Copper, Gold and Treasure

by David Williams

  ‘Pity. He’d still be hacking his way to Victoria Street.’ She was already half way to the door, the packing-case moving well. ‘Thanks again. Nice to know you, Mr Copper. Ciao.’

  ‘Actually it’s Major . . .’ But she was gone, and anyway who cared? He should have helped with the case but people were so quick these days—or he was so slow—and it could have been heavy. He had avoided a rupture so far—and false teeth. He contemplated the stairs without enthusiasm. They seemed steeper than those at the Paragon.

  Some time later Major Copper gratefully opened the door on the third-floor landing. The oval enamel sign had stated ‘WC’—and a short Jewish gentleman was sitting inside.

  Mr Gold stood up quickly. ‘Please, I was only resting.’ This was evident from his appearance. He still had his gloves on. ‘There’s no lock on the door.’ This intelligence he delivered sotto voce and with a touch of outrage. ‘Wouldn’t try . . .’

  ‘Quite,’ replied the Major. ‘I stopped for the same reason as you.’ This was not strictly true. Miss Brown’s suggestion had prompted a reflex need.

  ‘Guard the door for you if you like.’ Mr Gold was unconvinced. Men of their age tended . . . ‘Then you can do the same for me.’ He shrugged his shoulders and smiled disarmingly.

  ‘Done,’ said the other without dissembling—completing a first exchange of some significance.

  It was obvious from the beginning that Copper and Gold would be especially compatible.

  The final flight of stairs had seemed to be nearly vertical. The attic storey did not run to a corridor, only the door to the offices of the Rudyard Trust which stood abruptly close to the top step.

  The two visitors had entered a large outer office with three dormer windows in the long south-facing wall and a Spartan collection of no-nonsense furniture—sturdy if aged filing cabinets, big wooden cupboards, a token square of worn, dark red carpet in the centre emphasizing the lurid green, wall-to-wall linoleum around it.

  There were two desks. One, near the entrance, was empty and bare of fittings, its chair firmly tucked into the kneehole, giving the impression its occupant was not so much out as gone for ever. The other, at the far end of the room, was beside the open door to a second office which, from what could be seen of it, was smaller but better furnished than the first.

  The woman behind the desk was middle-aged, well-built and commanding. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of serviceable grey flannel and a starched white blouse. Her straight black hair was cut short like a man’s and parted on the left. Her name was Miss E. R. McSlope and she was secretary to the Director. The monocle she wore in her right eye fascinated Benny Gold. He and the Major were seated on armless wooden chairs in front of the desk.

  Monocles neither enthralled nor intimidated the Major. He was preoccupied in tracing the source and nature of the foul smell that permeated the room. He was sensitive to odours, always had been. It occurred to him that this was one you might appropriately associate with decaying officers and gentlemen. He was also being drawn to the uncomfortable conclusion that the smell seemed to stem from around the person of Miss McSlope.

  ‘I’m really very sorry about the error,’ she was saying. There was a marked lack of penance in the tone and a good deal of lowland Scots in the accent. ‘But if Mr Miff makes appointments on the telephone without telling me, then of course someone is bound to be . . .’

  ‘Miffed?’ Mr Gold blurted, immediately regretting his rashness and grateful for the Major’s supportive grunt of amusement.

  ‘. . . inconvenienced.’ Miss McSlope spun out the word slowly, glancing at, or—as it seemed to him—through Benny Gold before continuing in the Major’s direction. ‘You’re here by written appointment at ten o’clock, Major Copper.’ She studied the face of a Mickey Mouse alarm clock on her desk: they all three did, with unnecessary gravity. There was a pause. Unless anyone was extremely short-sighted, or unless the clock was wrong, they had all confirmed it was twenty minutes past the hour. ‘I’m sorry the Director is late. A very rare occurrence. An urgent meeting outside the office . . .’

  ‘No matter, I can easily . . .’ the Major began.

  ‘. . . but I’m sure he’ll be here directly.’ Miss McSlope was not to be deterred in her excuse-making. ‘As for you, Mr Gold . . .’ The monocle fell from the eye to swing hypnotically from side to side across an ample and well supported bosom.

  ‘I can come some other day.’ Benny Gold half rose, as much to observe the whole arc of the monocle as to demonstrate his instant readiness to leave.

