The King's Commissar Read online

  A huge pile of gold bars stood glowing in the middle of the vault.

  'Jesus.' The photographer looked in awe for a moment, then took several pictures swiftly. Then: 'Could you stand right there, Mr Pilgrim. And you, sir.' He was excited, as visitors always were.

  Malory posed obediently.

  'Now,' said Pilgrim, 'here's the second act. Just watch closely.' He sounded, Malory thought irritably, like a guide at some museum.

  Inside the vault a mechanical hand rose from the floor behind the gold stack. Pilgrim said. 'The gold price dipped last week. We have to add a little more.' The mechanical hand dipped and reappeared with a bar of gleaming gold gripped securely in metal pincers coated with rubber; the gold bar was deposited on top of the stack. 'There'll be three this week, gentlemen,' Pilgrim said as the camera clicked frantically. 'The aim is that we have one hundred million in bullion here at the weekly showing.'

  'That's dollars?' asked Coverton, his voice a trifle hoarse.

  'We're in London,' Pilgrim said. 'It's pounds.'

  The hand was depositing a second bar, returning for the third.

  'Where's the new gold come from?'

  'Sorry, gentlemen.'

  'Okay, where's it go?'

  'Same sorry. That's our secret.'

  'Anybody ever try to bust the vault?'

  Pilgrim turned to Malory. 'Have they, Horace?'

  'Mmm?' Malory's attention was elsewhere. He'd seen the gold many times before and the letter drummed in his mind.

  'Anybody ever try to steal it, sir?'

  'Once I believe. Sometime in the 'forties,' Malory said.

  'What happened?'

  'It is protected in many ways,' Malory said. 'They died, if I remember, of electrocution. Two of them. Very foolish.'

  Now the third bar was in position. Pilgrim regarded the stack with pleasure. 'It was a little short just a couple of minutes back. Now it's right up to par again. Take a look at a full hundred million.'

  They looked reverently for long, silent moments, until the hum sounded and the strong-room door began to close. Pilgrim touched the glass. 'Glass can't be broken,' he said. 'Not with a hammer, not even with a jack-hammer. Too thick to cut. Any explosion strong enough to break it would bring the whole building down.' Silently, behind him, the great door closed. Wheels turned automatically on its face. It sat there, massive and invulnerable, its tungsten steel face gleaming, until abruptly the lights went off.

  Malory had watched Pilgrim play the confident showman. Where, he wondered, was the doubt he'd seen earlier?

  Pilgrim was saying, 'It's been there a long time. We've been showing it once a week since nineteen-twenty-five. School kids come, students, politicians looking for reassurance.' He laughed. That, gentlemen, is what made Hillyard, Cleef pre-eminent, and keeps us up there with Rothschild's and Lazard's. People have faith in a stack of gold. Not a bad hedge against inflation, either. Now come and have some coffee.'

  'Before you do,' Malory said crisply, 'would you mind if I had a word with Mr Pilgrim?'

  'Not at all, sir,' Coverton said politely. He thought Malory looked a nice old guy, veddy British, veddy British indeed. Kind of a relic, maybe.

  As they left the viewing room, Malory seized Pilgrim's arm. 'I warned you,' he said. 'But you chose to ignore it. Do you realize what you've done? This is something that was buried; a thing Zaharoff himself intended should stay buried. And now it has been released!'

  'Zaharoff himself?' Pilgrim said. 'Listen, Horace, you have to read that stuff. Some old guy's reminiscences -what harm can they do? Horace, the worms had Zaharoff forty-four years back.'

  Malory shivered.

  'You cold, Horace? The air-conditioning -'

  'Not cold,' Malory said. 'But I have a feeling those worms you spoke of will soon be turning their attention to Number Six, Athelsgate.'

  Pilgrim touched his shoulder. 'We just saw a hundred million. What can touch us?'

  Malory stared at him. 'Something will, I'm sure of it. We must find out what it is.'

  'So find out.'

  Malory turned abruptly. 'I'll do that,' he said. 'If I can -before the catastrophe.'

  Back in his own office, Malory poured himself a substantial bracer of Glenfiddich and sank into his chair with a thoughtful grunt.

