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Bronsky, for his part, felt that he must say something exceptional to pass off the unfortunate situation and he fell back on a highly coloured account of the derangement he had just suffered through being charged and buffeted by a mob of ‘little tevils’—an encounter so upsetting that even yet he scarcely knew which way up he was standing. Any irregularity of his salutation having thus been neatly accounted for he shook Joolby’s two hands with accumulated warmness and expressed an inordinate pleasure in the meeting.
‘But I am forgetting, comrade,’ he broke off from these amiable courtesies when the indiscretion might be deemed sufficiently expiated; ‘those sticky little bastads drove everything from my mind until I just remember. I met two men further off and from what I could see at the distance they seemed to have come out from here?’
‘There were a couple of men here a few minutes ago,’ agreed Mr Joolby. ‘What about it, comrade?’
‘I appear to recognise the look of one, but for life of me I cannot get him. Do you know them, comrade Joolby?’
‘Not from Mahomet. Said his name was Carrados—his nibs. The other was a flunkey.’
‘Max Carrados!’ exclaimed Mr Bronsky with startled enlightenment. ‘What in name of tevil was he doing here in your shop, Joolby?’
‘Wasting his time,’ was the indifferent reply. ‘My time also.’
‘Do you not believe it,’ retorted Bronsky emphatically. ‘He never waste his time, that man. Julian Joolby, do you not realise who has been here with you?’
‘Never heard of him in my life before. Never want to again either.’
‘Well, it is time for yourself that you should be put wiser. It was Max Carrados who fixed the rope round Serge Laskie’s neck. And stopped the Rimsky explosion when everything was going so well; and, oh, did a lot more harm. I tell you he is no good, comrade. He is a bad man.’
‘Anyhow, he can’t interfere with us in this business, whatever he’s done in the past,’ replied Joolby, who might be pardoned after his recent experience for feeling that there would be more agreeable subjects of conversation. ‘He’s blind now.’
‘“Blind now”—hear him!’ appealed Bronsky with a derisive cackle. ‘Tell me this however notwithstanding: did you make anything out of him, eh, Joolby?’
‘No,’ admitted Joolby, determinedly impervious to Bronsky’s agitation; ‘we did no business as it happens. He knew more than a customer has any right to know. In fact’—with an uneasy recollection of the Greek coin—‘he may have known more than I did.’
‘That is always the way. Blind: and he knows more than we who not are. Blind: and he stretch out his cunning wicked fingers and they tell him all that our clever eyes have missed to see.’
‘So he said, Bronsky. Indeed, to hear him talk—’
‘Yes, but wait to hear,’ entreated the comrade, anxious not to be deprived of his narration. ‘He sniffs—at a bit of paper, let us haphazard, and lo behold, where it has been, who has touched it, what pocket it has laid in—all are disclose to him. He listen to a breath of wind that no one else would hear and it tell him that—that, well, perhaps that two men are ready round the corner for him with a sand-bag.’
‘Oh-ho!’ said Joolby, sardonically amused; ‘so you’ve tried it, have you?’
‘Tried! You use the right word, comrade Joolby. Listen how. At Cairo he was given some sandwiches to ate on a journey. He did ate three and the fourth he had between his teeth when he change his mind and throw it to a pi-dog. That dog died very hastily.’
‘Anyone may recognise a taste or smell. Your people mixed the wrong sort of mustard.’
‘Anyone may recognise a taste or smell but yet plenty of people die of poison. Listen more. One night at Marseilles he was walking along a street when absolutely without any warning he turn and hit a poor man who happened to be following him on the head—hit him so hard that our friend had to drop the knife he was holding and to take to heels. And yet he was wearing rubber shoes. It is not right. Julian Joolby; it is not fair when a blind man can do like that. The good comrade who warned me of him say: He can smell a thought and hear a look. And that is not all. I have heard that he has the sixth sense too—’
‘Let him have; I tell you, Bronsky, he is nothing to us. He only chanced along here. He wanted Greek coins.’
