Mr. Panhook's Gold

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 306, 28 December 1939, Page 13

Mr. Panhook's Gold

SHORT STORY

Y ES '' Baitl Panhook, cautiously. * He died in May " The young man with the ruddy foce stared at Mr. Panhook. "I'm his son," he said. Mr. Panhook was ready for that. The youth had old Harris long, tlun nose and irregular eyebrows. He thought he realised the lelationslup the moment he set eves on Jinn, standing there on the step when lie opened the front door. He decided— and hence his caution— that the young man was in search of charity. He was seedy-looking, with lagged ends to his shapeless trousers. So Mr. Panhook did not open the door any wider. Young Harris dug his hands into his empty pockets, and said: "I've been at sea for six months, and in America before that——" ilr. Panhook nodded. "And you didn't bother to write to your father, much, did you? He mentioned it several times, when he was ill " "I know, sir." Young Hfl.-ris was quite frank about his shortcomings in that respect. "I'm no good with a pen. Well, sir, I've come about my father's things — stuff he left." Mr. Panhook made an impatient gesture. "I put all his stuff in a packing case and sent it to his sister in Bristol. She cunic up to bury liim. And now, if you'll excuse me." But young Harris wasn't going to be got rid of. "Yes, sir. She told me. But—there wasn't—you're sure there wasn't anything left behind in his room, or anywhere?" Mr. Panhook decided that this catechism was more than his dignity should admit. "I sent everything!" he snapped. "Old clothes and odds and ends; I'm very busy, and the whole affair has already caused me a lot of inconvenience." Young Harris' eyes gleamed, but he kept his voice polite. "You didn't come on any papers, or such—llo bank book, for instance?" "Bank book ?" cried Mr. Panhook, astonished. "What would lie want with a bank book? Bank book? Certainly not!" He was about to shut the door when young Harris asked uncertainly: "Could I—could I see his room, sir ?" Mr. Panhook snorted; lie wasn't going to fall for that. "I have already told you twice that I sent all his belongings to his sister at Bristol," he said with great firmness, and shut the door. He went indignantly to the laboratory, where he had left a reto-t boiling, and got on with his work. Playing on his sentiment like that! A little later when he went out to buy a loaf of bread, Harris' son was standing on the opposite pavement. What the devil was he hanging about for? Insolent rascal! Hadn't he been shown clearly enough that his hope of charity wa« misplaced? Mr. Panhook put tie kettle on the Bunsen burner and presently poured hot water 011 the tea leaves. As he put the lid on the teapot and was about to cut a slice of bread, he came face to face with a thought. Suppose that talk about a bank book had been something more than just an excuse for conversation ? Bank book? There certainly hadn't bepn a sign of anything like that in the litter of old letters and bits of newspaper in the small drawer in the old man's chest of drawers, nor yet anywhere else amongst his rather disreputable effects. Bank books suggest money, and the pound a week which he had paid the old man—much more than he was worth, indeed—scarcely needed a bank's help in its administration. Not the way old Harris lived, which was cither at home in the house or at the Six Bulls. Beer, tobacco, and the horses which the fool had backed for years without any luck at all, had taken every penny of the weekly pound. Mr. Panhook was sure of that. He thought about it while he had his tea, and then went to the top of the house, to the dusty attic which had been Harris' bedroom, and surveyed it in the half light of the October afternoon. The rickety bed, the ramshackle chest of drawers and wash-stand, the dirty strip of carpet did not suggest the room of a man with a bank account. He lit tlffe gas, and its jagged blue and yellow flame played despondently on the dampstained floral wallpaper. There wasn't much choice of hiding places, even for a small thing like a pass book. He pulled out the drawers, and looked behind them. Cobwebs and a ragged soft collar; he looked under the thin mattress, poked it with his fingers. He shook his head. What was he wasting his time for? It had been Just talk, to lead him to the point where young Harris could tell him a hard luck story. He put his toe under the strip of carpet and pushed it aside. . . . And thus it was that he came to find the two thousand pounds in gold, in sovereigns and half-Sovereigns under the loose board in old Harris' bedroom. They were wrapped in brown paper, several thicknesses of it, in 20 neat packages. On top of them was a dirty envelope, and in it a newspaper cutting of June 7, 1914, which told how a Mr. William Harris had won two thousand pounds in a remarkable treble at Ascot; a stake of ten shillings accumulating on three longpriced winners. . . . The words danced before Mr. Panhook's incredulous eyes, while from his hands, through trembling fingers, he let a little golden cascade of sovereigns fall on the dirty carpet. Gold! Gold! He counted it, counted it twice. Two thousand pounds! No! His heart, already pounding in his throat, nearly stopped. Gold at a hundred and forty shillings an ounce—a sovereign worth thirty-three shillings! Not two thousand pounds. Three thousand three hundred. June of 1914. He cast his memory back. That was the year of the war. June? Harris had been with him a few months by then, and he—now he remembered. He had been in the Fulham Hospital with pleurisy; Harris had come to see him every day. But he had never mentioned this! Cunning old miser. Even while his mind worked with these comparatively unimportant exercises of memory, beneath it a more important thought was gaining form. It reached his full comprehension in the next moment, and he got up, went quicklv to the window and pulled down the blind. Young Harris wouldn't know which had been his father's room, but if he was still hanging about and saw a light at the top of the house. This action was the guide the format of the many which governed hia existence his waking and dreaming mind, during the next two weeks. Three thou-