  Pilgrim, he thought. This fella Pilgrim . . .

  Malory's senses, all five of them, remained sharp. Plenty of men in the City of London would have sworn he possessed a remarkable sixth, for business, and that it also was finely-honed. Conspicuously missing from his armoury, however, was anything resembling a sense of fair play. His willingness to look at a problem from different viewpoints sprang out of a determination never to overlook possible advantage, rather than from attachment to abstract concepts of justice.

  But he was aware of the lack. When necessary, he took remedial steps; and with young Pilgrim, such steps were undoubtedly needed.

  For he did not like Pilgrim. Malory was Edwardian by birth, Wykehamist by education; he was deeply conservative, a traditionalist, and massively self-confident. He liked to be surrounded by men of like background and attitude, men whose neck-ties he recognized and whose family ties he also knew, or knew about.

  A few days earlier, paying a weekend visit to a crony, he had been put rather uncomfortably in mind of Pilgrim. At the time he was watching an aristocratic litter of three-month-old golden Labrador pups romping with a mongrel terrier which was appreciably quicker, more intelligent and more vital than any of them. Put the thing in canine terms, and yes, Pilgrim was the mongrel terrier, no question of it; Crufts wouldn't look at him above a moment, but quick and vital he certainly was. Yet if Hillyard, Cleef was, in its own way, a kind of Crufts, the mongrel was already in.

  Forced on him, Malory reflected. Well, not forced exactly: but all the same, Pilgrim was a product of change. Hillyard, Cleef had followed Lazard's and Rothschild's into Wall Street rather late, but the American offspring,

  in fattening rapidly, had quickly become the dominant part of the enterprise. On Wall Street, the partners felt that in Pilgrim they had what one described as 'a colt set to win the Derby' and the suggestion had been made that Pilgrim come to London and do a few hard exercise gallops beneath Malory's gaze, before he grew too big and hard-mouthed, and Malory too old, for the experience to be beneficial.

  And so here he was: a youngish man who had learned much, learned fast and learned well. Pilgrim was smart. To Malory's mind, he might be a little too smart, inclined to parade his gifts under the noses of men too old and too successful to enjoy it. A lifetime of manœuvre had developed in Malory the conviction that a banker, like an overcoat, should be comfortable and warming. And Pilgrim tended towards the prickly and chill.

  What, Malory wondered, would Zaharoff have made of Pilgrim? Or Pilgrim of Zaharoff? It would be fascinating to see what Pilgrim did now in the face of events. Real and major danger threatened. Could Pilgrim handle it? It might well be the perfect test of his judgment. But he'd have to be watched carefully, by George! He'd made one bad blunder already.

  Malory picked up the typescript. It began:

  My name entire is Henry George Dikeston. In the early spring of 1918 I undertook a journey . . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  --------------------------

  An account, written by Lt-Cdr H. G. Dikeston, RN,

  of events which took place on, and subsequent to,

  the evening of Saturday, March 30th, 1918.

  My name entire is Henry George Dikeston. In the early spring of the year 1918 I undertook a journey. Even as it began there could be no doubt of the high responsibility of the tasks entrusted to me. As time passed it became ever clearer that in my hands lay the only means to resolve great matters. By the end . . .

  But there is much to tell and care must be taken that the end does not precede the beginning. Were it to do so, much thought and planning would be brought to naught; so that the answer I have devised for those who subsequently misused me would
lose its merit. I shall therefore tell my story straightforwardly, save that the end, when it is reached, will not be an end at all, not finis in any conventional sense, because yet further events will have been set in train. It now seems I shall not live to see them, but I take satisfaction in knowing they are inevitable.

  I hope that you, Sir, whoever you may be, reading this account for the first time, have already experienced what the French describe as a frisson: one of doubt or uncertainty or fear.

  On the night of Saturday, March 30th, 1918, I was on leave in London, having served for some months in His Majesty's Monitor Makesure on coastal bombardment duties, mainly off the Heligoland Bight. I had few friends in London; they, such as they were, comprised in the main serving officers of the Royal Navy, and so were away at sea. Accordingly I was faced with dining alone. Normally I would have sought out a quiet restaurant, perhaps in Soho, but on that evening I felt some need for entertainment.

