by JM Bannon
“In the wire-type Mr. Sims sent on June 8th, it was noted that an inventory was taken of the vault and contents were missing,” began Dolly.
“I had each partner review what contents they had in storage along with items that were in trust to the firm and kept in the partner strong room. While I could not be certain what else may be missing there was—”
Lester interrupted Sims. “Get to the point man. The detective does not require your foppery. He demands answers,” Dolly was thinking what the new baronet said out loud.
Lester took over from Sims. “Twenty thousand pounds’ sterling of gold guineas are gone. My father raised funds for the Duke of Wellington’s expedition into the Pyrenees in 1812. The Crown floated bonds to pay the troops, and we managed the syndication of the bonds. Our fee was five thousand pounds’ sterling, and a condition was that payment be in the same way as payment for the troops: gold coins. The value of the gold has increased to be worth twenty thousand pounds at current gold prices. That is what was plundered.”
Dolly was struggling to imagine how much gold that was. “Is it common practice to hold that much currency?”
Lester smirked while taking the folder from Sims and pushing to the side of the table Dolly sat. “Detective, Chilton House is the preeminent merchant bank in the world. That is what we keep in the partner’s vault. Our other strong room is four times the capacity and holds much more cash and gold.”
Dolly opened the binder and thumbed through the accounts. Some of the items he did not recognize, but some of them he knew and could postulate the value. He was gob-smacked by the fortune in that room. “What was lifted from the smaller lock box?”
“The gun,” replied Lester. “My dad kept the pepper box in there in the event he was forced to open the vault and could turn the pistol on his assailants.”
“Who knew about the pistol?” Dolly asked.
Lester, Owens and Sims looked at each other. Owens spoke up “I would think he told every partner. It was your admission into the inner circle of the partnership when you were granted space in the partner’s strong room. Sir Francis and I did the honors of teaching a new partner the combination. Francis would go to that drawer and show them the gun and proclaim that he would go down shooting before he would let burglars steal from Chilton House.”
“How much would all the gold weigh?” Dolly finally asked.
“Around four hundred pounds. The gold was packed in ten canvas coin bags,” answered Lester.
“So, several trips or several men,” Dolly pondered aloud. “And nothing else was missing?”
“That is what was shared with me, Detective,” replied Sims. Dolly stared at Lester first then made eye contact with Owens and Sims. “If there was anything else that went amiss, either intimate or something that you or a client may have that was incriminating or humiliating, I need to know. Let all the partners know, and if there is something, they can come in confidence.”
Lester queried, “Detective, are you suggesting any of our partners are blackmailers?”
"Mr. Chilton, I have your father’s murder to solve. I will collect the evidence to convict the murderer and send them to the gallows. Nine other detectives and I must deal with the whole of London. You're fortunate to have powerful associates that will keep this case a priority, because I can tell you from experience, there will be ten more murders on my desk before this one is closed.
“Now. I suspect that your father was murdered to cover up who took the gold. It is a substantial fortune and gold can be melted and struck as bullion and moved to the continent or abroad. If it’s that simple, fine, but I never seem to get the simple ones, and I have questions that are hounding me. Things just are not adding up.
“For example, who knows about this gold? It’s been in your custody for what—forty-seven years? Has it always been in those strong boxes and in those bags, or did Sir Francis move it or have an occasion to talk about his bags of gold in the safe?
“The thieves knew which boxes to open and had no intent in any of the other boxes.” Dolly leaned back to read the paper in front of him. “Such as box 116 with two hundred 500-pound banknotes. I bet that could fit in just one of those canvas bags. Why this vault and not the other one that you say has more cash in it? Could the robbers have forced your father to open that vault?”
“No, he only has one combination. The vault managers also have to enter a combination,” replied Sims.