  ‘The Director will no doubt see you as soon as he’s finished with Major Copper. These interviews rarely last more than half an hour.’ She refitted the monocle. ‘Sometimes a good deal less.’

  Benny tried to ignore the possible implication of the last comment. ‘Mr Miff did say on the telephone he’d be writing to confirm . . .’he began defensively.

  ‘Ah, but here he is,’ the secretary interrupted.

  Suddenly the smell had become almost unendurably worse. Did Miff suffer some terrible bodily disorder so that his scent, as it were, went before him? The Major gagged at the thought.

  While they could all hear the slowly approaching footsteps on the stairs outside, it was Mr Gold who noticed the stout old liver-and-white Springer Spaniel which had moved out from behind the desk, working slowly but determinedly towards the door.

  A minimum turn of the head allowed the dog to appraise the visitors through one very bloodshot eye, and without interrupting its peculiar progress across the room. Maintaining momentum appeared to be critical, the animal gave the impression that if it stopped it would probably fall over.

  The legs on each side of the overweight, sagging trunk functioned more in unison than in sequence, so that forward movement was matched, pace on pace, by an arthritic, seagoing sort of roll. The head hung so low that had the dog been standing still it might have been difficult to tell one end from the other. This wasn’t a problem now, due to the more or less advancing motion, the earlier rheumy glance and the just perceptible erratic wagging of the undoctored tail. It did not go undetected either, at least by the Major, that this pathetic creature was passing wind with every other step.

  ‘There’s a good Hercules. Run to meet Daddy, then.’

  It passed human understanding—or at least the understanding of Roderick Copper—that otherwise mentally efficient people like Miss McSlope should descend to mouthing imbecilities when addressing canine familiars.

  ‘Is that his name? Good old Hercules. Keep going, old chap.’

  And now Gold was doing it.

  The door was thrown open in a theatrical kind of way. Its leading edge missed Hercules by a well-judged hair’s breadth—well judged, that is, on the part of the dog which had allowed its rear end to collapse into a sitting position.

  The animal’s tail began polishing the lino with a fairly regular action, like a hairy windscreen wiper. Its head and neck stretched ceilingwards as the taut throat emitted what began as a low moan but soon built up to a sustained high wail. The Major was thankful this fresh obscenity emerged from an acceptable orifice: it was presumably intended as a greeting.

  ‘Clever Hercules’— Miss McSlope and Benny Gold chanted together without prompting. They exchanged knowing smiles. Benny congratulated himself on having acquired some virtue in the estimation of this awesome woman. There was nothing contrived about it either: he was genuinely fond of dogs and children.

  The Major was concentrating his attention on the debut of the tardy Miff. Because the door was literally at the top of the stairs anyone approaching could choose to open it from several steps below floor level. Miff had done just this so that he appeared in stages. He proved to be a very fat man of better than medium height. The size of him was emphasized by his gradual heaving into view like some cinematic Sancho Panza riding in over a near horizon—except there was no donkey: it was all Miff.

  Once over the threshold the Director paused for breath, shedding a tight-
fitting Raglan style overcoat in a loud brown check. Underneath he had on an ultraconservative black jacket and striped trousers.

  ‘This is definitely not my coat,’ he volunteered deliberately. He mopped a high-domed, nearly bald pate and radiant forehead. The fleshy countenance which at first had seemed dangerously red from exertion was now paling to an equally alarming off-blue.

  The nose—like the affronted expression—was patrician as, in a sense, were the extra chins. The Major put the man’s age at no more than fifty-four: Mr Gold figured he’d been lucky to reach fifty-six.

  ‘It’s ’scraceful,’ puffed the subject of these speculations whose age was actually fifty-one. ‘Disgraceful,’ he repeated, looking about him defiantly.

  Since Miff’s gaze finally fixed itself on Hercules the Major was happy to concur with the sentiment—up to the point where the speaker absently produced a dog biscuit from a side pocket and gave it to the animal.

  ‘Bank manager belligerent. Trustees loftily indifferent. God, what a mess!’ The Director began a tentative advance across the room while attempting to light a cigarette. He now noted the presence of the two visitors. ‘Who are you? Some kind of debt collectors, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘This is Major Copper, who’s here by written appointment,’ said Miss McSlope, who had remained seated. The two men had risen. ‘And this is Mr Gold. You arranged to see him by telephone. Both had appointments at ten o’clock for election interviews.’

