Duncan Kyle: The King's Commisar

'Very well.' He still found Pilgrim's expression elusive. 'Is it of vast import, Laurence?'

'I don't know,' Pilgrim said. 'Probably not.'

As he spoke, Malory suddenly divined the look that Pilgrim wore. He had not seen it before, on that confident face.

It was doubt.

The top sheet was a letter. Paperclipped behind it were a good many sheets of typescript. Malory polished his spectacles, and started on the letter. It was signed with a set of initials: H.G.D.

'Sir Basil would have known better than to approach Zürichsbank. Tempted, as he must have been, he would have thought long and hard, and then put temptation from him. You, whoever you may be, have not. The annual and presumably unexplained payment must have struck you as requiring an explanation, and since you demand it, it is forthcoming. Let me tell you how.

Attached to this letter, you will find the first page of a narrative. I assume you will read it, but in case your inclination is to throw it away before you reach the end, I must advise you not to do so. You will find that the first part of the narrative contains instructions for obtaining the second, the second for the third, and so on. There are seven parts altogether.

I believe you should find the narrative interesting, and I hope interest alone will direct you to pursue the other parts, even if, as you will, you find difficulties in your way. But I must add a warning. If, within three months, you have not obtained parts one to six, part seven will be directed into other hands. The arrangements are made, and there is no way in which you can alter or affect them. Should part seven fall into those other hands, I confidently predict that the consequences will be catastrophic. I choose the word with care. It is in no sense an overstatement.'

Sir Horace removed his spectacles, laid them on his blotter, and stared for a while at the wall opposite. The letter frightened him, though less for what it said than for what he knew of Basil Zaharoff. A secret had been buried, long ago and at great cost. Sir Basil, who never undervalued a halfpenny in his calculations, would only have entered into such an agreement for the most pressing of reasons, and in extreme need. That was why he had advised letting the sleeping dog lie: because Malory's knowledge of Zaharoff made him wary of the consequence of other action. I should have insisted, he thought angrily. I should have prevented Pilgrim's asking.

But he hadn't. And this narrative, Malory now felt horribly sure, constituted an opening of Pandora's Box.

He came out of his chair, walked sharply to Pilgrim's office, and pushed the door open. Pilgrim stood by the window with two men, pointing out at something. One of the men held an elaborate camera and had a second hanging from his neck.

'Laurence, if I could have a word?'

Pilgrim turned, 'Horace, these two gentlemen are from Fortune magazine. Gentlemen, Sir Horace Malory.'

"Morning.' Malory nodded briefly.

'They're here,' Pilgrim said, 'to do a piece about the gold showing.'

The man without the cameras introduced himself. 'Jim Coverton, Sir Horace. And, say, we'd very much like you in the picture. Will that be okay?'

Malory glanced at him. 'Perhaps. But Laurence, I've just read-'

'They're doing some kind of profile on me,' Pilgrim said, with well-contrived modesty. 'Won't take too long for the pictures. You want to come down with us, Horace?'

Malory did not, but he went, walking fuming down the stairs, leaving the lift to the others, and wondering where Pilgrim got his extraordinary sense of priorities.

He succeeded in grasping Pilgrim's arm while they waited to enter the viewing room, far down in the basement. 'Laurence, I'm anxious about that letter. I think we have -'

Pilgrim said, 'Did you read the stuff that came with it?'

'Not yet.'

'Crap,' Pilgrim said decisively. 'Ancient history. No contemporary relevance at all. Stop worrying, Horace. Come and have your picture taken.'

Malory followed them inside. It was two minutes to eleven. On the hour, lighting appeared behind a blank glass wall, and a soft humming began. Through the glass an immense strong-room door became visible, opening slowly on a time clock. 'This vault,' Pilgrim was saying, 'is as safe as Fort Knox. And has to be. Gentlemen, the Hillyard, Cleef gold. Take your pictures, Mr Bauer. Quite a sight, isn't it?'

A huge pile of gold bars stood glowing in the middle of the vault.

'Jesus.' The photographer looked in awe for a moment, then took several pictures swiftly. Then: 'Could you stand right there, Mr Pilgrim. And you, sir.' He was excited, as visitors always were. Malory posed obediently.

'Now,' said Pilgrim, 'here's the second act. Just watch closely.' He sounded, Malory thought irritably, like a guide at some museum.

Inside the vault a mechanical hand rose from the floor behind the gold stack. Pilgrim said. 'The gold price dipped last week. We have to add a little more.' The mechanical hand dipped and reappeared with a bar of gleaming gold gripped securely in metal pincers coated with rubber; the gold bar was deposited on top of the stack. 'There'll be three this week, gentlemen,' Pilgrim said as the camera clicked frantically. 'The aim is that we have one hundred million in bullion here at the weekly showing.'

'That's dollars?' asked Coverton, his voice a trifle hoarse.

'We're in London,' Pilgrim said. 'It's pounds.'

The hand was depositing a second bar, returning for the third.

'Where's the new gold come from?'

'Sorry, gentlemen.'

'Okay, where's it go?'

'Same sorry. That's our secret.'

'Anybody ever try to bust the vault?'

Pilgrim turned to Malory. 'Have they, Horace?'

'Mmm?' Malory's attention was elsewhere. He'd seen the gold many times before and the letter drummed in his mind.

'Anybody ever try to steal it, sir?'

'Once I believe. Sometime in the 'forties,' Malory said.

'What happened?'

'It is protected in many ways,' Malory said. 'They died, if I remember, of electrocution. Two of them. Very foolish.'

Now the third bar was in position. Pilgrim regarded the stack with pleasure. 'It was a little short just a couple of minutes back. Now it's right up to par again. Take a look at a full hundred million.'

They looked reverently for long, silent moments, until the hum sounded and the strong-room door began to close. Pilgrim touched the glass. 'Glass can't be broken,' he said. 'Not with a hammer, not even with a jack-hammer. Too thick to cut. Any explosion strong enough to break it would bring the whole building down.' Silently, behind him, the great door closed. Wheels turned automatically on its face. It sat there, massive and invulnerable, its tungsten steel face gleaming, until abruptly the lights went off. Malory had watched Pilgrim play the confident showman. Where, he wondered, was the doubt he'd seen earlier?

Pilgrim was saying, 'It's been there a long time. We've been showing it once a week since nineteen-twenty-five. School kids come, students, politicians looking for reassurance.' He laughed. That, gentlemen, is what made Hillyard, Cleef pre-eminent, and keeps us up there with Rothschild's and Lazard's. People have faith in a stack of gold. Not a bad hedge against inflation, either. Now come and have some coffee.'

'Before you do,' Malory said crisply, 'would you mind if I had a word with Mr Pilgrim?'

'Not at all, sir,' Coverton said politely. He thought Malory looked a nice old guy, veddy British, veddy British indeed. Kind of a relic, maybe.

As they left the viewing room, Malory seized Pilgrim's arm. 'I warned you,' he said. 'But you chose to ignore it. Do you realize what you've done? This is something that was buried; a thing Zaharoff himself intended should stay buried. And now it has been released!'