The Gold Masters by Norman Russell Read Free Book Online Page B

speaking, and gazed thoughtfully into the small fire burning in the grate. Whatever the time of year, it was always cold in Box’s office. Box looked at him. What an asset he’d proved to be! When he’d told him to make enquiries about the two mediums, Knollys had done so without asking any potentially embarrassing questions. Strictly speaking, Mrs Pennymint and Madam Sylvestris were no concern of Box’s.
    â€˜There’s more, isn’t there?’ asked Box. ‘There’s something you don’t want to tell me.’
    â€˜I don’t like rumours where a lady’s concerned, sir, but you’d better hear this one. There’s talk in Belsize Park that Madam Sylvestris was installed in that house – number eight, Melbourne Avenue – by a rich admirer, who still maintains her there in style. It’s just rumour, but it may be true.’
    Arnold Box said nothing. He removed from the table drawer the folder containing Superintendent Mackharness’s plans for the bullion movement on the twenty-eighth, and handed it to his sergeant.
    â€˜Take that through into the drill hall, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Sit quietly there among the trestle tables for an hour, and see if you can soak up its contents. You’ll see what it’s all about when you open it. Thanks for looking into those mediums. They’re up to something nasty. Mark my words.’
    â€˜Don’t you like spiritualists, sir?’
    â€˜No, I don’t, Sergeant. They’re vultures, battening on to people’s grief to get money out of them. And these particular vultures have got their talons into a Metropolitan Police officer, the kind of man they’d normally run a mile to get away from. I’m going out to Finchley tomorrow afternoon to have a word with Louise – Miss Whittaker – about them. About mediums and suchlike. She knows a lot of clever folk at London University, and I’ve heard that some of them take all this ghost business seriously. I’m going out now to see Mr Shale in Beak Street. By the time I come back, I expect you to have learnt the contents of that folder off by heart!’
    Sergeant Knollys laughed, stooped his great frame under the arch, and made his way to what Superintendent Mackharness called the drill hall.
    As Box struggled into his overcoat, he thought of PC Lane. Was he losing his sense of proportion? His niggling concern for the bereaved young man was in danger of becoming an obsession. Lane was no direct concern of his, and there were others in Whitehall Place who would minister to his needs if necessary. Nevertheless, he’d been right to get Jack Knollys to investigate the background of those two mediums.
    Most clairvoyants, tarot-readers and suchlike, were poor, ignorant folk, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence by accepting coppers for dubious predictions; but Mrs Pennymint lived in comfort down at Woking, and Madam Sylvestris in affluence in Belsize Park. What lay behind their interest in PC Lane? Box intended to find out.

4
Voices from Another World
    Sir Charles Napier, Her Majesty’s Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, looked at the two men whom he had invited to visit him in his spacious office overlooking St James’s Park. Colonel Augustus Temperley he knew well: a veteran of the Afghan War, he had long been strategic adviser to the China Desk at the India Office.
    ‘You’ll understand, Sir Hamo,’ said Temperley to Napier’s second guest, ‘that Her Majesty’s Government is anxious that all our dealings with you should be entirely confidential. No one – not even your closest confidants – must have the slightest inkling of what we have asked you to do.’
    A distinguished man with greying hair and moustaches, Colonel Temperley wore his civilian clothes as though they were a uniform, and sat bolt upright on his chair.
    ‘Sir Hamo knows all about that, Colonel,’ Sir Charles Napier interposed. ‘He