The Burning Issue of the Day

by T E Kinsey

  She took out her lorgnette and examined it closely. ‘Aha,’ she said. ‘It’s got the same misprint as the ones on Thomas Street. She’s definitely our girl. I say, do you think Crane’s printing business made them? His league is opposed to “Woman” suffrage, isn’t it? Perhaps he drafted it. Anyway, as soon as we find out a little more about this gold business, the police can conduct an official search of the place and find all that for themselves. It’s still not conclusive proof, but with the inspector’s informant’s eyewitness account of seeing her boots, they must surely have enough to throw a hearty shovelful of doubt on Lizzie Worrel’s guilt. Especially with Brookfield’s notes to back it all up.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ I said. ‘Although Lizzie is well liked – I’m sure we’d have no shortage of volunteers to beat a confession out of Challenger.’

  ‘No doubt. But we’ll leave those sorts of brutal tactics to the continental police forces, I think. I’m sure we can persuade her to do the right thing.’

  ‘If we can catch her before she does a moonlight flit with her share of the gold.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. If we’re assuming that they’re trying to pinch the gold by “switching” it, they clearly hope to get away without anyone knowing it’s gone. If they’re doing that, we have also to assume that they’re not going to want to draw attention to themselves by hopping on to the next boat train to the south of France to live high on the hog on the proceeds. They’re going to carry on as usual until the furore has died down a bit and then slyly convert their ill-gotten gains into cash. I don’t think she’s going anywhere for a while.’

  ‘Nor are we by the looks of things,’ I said. I reached once more beneath my seat. ‘Cheese and chutney sandwich?’

  ‘Good choice. How did you know to pack all this?’

  ‘Years of experience,’ I said. ‘I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said, “And that’s my plan – I suggest we start straight away.” It was odds-on you were going to have us traipsing about the city all day.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ I said, and took a bite from the sandwich. I thought for a moment. ‘If you were going to steal seven hundredweight of gold bullion,’ I said, ‘and you planned to “switch” it, what would you do? Substitute lead bars?’

  ‘I’ve been mulling that one over ever since I finished decoding the message. If one’s operation were properly funded, it would be a simple matter to make up thirty lead bars of the right size, cover them with gold leaf to give them the proper colour and shine, and then look for an opportunity to substitute them for the real thing. The problem is that for all its apparent heaviness, a lead bar is still only just over half the weight of a gold bar of the same size. Let’s say the gold is boxed up to keep it together and safe on the voyage. You’d want your guards to be able to manhandle the boxes for loading and unloading so you’d perhaps pack the bars in seven boxes of four and one box of two. The heavier boxes would weigh a bit over a hundred and nine pounds. It wouldn’t be the easiest thing they did that day, but two men could carry that. Four lead bars of the same size would weigh just over sixty-four pounds. Even the most dull-witted of guards would notice a forty-five pound difference in their burden.’

  ‘I had no idea the difference was so great,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not something one has to think about very often. Somehow one has to make a box of four lead bars weigh as much as a box of four gold bars.’

  ‘So . . .’ I said as I thought it through, ‘if you can’t make the lead weigh more, how about making the box weigh more? They have to move the gold inside the boxes, so all they ever really know is the combined weight of the gold and the box. It’s unlikely anyone’s ever going to take a bar out of the box.’

  ‘We’ll make a scientist of you yet, young Armstrong,’ she said. ‘That was exactly my thinking. If they can somehow add another forty-five pounds of lead to the box itself, only a proper inspection would give them away. Lining the box with a thick enough layer of lead would do the trick if they disguise it right.’

  ‘They’d have to know exactly how the gold was being shipped, and exactly what the procedure at the docks was going to be. It’s a ruse that would only survive the most cursory inspection.’

