That Will Do Nicely

by Ian Campbell

  "Hey! Hold your horses, I haven't ordered anything."

  "I ordered it Sir," said Sam, who had slipped unnoticed into the room behind the waiter. The man paused, unsure whom to obey. Sam put him at his ease.

  "We'll dine over there," she directed, pointing to the table at the far side of the room.

  Pascoe watched as the table was quickly and professionally prepared and took another £5 note from his wallet. The tip elicited a 'bon appetit' from the waiter who slipped quietly from the room. Staying at the Grosvenor was proving an expensive business...

  "Before you complain," said Sam, anticipating his thoughts." We have had a long and tricky day. We are tired and hungry and I need you to be nice to me. I just thought we deserved a decent dinner together."

  "I didn't say a word, but we haven't got this kind of money." he said, pointing to the lavish display of food." This must cost a fortune... "

  "That's all right then... we will have a fortune in a day or two..."

  "Or be in jail..."

  "So what if we are going to jail on account of forging $3,000,000, why worry? The trouble with you Tom, is you worry too much. You keep thinking small, but I'll try to educate you in that department... now how about dinner?" She passed him the vintage champagne to pour. "Do you remember the first time you opened a bottle of champagne for me?" Pascoe smiled at the thought. He'd never forget their first night together. He poured two glasses of the sparkling liquid, then replaced the bottle in the ice bucket.

  Sam's extravagant taste was reflected in the meal that followed. Coquille St. Jacques accompanied by a bottle of Pouilly Fuissé; a main course of ‘magret de canard’ (sliced breast of roast duck) with a light cream sauce and a selection of fresh vegetables, washed down with a Gevrey Chambertin burgundy. After the richness of the sea-food and the duck, they refreshed their palates with a delightful grapefruit sorbet before finishing with a fine selection of cheeses.

  "You've forgotten something darling." Pascoe said, forking the last morsel of Roquefort cheese into his mouth.

  "What?" she demanded, sure she'd left nothing out.

  "A digestif. "

  "If you tell me what it is I will order it. Money no object." Her words slurred across the table.

  "The French finish their meals with a Cognac or Armagnac or something similar to help the digestion. Tell me... do you like apples?"

  "Of course..."

  Pascoe smiled as he ordered the hotel's finest calvados from 'Room Service'. When it arrived he poured Sam a generous measure of the golden liquid.

  "Yhed mad.., that's Breton for ‘cheers’. You knock it back in one. "To demonstrate, he tipped the glass of fiery liquid back and trying hard not to pull too much of a face, motioned to Sam to do the same. It was a despicable trick to pull. Sam, trusting his example, followed suit and spent the next several minutes choking back the effects. She was too much woman, though, to complain.

  Five minutes later, Sam said she felt sleepy. In twenty minutes she was dead to the world and Pascoe carried her to his bed. He would have much preferred to have joined her but had too much work to do, so he poured himself the first of several cups of black, sugarless coffee and settled down to his midnight preparations.

  Taking the completed questionnaires from his briefcase, he sorted them into alphabetical order. He had printed them on 8 x 5 inch file cards so that they would form a simple index and after sorting them he carefully studied each card in turn. The details revealed a cross-section of the American population. Only the age group was similar. Most of the people who had come to the hotel were in their middle years. There were only two people under 35, one of them the loud mouthed Mr. O'Hara, who'd asked all the difficult questions.

  In all, some 137 people had attended the conference, none of whom seemed to pose any threat. None worked for the Treasury Department or the F.B.I, although if they had done, their details might not necessarily have been recorded on their passports. He guessed that it wasn't something you advertised. He was more worried that there might have been bankers among them, or people who knew the banking or foreign exchange business, but the file showed those fears were unfounded too.

