As Horsfall drove him home, Malory glowered out of the Bentley's window, seeking inspiration in the streets. Twice in as many miles he saw the Greek Key pattern again: once on the canopy above a restaurant, and again in gold on the window of an antique shop. Lady Malory awaited him in the library, as she always did; she stood, again as she always did, beside a silver tray upon which decanters rested. He kissed her cheek, and she began to pour whisky. He said,
'Not now, thankee, m'dear.'
She stared at him. She had poured his evening whisky for half a century, failing to do so only when he was abroad. 'You're not ill, Horace?'
'Puzzled.' He lowered himself into a chair, rather heavily, she thought.
'Is it serious?'
He nodded.
Lady Malory, too, had known Zaharoff. Her interest immediately quickened at his name, and a smile began to flicker on her lips. She had been a famous beauty as a girl and Sir Basil, even in old age, had had an eye for beautiful girls. She had once told Malory of a contemporary, a lovely debutante of the same year, who had an enormous fondness for the city of Venice. Zaharoff invited her to dinner at his Paris home in the Avenue Hoche and in the course of the evening took her to see the cellars. One had been flooded. On the water floated a gondola. It contained a double bed. Lady Malory was in no doubt at all that her husband must be right. 'It will be simple,' she said, 'and really rather clever. And it will be nothing whatever to do with the Greek Key design. That simply informs you there is a key.'
Unusually, Malory had no appetite, but his thirst returned after an hour or so. Lady Malory also sipped malt whisky and as the hours went on they became obsessed with a possibility. Upon Sir Horace's thin watch-chain hung a gold numeral. The number was 6, and he had inherited it from his father; the numeral represented 6 Athelsgate, and had been given to Malory's father by Zaharoff. It was quite possible that the 6 could serve as a key. But where was the lock? Six Athelsgate being very much a place of small rituals, the telephone on Malory's desk rang next morning at five minutes to eleven. Since the day was a Tuesday, he knew why. He lifted the receiver and said, 'Good morning, Griffin.'
'Five minutes, Sir Horace, if you're coming down.' Griffin was the keeper of the gold, a once-massive Cockney now rather shrunken by advanced years, and responsible not only for the machinery of protection, but for showing the gold to inspecting parties.
'I don't think so. Any visitors?'
'Party of kids from Wapping, that's all. Just the five minutes, then?'
'Yes.'
Malory replaced the telephone. The thought and the disconnection came simultaneously and he hurried out of his office and down the stairs, to stand glowing with a patient benevolence he was far from feeling as a dozen or so twelve-years-olds made noises of astonishment at the sight of the gold.
'Hold it open,' he said to Griffin as the last of the youngsters filed out. Griffin, old as he was, made haste. An electronic code linked 6 Athelsgate to the safe-makers, Messrs Chubb, whose technicians alone could override the time lock which would shortly come into play. If the door closed, it would not open again for a week.
HOW LONG?asked the computer screen.
'Tell them several hours,' Malory replied. He looked at the gold stack and calculated there must be roughly fifteen hundred bars; he then decided, and typed, 'Vault to remain open until further notice.'
They apparently had collective hysterics at Chubb & Co., but Malory's signature number showed his authority. He was warned that he must bear responsibility.
'What's going on, Sir Horace?' Griffin asked in surprise. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
'I have just realized,' Malory said, 'that I know far too little about your work, Griffin. Please describe it.'
'Well, sir.' Griffin turned to look at the stack of ingots he had spent a lifetime tending. 'It's less than it used to be. Time was when the gold just about filled the vault. Inflation, that is, sir. Pound's worth nuthin'.'
Malory nodded and otherwise kept silent. Somewhere in this place, he had become convinced, the answer must lie. Even if Griffin was a chatterbox, Malory was very ready to listen.
'Most of it's never even been moved,' Griffin went on, 'Not since the gold came here. One or two bars on the top may get moved about, but not the rest.'
'Why's that?'
'Orders, Sir Horace.'
'Whose?'
'Blessed if I know, sir. Come from before my time, but they've always been followed. When the bars are moved it's always from the top layer. Never touch the next till that layer's gone.'
'So the bottom ones have been there since -?'
'Well, since the vault was built, sir. Nineteen-fifteen, wasn't it?'
'Do you have the orders actually written down?' Malory enquired.
'Well, they're typed out, sir, nowadays.'
'Nowadays?'
'They weren't always, sir. They were in Indian ink on vellum for years. But the vellum got wore through.'
'And thrown away, Mr Griffin?' 'No, sir. I kept it. Would you like a look?' 'Oh yes!' said Malory fervently.
How marvellous! he thought. The handwriting was quite unmistakable, influenced as it was by the graceful, flowing Turkish/Arabic script of Zaharoff s Constantinople youth. Further, there stood at the foot of the sheet of instructions the letters ZZ. The sheet of vellum was certainly worn -and grubby too but it was perfectly clear. Malory fumbled for his spectacles and began to read. As Griffin had said, the instructions were precise, but they concerned only the moving of the gold by mechanical hand on to the tiny trolley beneath the vault which connected directly with the bullion vaults of the Bank of England. They specified the order in which bars were to be removed from each layer (Zaharoff had envisaged roaring inflation; that was clear).
And then: 'If at any time the second lowest layer of ingots be breached, such breach may only take place in the presence of the Senior Partner of Hillyard, Cleef. He must be alone in the vault at the time.'
Malory gazed at the rows of ingots stacked like bricks on the floor of the vault. 'Something's hidden in there,' he murmured to himself.
'Beg pardon, Sir Horace?'
Malory began to take off his jacket. 'How old are you, Griffin?'
'Seventy-four, sir.'
'Well, I'm seventy-eight. If I can, you can!'
'Can what, sir?'
'Shift these bars.'
It would have been hard labour for two fit young men. With the gold price that day at $ 350 per troy ounce (give or take a cent or two) Hillyard, Cleef s one hundred million was represented by something a little short of fifteen hundred 'good delivery' bars, each bar being of four hundred troy ounces. Each weighed, accordingly, close to twenty-eight pounds.
Moving the first two was accomplished with enthusiasm accompanied by rapid diminution of energy.
'Half a hundredweight, that is, sir,' Griffin muttered. 'And there's only eighteen tons to go.'
'My God!'
'Yes, and I was wondering, sir . . .'
'Go on,' Malory gasped.
'Well, if you want to do it all by hand, Sir Horace? 'Cos we have got the mechanical hand.'
Malory smiled at him. 'Chairs, too?' he enquired.
They sat and watched. Griffin showed him how to control the hand as it picked up an ingot, pivoted, placed it as required, and returned for another. Malory found the movement pleasant to watch: soothing, almost - but he was too on edge to be soothed.
In two hours the stack had been reduced to two layers, and all the bars, Malory was delighted to see, still bore as a 'chop', or imprint, not the Imperial Russian Eagle, but the oval of the Credit Suisse. How the devil that had been achieved, with war raging in Europe, he did not care to speculate. The soft whirr of the mechanical hand ceased now, and Griffin rose. 'Leave you to it, Sir Horace.'