“Prime Minister,” Mycroft concluded, “this is, by far, the most serious crisis I have encountered in my time as Auditor General of all Government Departments. I cannot overstate how serious it is.”

  “I have heard rumours of this in my club,” the Prime Minister replied wearily, “as if we did not have troubles enough already. But what would you have me do, Mr Auditor? These are private citizens, not government obligations. If these wealthy private bankers fail to look after their affairs, they must take the consequences. Surely you can see that?”

  “Of course I can see that, Prime Minister. But Gorings is simply too big to be allowed to go under. The shock waves would be too great. I am trying, with the help of the Governor of the Bank of England to put together a rescue package from the major players in the City of London. If the Government were to agree to help, in however minor a way, I am sure we could succeed. The catastrophe could be averted.”

  “But these are private concerns, Mr Auditor. The Government cannot and should not bale out failed firms. We are not some socialist co-operative here, pledged to mutual assistance, haggard and unkempt men with beards handing out subversive leaflets in the docks and the munitions factories. What about the corner shopkeeper who goes broke because his prices are too high, or the high street baker who is knocked out by a new competitor with better machinery? Would you have us bail them out too? The thing is impossible.”

  “This time is different, Prime Minister. We cannot allow Gorings to default on its obligations. The Government must play its part, however limited. It too has obligations, to maintain the reputation and the probity of its financial institutions, which underpin much of the nation’s prosperity.”

  “My dear Mycroft, just consider this. Suppose I accede to your request. What happens, pray, when the expenditure comes up in the House of Commons? Are my backbenchers expected to tell their constituents that their taxes are being used – indeed their taxes may have to go up – to rescue a collection of incompetent bankers who are paid enormous sums and live no doubt in the lap of luxury and the height of fashion? There would be an outcry. I am sure it would be unconstitutional.”

  “You know as well as I do, Prime Minister, that nobody has ever written the ancient constitution down. That is why it is so ancient. Nobody has ever had to replace it because the thing isn’t actually there.”

  “I’m sure we could knock one up in a couple of hours, Mr Auditor. That new Solicitor General is the fastest Parliamentary draughtsman I have ever seen. But come, you must see the thing cannot be worked.”

  “Let me try to sum up, Prime Minister. Am I right in saying that you are unwilling to offer any help at all, however small, to the rescue of Gorings?”

  “You are.”

  “And that is your final word?”

  “It is.”

  “Then, I have to inform you, Prime Minister, with great reluctance, that I am resigning my position. I relinquish all authority vested in me as Auditor of all Government Departments.”

  Mycroft reached into his jacket pocket and handed over his letter of resignation. It was brief and to the point. It thanked the Prime Minister for his help and consideration over many years.

  “This is impossible, Mr Auditor. I cannot accept your resignation. Coming at this time it would do incalculable damage to my administration. I ask you to reconsider.”

  “And I would ask you to reconsider, Prime Minister.”

  “The situation is impossible,” cried the Prime Minister.

  “The situation is indeed impossible,” Mycroft replied. “And if Gorings are not rescued within the next forty eight hours or so, it will become more impossible yet!”

  The Prime Minister stared hard at his Auditor. He could not imagine where he could find a replacement of equivalent stature.

  “Let me offer a compromise, Mr Auditor. Let us leave to one side for now the question of your resignation. You say you are attempting to put together a consortium to effect the salvation of this wretched bank. To think we raised the fellow to the peerage only a couple of years back! Never mind. Could I suggest you come to see me again when your negotiations are complete? This evening perhaps? First thing tomorrow morning?”

  “My resignation remains on the table, Prime Minister. But I will do my best, and I will come and see you first thing in the morning.”

  “Thank you, thank you so much, Mr Auditor.”

  The two men stood up. They shook hands. “I hope you realise, Prime Minister, that this is probably the last time we shall meet in this room in our current positions.”

  “I do, Mr Auditor, I certainly do.”

  It would have taken a more sensitive man than Mycroft Holmes to spot that the Prime Minister was close to tears as his Auditor of all Government Departments left No 10 Downing Street, possibly for the last time.

  *

  Big Ben was striking eleven as Mycroft returned to the Parthenon for his second meeting of the day.