‘Greek coins!’ This was reassuring for it agreed with something further about Max Carrados that Bronsky remembered hearing. ‘That may be very true after all as it is well known that he is crazy about collecting—thinks nothing of paying five hundred roubles for a single drachma … Yes, Julian Joolby, if it should become necessary it might be that a hook baited with a rare coin—’
‘Don’t worry. Next week we shall have moved to our new quarters and nothing going on here will matter then.’
‘Ah; that is arrange? I was getting anxious. Our friends in Moscow are becoming more and more impatient as time goes on. The man who pays the piper calls for a tune, as these fool English say it, and the Committee are insist that as they have allow so much for expenses already they must now see results. I am here with authority to investigate about that, comrade Joolby.’
‘They shall see results all right,’ promised Joolby, swelling darkly at the suggestion of interference. ‘And since you fancy English proverbs, comrade, it is well to remember that Rome was not built in a day, one cannot make bricks without clay, and it is not wise to spoil the ship for the sake of a kopeck’s worth of caulking.’
‘That is never fear,’ said Bronsky with a graciously reassuring wave of his hand; ‘nobody mistrusts you of yourself, comrade, and it is only as good friend that I tell you for information what is being thought at headquarters. This is going to be big thing, Joolby.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ agreed the other, regarding his visitor’s comfortable self-satisfaction with his twisted look of private appreciation. ‘I shall do my best in that way, comrade.’
‘Extraordinary care is being take to make sure for wide and quick distribution in China, Japan and India and everywhere agents signify good prospects. The Committee are confident that this move, successfully engined, will destroy British commercial prestige in the East for at least a generation—and by the end of that time there will not be any British in the East. Meanwhile there must be no weak link in the chain. Now, Julian Joolby, what can I report to the Commissar?’
‘You will know that within the next few hours. I’ve called them for eleven. Larch is working on the plates at a safe place now and as soon as dusk we will fill in the time by going to see what he has done and approve or not according to what you think of them.’
‘Good. That sounds as business. But why should we go there? Surely it is more fitly that a workman would come and wait on our convenience at your place of living?’
‘It isn’t a matter of fitness—it’s a matter of ordinary prudence. Have I ever been what is call “in trouble”, Bronsky?’
‘Not as far as to my knowledge,’ admitted the comrade. ‘I have always understand that you keep you hand clean however.’
‘So. And I have done that by sticking to one rule: never to have anything in my place that isn’t capable of a reasonable explanation. Most things can be explained away but not the copper plate of a bank-note found underneath your flooring. That is Larch’s look out.’
‘You are right. It would never do—especially when I is here. We cannot be too much careful. Now this Larch—was he not in it once before when things did not go rightly?’
Joolby nodded and the visitor noticed that his bulging throat sagged unpleasantly.
‘That’s the chap. There was a split and Larch didn’t get his fingers out quickly enough. Three years he was sentence and he came out less than six weeks ago.’
‘He is safe though? He has no bad feeling?’
‘Why should he have?’ demanded Joolby, looking at Mr Bronsky with challenging directness. ‘I had nothing to do with him being put away. It was just a matter of luck that while Larch had the stuff when he was nabbed nothing could have been found on me if they had looked for ever—luck or good management.’
‘Good management if you say to me,’ propounded Bronsky wisely. ‘Notwithstanding.’
‘The one who has the plates is bound to get it in the ear if it comes to trouble. Larch knows that all right when he goes in it.’
‘But you are able to persuade him to risk it again? Well, that is real cleverness, Joolby.’
‘Oh yes; I was able as you say it to persuade him. George is the best copper-plate engraver of his line in England; he came out with a splendid character from the prison Governor—and not an earthly chance of getting a better job than rag-picking. I’ve had harder propositions than persuading him in the circumstances, if it comes to that, Bronsky.’
‘It is to your good notwithstanding,’ declared Mr Bronsky urbanely. ‘The Committee of course officially know nothing of details and are in position to deny whatever is say or done but they is not unmindful of zeal, as you may rely in it, comrade. That is the occasion of my report. Now as regards this business of eleven?’
