltman & Sons that Sir Hamo Strange would provide his own crew for the launch Cl, that they had contracted to supply. The letter was signed by Horace Garner, who begged them to believe that he was their humble servant.

‘And did this crew turn up here on the Friday morning?’ asked Box.

‘They did. There were ten of them, decent-looking men in
navy-blue
jerseys, pants, and caps. Very respectable, they were, and obviously used to launches and their funny little ways. I never thought anything of it. Why should I? So off they went, out of the basin and into the river.’

‘Did they say anything to you?’

‘Not a word. They just nodded and smiled, you know. They were French.’

‘French?’

‘Yes. At least, I think they were. They jabbered a bit among themselves, and it sounded like French to me. Is there anything else?’

Mr Hodge was clearly aching to get out among the boats. Box had heard enough.

‘May I keep this letter, Mr Hodge?’ he asked. ‘I’ll give you a receipt, and return it in the post when I’ve done with it.’

‘Certainly, certainly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Inspector….’

Without waiting for his receipt. John Hodge strode out of the office, and clattered down the wooden stairs. Box scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, and left it on the foreman’s desk. Then he and Knollys followed him.

Later that afternoon, a special courier delivered a note to Box at King James’s Rents. The envelope also contained the letter that Mr Hodge had loaned to Box earlier in the day. 

The 9.30 train for Brookwood moved ponderously out of the private station at Waterloo, its polished black carriages gleaming in the morning sunshine. A crowd of people standing mournfully on the long platform watched it begin its dignified progress out of London along the tracks of the London & South Western Railway.

Arnold Box sat back in his upholstered seat, and observed his five fellow passengers. Jack Knollys sat beside him, reading the
Morning
Post.
To Knollys’ right an elderly man, clad in funereal black, was nursing a black bowler hat on his knee. In the seats opposite sat two ladies in deep mourning, and a little boy in a sailor suit. The ladies were weeping, occasionally lifting their black veils to dab their eyes with small black-bordered lace
handkerchiefs
.

‘It seems to me, Sergeant Knollys—’ Box began.

‘Shh!’ hissed the elderly man. He regarded Box from reproachful faded grey eyes, The two ladies burst afresh into tears, and the elder of the two pointedly snapped open the clasps of a black prayer book, and pretended to read. Knollys smiled. Box, who had not thought to buy a paper, sat in frozen embarrassment, staring ahead of him. Dense black smoke drifted past the window of the carriage.

‘Mama,’ asked the little boy in the sailor suit, ‘why are those two men sitting in our carriage?’

‘I don’t know, dear,’ muttered the elder of the two ladies. Box saw her dart him a venomous look through her veil. ‘Maybe they got on the wrong train.’

‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ declared the elderly man, and the two ladies began to weep again. Box rose from his seat, and with a mumbled apology slid open the carriage door and stepped out into the corridor.

He remained there, observing the changing scenery as the train passed through the London suburbs and then out into the Surrey countryside until it slid to a gentle stop at Brookwood Station, a long platform set pleasantly among a grove of trees. Box gratefully opened the carriage door, and stepped down on to the platform.

As though obeying a hidden command, all the other carriage doors opened, and the black-clad passengers alighted. They stood motionless, looking fixedly towards what appeared to be two long guard’s vans at the rear of the train. Sergeant Knollys quietly joined Box on the platform.

A number of men in frock coats and top hats came into sight, moving slowly towards the train. At the same time, the van doors were slid open.

‘Sir,’ whispered Knollys.

‘What?’

‘Hats off.’

Again, as though orchestrated by a hidden director, four dark elm coffins were solemnly borne from the vans, and lifted at a slight angle up on to the platform. The men in frock coats were joined by a number of clergymen. Box’s fellow passengers threw him a look of reproach, and the little boy in the sailor suit managed to stick his tingue out at him without being detected by his mama. The elderly man with the faded grey eyes joined them, and they attached themselves to the first of four separate cortèges that had travelled down from London on one of the special funeral
trains provided by the London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company.

As they emerged from the station on to the public road, Inspector Box sighed with relief. Knollys had been right to warn him about taking one of the Necropolis trains. They were, in effect, hearses with mourners’ carriages attached, pulled by a steam locomotive, and not really suitable for ordinary passengers. Still, it had got them there!

Brookwood Cemetery, originally planted out in 1854, was a vast sylvan burial ground for London’s dead, occupying 2000 acres. Box had been there once, as a boy. Over the years it had developed into a strangely beautiful, almost rural, estate, and many of the crowded London parishes had their own sections there.

A short walk along a winding path brought the two detectives to Charnelhouse Lane. Number 24 proved to be a pleasant villa of modest proportions, with a green-painted veranda running along its front. It stood in a very well tended garden, bright with summer flowers. This, as Knollys had ascertained, was the home of Mr Alfred Pennymint, market gardener, and his wife, Minnie. Box pushed open the garden gate, and the two detectives walked up the path to the front door.

