'No! No, my dear, beg pardon for abusin' your sensibilities on that question. You 'ave all day tomorrow and all night and part o' the following' mornin'. Then if you'll be so kind to send young Josh to the coach terminus to be there at ten o'clock in the mornin' with a note what contains the name o' the bank, which must be of excellent standing, and the time o' the appointment and such other details as what I'll need. The appointment is to be made the afternoon o' the day after tomorrow, the paper and the plates to be 'anded over in the bank after you 'as 'anded over the irrevocable letter o' credit made out in me name to Coutts amp; Company, the Strand, London.'
'And over plates and paper in bank? Are you daft?' Silas exclaimed.
'What better place, my dear? We simply asks the bank official for a private room to view the merchandise. It be none of 'is business what the package contains.'
Maggie the Colour sniffed. 'Don't you trust us to do it 'ere, then, Mr Solomons?'
Ikey laughed. 'You 'as your bad luck what you just described as a Jew spendin' a night under your roof, this you claims is deliberate stupidity. We also 'as a similar superstition, my dear. We believes that to practise deliberate stupidity is worse than witchcraft, and superstition and, most decidedly and emphatically, brings about a great deal o' bad luck to the person what is stupid!'
'The coach terminus, ten o'clock, mornin' day after tomorrow then,' Maggie the Colour snapped.
'That be quite right, my dear. Young Josh will give the letter of instructions to someone what might come up to him and say politely, "Dick Whittington's 'ungry cat 'as come to fetch a juicy rat".'
Maggie's head jerked in surprise. 'Beg pardon?'
'The passwords, my dear, 'case I can't make it meself, other pressin' business intervenin'.'
Maggie the Colour sighed, her patience close to ending. 'Password? Bah, what rubbish! Anyway, what's wrong with a single word, like "copper" or " 'orse" or if you must, "cat"? Them words about Dick Whittington's cat, that be proper nonsense!'
Ikey smiled. 'You're quite right, my dear, rubbish it is, but it be more excitin' for a small lad what's intelligent! Much more excitin' to carry more than one word in 'is little 'ead as he sets out upon such a grand adventure. It is properly suitable to an occasion such as what we've been discussin', and what is worthy o' much more than a single word like "copper" or " 'orse" or "cat"!'
Ikey was tired and a little testy but he'd deliberately created the nonsense about the cat to frustrate Maggie the Colour's desire to see him depart. It was a small revenge for her rudeness, but sweet enough at that for the lateness of the hour. Now, with the prospect of being taken into the city in a pony trap, he was as anxious to depart as she was to see him go.
Chapter Twelve
It was just past midnight when Ikey fought his way against the buffeting wind and sudden flurries of snow to a Birmingham netherken where he was well enough known. It was as foul a place as you could expect for a shilling a night, but by no means at the bottom of the rung. The wind howled about the eaves and the windows rattled as Ikey hammered on the door to be allowed to enter.
The landlord, carrying a candle cupped with his hand against the wind, welcomed him with a scowl, which changed into a sycophantic smile when Ikey stepped out of the dark into the dim candlelight.
'Oh it's you! Welcome back to our ever so 'umble abode, Mr Solomon. We 'ave much improvement since your last stay. New straw stuffed only last week, like goose down them beds is, and the room I have selected for you is near empty with only two other fine gentlemen sharin'!' He sucked air through his rotten teeth. 'Two shillin' a night and summit to eat in mornin'! There, couldn't be fairer than that now, could there, sir?'
Ikey handed him a shilling. 'Master Brodie, your straw's damp with piss and alive with all manner o' vermin, and it ain't been changed in three months. A bowl o' cold gruel in the mornin' ain't what you calls "summit to eat" and I'll wager the two villains what's sharing the room 'as paid no more'n sixpence apiece for the privilege!'
Brodie tested the coin Ikey had given by biting down on it, then he shrugged, placed it in the pocket of his filthy waistcoat and beckoned for Ikey to follow him. They made their way through the dark shapes which seemed to be lying in every available space, some penny-a-nighters asleep seated, while tied about the neck with heavy twine to the banisters of the rickety stairs.
Panting with the effort, Brodie halted as they came to the upper reaches of the house and stopped outside a door no more than four feet in height.
'It be top room and there be no grate in there, so you'll be wantin' a blanket. That'll be sixpence extra.' Brodie pulled open the door to reveal a tiny attic with a dirty dormer window through which a pale slice of moon was shining across a window ledge crusted with snow. The window rattled loudly, and Ikey felt the freezing draught as the wind forced its way through the cracks in the frame. One of the men at his feet ceased snoring and moaned, then commenced to snoring again. The rhythm of the two men's rough breathing filled the space around them, so that there seemed not an inch left for another person to occupy. Ikey, observing the moon, sensed that time was running out for him, that before it reached its fullness he should be safely on a ship to America.
Ikey declined Brodie's offer of a blanket, knowing it would be infested with vermin. He stepped over the two sleeping bodies to reach the straw pallet nearest the window where the cold seemed at once to be at its greatest. His nocturnal perambulations had been thrown into disarray for a second day running as Ikey lay down on the filthy straw. Wrapping his coat tightly about his aching body, he fell into an exhausted sleep.
The following day Ikey went out early and purchased quill, blacking, paper and sealing wax, whereupon he hired the landlord Brodie's tiny private parlour for a further shilling, with sixpence added for a fire in the hearth to burn all day.
Ikey had also arranged with a small jeweller's workshop to make him a copper cylinder nine inches long by an inch and a quarter wide in its interior, with a cap to fit over one end rounded in exactly the same manner as the end of a cigar cylinder. Ikey stressed that the cap should screw on and when tightened fit so snugly that it had the appearance of being one object with no separation, that should a finger be run over the point where the cap fitted to the body it would barely discern the join. Ikey instructed that the cylinder be ready late in the afternoon of the following day.
Despite his outward appearance of complete disarray, Ikey was possessed of an exceedingly tidy mind. He liked his affairs to be well ordered, and the fact that he'd been forced to leave London at a moment's notice left him with a great deal undone, the most important being the fortune which lay beyond his grasp within the safe in his Whitechapel home.
For almost the entire coach journey to Birmingham his mind had been preoccupied with thoughts of how he might get his hands on all of the money he and Hannah jointly owned, leaving only the house and the stolen goods stored within it for her and the children.
Ikey's greatest fear was that she would send him packing without divulging her half of the combination of the safe, and then later have it drilled and tapped so that she might possess its entire contents. Genuine tears of frustration ran down his cheeks as he contemplated this ghastly possibility.
Ikey sat down to the task of tidying up his affairs before leaving Britain. There would be no time in London, which he might be forced to leave after only a few hours. There were the little ratting terriers he kept, he must take care of their welfare; instructions for Mary should he not see her again; and letters to his contacts in London and on the continent. On and on he worked in his arachnoid hand, and it was quite late in the afternoon when Ikey had finally completed these business matters. He placed the letters in his great coat and went looking for the landlord. Ikey found him over the communal hearth stirring a large cauldron of cabbage soup, and carrying a steaming kettle in his free hand.