sand three hundred pounds! Conscience scarcely lifted its voice even in the first hour of his discovery. Old Harris was dead. The money was no good to him; young Harris, his next-of-kin, did not know about it —or if he did, it was pure supposition based on little or no evidence. His father's windfall had happened when he was a child; at most it was a legend, told him by his mother or aunt. And anyway three thousand pounds would do liiui more harm than good—a youth like that. Whereas to Mr. Panhook it represented the end of poverty, the dawn of a new life. Very carefully, carrying four of the precious packets at a time, he transferred the hoard from the attic to the laboratory, hiding it in the bottom of a big sugar box in which he kept odds an.l ends of chemical apparatus. These lie replaced, and stood looking, at the box, finding realisation almost more than lie could accept. Gold! Gold! '1 lie next day, after a sleepless, night of planning, he put twenty pounds in his pockets, distributing the sovereigns so that tlicy were not altogether, and took a bus to (,'lcrkonwell, making sure that there was no sign of Harris' son on it. The thought of the youth haunted him; lie saw the resentful, auspicious blue eyes continually. It was ridiculous, of course. Sheer nerves due to lack of sleep. He walked until three o'clock and in that time entered seven small jeweller's shops in which the magic announcement was displayed: "Gold Bought." '"Sovereigns wanted at To-day's Price." He produced two or three at each, varying his story. "No point in hanging on to these" or "I've had these by me for years —may as well cash in, eh?" The jewellers or their assistants showed no surprise, asked no questions. After all, sovereigns were trickling in all the time. They paid him thirty-three shillings each for them and seemed quite satisfied with his bargain. At first it seemed too good to be true, and then he realised that lie had nothing to worry about, and at the last shop merely put four sovereigns on the counter and received the notes and silver for them without a word being exchanged save on the subject of the weather. He went out into the street and drew a deep breath. In his inside breast pocket was a wad amounting to thirty-three pounds. Sudden fear for the great sum which lay at the bottom of the box in the laboratory drove him running to a taxi. It was safe, and everything as he had left it. But he went out straight away and bought two steel bolts and a number of window catches, safety ones, and spent until dusk making the house secure against burglarious entry. Now and again he went to the door and looked up and down the road; young Harris was nowhere in sight. He slipped out and himself half a pound of Scotch rump steak, and grilled it. He took it into the laboratory to eat with the odds and ends box under his eye; it was the first proper meal he had eaten for weeks. Gold! Gold! No need to worry about young Harris. He had gone.. Gone back to Bristol, perhaps, or to sea again. He read the evening paper, turning to the market reports, the money market reports. Gold still held its record price. The City Editor discussed the position. As long as the bullion shippers held tip the supplies, the price would hold. He would not venture to predict the'future but he seemed to think that it would not go higher. In which ease it would begin to drop—sooner or later—reasoned Mr." Panhook, and found himself impatient for to-morrow. Take the profit while he could; that was the reasonable man's policy. So Mr. Panhook proceeded, during the next fortnight to take his profit as fast as he could walk and bus and tram about London, visiting a different district every day and increasing his daily quota of sovereigns to fifty, sixty and finally to a hundred. He no longer worried what the jewellers and gold brokers thought; he assumed a businesslike air in dealing with theni, and although he walked and travelled from morning until night, until his feet were sore and his body aching with the unaccustomed exercise, the thrill of the thickening bundle of Treasury and banknotes repaid him amply. v He kept them in the odds-and-ends box, so that they gradually took the place of the diminishing packets of gold. Each night he counted the bundle, clipping it neatly with clastic bands. And while he walked from jeweller to jeweller he planned the future. He would not advertise his departure from the past; he would just go away, taking the money in the solid leather dispatch case he had bought especially for it, and get in a train—any train, and go anywhere —travel about a bit, and when he found the sort of place he wanted, he would settle down, with a new name, perhaps, although that wasn't really necessary. At last it was done. The last halfsovereign had fallen into the till of a jeweller in Camden Town, and three thousand three hundred pounds in notes were snugly packed together in three compact bundles waiting to be stowed in the dispatch case which stood open on the laboratory lionch. Mr. Panliook's eyes fondled them as lovingly as another man might look upon a woman ... he felt gay, with the liglit-heartedness of youth recaptured. He laughed aloud in the dingy room in which failure had imprisoned him so long. He unwrapped the half-bottles of champagne he had brought home to make his last supper a feast of celebration. But why not go now? What had he to wait for? Catch the evening express for Eastbourne —that was it! Dinner on the train —and here's to the glorious future! He removed the wire from the cork, eased the cork with his thumb. It 00/ ed out, pressed by the effervescence within. Out it came with a p°P and hit tho ceiling. Aa he reached for the glass, a sound in the hall caught his ears, and he stiffened. Nerves! nerves! But he put the champagne on the bench and let it bubble over in a white foam which ran down the sides of the bottle, his eyes on the door —for the door was opening. He sprang sideways, so that the bench was hidden by his* body. His heart's beating choked him. It was young Harris —young Harris, with a smear of dirt down one side of his face and grimness in his eyes. "How—how —!" stuttered Mr. Panhook. "By the coal chute," said young Harris shortly. "I couldn't get any of the windows open. Now, Mr. Panhook, will you look at this letter "He pulled. r it out of his shabby jacket pocket. "It ! was forwarded from the States —tho last