A man was sitting at a rustic table in the garden. He had no coat, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. He wore a battered straw hat to protect his sparse silver hair from the strong sun. A large jug, and a collection of earthenware cups, stood on the table. This, Box surmised, would be Mr Alfred Pennymint.

‘You’ve come in by the wrong gate!’ cried the man. His voice was cheerful, and his eyes humorous. ‘The entrance to the market garden is another hundred yards along the road, just beyond the turn.’

‘We’re police officers, Mr Pennymint,’ said Box. ‘We’re here to have a few words with your wife. I’m Detective Inspector Box of Scotland Yard, and this is Detective Sergeant Knollys.’

‘You’d better come in then, gentlemen, and slake your thirst. It
must have been a dusty journey from London today. Pour
yourselves
out some cider. That’s right. So you want to see Minnie? I expect it’s about that poor young man Lane?’

‘It is, Mr Pennymint. You see, he’d visited one of your wife’s seances shortly before he was murdered. As a matter of fact, I was there with him. I think there may be a connection between the Temple of Light and the people responsible for PC Lane’s murder.’

Mr Pennymint shook his head, and sighed. Box saw that his words had not really registered. The hint that his wife may have been involved in a murder plot had been quite lost on him.

‘It’s not something I hold with, myself, Mr Box,’ said Pennymint. ‘This spiritualism business, I mean. But it keeps the wife happy, and she loves her meetings up there in London. They seem a decent lot of folk, as far as I can make out. Very respectable. And that Mr Portman of hers is a real gentleman. But it’s all a bit – well, funny, isn’t it?’

‘This cider’s very welcome, Mr Pennymint,’ said Box. ‘Thanks very much. So you don’t really believe that your wife has special powers?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Mr Box. She picks things up, you know. She’ll suddenly know that something’s happened before anyone’s brought news of it. Things like that. It’s uncanny, really. Very clever, I suppose. But Minnie’s not one for study and
perseverance
, so she’s never really trained herself. It’s all haphazard, if you know what I mean— Ah! Here’s Minnie now. I’ll leave you, gentlemen, to have your chat with her, and get back to work.’

Mrs Pennymint had appeared on the porch. She looked as homely and natural as when Box had first seen her over a fortnight earlier. She was wearing a sprig muslin dress, which was far too young for her, and a vivid scarlet kerchief draped loosely round her neck. Her husband introduced her to the two detectives, shook hands with them, and made his way through the garden to a gate that led out on to the main road. His wife joined them at the table.

It’s about poor young PC Lane, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Pennymint.
Her eyes were troubled, and she spoke in a low voice. ‘He should never have gone to visit Almena. Madam Sylvestris, you know. He was in such a state over the loss of his little girl that he’d have believed anything he was told.’

‘Do you mean that Madam Sylvestris deceived him, ma’am?’

‘Dear me, no!’ Mrs Pennymint sounded shocked. ‘I mean that Mr Lane was not ready to approach so near to the other world. It was too early, and I was surprised that Madam Sylvestris didn’t realize that. Yes, I was very surprised at that….’

Mrs Pennymint frowned, and Box could sense her perplexity and confusion. Watching her, he had a sudden conviction that she was wholly innocent of any attempt at deception. Deluded she may have been, but deceitful? No, not that.

‘Do you hold all your seances at the Temple of Light in  Pennymint?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Twice a week I go there. Oh, I’ll arrange a little private sitting for neighbours here in Woking, but mainly they’re at the Temple of Light.’

Her eyes suddenly closed, and they saw her eyelids tremble for a second before she opened them again.

‘I shouldn’t worry about that girl if I were you, Mr Knollys,’ she said. ‘She’ll be quite safe on her own. She knows you’re not another – another – what is it? Fenton? Fenlake.’

Mrs Pennymint seemed hardly conscious that she had spoken at all. She sat politely, waiting for one or other of her visitors to speak. Jack Knollys had gone pale, so that the ugly scar across his face stood out white and fearsome. Box felt a leap of superstitious fear in his stomach.

Jack Knollys’ fiancée, Vanessa Drake, had been neglected by the young man to whom she had previously been engaged, a Foreign Office courier called Lieutenant Arthur Fenlake. It was that neglect to which the spiritualist medium was referring. How could she have known such an intimate detail of a young woman’s life? Or of Knollys’ nagging worry that Vanessa would think that he, too,
was neglecting her in favour of his official duties? Box placed a reassuring hand on Knollys’ sleeve, and the sergeant took another swig of cider. From that moment, he never took his eyes off Mrs Pennymint.