Dolly nodded. “Interesting. So they either knew that, or they were specifically looking to only access the partners’ vault, and that brings me back to how I may have impugned your character. I need to know if there were compromising documents to be certain that the gold isn’t a red herring for me to chase. If there were documents that were held in there of the type I mentioned, then that is the motive, not the gold.
“So I get to spend all day going through your employment rolls and interviewing your staff, meaning I’ll be here for quite some time and if you think of anything, please come back and let me know,” said Dolly.
“Are you done with us, Detective?” asked Owens.
“Thank you for your cooperation. Can I see the vault managers next?”
Sims answered, I will have him come up.”
The three men got up and left.
As Lester and Sims left the board room, Sims followed Lester into his office.
“What is it Sims?”
Sims closed the door and spoke in a hushed tone. “Sir, I suggest you go out to the manor for a few days of rest and contemplation.”
“What are you talking about, man? I have made arrangements for my father’s service here and must pick up his portfolio of business before the Rothchilds or Peabody Morgan stick their noses in the trough.”
“The floor safe in the shooting lodge, sir. That is where your father kept the black files. I was not entrusted with the combination, but he directed me when you took over that you should know about those files.”
Lester sat down, exhaling. “Black files? What are you on about, Sims? He never told me of the strong box. I don’t know the combination or its whereabouts.”
“Maybe something will come to you, something he shared so you could open the safe. Sir, I hope that you are not so naive to think that, given the influence of this firm, we wouldn’t have access to other’s secrets.”
“Sims, I’m not a fool,” returned Lester. He recognized that his enterprise had influence and exposure to state and personal secrets. He certainly couldn’t imagine that his father would use someone's secrets to extort them.
Sims left the office. He wanted to see what was in the black files and how he might employ them. More so he now realized from Lester’s reaction that he was not party to his father’s treachery.
* * *
10:00 AM, Gilchrist Manor
Preston lay in the tub. Rose sponged his back. She remained overnight to nurse Preston back to this world.
Preston didn’t talk much after these episodes; it took all his faculties to stay focused and present, or he would drift off and Azul would be return. He fixed on his breathing, the sensation of the sponge on his neck and the water streaking down his back.
Preston’s thoughts strayed again until he realized Rose caught him gazing at the looking-glass on the wall above the sink.
“What are you staring at?” Rose inquired. He had been gazing at her image in the mirror. She was in a chiffon nightgown, and he could see the silhouette of her athletic body and the black markings of glyphs she had tattooed on her skin as wards.
“The mirror. Sometimes when I go away, when I accept his power and knowledge, I no longer see light reflected in this world but the reflection of the spectral from other planes of reality on the surface of mirrors.” Preston finished and had a thought. Just before it flew into his conscious mind, he had to act. Preston twisted to look at Rose, accidentally splashing her with water and making the night gown see through. It clung to her breasts.
“Rose, sanctuary.”
&n
bsp; She had only moments to act as everything Preston experienced, or thought would likely be perceived by Azul and potentially used against them. Rose rushed out of the lavatory.
Preston focused his mind on the process of astral projection and the use of a gemulet as an astral sanctuary. By thinking through the theory and practice, he would push out the thoughts he had to share with Rose and keep them from his dark passenger, Azul.
He worked through the steps to create an aetherial sanctuary. First, you required a gemulet struck in a precious metal enclosing an aether stone or crystal containing eldritch gas. This would create a tiny bubble of the aether to structure the sanctuary, for the users meet in, away from the mortal world but paradoxically still here. Rose had created one under Preston’s instruction a few years ago. Next, you needed a pool of water. The gemulet would be submerged in the water, and the travelers would then immerse a part of themselves as well. Tinctures would be added to improve conductivity of the spirit through the water to the gemulet. Then you would need to recite the incantation.
The words were available in several tomes, Liber Loagaeth, The Book of Soyga, the fourth book of Occult Philosophy, or the Hygromanteia. The incantation was fairly pedestrian the final piece was to make a secondary connection outside of the fluid. The ritual would allow the practitioners to project their spiritual forms into the aether to slip between the threads of this material world to another dimension. Variations of this were used for hundreds of years, by just about every metaphysical sect as a way to commune across time and space.