‘You will meet them all then and hear what is being done in other directions. Nickle will be here by that time and we shall be able to decide about Tapsfield.’
‘Tapsfield? That is a new one surely? I have not heard—’
‘Place where the mills are that make all the official Bank paper,’ explained Joolby. ‘Naturally the paper is our chief trouble—always has been: always will be. Larch can make perfect plates, but with what we’re aiming at this time nothing but the actual paper the Bank of England itself uses will pass muster. Well, there’s plenty of it down at Tapsfield and we’re going to lift it somehow.’
‘I quite agree that we must have the right paper however. But this person Nickle—he is not unknown to some of us—is he quite—?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, there is a feeling that he appear to think more of what he can get out of our holy crusade than of the ultimate benefit of mankind. He has not got the true international spirit, Julian Joolby. I suspect that he has taint of what he would doubtless call “patriotism”—which mean that he has yet to learn that any other country is preferable to his own. To be short, I have found this young man vulgar and it is not beyond that he may also prove restive.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Joolby with a note of authority, and his unshapely form gave the impression of increasing in bulk as if to meet the prospect of aggression. ‘This is London, not Moscow, Bronsky; I’m in charge here and I have to pick my people and adapt my methods. Nickle will fall into line all right and serve us just so far as suits our purpose. So long as he is doing that he can sing “Rule Britannia” in his spare time for all it matters.’
‘But in the cause—’
‘In the meantime we cannot be too particular about the exact shape of the tool we use to open closed doors with,’ continued Joolby, smothering the interruption with masterful insistence. ‘We are going to flood China, India and the East with absolutely perfect Bank of England paper so that in the end it will be sheerly impossible for English trade to go on there, and so pave the way for Soviet rule. But it is not necessary to shout that sacred message into every ear, even if for the time they work hand in hand with us. Let them think that they are out to make easy money. Few men work any the worse for the expectation that they are in the way to get fortunes. Does that not satisfy you, comrade Bronsky?’
‘So long as it goes forward,’ admitted Mr Bronsky with slightly ungracious acceptance, for he could not blink the suspicion that while he himself was an extremely important figure, this subordinate monstrosity would do precisely as he intended.
‘It is going forward—as you shall convince yourself completely. In the meanwhiles—you have not, I hope, made dinner?’
‘Well, no,’ admitted the visitor, with a flutter of misgiving at the prospect, ‘but—’
‘That is well—you need have no qualms; I can produce something better than kahetia or vodka, and as to food—Won Chou there is equal to anything you would find at your own place or in Soho. Won Chou—number one topside feed, me him, plenty quick. Not is? Is?’
‘Can do. Is,’ replied Won Chou with impassive precision.
‘There you see,’ amplified Joolby, with the pride of a conjurer bringing off a successful trick, ‘he can do it all right—take no longer in the end than if you went out somewhere. And,’ he added, with an inward appreciation of the effect that he knew the boast would have on his guest’s composure, ‘all that he will use for a six course spread may be a gas-ring and two or perhaps three old biscuit tins.’
CHAPTER IV (#ue3c5f5fd-c71d-5209-8205-95fefb4474d5)
CORA LARCH IS OFFERED A GOOD SITUATION
IT was a continual matter of pained surprise to George Larch whenever he came to think about it—and owing to the nature of his work and its occasional regrettable developments he had plenty of time for meditation—that he should have become a criminal. It was so entirely different from what he had ever intended when he set out in life. All his instincts were law-abiding and moral and the goal of his ambition from the day when he put by his first saved shilling had been a country cottage (as he conceived it), some fancy poultry and a nice square garden. Not a damp, broken-down, honeysuckle-clad, spider-infested, thatched old hovel of the sort that artists loved to depict, but a really sound, trim little new red-brick villa, standing well up and preferably in the immediate suburbs of Brighton or Worthing.