  ‘Crane ships his precious coffee halfway round the world all the time. If anyone has bribable contacts in ports all over South America as well as at home, it’s him. He could easily have had spies on the docks in Chile to tell him how it was packed, and at Avonmouth to tell him how it’s going to be transferred. Armed with that knowledge, our boy Jimmy Stansbridge could easily formulate a plan to make it disappear from under the guards’ noses. And speaking of Stansbridge, is that him coming down the steps?’

  I looked where she was pointing. A man in a shiny top hat and a long black coat was loping carelessly down towards a waiting brougham.

  ‘Astrakhan collar and a scarlet feather in his hatband?’ I said. ‘That’s the description Lady Bickle gave us.’

  I hopped out of the motor car and cranked the engine to life. We gave the cab a few moments’ head start and then set off to follow.

  The brougham was easy to see and easy to follow, but we had one minor problem: it turns out that motor cars can travel much more quickly than horse-drawn cabs. In its lowest gear, our little Rover was able to travel at eight miles per hour, which just so happens to be roughly the speed of a trotting horse. Things were fine until the cab came up behind a slow-moving cart, or the driver chose to slow the horse to a walk to negotiate an obstacle. When that happened – as it did annoyingly often – we were forced to stop and wait for the horse to pull away again. Fortunately, neither Stansbridge nor the driver was inclined to look behind them and so, somewhat astonishingly, we managed to follow them without being spotted.

  His first stop was in a back street near Old Market, not far from the Empire, Bristol’s most famous music hall. The cab pulled up outside a shop with dusty windows which proclaimed itself to be Montague Mallick & Sons – Theatrical Costumiers & Propmakers. We stopped a safe distance away and watched as he went inside. He was there for no more than five minutes and emerged bearing two large, squashy brown-paper packages fastened with string.

  And we were off again. His next stop was just a short drive away, outside the Sheldon Bush and Patent Shot Company Limited in Redcliffe. Again he disappeared inside, this time for nearly half an hour, but he emerged empty handed.

  The tensest moment came shortly after this visit to the lead works. The cab threaded its way back towards the business and banking heart of the city around Corn Street. It appeared that he might simply be returning home – this was as good a route to Clifton as any – and Lady Hardcastle became a little complacent in her following technique. She had been keeping a safe, unobtrusive distance from our quarry, and allowed the cab to turn out of sight on to St Nicholas Street before turning left to follow it. Unbeknown to us, the cab had stopped less than ten yards from the junction and we all but ran into it.

  We carried on past, not looking at the rangy gentleman in the black coat and top hat who unfolded himself from the brougham and paid the driver. We were unable to avoid being seen by the man walking along the road towards him – Nathaniel Morefield – but we were hopeful that our driving garb rendered us more or less unrecognizable. The scarlet motor car was rather distinctive, but there was no reason Morefield should have known to whom it belonged.

  Yet another ten yards further on was another familiar figure in an exquisitely tailored coat, carrying a leather satchel. Miss Caudle, it seems, had left her observation post in Crane’s to follow her target round the corner. I saw her eyes flicker towards us as we passed, but she was canny enough not to acknowledge us.

  We had no choice but to carry on and try to find somewhere unobtrusive to park.

  ‘Shall we try to do it on foot?’ I asked as we pulled up on Clare Street.

  ‘We could,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘but I’m not sure wha
t we’d learn. Stansbridge and Morefield are probably meeting for lunch to go over the last-minute details and there’s little we could achieve by trying to earwig on that conversation other than getting ourselves caught. I hope Dinah doesn’t follow them into wherever they’re going – Morefield definitely knows her.’

  ‘Stansbridge was empty handed when he got out of the cab,’ I said. ‘And he sent it on its way, so he’s probably going to be here a while. Should we follow the cab and see where the packages end up, perhaps?’

  ‘I think it’s all that’s left us,’ she agreed. ‘Although he’s probably going to drop them off back at York Crescent.’

  ‘It’s worth a try, though,’ I said. ‘Miss Caudle will let us know what happens after their luncheon.’

