ERNEST BRAMAH Ultimate Collection: 20+ Novels & Short Stories in One Volume. Bramah Ernest
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nodded “Good-morning” straight into the eyes of each and found his way out with the astonishing certainty of movement that made so many forget his infirmity. Possibly he was not desirous of encountering Draycott’s embarrassed gratitude again, for in less than a minute they heard the swirl of his departing car.
“Never mind, my dear sir,” Mr Carlyle assured his client, with impenetrable complacency. “Never mind. I will remain instead. Perhaps I had better make myself known to Sir Benjamin at once.”
The director turned on him the pleading, trustful look of a cornered dormouse.
“He is in the basement,” he whispered. “I shall be in the boardroom—if necessary.”
Mr Carlyle had no difficulty in discovering the centre of interest in the basement. Sir Benjamin was expansive and reserved, bewildered and decisive, long-winded and short-tempered, each in turn and more or less all at once. He had already demanded the attention of the manager, Professor Bulge, Draycott and two underlings to his case and they were now involved in a babel of inutile reiteration. The inquiry agent was at once drawn into a circle of interrogation that he did his best to satisfy impressively while himself learning the new facts.
The latest development was sufficiently astonishing. Less than an hour before Sir Benjamin had received a parcel by district messenger. It contained a jewel-case which ought at that moment to have been securely reposing in one of the deposit safes. Hastily snatching it open, the recipient’s incredible forebodings were realized. It was empty—empty of jewels, that is to say, for, as if to add a sting to the blow, a neatly inscribed card had been placed inside, and on it the agitated baronet read the appropriate but at the moment rather gratuitous maxim: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth——”
The card was passed round and all eyes demanded the expert’s pronouncement.
”’—where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.’ H’m,” read Mr Carlyle with weight. “This is a most important clue, Sir Benjamin——”
“Hey, what? What’s that?” exclaimed a voice from the other side of the hall. “Why, damme if I don’t believe you’ve got another! Look at that, gentlemen; look at that. What’s on, I say? Here now, come; give me my safe. I want to know where I am.”
It was the bookmaker who strode tempestuously in among them, flourishing before their faces a replica of the card that was in Mr Carlyle’s hand.
“Well, upon my soul this is most extraordinary,” exclaimed that gentleman, comparing the two. “You have just received this, Mr—Mr Berge, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Berge—‘Iceberg’ on the course. Thank the Lord Harry, I can take my losses coolly enough, but this—this is a facer. Put into my hand half-an-hour ago inside an envelope that ought to be here and as safe as in the Bank of England. What’s the game, I say? Here, Johnny, hurry and let me into my safe.”
Discipline and method had for the moment gone by the board. There was no suggestion of the boasted safeguards of the establishment. The manager added his voice to that of the client, and when the attendant did not at once appear he called again.
“John, come and give Mr Berge access to his safe at once.”
“All right, sir,” pleaded the harassed key-attendant; hurrying up with the burden of his own distraction. “There’s a silly fathead got in what thinks this is a left-luggage office, so far as I can make out—a foreigner.”
“Never mind that now,” replied the manager severely. “Mr Berge’s safe: No. 01724.”
The attendant and Mr Berge went off together down one of the brilliant colonnaded vistas. One or two of the others who had caught the words glanced across and became aware of a strange figure that was drifting indecisively towards them. He was obviously an elderly German tourist of pronounced type—long-haired, spectacled, outrageously garbed and involved in the mental abstraction of his philosophical race. One hand was occupied with the manipulation of a pipe, as markedly Teutonic as its owner; the other grasped a carpet-bag that would have ensured an opening laugh to any low comedian.
Quite impervious to the preoccupation of the group, the German made his way up to them and picked out the manager.
“This was a safety deposit, nicht wahr?”
“Quite so,” acquiesced the manager loftily, “but just now——”
“Your fellow was dense of gomprehension.” The eyes behind the clumsy glasses wrinkled to a ponderous humour. “He forgot his own business. Now this goot bag——”
Brought into fuller prominence, the carpet-bag revealed further details of its overburdened proportions. At one end a flannel shirt cuff protruded in limp dejection; at the other an ancient collar, with the grotesque attachment known as a “dickey,” asserted its presence. No wonder the manager frowned his annoyance. “The Safe” was in low enough repute among its patrons at that moment without any burlesque interlude to its tragic hour.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, attempting to lead the would-be depositor away, “but you are under a mistake. This is not——”
“It was a safety deposit? Goot. Mine bag—I would deposit him in safety till the time of mine train. Ja?”
“Nein, nein!” almost hissed the agonized official. “Go away, sir, go away! It isn’t a cloakroom. John, let this gentleman out.”
The attendant and Mr Berge were returning from their quest. The inner box had been opened and there was no need to ask the result. The bookmaker was shaking his head like a baffled bull.
“Gone, no effects,” he shouted across the hall. “Lifted from ‘The Safe,’ by crumb!”
To those who knew nothing of the method and operation of the fraud it seemed as if the financial security of the Capital was tottering. An amazed silence fell, and in it they heard the great grille door of the basement clang on the inopportune foreigner’s departure. But, as if it was impossible to stand still on that morning of dire happenings, he was immediately succeeded by a dapper, keen-faced man in severe clerical attire who had been let in as the intruder passed out.
“Canon Petersham!” exclaimed the professor, going forward to greet him.
“My dear Professor Bulge!” reciprocated the canon. “You here! A most disquieting thing has happened to me. I must have my safe at once.” He divided his attention between the manager and the professor as he monopolized them both. “A most disquieting and—and outrageous circumstance. My safe, please—yes, yes, Rev. Henry Noakes Petersham. I have just received by hand a box, a small box of no value but one that I thought, yes, I am convinced that it was the one, a box that was used to contain certain valuables of family interest which should at this moment be in my safe here. No. 7436? Very likely, very likely. Yes, here is my key. But not content with the disconcerting effect of that, professor, the box contained—and I protest that it’s a most unseemly thing to quote any text from the Bible in this way to a clergyman of my position—well, here it is. ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth——’ Why, I have a dozen sermons of my own in my desk now on that very verse. I’m particularly partial to the very needful lesson that it teaches. And to apply it to me! It’s monstrous!”
“No. 7436, John,” ordered the manager, with weary resignation.
The attendant again led the way towards another armour-plated aisle. Smartly turning a corner, he stumbled over something, bit a profane exclamation in two, and looked back.
“It’s that bloomin’ foreigner’s old bag again,” he explained across the place in aggrieved apology. “He left it here after all.”
“Take it upstairs and throw it out when you’ve finished,” said the manager shortly.
“Here, wait a minute,” pondered John, in absent-minded familiarity.