  When he had finished perusing the file-cards, he visited Reception and retrieved one of the cases of cheques from the hotel's safe. In his room, he settled down to three hours work, dividing the cheques into piles of 150, placing each wad into its own plastic wallet, together with a copy of the conditions of sale and refunds that he had also printed. He had made up 50 such packages before tiredness forced him to stop. Before turning in, he phoned reception and ordered an alarm call and breakfast for 6.30 a.m. With nothing more to be done, he undressed, pulled back the covers and slipped into the bed beside Sam, taking care not to disturb her.

  The night turned out to be shorter than he had hoped for when he was woken by the shrill tone of the telephone. It was 6.30 a.m. already. Sam managed to surface just before their breakfast arrived. Over breakfast, he told Sam of the day's schedule and showed her the preparations he had made the previous night.

  "I do hope you're feeling fit because today's the day we sink or swim." He remarked, not quite feeling 100 per cent himself.

  "Don't worry about me... I'm fine." Sam said sleepily.

  They were in the lobby by 7.30 a.m. As Sam had already paid for the conference in advance, they had only the room and extras to pay for but Pascoe still had to hand over £250 to cover expenses. After settling the bill, they split up, Sam leaving for the office by underground, while Pascoe waited for the security men to arrive.

  The rest of the Easter holiday followed a similar pattern to the previous couple of days. Pascoe's one-hundred odd delegates mingled with the rest of the tourists in the city and busied themselves cashing the travelers’ cheques. For the moment, everything was going according to plan.

  What Pascoe didn't know and couldn’t probably have foreseen, was that Ed Dodge and his daughter had chosen not to stay with the herd in London, but had gone for a day-trip to France. The couple had arrived in Dover late on the Saturday morning and had taken the courtesy bus to the hover port. There, they had taken advantage of a 30 minute wait for their flight, by changing their travelers’ cheques. As luck would have it, the Bureau-de-Change, run by Thomas Cook was one of the busiest in the world and handled thousands of transactions each year. The experienced counter-clerk who served Dodge, had never seen or heard of "Dallasbank" and was loathe to part with any money until he had checked. Eventually, finding no notification of dubious cheques labeled "Dallasbank" and satisfied that Dodge and his daughter seemed to be typical American tourists with their passports in order, the cashier gave them the benefit of the doubt.

  While the Dodges were embarking on the hover -craft to Calais, the Thomas Cook clerk searched again through his 'bible' for any reference to the "Second National City Bank of Dallas." He found none, but being diligent and having nothing better to do until the next flight arrival, he also checked for the "First National City Bank of Dallas" which apparently didn't exist either and this really struck him as odd. Why name a bank as the "Second National" if there wasn't a "First National," the cashier wondered. He retrieved the cheques from his cash drawer and sorted them into two piles; one for the American Dodge and one for his daughter. An examination of the cheques showed him that while both groups of cheques had sequential numbering, there was a reasonable gap between the serial numbers of those cheques changed by Dodge and those changed by his daughter. There were no water marks, but he knew that not every cheque carried one and the ink did have had a definite texture and the paper was of good quality. In all, the clerk spent twenty minutes examining the cheques before replacing them in his till.

  Several hours later, the manager of the Hover port branch, although officially on holiday, stopped by the office and the cashier brought the suspect cheques to his attention. The manager, a genial faced giant of a man with naval beard and moustache had more than 30 years’ experience in foreign exchange. He didn't recognize the bank either
, although he noticed that the name was typically American. He examined the cheques under a fluoroscope to see if the ink or fibers in the paper fluoresced, but they didn't and he found nothing. He had a gut-feeling about the cheques, but because it was the holiday period, knew he could not contact his own head office until the following Tuesday. Knowing that he would have to take eventual responsibility for the cheques, he decided to play safe and instructed his staff not to accept any more cheques- drawn on "Dallasbank".

  The Dodges, oblivious of the problems they had left in their wake, changed more cheques at the French Hover port, without further problem.

  In Paris, 180 miles south of Calais, T.T. Ford also had no problems changing cheques at the "Charles de Gaulle" airport or the "Gare du Nord" railway station. In all, it was an uneventful weekend for the small French contingent.