As a baby, a child, a boy, he had given his mother no trouble whatever, and at school he had always earned unexceptional reports, with particular distinction in his two favourite subjects—Handwriting and Scripture History. Indeed, on the occasion of his last Breaking Up the schoolmaster had gone out of his way to contrive a test and as a result had been able to demonstrate to the assembled boys that, set a line of copper-plate, it was literally impossible to decide which was George’s work and which the copy. As it happened, ‘Honesty is the Best Policy. £ s. d.’ (the tag merely to fill up the line) had been the felicitous text of this experiment.
Very often in these periods of voluntary or enforced inaction George cast his thoughts back in a distressed endeavour to put his finger on the precise point at which he could be said to have deviated from the strict path of virtue. Possibly it might be fixed at that day in 1898 when a casual but very emphatic acquaintance gave him in strict confidence the name of an unsuspected dead cert for the approaching Derby. Not without grave doubts, for it was quite contrary to his upbringing, but tempted by the odds, young Larch diffidently inquired how one made a bet and ultimately decided to risk half-a-crown on the chances of Jeddah. Still all might have been well but unfortunately the horse did win and—the bookmaker being not only honest but positively delighted—George found himself at a stroke twelve pounds ten (more than the result of a month’s conscientious work) the richer.
Then there was Cora. That had been a wonderful thing, so unexpected, so incredible, so tumultuously sweet, and even now, at forty-three, with all that had flowed from it, he would not have a jot of that line of destiny altered if it would have involved losing that memory. Cora was as true as steel and had stuck to—and up for—him through thick and thin, but it was quite possible that her youthful gaiety, her love of pretty, costly things, and the easier views on life and conduct in which she (naïve child) had been brought up might have imperceptibly shaped the issue. It was simply impossible for him not to follow in her rather hectic round and as for refusing her anything—why, the greatest pleasure he could win had been to anticipate whatever she had set her innocent heart on. It goes without saying that no more shillings were being saved; instead there were frequent occasions when pounds had to be—on whatever terms—somehow borrowed. Meanwhile there had been other dead certs: one in particular so extremely dead that coming at a critical hour George had been hypnotised into the belief that it would be the merest form to make use of a comparatively trifling sum when it could inevitably be replaced before the accounts were looked into the following morning … So here he was, sitting in the back upper room of an ostensible rag-and-bone shop, fabricating with unmatchable skill the ‘mother plate’ of a Bank of England ‘tenner’ and at this particular moment preparing to unlock the door in response to old Ikey’s rapped-out signal that ‘safe’ visitors were below to see him.
Mr Joolby had spoken of visiting Larch ‘at dusk’, possibly on general precautionary grounds, but it did not escape the notice of those who knew him best that most of the outdoor activity of the crippled dealer was nocturnal. Padgett Street rarely saw him out at all for the rear premises of his shop gave access to a yard from which it was possible to emerge in more distant thoroughfares by way of a network of slums and alleys. A pleasantry current in Padgett Street was to affect the conviction that he burrowed.
It was sufficiently late when Won Chou’s peculiarly appetising meal had been despatched to answer to this requirement. Mr Joolby glanced up at the deepening sky of spilled-ink blue as seen through an uncurtained pane, produced a box of cigars curiously encased in raffia and indicated to his guest that they might as well be going.
‘It’s a slow affair with me,’ he apologised as he laboriously crawled about the room, preparing for the walk, ‘so you must expect a tiresome round. Now as we have some little distance to go—’
‘But is it quite safe—this place we go to?’ asked Bronsky who had drunk too sparingly of either wine or spirits to have his natural feebleness heartened. ‘It would not do—’
‘Safe as the Kremlin,’ was the half contemptuous reply, for by the measure of the visitor Joolby was a man of mettle. ‘My own chap is in charge there and so far as that goes the place is run as a proper business. Ah-Chou’—raising his voice, for that singularly versatile attendant was again at his look-out—‘we go come one two hour. You catchee make dark all time.’