What Preston and Rose were about to do was entry level astral projection, where their spiritual essence, the true beings they were beyond the concepts of the I, would go to a secure location. A place where Preston could speak freely to Rose without Azul reading his mind.
Rose scrambled back to the tub. Preston was gesturing her to go quicker with his hands.
Rose dropped her equipment belt to the floor to have two hands to open the box. It was a mitered puzzle box and required multiple movements to twist, turn, and open sides before the locked chamber opened to free the gemulet. The circular metal object was five inches in diameter with glyphs on both sides and a crystal in the center. That crystal was an interdimensional safe room. Rose threw the object in the tub where it sank to the bottom.
Unclasping the latches on her roll, she drew out two tinctures, confirmed the substances of the vials, then dumped both in the tub. It was a lot of water; more tincture was better.
Preston reached into the water to blend the eldritch soup while Rose stepped into the tub with him. Standing in the water that went up about mid-shin on Preston, they embraced to make the secondary connection and murmured the enchantment into each other's ear.
Preston was in the library at Cambridge standing in front of Rose. Rose was in the garden of her childhood home with Preston since neither had gone to the trouble of building a construct within the gemulet, they would both perceive the space in their own way. Most practitioners craft a room or private space where they would reside during the projection. Both were physically still in Preston’s home standing in tepid bath water, but they had projected into the astral nexus point in the crystal and through the nexus point to another dimension. Now what they discussed would not be available to Azul Hassan.
Preston spoke. “You delivered the missing piece last night. The Mumbo priest has a ritual to slave a soul to an object. We can use that to help me,”
"Whoever this person is, they are a murderer and being pursued by me and the metropolitan police,” said Rose.
"The cops will never find the witch doctor without your help," replied Preston. "Find the hougan and see if a bargain can be struck. You’re a clever girl, Rose. See if you can barter services or pinch the ritual. Then, next time, Ol’ Hasan sneaks out, you can suck him out.”
"I must get back to London,” said Rose as she thought about how she might find the Voodooist and negotiate a deal to learn a sacred ritual.
Preston stepped away, reflecting on his plan. “This will mean betrayal of Azul and cost us some of my capacity to decipher and understand the works of Arcana," mused Preston.
“How is stopping a dead Sufi Mystic from occupying your body treachery? He deceived you, if you have forgotten?” said Rose.
It was in the library at Cambridge where Preston found the journals of Azul bin Hassan Tazziz Faroq al Jani Djin. He translated the works, captivated by the mystic's accounts of traveling to new planes of reality through astral projection. Preston thought the book to be imagination, a work of fiction, but shortly after reading it, he became conscious of a spirit guide. Azul himself. It began as a thought, then a voice. Preston now had him in his mind. He was certain he was going mad, not that he hallucinated, but he heard the voice. Then there was a trickling in of wisdom from beyond his conscious and vivid dreams of an ancient occultist’s life over six hundred years ago.
The more time he devoted with the tome, the sharper this other worldly spirit was within him. He could now comprehend ancient tongues dead for centuries. This knowledge led to unlocking more secrets and details of the mystic's adventures. Preston became obsessed and roamed the world, solving Azul’s puzzles. Each riddle revealed more of the mystic's code. What remained was the last of Azul's puzzle, requiring Preston to go to Serapeum, the daughter library to the great library of Alexandria. There he decoded the final chapter of Azul’s tome. It offered an incantation that Preston was deceived into thinking would allow him to project astrally like Azul, but instead, it released Azul’s spirit from the book and bound it to Preston.