  Later in the weekend, the pace hotted up considerably at the Change Alley office. The number of visitors had increased steadily from the Saturday afternoon onwards, with more than 20 people stopping by to deposit their cash. Only two of their callers had exchanged all their cheques - the rest divested themselves of cash they didn't want to carry around anymore.

  Sam took the easy way to the Change Alley office, arriving by underground at Bank Station. She emerged from the labyrinth at the corner of Cornhill and Threadneedle Street. The contrast between the tunnels of the underground and the Wren styled buildings could hardly have been more pronounced; their very fabric radiated power. By keeping Mansion House across the road to her left and the Bank of England to her right, she turned right into Threadneedle Street and right again into the Change Alley complex.

  Britain at the height of empire, ruled the world from this corner of London and even today, no other location offers quite the same blend of wealth, history, solidity and stability. The wealth of its buildings, is echoed by the bustle of bowler-hatted bankers, rushing through the city streets that comprise the square mile of the City of London.

  The alley itself seems little more than a service corridor in comparison to its noble neighbors, but in fact contains the offices of many companies in the City. Sam had chosen the location well - the affluence of the area and the atmosphere it generated were the most important assets they could have possibly have wished for, for their scheme to work. Everything looked and felt right! The building which housed their office was as anonymous as the others which surrounded it and was clad with the same, nondescript, off-white tiles.

  Pascoe had last visited the office two days previously, dressed in workers' overalls and with the aid of a battery-powered electric drill, had screwed an aluminum name plate, bearing the name of DALLASBANK, to the wall outside the main entrance. The name-plate rested snug, beneath the escutcheons of three firms of chartered accountants, two stock-brokers and a solitary legal adviser. It was in good, solid and respectable company!

  The office was located on the first floor of the building, close enough to the ground-floor entrance to be able to use the stairs. Its door was secured with Chubb locks and was also equipped with an electrically controlled master lock, operated in conjunction with a voice box. Pascoe had fixed a second name plate on the door to make the office look completely authentic.

  Immediately inside was a small ante-room, with a separate toilet. The door facing the main door led to the inner sanctum, the room which was to be center stage for the next few days, looked professional. The premises, though sparsely furnished, had been well chosen and were ideally suited to their purpose.

  The inner office was dominated by an immense walnut desk, its top inlaid with maroon, gold-tooled leather. The chairs around it matched perfectly as did the floor covering of Heugafelt carpet tiles. Sam had hung a few of her own pictures around the walls of the inner sanctum and placed a few of her knick-knacks on the desk to personalize the place and create a little character. The desk diary, pen stand, blotter and calendar were also hers, and they gave the place soul.

  Chapter 8

  Change Alley

  If there were any criticism of the room's appearance, it would be of the one classless item in the office which neither blended in with nor complimented the overall quality of the room; a grey, lifeless, three-drawer steel filing cabinet, placed near the window to the left of the desk. Even the safe, tucked away in the opposite corner to the filing cabinet, had more character; its antique dials drew attention to it and it was a superb example of Victorian security.

  The outer office was an altogether less elaborate affair, with its walls lined with chairs and a small desk placed across its interior corner. It resembled nothing if not a doctor's waiting room. Nevertheless, from the strategically placed desk, an efficient secretary could control all the comings and goings from both offices. The controls for the voice box and the electric door-lock were operable from either office desk, which gave them a certain freedom of movement in which to work. Clients could be admitted one at a time and seated comfortably in the ante-room until Pascoe and Sam were ready to receive them inside their main office. It had cost a small fortune for the short term lease, but the premises lent the proceedings an air of authority and trustworthiness; a commodity that was beyond price.

  Pascoe, having travelled with the security guards from the hotel, arrived outside the office, just after ten past nine. He rang the bell.

  "Can I help you?" burbled a voice from the box on the wall.

