is not right. Julian Joolby; it is not fair when a blind man can do like that. The good comrade who warned me of him say: He can smell a thought and hear a look. And that is not all. I have heard that he has the sixth sense too—’
‘Let him have; I tell you, Bronsky, he is nothing to us. He only chanced along here. He wanted Greek coins.’
‘Greek coins!’ This was reassuring for it agreed with something further about Max Carrados that Bronsky remembered hearing. ‘That may be very true after all as it is well known that he is crazy about collecting—thinks nothing of paying five hundred roubles for a single drachma … Yes, Julian Joolby, if it should become necessary it might be that a hook baited with a rare coin—’
‘Don’t worry. Next week we shall have moved to our new quarters and nothing going on here will matter then.’
‘Ah; that is arrange? I was getting anxious. Our friends in Moscow are becoming more and more impatient as time goes on. The man who pays the piper calls for a tune, as these fool English say it, and the Committee are insist that as they have allow so much for expenses already they must now see results. I am here with authority to investigate about that, comrade Joolby.’
‘They shall see results all right,’ promised Joolby, swelling darkly at the suggestion of interference. ‘And since you fancy English proverbs, comrade, it is well to remember that Rome was not built in a day, one cannot make bricks without clay, and it is not wise to spoil the ship for the sake of a kopeck’s worth of caulking.’
‘That is never fear,’ said Bronsky with a graciously reassuring wave of his hand; ‘nobody mistrusts you of yourself, comrade, and it is only as good friend that I tell you for information what is being thought at headquarters. This is going to be big thing, Joolby.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ agreed the other, regarding his visitor’s comfortable self-satisfaction with his twisted look of private appreciation. ‘I shall do my best in that way, comrade.’
‘Extraordinary care is being take to make sure for wide and quick distribution in China, Japan and India and everywhere agents signify good prospects. The Committee are confident that this move, successfully engined, will destroy British commercial prestige in the East for at least a generation—and by the end of that time there will not be any British in the East. Meanwhile there must be no weak link in the chain. Now, Julian Joolby, what can I report to the Commissar?’
‘You will know that within the next few hours. I’ve called them for eleven. Larch is working on the plates at a safe place now and as soon as dusk we will fill in the time by going to see what he has done and approve or not according to what you think of them.’
‘Good. That sounds as business. But why should we go there? Surely it is more fitly that a workman would come and wait on our convenience at your place of living?’
‘It isn’t a matter of fitness—it’s a matter of ordinary prudence. Have I ever been what is call “in trouble”, Bronsky?’
‘Not as far as to my knowledge,’ admitted the comrade. ‘I have always understand that you keep you hand clean however.’
‘So. And I have done that by sticking to one rule: never to have anything in my place that isn’t capable of a reasonable explanation. Most things can be explained away but not the copper plate of a bank-note found underneath your flooring. That is Larch’s look out.’
‘You are right. It would never do—especially when I is here. We cannot be too much careful. Now this Larch—was he not in it once before when things did not go rightly?’
Joolby nodded and the visitor noticed that his bulging throat sagged unpleasantly.
‘That’s the chap. There was a split and Larch didn’t get his fingers out quickly enough. Three years he was sentence and he came out less than six weeks ago.’
‘He is safe though? He has no bad feeling?’
‘Why should he have?’ demanded Joolby, looking at Mr Bronsky with challenging directness. ‘I had nothing to do with him being put away. It was just a matter of luck that while Larch had the stuff when he was nabbed nothing could have been found on me if they had looked for ever—luck or good management.’
‘Good management if you say to me,’ propounded Bronsky wisely. ‘Notwithstanding.’
‘The one who has the plates is bound to get it in the ear if it comes to trouble. Larch knows that all right when he goes in it.’
‘But you are able to persuade him to risk it again? Well, that is real cleverness, Joolby.’
‘Oh yes; I was able as you say it to persuade him. George is the best copper-plate engraver of his line in England; he came out with a splendid character from the prison Governor—and not an earthly chance of getting a better job than rag-picking. I’ve had harder propositions than persuading him in the circumstances, if it comes to that, Bronsky.’
‘It is to your good notwithstanding,’ declared Mr Bronsky urbanely. ‘The Committee of course officially know nothing of details and are in position to deny whatever is say or done but they is not unmindful of zeal, as you may rely in it, comrade. That is the occasion of my report. Now as regards this business of eleven?’
‘You will meet them all then and hear what is being done in other directions. Nickle will be here by that time and we shall be able to decide about Tapsfield.’
‘Tapsfield? That is a new one surely? I have not heard—’
‘Place where the mills are that make all the official Bank paper,’ explained Joolby. ‘Naturally the paper is our chief trouble—always has been: always will be. Larch can make perfect plates, but with what we’re aiming at this time nothing but the actual paper the Bank of England itself uses will pass muster. Well, there’s plenty of it down at Tapsfield and we’re going to lift it somehow.’
‘I quite agree that we must have the right paper however. But this person Nickle—he is not unknown to some of us—is he quite—?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, there is a feeling that he appear to think more of what he can get out of our holy crusade than of the ultimate benefit of mankind. He has not got the true international spirit, Julian Joolby. I suspect that he has taint of what he would doubtless call “patriotism”—which mean that he has yet to learn that any other country is preferable to his own. To be short, I have found this young man vulgar and it is not beyond that he may also prove restive.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Joolby with a note of authority, and his unshapely form gave the impression of increasing in bulk as if to meet the prospect of aggression. ‘This is London, not Moscow, Bronsky; I’m in charge here and I have to pick my people and adapt my methods. Nickle will fall into line all right and serve us just so far as suits our purpose. So long as he is doing that he can sing “Rule Britannia” in his spare time for all it matters.’
‘But in the cause—’
‘In the meantime we cannot be too particular about the exact shape of the tool we use to open closed doors with,’ continued Joolby, smothering the interruption with masterful insistence. ‘We are going to flood China, India and the East with absolutely perfect Bank of England paper so that in the end it will be sheerly impossible for English trade to go on there, and so pave the way for Soviet rule. But it is not necessary to shout that sacred message into every ear, even if for the time they work hand in hand with us. Let them think that they are out to make easy money. Few men work any the worse for the expectation that they are in the way to get fortunes. Does that not satisfy you, comrade Bronsky?’
‘So long as it goes forward,’ admitted Mr Bronsky with slightly ungracious acceptance, for he could not blink the suspicion that while he himself was an extremely important figure, this subordinate monstrosity would do precisely as he intended.
‘It is going forward—as you shall convince yourself completely. In the meanwhiles—you have not, I hope, made dinner?’