“While he deceived me into sharing my body, he instructed me how to examine other worlds and gave me the awareness of the true nature of the universe. I found a reasonable arrangement in his educating me while he looks for a way to free himself. What I cannot endure is the wreckage he has left behind. My entire family thinks I’m bonkers, and when I'm back, my body is left like a used dish towel. I’ve had enough, and we can use this priest to trap him,” said Preston.
“What if you perish and become trapped in his prison?"
“It’s not like that, Rose. I am constantly in here a little, but he shoves me into his maze. That is how it works. Little by little, as I draw on our common pool of learning, he gets stronger until I feel like I am in a dream I can't wake up from,”
They both knew the field was weakening. It was time to go back.
"Scarlet cherub,” said Rose.
"What?" replied Preston.
“If I learn and can conduct the ritual, that will be my cue to you. When I say it you need to be ready to come back and grab hold of this body.”
“Agreed. You always make me smile, Rose. I surmise, though, that when the best time comes to extract Azul, I will be too far gone to communicate with. Lost in the darkest recesses of the maze where I dwell during the possessions."
When the embrace broke, both opened their eyes, and they were back in the United Kingdom, standing in a tub of water.
Preston stared at her and held her face gently.
“You two are up to your silly games again,” Preston said in his Arab dialect.
Friday, the 11th of June
9:00 PM, Albie’s Supper Club
Dolly loved their payday custom. Keane and Williamson would draw their salary and head to the bathhouse for a proper soaking, then drop off their dirty clothes at the laundry. Freshly bathed Dolly had on a new twill suit, a blue shirt with a rounded collar and a ribbon cravat that the tailor told him was the fashionable trend. From there, the two continued to supper at Albie’s on chops and roast veggies with a brown gravy, washed down with a frothy ale. They talked about life and sometimes shop.
They were an odd pair; Williamson, a Scot and Protestant, and Keane, an Irishman and ardent Catholic, but they were Metropolitan police detectives first.
“I received a letter from my brother today,” mentioned Keane.
“The one in Minnesota?”
“He is officially now in the Uni
ted States. Minnesota became a state.”
“And you’re still planning on moving there?”
“Fucking right, I am. No little cottage in this wicked city for me. I live light, and I’ve been saving for my stake in a business in America.”
“Callum, you’re a city dweller, mate. You can’t live out in the wilderness. There are savages and wolves out there.”
“We don’t have those here? It’s the mathematics of risk and reward, mate. Here I get paid eight pound a week as a detective in the most cosmopolitan city in history, and all I deal with are thieves and murderers. Now James is already there, and see, he’s a geologist and looking through the territory for iron and copper deposits. You see that ship over at the yard? That’s pig iron, mate, or some type of fancy iron alloy, and there will be more and more of that needed. So me and James are going to buy up land in this Minnesota where he finds the minerals. Because over in America, a fella can own land and everything on it and under it. So the risk I see is calculated. Me little brother is smart as a whip, and I have a packet saved up, so I’ll go over there and risk wolves and Indians for an iron mine. That seems a lot easier and less risky than getting eight pound a week to mill through an endless line of murders.”
As drunk as he was, Keane, made some sense. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Take your rich fella, who left his big estate in the country to flee back to the city, informing nobody. Then he ends up burnt to a crisp,” said Keane.
“Ahh, but no traces of a fuel to start a fire and nothing burned," replied Dolly as he polished off his plate of chops.
"Well, it might be one of those spontaneous combustions I read about," Keane argued back.
“His clothes were as fresh as yours,” exclaimed Dolly.
“Will you quit fuckin’ interrupting my presentation to the Bailey? And take off that silly tie. What are you, some plantation owner in America?" replied Keane as he moved to untie Dolly’s tie. "So, I was sayin’. You have the crispy rich dead fella, then twelve hours later, you discover two blokes dead in the very bank vault he owns. Locked up in a Yale combination safe that only six, well now five, of the wealthiest men in the empire have the combination to open," Keane presented. He slammed his meaty fist down on the table, sending plates and silverware dancing.