‘Alle light-o,’ came cheerfully back and although no footsteps were to be heard Won Chou might be trusted to be carrying out his instructions.
‘And makee door plenty fast. No one come look-see while not is,’ was the further injunction; then piloting his guest into the lumber-strewn yard Mr Joolby very thoroughly put into practice this process as regards the rear premises before he led the way towards their destination. Leading, for most of the journey, it literally was, for much of their devious route was along mere passages, and even in the streets Mr Joolby’s mode of progression monopolised the path while Bronsky’s superficial elegance soon prejudiced him against using the gutter. He followed his host at a laboured crawl, relieving his mind from time to time by little bursts of ‘psst!’ and ‘chkk!’ at each occasion of annoyance. Joolby, unmoved, plodded stolidly ahead, his unseen features occasionally registering their stealthy broadening grin, although he seldom failed to throw a word of encouragement over his shoulder whenever a more definite phrase indicated that the comrade had come up against an obstruction or trod into something unpleasant.
‘Well, here we are at last,’ was the welcome assurance as they emerged into a thoroughfare that was at least a little wider and somewhat better lit than most of the others. ‘That is the place, next to the greengrocer. When we go back we can take an easier way, since you don’t seem to like this one, Bronsky, especially as it will be quite dark then.’
‘It will be as good that we should,’ assented Mr Bronsky, still justifiably ruffled. ‘Seldom have I been through such tamgod—’
‘Just a minute,’ put in Joolby coolly. ‘Better not talk until I’ve made sure that everything is clear,’ and they having now come to the rag-and-bone shop he rapped in a quite ordinary way on the closed door. With no more than the usual delay of coming from an inner room and turning a rusty key it was opened by an elderly Hebrew whose ‘atmosphere’—in its most generous sense—was wholly in keeping with his surroundings.
‘Good evening, Ikey,’ said Mr Joolby, still panting a little now that he had come to rest after an unusual exertion, ‘I have brought you perhaps a very good buyer. This gentleman is making up a large purchase for export and if it is worth his while—’
‘Come in, sirs, come in if you please,’ begged Ikey deferentially; the door was held more fully open and they passed into a store heaped with rags, bones, empty bottles, old metal, stark rabbit skins and all the more sordid refuse of a city’s back-kitchens. Joolby did not appear to find anything disturbing in the malodorous air and even the fastidious Bronsky might have been perfectly at home in these surroundings.
‘It is quite O.K., Mr Joolby,’ said Ikey when the door was closed again, and it could have been noticed that he spoke neither so ceremoniously nor in such very audible tones as those which had passed on the threshold. ‘If you want him he’s upstairs now and there isn’t nothing different going on anywhere.’
Joolby grunted what was doubtless a note of satisfaction and wagged assurance at Mr Bronsky.
‘There you see,’ he remarked consequentially, ‘it’s exactly as I told you. This isn’t the land of domiciliary visits and if the police are coming they will always send you printed form giving twenty-four hours notice.’
‘No; is that rule?’ asked Mr Bronsky innocently, and repeated: ‘Good! good! It is comical,’ when he saw that the other two were being silently amused at his literalness. ‘Come, come,’ he hastened to add, thinking that it was time to reassert some of the authority that seemed to have become temporarily eclipsed by the progress of the unfortunate journey, ‘this is no business however, and we are not here for evers.’
‘Tell George to come down and bring pulls of his latest plates,’ confirmed Joolby. The narrow rickety stairs leading to the floor above—little better than a permanent ladder—were impractical for him and scarcely more inviting to Mr Bronsky. Ikey apparently had some system of conveying this message by jerking an inconspicuous cord for almost at once George Larch appeared at the top of the steps, recognising the two visitors as he descended.
‘Peace be with you, persecuted victim. The day dawns!’ exclaimed the comrade, bustling forward effusively and kissing Mr Larch on both cheeks—an indignity to which he had to submit or lose his balance among the jam jars.