BY S. JEPSON

one my father wrote. He complains of feeling ill, and says lie doesn't want to die without telling me where he put the " Young Harris stopped suddenly, his eyes focused on the bench, on the bubbling champagne, and beyond it on the three compact bundles of notes. There was a silence in which the leaping heart of Mr. Panhook was clearly aucible. Mr. Panhook opened his mouth to epeak, to drive the young man from the room with furious invective, witji threats and warnings—this criminal entry! But no words came; lie was held by the appalling certainty in the young man's face. "So that's why you pulled down the attic blind that first evening!" he said. "No! You don't understand—llo!" Mr. Panhook gibbered. "No—110!" Young Harris stepped swiftly to the bench and stood with both hands on the notes. Then he scooped them together and thrust them into the dispatch case. Mr. Panhook raised his clenched fists, his jaw tight, his body trembling with fright. The half-turn of young Harris had brought their eyes on a level, and slowly Mr. Panhook dropped his hands and stepped back. The eyes of young Harris were as cold and as dangerous as death. "You can't! You can't!" Mr. Panhook began to whine in a high voice. "Listen—L'll go shares with you!—l swear I'll give you a square deal—l—" But young Harris took no notice at all. He snapped the lock of the dispatch case, tucked it firmly under his arm, and walked out of the door. The front door slammed as Mr. Panhook's weakening knees consented to stagger him into the hall. But there they refused. He fell full length there, his fingers scratching in harsh, dusty fibre of the front door mat across which young Harris had just carried his inheritance. Mr. Panhook wept like a whipped chiid.