  By this time the cab had passed us and was about to get lost in the bustle of carts and trams around the Tramway Centre. We set off in hot pursuit and were just in time to see it disappearing slowly up Park Street. It was beginning to look as though the packages were going to be dropped off at home after all.

  But the cabbie ignored all the turnings towards Clifton. He carried on up Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill, and set off across the Downs. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain unobserved as the traffic thinned almost to nothing, but the cabbie did much of our work for us and continued not looking behind himself with a pleasingly helpful determination.

  Nevertheless, we stayed further back, reasoning that we’d easily be able to pick up his trail if we briefly lost sight of him, especially since we could travel, if we chose, at three times his speed.

  He carried on.

  ‘Where are we now?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘We’ve never been out this way. Do you think we might be heading towards Avonmouth?’

  ‘It seems the most likely destination,’ she said, ‘given what we already know. We just have to keep going and hope we can find our way back.’

  After many tediously slow miles we began to see civilization ahead. There were glimpses of the derricks of the dock cranes between the huge warehouse buildings, and then the funnels of a ship. We were, indeed, approaching the Avonmouth docks.

  There was a small terrace of three old cottages on the outskirts of the site. They looked abandoned – the windows of the first two had been boarded up. Our guess was that the occupants had been forced out many years ago by the arrival of the docks, perhaps to live in the newly built streets of houses nearby, but that the land was not yet needed for any expansion of the port.

  The cab pulled up outside one of the cottages and the driver stood up on his seat to look around, as though puzzled that the address he’d been given was of an empty, rundown cottage. I thought he was about to give up and leave, perhaps imagining himself to be the victim of a rich man’s prank, when the cottage door opened and a stocky man emerged. He had a brief conversation with the cab driver while another man watched from the doorway. The cabman handed over the brown paper packages in exchange for what was presumably the balance of his promised fee.

  We had observed all this from a safe distance and remained at the side of the road while the cab turned around and drove past us, on its way back to the city. The driver was as oblivious to our presence on the way out as he had been on the way there. He didn’t even look at us.

  Lady Hardcastle took a notebook and pencil from her bag and made a quick sketch of the cottage and its position on the road. She made a few notes before saying, ‘I think we should get back to Georgie’s and report in, don’t you?’

  ‘Can we take her up on her invitation to stay for dinner?’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’

  We arrived at Berkeley Crescent shortly before six to find that the other three were already there. Where previously the atmosphere had been polite but somewhat cold, now the two ladies were chattering like old pals.

  ‘As you can tell,’ said Lady Bickle as she welcomed us in, ‘Dinah and I are rather excited to tell our tales. I’m not entirely sure I could have held on much longer but the inspector was very insistent that we wait for you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry we delayed you,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Our poor motor car did the best it could, bless its little heart, but it still took us an absolute age to get back.’

  ‘Where did you end up?’ asked Miss Caudle. ‘The last I saw of you, you were tootling along St Nicholas Street trying not to be noticed.’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We held you up, so one of you should go first.’

  Both Lady Bickle and Miss Caudle began speaking at once. They stopped. They laughed. They each gestured that the other should go first. They both began speaking. They laughed again.

  The inspector, who looked as though he had been enduring this level of girlish excitement for a while, rolled his eyes.

  ‘Georgie,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Why don’t you start? Then our tale can follow Dinah’s.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Lady Bickle with a grin. ‘Well, let me see. I strolled down to the shop after you were all safely on your way. We had a quiet morning. Beattie was unusually animated. She’s such a quiet soul most of the time, but she was very chatty. We sold a few bits and bobs – the bloomers with the green and purple ribbons have been surprisingly popular lately. I suppose it’s a form of domestic protest. But anyway. It was getting on for lunchtime, and Beattie asked if I wouldn’t mind staying on for another hour while she went on one or two errands. I usually only work in the shop during the mornings, you see. So I said it would be fine, and off she toddled. Marisol was upstairs sorting out some paperwork, so I asked her to mind the shop instead – I said I had to pop home to organize some things with the servants. It all took just a few moments, but by the time I hurried out, I could just see Beattie about to disappear up Whiteladies Road.