‘That’s all right, Mr Bronsky,’ protested George who had as much prejudice against ‘foreign ways’ as most of his country-men. ‘But please don’t start doing that again—I told you about it once before, you may remember.’
‘But—but, are we not as brothers?’ stammered Mr Bronsky, uncertain whether or not to be deeply hurt. ‘In spirit of all-union greeting—’
‘Well, I shouldn’t like the wife to catch you at it, that’s all, Mr Bronsky. I should never think of carrying on like that with a grown-up brother.’
‘Catch me “at it”,’ managed to voice the almost dumbfounded Bronsky. ‘“Carrying on”! Oh, the pigs Englishmen! You have no—no—’ At this emotional stress words really did fail him.
‘Come, come, you two—what the hell,’ interposed Mr Joolby judicially. ‘We’re here to see how you’ve got on, George. May as well go into the room where we can have a decent light. Did you bring pulls of the latest plates down? Bronsky here needs to be satisfied that you can do all I’ve claimed for you.’
At the back of the evil-smelling vault Mr Ikey had his private lair, a mixture of office and, apparently, a living-room in every function. It was remarkably garnished with such salvage from the cruder stock as had been considered worthy of being held over and, as Joolby had foreseen, it possessed a light vastly superior to the dim glimmer that hung over the cavernous store. Here the three chiefly concerned drew close together, the old man remaining behind to stand on guard, while Larch, with the outward indifference that merged his pride as a craftsman and an ineradicable shame to be so basely employed, submitted an insignificant sheaf of papers. Some of the sheets were apparent Bank of England notes in the finished state, others proofs of incomplete plates and various details; both the visitors produced pocket lenses and Mr Bronsky smoothed out a couple of genuine notes that he extracted from a well-stocked wallet. A complete absorption testified their breathless interest.
‘Well?’ demanded Joolby when every sheet had been passed under review. ‘Say what you like, Bronsky, this is as near the real article as—’ and he instanced two things which might be admitted to be essentially the same although the comparison was more forcible than dainty.
‘It could certainly deceive me, I confess,’ admitted Bronsky, ‘and yet in ill-spent youth I have experience as bank official. But see,’ he added, as though anxious to expose some flaw, and wetting across one corner of a sheet with a moistened finger he demonstrated that it could easily be severed.
‘Ah, but you mustn’t judge the result by this paper, Mr Bronsky—of course it’s no good,’ put in Larch, carefully securing the fragments. ‘But if we get some of the genuine stuff, as Mr Joolby will tell you he means to do, not even the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England could be dead certain which was which—except for one thing, of course.’
‘And that is what?’
‘Why, the numbers to be sure. They can refer to their issue.’
‘Not so fast, George,’ objected Joolby, ‘how is that going to help them? Suppose we duplicate actual numbers that are out in circulation, and perhaps hold over the originals? We can triplicate, quadruple, multiply by a hundred times if it suits our purpose.’
‘Well, by hokey that’s an idea,’ admitted simple George Larch. ‘Why, they’d have to pay out on all that come in then or risk repudiating their own paper. It’s lucky for the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street that we aren’t in the wholesale business.’
‘Yes, to be sure,’ replied Joolby, favouring the other conspirator with a meaningful sideways look. ‘Lucky, isn’t it, Bronsky?’
‘I should think to smile,’ agreed Mr Bronsky, combing his luxuriant beard for the mere pleasure of verifying that dignified appendage. ‘Notwithstanding however.’
‘There’s one thing I should like to mention, Mr Joolby, while you’re here,’ said Larch, getting back to practical business. ‘Do you really mean me to go on with plates for all the high values up to the thousand pound printing?’
‘Why not?’ demanded Joolby, turning on his props to regard George with the blank full-faced stare that presented his disconcerting features in their most pronounced aspect. ‘What’s the difficulty?’
‘None at all so far as I’m concerned. Of course I can do them just the same as the others—technically there’s nothing whatever against it. Only no one ever heard of soft flims for anything like that—only for fives or tens or at the most a twenty.’