  I decided, therefore, to attend a performance at the Gaiety Theatre, and to take a quiet supper afterwards. But as so often when one seeks to have one's spirits lifted, the reverse happens. Amid the colour, the music, the elaborate good cheer, my spirits refused to rise and I took myself off to the bar at the first opportunity. I had been standing there for only a few minutes, increasingly conscious, in that cheerful throng, of my own solitude, when a hand fell on my shoulder. I turned to see a brother officer, one Jameson.

  'Enjoying yourself, Dikeston?'

  'Not particularly,' I said.

  'Neither am I. It's too big a change, all this.'

  We stood for a moment, looking at the swirling silks and the lights, both of us filled with the knowledge that while all this empty gaiety pranced and thudded before us, men were fighting and dying, and this night upon the North Sea was cold and perilous.

  'What would you say,' Jameson asked me, 'to a quiet drink and some supper at my club?'

  I agreed at once. Far better to spend the evening with one who could comprehend one's mood than to persevere in the search for elusive and temporary pleasure.

  We collected our greatcoats and caps, turned into the thronged Strand, and began to walk westward. The Strand was lively that evening, full of soldiers and girls, all filled with the same kind of somewhat spurious high humour which had so affected my spirits at the theatre.

  We turned in at last through a gate marked 'Out'. Jameson's club was the Naval and Military in Piccadilly, whose premises were the late Lord Palmerston's old house; the club was known throughout London as the 'In and Out' because those words, in white lettering, appeared upon its stone gateposts as directions for cabbies and other drivers.

  After about an hour of quiet companionship, during which we sat relaxed with our drinks in deep armchairs, exchanging little but the occasional word, one of the stewards approached Jameson. Thinking he was seeking our supper order, Jameson waved the man away, but the steward persisted.

  'Beg pardon, sir, but I see your guest is Mr Dikeston.' His eyes were on the braid at my cuff, two wide bands and one narrow. 'Would he be Commander Dikeston, sir?'

  'I would,' I said.

  'Commander H.G. Dikeston, sir?'

  'The same.'

  'Then, sir, there is a gentleman at the porter's desk asking for you.'

  "Who is he?'

  'Didn't give his name, sir. Said he was from the Admiralty.'

  I excused myself to Jameson and made my way to where the man stood. He wore mufti; a dark tweed Ulster and a somewhat rakish billycock hat. I approached and stood before him. 'My name is Stott,' he said. 'From the Admiralty. Will you collect your coat and hat, please, Commander, and come with me?'

  I remember that I stood regarding him for a moment, and not liking what I saw. It may well have been a premonition of some description, for truly I liked nothing of what came afterwards. 'Can you prove who you are?'

  He flung back the cape of his Ulster in an irritated way and produced a card: it was nothing I had seen before, but bore the Admiralty crest and his name and some signature I do not recall. 'Very well. I must tell my host -'

  But he interrupted me. 'No time for that. The porter will tell him you have been called away. Your coat, please, Commander. I have a car waiting.'

  Shortly afterwards I descended the steps with him and we entered a Daimler car which stood waiting, its engine running. The car at once moved off, without any instruction being passed to the driver.

  'What's all this about?' I asked the man Stott.

  His sole reply: 'You know better than to ask, Commander.'

  Naturally I was puzzled. Makesure, my ship, was being fuelled and munitioned at Harwich, and could not sail until Monday's morning tide - though it's true her remarkably shallow draught rendered her less dependent upon tides than other vessels. Still, she would be all of two days making ready for sea. I could not therefore see why my forty-eight-hour leave was being interrupted.

  Stott next said, rather querulously it seemed to me. 'You had notified your captain that you were to stay at the Hotel Russell.'

  'I have a room.'

  'But you were not there. We have been looking for you, Commander Dikeston.'

  I confess I did not bother to reply. Did the fool imagine that officers on leave sat alone in hotel rooms, eating off trays? Looking out of the Daimler's window, I was curious to know our destination. The car stood halted at the head of St James's Street and was awaiting a break in the oncoming ranks of cars, buses and horse-drawn vehicles, to turn. The street down there was naught but clubs, anyway: had I been prised out of one to be taken to another?