  ‘Bad luck.’ Miff shook hands, appearing unaffected by his secretary’s obvious stricture. ‘Ring the bank and say someone there’s stolen my overcoat. They’ll send it round.’ He looked at the one he was holding. ‘They can have this one back. Don’t worry about being late,’ he cautioned Copper and Gold magnanimously. ‘Should have stopped you coming at all. Fact is . . . fact is . . .’ Unsteadily he began pacing the width of the room, drawing hard on his cigarette. ‘Fact is, without a miracle the Rudyard Trust is shutting shop.’

  ‘You surely can’t mean . . .’ The Major—the first to react—felt Miff must be exaggerating for effect.

  Benny Gold mused that the arrangement had sounded too good to be true but he felt a pang of disappointment all the same.

  ‘I mean we’ve run out of money, which because of Marmaduke Rudyard’s crack-pot Trust also means we have to wind ourselves up . . . or should it be down?’ Miff gave a loud hiccup and promptly flashed an accusing look at Hercules.

  Miss McSlope seemed totally unaffected by the news. Benny marvelled at her fortitude. The monocle was Firmly in place. ‘This is your coat,’ she said severely. ‘Your new coat.’ She picked up the garment and hung it in a cupboard near the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘RUDYARD WAS AN EDWARDIAN PHILANTHROPIST. Also fancied himself as an advanced political philosopher,’ began the still agitated Miff.

  Having recounted why there was no purpose in his interviewing his callers individually, he had, on impulse it seemed, ushered them into his own office and seated them in worn leather chairs on either side of his desk. It was clear he felt further explanation was due.

  Instead of sitting himself, the Director was making and re-making the circuit of the quite small room, touching some objects as he went and brushing others with his substantial frame. There was a scent of alcohol building up in the air: naturally it was Copper who first noticed it.

  ‘Great public benefactor,’ Miff continued. ‘Hedged everything around with legal barbed wire. Scared of a Socialist take-over even then. That’s why a lawyer has to do this job. It’s in the Trust Deed. I’m a lawyer.’ The last fact was made defensively as though the speaker expected it to be challenged.

  Judging from the wear marks on the carpet, he was a compulsive indoor walker. He was also a chain-smoker. Whether he was a regular mid-morning tippler was open to conjecture. He paused unsteadily and lit another cigarette although he already had one burning in the ashtray on his desk. Benny, who worried about such things, hoped Miss McSlope had extinguished the one left burning in the outer office.

  ‘The National Health Service still succeeded in grabbing most of the Rudyard foundations after the War. I wasn’t here then, of course.’ Absently he dropped the smouldering match into the waste-bin as he passed Benny Gold. ‘Not that it would have made any difference,’ he cautioned modestly while bumping into a floor safe.

  ‘Hospitals, weren’t they? The other places, I mean.’ The Major had done some homework.

  ‘Yes. Rudyard made a fortune from patent embrocations. Felt he should be recognized as a medical luminary. Built small hospitals for the deserving poor all over the place. The Off-Gents—er, Officers and Gentlemen—came later. Same legal protections. More difficult to break. So we’ve survived. Just.’

  Miff gazed quizzically at Gold, wondering how he had come to start the fire he was tending at the bottom of the waste-bin.

  ‘You mean the hospitals got shaded into community ownership. The clubs for officers stayed independent,’ said the Major, twisting his neck to follow Miff and wishing the chap would stay in one spot.

  Miff nodded at Copper, gave Gold a reproving look and deliberately kicked the now smokeless bin out of reach. He then stationed himself behind the desk and began inhaling and exhaling deeply between phrases.

  ‘The initial endowment was fifty thousand pounds . . . Large sum in 1903 . . . Some of it went into land and buildings, of course . . . Apart from that the only new funds . . . come from resident fees, down payments and bequests. The Trustees . . . they’re not supposed to tout for gifts . . . Not that anyone’s . . . anyone’s likely to give us any . . . Too many more deserving causes . . . We’d need half a million . . . Interest on that would see us right . . . if only for a bit.’

  ‘But the Trust was expected to be self-supporting,’ put in the Major.

