feeling round his brow and a tingling in his scalp, and he wished it would come oftener, it was so mysterious and thrilling. He took a safety-razor blade from his trouser- pocket, a blade he carried in a metal holder, and lightly and bravely he cut the ball of his thumb.
‘Kneel before me one by one,’ he commanded. ‘And repeat after me.’
They came to him in single file and he bent and dabbed the blood from his thumb on their forehead.
‘I promise not to tell,’ he incanted.
‘I promise not to tell,’ they repeated after him.
They waited in groups round the cellar after the oath had been taken, and then Percy told them they were all to come to a special meeting at eight o’clock the next evening, and they wouldn’t lose by it. They left the cellar by the chute and scattered silently from Tulip Place. Percy ushered them out one by one and locked the door when they were all gone. He stayed there for a moment before hurrying down the chute and running over to the wall where the rats were supposed to be. He had never seen a rat there in his life. He dragged out one of the chests and whipped away the rubbishy garments above the money.
Some of the notes were dirty, and some were fairly clean; some were creased and some had never been folded. He took a long time just looking at them, flipping them over and flipping them over but keeping each bundle in its elastic band. He noticed they were all from the same bank, but the numbers were all mixed up. It would be safe to pass them. He tried to work out just how much was there. If he counted what was in one chest and multiplied by three he might get a rough idea of the total. But Frank Garson was right. He couldn’t count what was in one chest. He kept on losing the place. He would need a bit of paper to write on and keep the score. He attacked the bundle of fivers and tried to do it by short methods: twenty in each bundle was a hundred and ten bundles were a thousand. But when he came to count fifteen, sixteen and seventeen bundles he wasn’t sure if seventeen meant the bundle he had just counted or the one he was just going to count. He gave in and gave it up. He knelt over the chest, his arms thrown across it and his head on his arms, and he wept.
He could have coped with buried Inca treasure and found delight in a sunken galleon or a pirate hoard. He could have revelled in plundering an Egyptian tomb and taken the jewels of Ophir in his stride. Gold in Arizona or diamonds from Africa would have been a thrill within his range. But so much ready wealth in the commonplace form of pound notes and five-pound notes frightened him. It was too stark, too simple, too easy. He knew it was too much as well, but it was his. Not for a moment did he think otherwise, even as tears rolled down his cheeks where a fine floss still waited its first shearing.
‘Oh, God help me!’ he moaned. ‘Please, God! Help me!’
CHAPTER FOUR
The special meeting was a nervous, frightened affair. Even Savage was slightly scared. Percy spoke so long and so mournfully on the dangers and responsibilities of their position, his brooding eyes seeming to see right into their trembling souls, that he gave them all the jitters. At one point they would mostly have settled gladly for five bob if that would let them out of it, but then he spoke of the freedom before them if they were obedient and faithful, and they saw a lifetime of happiness ahead.
‘Now, to avoid any suspicion and to make sure yous are not found out,’ he said, ‘I’m only going to allow yous a little at a time, and yous’ll get it only for a particular purpose, something you want right away, and you’ll tell me what it is, otherwise you won’t get it, so that nobody’ll ever find you with a lot of money on you. Now, I can’t always be watching yous, and there’s three of you got a key to the side door and any of yous could slip down through the basement during school hours if you were willing to take the risk of being caught by the janitor, so we’ll make a gentlemen’s agreement to do it my way and never go behind my back to take any of it on your own.’
He explained a gentlemen’s agreement to them, and to begin with he limited them to the silver. It kept them from buying anything big enough to arouse comment from the gossips at the close-mouth in the tenements round about, and it kept the younger members happy enough. A couple of half-crowns was wealth to them. But he knew he was only postponing the problem of what to do about the folding money. He heard a murmuring against him in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood. Skinny supported him, but Savage was niggling and Specky was slippery.
‘Ah, but look,’ Skinny argued when Savage wanted to remove the paper money in handfuls, ‘we made a gentlemen’s agreement. You can’t break a gentlemen’s agreement, that’s the whole point about a gentlemen’s agreement, you can’t break it, that’s why Percy made us make it. Percy’s right, you know, Percy’s shrewd.’
‘To hell with Percy!’ Savage spat.
‘You’d only spoil everything any other way,’ said Specky. ‘I hate to admit it, but you’ve got to. But what he ought to do is give us more or put one of the chests aside for us and nobody else.’
‘Gentlemen’s agreement!’ cried Savage. ‘Where’s the gentlemen? Him, he’s only a janny’s son. Mind you, my old man’s a gentleman all right, he hasn’t worked for fifteen year. Us three could empty those chests in a week. We could stash it somewhere else. We’re the only ones with a key, we could slip in any time at all. Nobody would know.’
‘Percy would know,’ Specky pointed out so quickly that Savage saw he had thought of it himself already. ‘Then the rest of them would get to know and they’d start coming in through the door in the basement.’
‘And if you make it a free-for-all you’ll only get us all caught,’ Skinny complained. ‘Somebody would clype. I bet you wee Garry would go to the cops. It’s only because Percy’s took charge that he’s keeping quiet. Oh, he loves Percy! He thinks Percy’s wonderful! Take away Percy and it would be a disaster. Garry would shop us in an hour.’
‘I’m afraid that’s right,’ Specky conceded sadly. ‘You’ve got to keep the agreement, for a bit anyway. Percy’s right enough in a way. Ye canny give pound notes to folk like Pinkie and wee Noddy and Cuddy.’
‘What could they buy?’ Skinny asked earnestly. ‘If they started spending big money where could they put whatever they bought? Folk would be bound to notice. What could Noddy put in a single-end for example?’
‘Him?’ said Savage flippantly. ‘He’s that stupit he’d buy a grand piano and try and hide it under the kitchen sink. He’s real daft about music. Give him a tune he’s never heard before and he’ll play it for you right off on the mouth-organ.’
‘He’s got a super one now all right,’ Skinny remarked. ‘Made in Germany. He got one made in Germany because Percy said the Germans were the best in the world at music like the Spaniards at football.’
‘Percy patted him on the head when he said what he was going to buy with his ration and told him he was a very wise boy for putting it to a good use,’ Specky said, and shook his head at the memory.
‘Ach, the Rangers could beat them any time,’ Savage bridled.
‘Don’t talk wet,’ said Specky. ‘They never even qualified to meet Real Madrid, sure Eintracht slaughtered them.’
‘They were lucky,’ Savage said, and waved his hands in front of Specky’s face to wave the topic away. ‘A ten-bob mouth-organ’s all right for Noddy, but I want mair nor that. I want ready cash in my pocket.’
‘Aye, it would be rare,’ Skinny said.
‘Instead of