  The turn accomplished, we proceeded down St James's and my curiosity diminished. Pall Mall and then the Admiralty: I had guessed by now where I was bound. Still, it was odd on a Saturday night, when I knew my ship would not yet be half-loaded. But the Daimler halted again at the foot of the street instead of turning left into Pall Mall: looking out of the window, I saw, and pitied, for it was a night of sharp winds, the khaki-clad guardsmen standing their duty at the entrance to St James's Palace. Then we were turning again, and turning right, and the car was passing the guard, actually entering the confines of the Palace!

  'Follow me,' Stott snapped, climbing quickly from the car. He made his way across the yard to a door and rapped upon it sharply. The door was opened by a footman in livery and I had barely come to Stott's shoulder before he was setting his foot across the threshold. He glanced impatiently at me over his shoulder, said, 'Hurry, please!' and began to mount a stair.

  We entered an old and ornate ante-room, dominated by pictures of the Hanoverian Georges, I remember, each uglier than the last.

  'Wait here. Commander Dikeston,' snapped Stott. Then he wheeled back to the stair and left me.

  Now, of course, I was curious indeed: not every day is one hustled in so mysterious a way first into a closed car and then into a royal palace! Instinct led me to inspect the shine on my boots and the creases in the doeskin of my trousers. These first were satisfactory, for I had an excellent naval servant, but even he was unable to persuade doeskin to accept and retain a good crease, and there was some bagginess at my knees. I therefore spent a moment or two nervously straightening myself, brushing at my tunic and so on. But before I had time to think beyond that, a door opened and a four-ring naval captain appeared. 'This way, Commander.'

  He stood back to let me pass, and closed the door, himself remaining in the ante-room, though it was a short while before I realized he had left. Other matters now clamoured for my attention, for as I entered the room a dark-suited man who stood before a table on the far side of the drawing-room in which I now stood, turned to face me.

  'Dikeston?' he enquired.

  I was rigid at once. 'Yes, Your Majesty!'

  Malory pinched the bridge of his nose, where his spectacles pressed indentations into the flesh, and thought about Pilgrim's dismissive words. 'Some old guy's reminiscences' indeed! A few pages of the narrative, and this Dikeston, whoever he was, had already been taken in secret to
meet the King! Didn't Pilgrim understand that such a thing was unheard of- especially in 1918, when a remote God of a King-Emperor ruled a quarter of the earth . . .

  The frisson was in him now, right enough, and hardening into a nasty little knob of unpleasant anticipation somewhere in his chest. Sighing, Malory replaced the spectacles, took a mouthful of whisky, and resumed reading.

  The King took two or three paces towards me. 'Thank you for coming,' he said gravely. Now, looking at him, I could see he was grave altogether, his brow lined, his eyes weary, and there were white flecks in his beard. The war, I thought, is taking its toll of him, as it is of all of us. I remained rigid.

  The King then drew my attention to two other men in the room, stretching his hand out towards, first, a tall man with piercing, dominant eyes, and a small white moustache and beard cut in an old-fashioned French manner. 'Mr Zahar-off,' the King said, 'is a director of Vickers, Maxim and Company.' I made a small bow, knowing the man's name and something of his curious and menacing reputation. Zaharoff looked imperious enough to be Sovereign himself: commanding, and cold and steely as the armaments he produced. He did not return my bow, though some small motion of eyes or brow gave acknowledgment. Now the King's hand indicated the other man present. 'Mr Clark,' he said. There had been no need to explain Zaharoff, but His Majesty clearly felt Mr Clark required further introduction; and that was hardly surprising, for Clark was a most unimpressive individual, obviously wearing his Sunday suit. He was small, stooped and, I judged, in his seventies. He looked like a rather shabby clerk, and it struck me that his name was remarkably apropos. 'Mr Clark,' said the King, 'is employed in the library of the British Museum, and has been so for -?' The royal eyebrows rose enquiringly.

  The old man's voice cracked a little as he answered. He was evidently greatly overawed and had to begin his answer a second time. 'For fifty-seven years, Your Majesty. Since 1861.1 should have retired . . .'The old voice wavered and fell away uncertainly.