  Miff had stopped the breathing exercises. He was now taking his pulse. He looked up from studying his watch. ‘That was the idea, but running costs have gone up out of all proportion. We increase the fees every year. Still nowhere near the real cost. Lot of members have to dig into capital to pay them.’ He registered dismay, then put his watch to his ear.

  ‘Which means they have less to leave the Trust when they peter out.’

  ‘That’s right, Major. And we are supposed to be a charity.’ He looked suddenly relieved and began winding the watch. ‘Stopped,’ he explained. ‘Our traditional kind of member . . . er . . .’

  ‘Wouldn’t care much to enter a State home but is too hard-up to afford a private one.’ Copper eased them over a delicate point.

  ‘The properties must be worth a lot. They’re in pricey places.’ Benny Gold spoke for the first time.

  ‘Buildings worthless. Sites, yes, they’re valuable all right. All three clubs in districts with soaring land prices. Prime commuter-belt stuff round London. High housing densities,’ Miff announced with a lucidity suggesting he had said it all before—and often.

  ‘So why not sell out and set up again somewhere cheaper?’

  ‘Because, Major, the Trust doesn’t allow it. We can’t sell an acre. We’ve got nearly thirty. We can’t build either, except for own use.’ The speaker lowered his substantial bulk into his chair: exercise and deep breathing appeared to be over for the time being. ‘And that’s not all.’

  There was pain in the expression though it wasn’t clear whether this was due to some sedentary discomfort or the mental anguish that prefaced the next announcement. ‘If the Trust runs at a loss for more than three years the Trustees have to liquidate it, disband the clubs, divide the proceeds between Marmaduke’s direct descendants.’

  The Major looked dumbfounded.

  ‘That’s so uncharitable,’ said Gold without vehemence. ‘Who could have made such crazy rules?’

  ‘Rudyard himself: who else?’ Miff almost shouted, not quite disguising a hiccup. ‘The fool seriously believed if expenditure exceeded income it’d be because there weren’t enough takers. Not enough retired officers and gentlemen having t
o resort to charity. Not even two hundred and fifty of ’em in the whole of bloody England.’ He blinked sharply.

  ‘That’s the number you can take? But I was told there were vacancies.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Gold, many. We’ve been purposely running down—facing the inevitable. And all because our fees are beyond the reach of people who ought to qualify—not, as Rudyard would’ve imagined, because capitalism has triumphed.’ This time the punctuation was a hiccup unawares.

  ‘And the Trustees have no discretion?’ Major Copper obviously knew about discretionary trusts: Benny was impressed.

  ‘None. Trust Deed’s clear and precise. I’m a lawyer. Did I tell you? Professionally have to admit no doubt about the Benefactor’s intentions.’

  ‘And you can’t cut back? Save a little here and a little there so you don’t make a loss,’ asked Gold tentatively.

  ‘We could starve the inmates . . . the members.’ Miff corrected in deference to the intended status of his audience. ‘Fire most of the staff. Cut Headquarters’ personnel to two and make ’em work in a garret for a pittance. Except we’ve done that already.’ A glint suddenly appeared in the despairing eyes. ‘Would you care for a small whisky?’

  In answer to affirmative nods Miff pressed a button on his desk, then stared expectantly at the closed door of his office. When nothing happened he levered himself out of the chair and marched into the outer office. Although he closed the door after him the two visitors caught first the tone and then the words of the heightening altercation ensuing outside.

  Miff returned lighting a cigarette. ‘That buzzer’s out of order,’ he remarked taking his seat again. ‘Wonderful woman,’ he issued more loudly than was necessary. ‘The coffee will be here shortly,’ he finished without dissembling.

  ‘Marmaduke Rudyard’s descendants. Maybe they won’t take the money? They could give it back.’

  Miff favoured Benny Gold with a patronizing smile. ‘There’s no money in the family. Marmaduke left very little. What there was was dissi . . . dissi . . . lost. Business failed.’ He shook his head. ‘There are four . . . er . . . recognized descendants. Two are for grabbing the money.’ He paused to subdue a hiccup. ‘One we can’t find. The other’s on our side.’ Copper and Gold clearly were to consider themselves enrolled under Miff’s colours. ‘Wants the Trust Deed changed by Act of Parliament. It would take that, I’m afraid.’