  "Guyton here, with the security guards." Pascoe replied, speaking into the grille. There was a brief pause before the short buzz of an electric solenoid signified the bolt being withdrawn. The door opened slightly, its handle yielding to his touch. He entered the ante-room with the guards close behind him. As he shut the outer door, the inner one opened. Sam stood up behind the desk as he entered. The guards waited in the ante-room.

  "Good morning Mr. Guyton, I trust you are well."

  "Yes, thank you Miss Fairbrother. We caught some of the rush hour traffic which delayed us a little." He spoke to the guards from the doorway.

  "If you would like to bring those cases in here, I'll put everything in the safe and then you'll be able to take a break."

  The guards put the cases on top of the walnut desk. It was then that Pascoe noticed the transformation which had taken place in the office. Sam had even taken the trouble to place a vase of fresh cut flowers on the desk. The whole atmosphere of the place had changed from the staid, heavy style of the rented office to what was now not only an efficient place of work but a pleasant one too. He approved. She had done well. She had also altered her own appearance, managing to look both efficient, yet feminine at the same time.

  "We shall need the presence of one of you in the outer office during office hours and would like you to patrol the building once every hour or so." Pascoe addressed himself to the taller guard. "That should suffice for now. Occasionally, we will need escorting to one of the banks in the City at various times and will let you know those details as and when necessary. As to the hours involved, I expect your office has explained that we will require your presence between 9.30 and 5.30 p.m. daily. I expect you would prefer to spell one another every few hours and I shall leave that to you to arrange. We shall of course need both of you on our trips to the bank. Any questions?" asked Pascoe.

  "Yes, Sir. What do we do about our tea and lunch-breaks?" True to the form of the British working man, the guard knew exactly where his priorities lay.

  "I think you will be able to work those into your off-watch times... but we shall be pleased to offer you coffee when we take ours at 11 a.m., and 3.30 p.m. In fact I expect you could both do with one now?" Both guards voiced their agreement. Once Sam had done the honors, Pascoe escorted them into the outer office and left them to plan their change-over schedule.

  "Right Fiona, all set. I expect our clients to start arriving any time after 10 a.m. Is there anything else we need?"

  "I can't think of anything at the moment, although there is sure to be something we've forgotten," said Sam.

  "Pessimist! but I ex
pect you're right." Pascoe unpacked the cheques and forms from the brief-cases and transferred them to the safe. "I think we should only keep about ten packs of cheques out at any one time. The rest can stay in the safe." They spent the next few minutes sorting wallets and cheques into one drawer and the application forms into another. Next, Pascoe took the file cards from the briefcase and arranged them in a separate drawer. "I think I had better deal with the first two or three clients, Fiona. Watch me handle the first few clients and when you've got the hang of things, you can take over. Alright?"

  "Fine.., it's the waiting I don't like."

  "That's what they say about war - it's the waiting that is the worst part." Pascoe crossed the room to the window and parted the slats of the Venetian blinds to look down into the alley. It was deserted.

  The door buzzer sounded action stations at 10.23 for the first time.

  "Good morning, Dallasbank. May I have your name please?" Sam spoke into the intercom using her extremely refined Roedean voice.

  Brent. Dinsdale T. Brent and Mrs. Brent," came the reply through the squawk box on the desk. Pascoe thumbed through the index file in an effort to find the card before Sam activated the door catch.

  Door! Sam. Get the door!" He hissed as he took his seat at the desk. Sam glared at him. She hated being bossed around. As he looked up from the desk drawer, file-card in hand, the Brents entered the office. Pascoe glimpsed the guard in the outer office retaking his seat, before Sam closed the inner door. He stood up and offered his hand to the American couple.

  "Glad you could make it Mr. and Mrs. Brent. I take it you found us all right? No problems?" There were none. "Down to business then. I take it you understand what we want you to do," said Pascoe turning his gaze on each of them in turn, waiting for some sign of affirmation. Both of them shrugged.