  ‘She was probably on her way home, I thought, so I didn’t panic. I trotted after her, and sure enough she turned right towards Redland. By this time I was about fifty yards behind her so I would still have been in trouble if she’d been going anywhere else, but she kept on towards her flat.

  ‘It suddenly dawned on me that if she went in, I’d be scuppered. How could I watch her front door without her seeing me when she came back out? I was so intent on solving this little conundrum that I almost bowled straight into her as she came out of a little hardware shop just round the corner from her home. I’d lost sight of her completely, you see, so I didn’t notice her going in. As it was, I just about managed to duck into the newsagent’s next door. I have a quarter of mint humbugs if anyone wants one.

  ‘By the time I thought it safe to leave the shop, she was gone. But I did see what she’d bought from the hardware shop: a huge can of paraffin.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, given what Flo found in Challenger’s flat when she searched it,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Well, now Flo has to go next,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘You can’t just leave that dangling there.’

  I quickly recounted my search of Beattie Challenger’s flat, with special reference to the arsonist’s duffel and empty paraffin bottles.

  ‘It seems she’s quite the one for setting fire to things,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘Do we think that’s the “distraction” that Brookfield mentioned in his notes? A well-timed fire at the docks would draw a lot of attention away from a certain gold shipment.’

  ‘It certainly would,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Your turn next. What were Stansbridge and Morefield up to? Tell me you didn’t follow them to lunch.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Miss Caudle with no small amount of smugness, ‘I did precisely that. I’m not quite as green as I’m cabbage-looking, you know. I’ve done my share of surreptitious earwigging, even as a social correspondent. More so, I dare say – when one earns one’s daily crust peddling gossip, it pays to be able to go unnoticed while still being able to eavesdrop.’

  ‘And what did you hear?’ asked Lady Bickle.

  ‘My first shock was learning that, when he’s sober, the Ho
nourable Jimmy isn’t quite the amiable duffer he pretends to be. Sharp as razors, as it turns out – one wonders how he manages to be quite so rubbish at cards. But he was there to report to his CO, as it were. Evidently the men have been moved up to their forward positions and the matériel is being delivered today and tomorrow, whatever that means. Morefield sidestepped his questions about the distribution of the loot, saying only that it required great circumspection and would take time.’

  ‘I think we can help you on the men and matériel problem,’ said Lady Hardcastle. She told them about Stansbridge’s errands and our trip to Avonmouth. ‘My guess,’ she said when she had finished, ‘is that the men in the cottage took delivery of some uniforms from the costumier. They could be either Chilean army or local security men, depending upon exactly how their deception is to work.’ She went on to outline her thoughts on swapping lead bullion for the gold. ‘If I’m right, then that would be the reason for the visit to Sheldon Bush. Short of stealing it from church roofs, buying it from a lead shot factory would seem to be the quickest and easiest way to get one’s hands on seven hundredweight of lead. I wonder at them leaving it so late, though. Unless . . . perhaps Mallick & Sons have already made up the fake gold ingots and he was just making sure that the order for the box linings was going to be ready in time.’

  The inspector had remained silent throughout, merely making occasional notes in his ever-present notebook.

  ‘This is all very helpful, ladies,’ he said when we’d finished. ‘Between you I think you might have cracked the case. Well done.’

  You could almost taste the pleasure in the room as he said this.

  ‘You know where the gang are hiding out. You’ve almost certainly hit upon the method of the “switch” – I’d imagined swapping the gold for lead myself, but I hadn’t considered the difference in weight. Yours is a good solution, my lady. Very good indeed. My day wasn’t nearly so productive, I’m ashamed to say – once again, my informants came up with nearly nothing. But armed with all this new intelligence, I’ve a better idea of the questions I should be asking and of whom I should be asking them. Thank you very much.’