grunted what was doubtless a note of satisfaction and wagged assurance at Mr Bronsky.
‘There you see,’ he remarked consequentially, ‘it’s exactly as I told you. This isn’t the land of domiciliary visits and if the police are coming they will always send you printed form giving twenty-four hours notice.’
‘No; is that rule?’ asked Mr Bronsky innocently, and repeated: ‘Good! good! It is comical,’ when he saw that the other two were being silently amused at his literalness. ‘Come, come,’ he hastened to add, thinking that it was time to reassert some of the authority that seemed to have become temporarily eclipsed by the progress of the unfortunate journey, ‘this is no business however, and we are not here for evers.’
‘Tell George to come down and bring pulls of his latest plates,’ confirmed Joolby. The narrow rickety stairs leading to the floor above—little better than a permanent ladder—were impractical for him and scarcely more inviting to Mr Bronsky. Ikey apparently had some system of conveying this message by jerking an inconspicuous cord for almost at once George Larch appeared at the top of the steps, recognising the two visitors as he descended.
‘Peace be with you, persecuted victim. The day dawns!’ exclaimed the comrade, bustling forward effusively and kissing Mr Larch on both cheeks—an indignity to which he had to submit or lose his balance among the jam jars.
‘That’s all right, Mr Bronsky,’ protested George who had as much prejudice against ‘foreign ways’ as most of his country-men. ‘But please don’t start doing that again—I told you about it once before, you may remember.’
‘But—but, are we not as brothers?’ stammered Mr Bronsky, uncertain whether or not to be deeply hurt. ‘In spirit of all-union greeting—’
‘Well, I shouldn’t like the wife to catch you at it, that’s all, Mr Bronsky. I should never think of carrying on like that with a grown-up brother.’
‘Catch me “at it”,’ managed to voice the almost dumbfounded Bronsky. ‘“Carrying on”! Oh, the pigs Englishmen! You have no—no—’ At this emotional stress words really did fail him.
‘Come, come, you two—what the hell,’ interposed Mr Joolby judicially. ‘We’re here to see how you’ve got on, George. May as well go into the room where we can have a decent light. Did you bring pulls of the latest plates down? Bronsky here needs to be satisfied that you can do all I’ve claimed for you.’
At the back of the evil-smelling vault Mr Ikey had his private lair, a mixture of office and, apparently, a living-room in every function. It was remarkably garnished with such salvage from the cruder stock as had been considered worthy of being held over and, as Joolby had foreseen, it possessed a light vastly superior to the dim glimmer that hung over the cavernous store. Here the three chiefly concerned drew close together, the old man remaining behind to stand on guard, while Larch, with the outward indifference that merged his pride as a craftsman and an ineradicable shame to be so basely employed, submitted an insignificant sheaf of papers. Some of the sheets were apparent Bank of England notes in the finished state, others proofs of incomplete plates and various details; both the visitors produced pocket lenses and Mr Bronsky smoothed out a couple of genuine notes that he extracted from a well-stocked wallet. A complete absorption testified their breathless interest.
‘Well?’ demanded Joolby when every sheet had been passed under review. ‘Say what you like, Bronsky, this is as near the real article as—’ and he instanced two things which might be admitted to be essentially the same although the comparison was more forcible than dainty.
‘It could certainly deceive me, I confess,’ admitted Bronsky, ‘and yet in ill-spent youth I have experience as bank official. But see,’ he added, as though anxious to expose some flaw, and wetting across one corner of a sheet with a moistened finger he demonstrated that it could easily be severed.
‘Ah, but you mustn’t judge the result by this paper, Mr Bronsky—of course it’s no good,’ put in Larch, carefully securing the fragments. ‘But if we get some of the genuine stuff, as Mr Joolby will tell you he means to do, not even the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England could be dead certain which was which—except for one thing, of course.’
‘And that is what?’
‘Why, the numbers to be sure. They can refer to their issue.’
‘Not so fast, George,’ objected Joolby, ‘how is that going to help them? Suppose we duplicate actual numbers that are out in circulation, and perhaps hold over the originals? We can triplicate, quadruple, multiply by a hundred times if it suits our purpose.’
‘Well, by hokey that’s an idea,’ admitted simple George Larch. ‘Why, they’d have to pay out on all that come in then or risk repudiating their own paper. It’s lucky for the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street that we aren’t in the wholesale business.’
‘Yes, to be sure,’ replied Joolby, favouring the other conspirator with a meaningful sideways look. ‘Lucky, isn’t it, Bronsky?’
‘I should think to smile,’ agreed Mr Bronsky, combing his luxuriant beard for the mere pleasure of verifying that dignified appendage. ‘Notwithstanding however.’
‘There’s one thing I should like to mention, Mr Joolby, while you’re here,’ said Larch, getting back to practical business. ‘Do you really mean me to go on with plates for all the high values up to the thousand pound printing?’
‘Why not?’ demanded Joolby, turning on his props to regard George with the blank full-faced stare that presented his disconcerting features in their most pronounced aspect. ‘What’s the difficulty?’
‘None at all so far as I’m concerned. Of course I can do them just the same as the others—technically there’s nothing whatever against it. Only no one ever heard of soft flims for anything like that—only for fives or tens or at the most a twenty.’
‘All the more reason why the big ones will go through then. As a matter of fact, George, our friend here has struck special facilities for putting stuff of that sort about in the East. There’ll be no risk to any of us at this end whatever happens.’
‘But you don’t mean that it’s going to be negotiable for anything like at value? Why if—?’
‘A profitable use will be found for all of them, never fear,’ replied Mr Joolby, evincing no intention of pursuing the subject. ‘Yes, we’re through now, Ikey. You can come off. Well, what is it then?’
‘It was Mrs Larch outside at the door,’ bleated Ikey in his ancient falsetto. ‘I assure her that the place is all locked up and no one here and she laugh at me through the keyhole. She says she will come inside and see for herself.’
‘Then she will,’ remarked George, who might be supposed to know. ‘So you may as well unlock the door and let her.’
‘If she is I had perhaps better as well go back into the room,’ suggested Mr Bronsky—they were again in the front shop on their way to leave. ‘Your wife, for some reason, cannot endure my presence.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that, Mr Bronsky,’ protested George guiltily, for he knew well enough that he could go exactly that far. ‘There must he some sort of a mistake … Still, if you think so, perhaps it would be as well at the moment.’
Mrs Larch came breezily in, paying no more