‘Now, ma’am,’ Box continued, ‘I want you to tell me whether or not you have any financial interest in the Temple of Light? Have you ever paid for any repairs, or matters of that kind?’

He had thought that the medium would have taken offence, but she merely laughed.

‘Repairs? Stuff and nonsense! To be quite honest with you, Mr Box, I know very little about the place. As far as I know, the premises belong to a trust, with Mr Arthur Portman as principal trustee. I’ve never been interested in that kind of thing. My concern is to bring a bit of comfort to the bereaved. That’s my work.’

‘And do you travel up by train for your seances? It must be a heavy day if you have to come all the way back again on the railway.’

‘My goodness, what a nosy man you are! I travel up by the early morning train from Woking on seance days, and I’m met at the station by Mr Portman, who takes me to his lovely little house in Henrietta Terrace, off the Strand. And there I stay, enjoying the company of his wife Mildred, until it’s time to go to Spitalfields. Mr Portman takes me there in a cab.’

‘And when the seance is over?’

‘When the seance is over, Mr Box, Mr Portman takes me back to his home, and I stay there the night. Next morning, I catch a train back here to Brookwood. I hope you’re satisfied with all that, young man?’

Again, Mrs Pennymint’s eyes closed, and her eyelids fluttered and trembled before they opened again. She added: ‘Your father’s very happy today, Mr Box, because the doctors say that he’ll be measured for an artificial leg, soon…. Yes, and the next morning, I take a train back home to Brookwood.’

Once again, the medium sat patiently, waiting for one or other of her visitors to speak.

What was going on? Was this woman making it all up? But how could she be? How—’

‘What can you tell us about Madam Sylvestris, Mrs Pennymint?’ asked Knollys. He had seen that Box was, for the moment, beyond speech.

‘Well, of course, she’s very famous, Mr Knollys. She’s what they call a physical medium. I can only do thoughts and mental
communications
of all kinds, and there are occasions when I can see spirit beings. But Almena – Madam Sylvestris – she can conjure up discarnate entities, fully developed spirits that can talk. It’s quite wonderful, what she can do. You … you can—’

Mrs Pennymint suddenly clutched Box’s arm. At the same time, her eyes closed again, and her head sagged forward. She began to speak, and her voice was harsher and deeper than her normal tones. Around the three of them the August sun touched the trees with gold, and the birds sang lustily.

‘The man who killed PC Lane has a pockmarked face. He’s a big, brutal man. M. I see the letter M. And an X.
He was dressed like one of us, Inspector. For a moment I was deceived – the uniform. And then he came at me
…. This man who killed PC Lane is hiding. He’s being sheltered by an accomplice. But he’ll not survive this month. He’s marked with the dark cone, the black flame. Darkness.’

Mrs Pennymint opened her eyes, and shook herself like a terrier, at the same time removing her hand from Box’s arm. She smiled apologetically.

‘There, now,’ she said, ‘I’m dropping off to sleep! It’s this warm weather. They say it’s going to change by mid-month. But then, they’re always saying things like that. How do they know what the weather will be like before it’s happened? You can’t foretell the future.’

Some minutes later, Box and Knollys set out to walk to Woking
station. Both men felt shaken to the core by their experience at Mr Pennymint’s home.

‘Sir,’ said Knollys, ‘while Mrs Pennymint was telling us about Mahoney – which in itself was a bit of a shaker – PC Lane himself started to speak in his own voice—’

‘Yes, I know, I heard him, and I don’t believe it, even though it was true. I’d rather
not
believe things like that. But I don’t know what to make of it, Sergeant, and that’s a fact.’ Box shook his head in bewilderment before continuing.

‘I suppose she could have gathered together a whole dossier of little facts, just like Portman must have done to feed that harpy Sylvestris with the details of poor little Catherine Mary and her death. Maybe she’s right about Vanessa, and about Pa’s leg. But what about my so-called Uncle Cuthbert? She slipped up there, right enough.’

Jack Knollys made no reply, and the two men walked in silence for a while along the leafy lane that would take them out of Brookwood.

‘That woman’s innocent of any collusion in this business of Lane and the bullion robbery,’ said Box at length. ‘She knows nothing. But the same can’t be said of Sylvestris. Mr Mackharness has secured three warrants, one for the Temple of Light and the other two for Belsize Park – search and arrest. Tomorrow, Sergeant, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.’

Outside the Temple of Light in the nameless alley off Leyland Street in Spitalfields, a throng of devotees, some hysterical, others belligerent, had gathered to witness the desecration of their
sanctuary
by unbelieving officers of the Metropolitan Police. ‘Blasphemy!’ ‘The Antichrist is here!’ ‘Where is Freedom now?’ These, and other cries assailed the air. A police van, its rear door open, stood outside the building, a patient horse between the shafts. Hidden by the van was the notice board announcing to the passers-by that ‘There Is No Death’.