George’s cheeks turned slowly to a rich black. George could not speak.
‘If you don’t,’ said the vanman, ‘gory well ’urry, off we go with the lot.’ He stooped and looked at the label. ‘And it’s addressed to one of your big noises … F. MacDowell Salisbury, Essquire. President: Naval, Military and Cosmo … Cosmos … whatever the ’ell it is, Assurance. That’s you, ain’t it?’
He held out a grimy thin-leaved book, together with a quarter-inch stub of unpointed pencil. A dark thumb pointed to the foot of the open page.
‘You signs,’ said the vanman, ‘along dotted line ’ere, if you can write. Otherwise you’d better put your mark and I’ll write somethink against it for yer. ’Urry up now!’
It will always be matter for conjecture as to what George would have done at this stage had not at this moment the car of F. MacDowell Salisbury drawn up immediately behind the Crickford’s van. This left George only one course. Quickly he signed. Quickly he laid hold of the unwieldy package, which consisted of two large and heavy sacks tied together at the tops. With considerable exertion of his great strength he managed to drag them up the two remaining steps and in through the swing doors of glittering glass and mahogany. Just as, puffing, he had rested them against a corner of the panelled wall, the President came up the steps. George got to the door just in time; held it open; touched his cap; strove to keep his laboured breathing silent.
‘’Morning, George!’ said the President.
George touched his cap again. He could not speak yet. The President was in good humour. Instead of striding straightway down the marble-floored corridor to the lift, he halted, his head on one side. He surveyed George.
‘George,’ he said, ‘you look hot.’
‘I am—fuf—sir!’
The President’s eyes strayed to the unwieldy sacks. ‘Weightlifting, George?’
‘Yessir. Just as you come, sir, I was telling the Crickford’s man that he ought to ’ve took the lot round to the Lane entrance, but I saw it’s for you, sir, so I brought it in this side.’
‘For me?’ The President’s tone and his eyebrows went up.
‘Yessir, according to the label.’
‘Extraordinary thing!’ The President walked over to the corner, bent down over the sacks and lifted the label. ‘Extraordinary thing!’ he said again. He put a podgy white hand to the joined sacks and tried their weight. ‘Feels heavy,’ he said.
‘Heavy, sir,’ said George, ‘it is!’
Again the President stooped to the label. Yes, it bore his name; also, in red ink and capital letters—staring capitals—the words:
‘EXTREMELY PRIVATE AND
CONFIDENTIAL
PERSONAL FOR MR SALISBURY ONLY.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said the President. ‘Better get a couple of men and have it brought up to my office.’
2
The President, with fat white forefinger, pressed the third of the bell pushes upon his desk.
‘Miss Winter,’ he said, to the bell’s genie, ‘have they brought up those sacks?’
‘The sacks have just come, Mr Salisbury.’
‘Right! Just give the fellows a bob each out of the Petty Cash and then I’ll come out. Most extraordinary-looking thing, isn’t it, Miss Winter?’
‘Yes, Mr Salisbury.’
Miss Winter, very severe, very neat, most efficient, went back to the outer office. The President, walking slowly after her, saw her distribution of largesse; saw the porters touching clean hats with dirty forefingers; saw the door close behind them; went out into Miss Winter’s room.
Very untidily heaped in its very tidy centre were the sacks. Miss Winter was bending down, reading the label.
‘Got a knife?’ said the President.
Miss Winter had a knife. Miss Winter always had everything.
‘Just see,’ said the President, ‘whether you can cut the string.’
Miss Winter could cut the string and did. The sacks fell apart. The President stirred one with his toe. The contents were hard, yet yielding.
‘I can’t make it out!’ said the President.
‘Shall I open a sack?’ said Miss Winter. A very practical woman.
‘Yes, yes. Let’s have a look.’
Once more Miss Winter stooped; once more the penknife came into play as it ripped the stout thread which kept the mouth of the sack closed. Miss Winter inserted a hand …
‘Good God!’ said the President.
He took two short steps and stood at Miss Winter’s shoulder. Upright again, she was holding between her hands a thick elastic-bound wad of one-pound Bank of England notes.
‘Good God!’ said the President again.
He bent himself over the mouth of the open sack and thrust in his own arm. His hand came away with yet another package …
He let the sack lie flat upon the floor, bent over it, caught it a little way down from its top and shook. Other packets fell from it upon the floor …
He looked into the sack …
There could be no doubt! The sack—it looked like a hundredweight-and-a-half corn sack—was filled, crammed, with bundles of one-pound Bank of England notes. They were not new, these notes. The bundles did not bear that solid, block-like appearance of unused paper money, but, although neat, were creased, and numbered—as Miss Winter at once was to find—in anything but series.
‘Good God!’ said the President. Himself, with Miss Winter’s knife, he cut the threads which bound the mouth of the other sack. And this second sack was as its brother. If, indeed, there was any difference, it was that this second sack held still more bundles than the first. The President stood in the middle of the floor. Round his feet there lay, grotesque and untidy, little disordered heaps of money.
The President looked at Miss Winter. Miss Winter looked at the President.
‘I suppose,’ said the President, ‘that I am at the office, Miss Winter? I’m not by any chance at home, in bed and fast asleep?’
Miss Winter did not smile. ‘You certainly are at the office, Mr Salisbury.’
‘And would you mind telling me, Miss Winter, what these things are that I’m treading on?’
‘Certainly, Mr Salisbury. Bundles of one-pound notes, not very clean, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m going back to my room to sit down,’ said the President. ‘If you wouldn’t mind coming in again in a few minutes, Miss Winter, and telling me all over again what there is in those sacks, I should be very much obliged. Also you might empty the sacks and find out if there is anything else in them except … except … well, except bundles of one-pound notes!’
‘Very well, Mr Salisbury. And would it not be as well, perhaps, if I also ring up Crickford’s and see whether I can ascertain who is the sender of this, er … of this, er …’ Even Miss Winter for once was at a loss for words.
‘Do! Do!’ said the President. ‘And don’t forget: come in and tell me all about it all over again!’
‘Very well, Mr Salisbury.’
3
‘If,’ said F. MacDowell Salisbury to his friend Thurston Mitchell, who was Vice-President of the Naval, Military and Cosmopolitan Assurance Corporation, ‘you can beat that, I shall be much surprised.’
Mr