  Lord Nathaniel Millman, known to his friends as Natty, was waiting for Mycroft, seated in a deep red armchair by the side of the fireplace in Mycroft’s temporary accommodation, sipping a cup of Parthenon coffee.

  “Good morning to you, Mr Auditor,” he rose to his feet.

  “And good morning to you too, Lord Millman. Let us hope that this wretched fog will clear soon.”

  Lord Millman was a man of moderate height, about five feet nine inches tall, putting on weight in early middle age. Everything about his appearance told of money, discreet money, of course, but a great deal of it. His dark brown hair was perfectly cut, his moustache perfectly waxed, his beard perfectly trimmed. He was bathed in one of Trumper’s more expensive colognes.

  “I presume, Mr Auditor, that you have asked me here this morning to discuss the affairs of Gorings?”

  “You are correct, sir.”

  “I am not sure what there is to discuss,” said Lord Millman, and Tobias, taking notes at his little table by the door, thought the meeting was not going to go well.

  “I will not beat about the bush, Lord Millman. I believe Gorings must be rescued or the reputation of the City of London will receive a blow from which it will be very difficult to recover. Let them go and there will be the short term pleasure of seeing a rival go under. But in five years the atmosphere will be completely different. International money will no longer be happy to reside in and be raised and handled by the City. They will go elsewhere, where major players in the world markets do not fail. Your business here will contract, Lord Millman, and the tragedy is that you are the one man in London who could prevent it.”

  “But I have no wish to prevent it. I do not share your pessimism, Mr Auditor. I would be much more concerned about living in a market where failure is, if not rewarded, certainly not allowed to do you any damage. Fail and your colleagues will rescue you. Threaten to collapse and you will be saved. This is the world gone mad, turned upside down. This is not the word of the great economists like Ricardo and Adam Smith. Our system has always been like that of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The weakest go the wall. There are many who say that it is very hard to fail as a bank. Well, Gorings have certainly managed it. They should have known they were dealing in Fool’s Gold with all those issues of Argentine bonds that were never taken up and they had to use their own money to keep the things afloat. It happened time and time again. But they never changed their policy. It was a triumph of hope over reality, Mr Auditor, and I, for one, will have nothing to do with any rescue.”

  Tobias wondered if the conversation was now at an end. But Mycroft was not giving up yet.

  “The other question I wish to raise with you, Lord Millman, is the recent share issue in Burton’s Brewery.”

  “What of it?” said the great banker, sounding slightly tetchy.

  “Well,” said Mycroft, “some of the facts are now in the public domain, and they make for disturbing reading, I think. Six million pounds of ten pound shares were to be issued, of which the Burton family reserved £600,000. When the application was opened to the public on a Saturday morning there was tremendous interest from the thrifty and the thirsty alike. Total applications were in the order of £100 million. But it now appears that the vast majority of shares never reached the public at all. Your bank kept a million pounds on its own account. Very large sums were spread about to wider members of the Millman clan in sums ranging from £2,000 to £70,000. The best part of another million were distributed about other banking houses in the City. Only about a quarter of the shares were actually available to the public. But, so great was the interest, that when the shares were available on the Monday, the price had shot up from ten pounds at issue to sixteen pounds ten shillings. All those on the inside could have made a killing.”

  “And what is your concern, Mr Auditor? I do not see that shareholdings in private companies are any concern of the Government.”

  “I think they are, Lord Millman, when the principles of a public share offering are so blatantly twisted to allow the issuing house a blank cheque to enrich itself at the public expense. The matter may not be illegal at present, it is certainly immoral. That is the opinion of Treasury Counsel and of a growing number of backbenchers who are calling for a full public inquiry into the affair.”

  Tobias, scribbling furiously at his table, thought Lord Millman might, quite literally, explode. His face had turned a deep red, almost purple. His eyes were bright with hatred. Tobias felt it unlikely that Mycroft would be receiving any more invitations to the famous Millman parties.

  “This is outrageous. Governments have no right to interfere in the workings of the market. We are a Liberal country here, run on Liberal principles. That is why so many foreign firms come to do business here.”

  Rather like you, Tobias said to himself. He had just realised that any drift of business out of London might not affect Millmans as much as other firms. The work could be taken by Millmans in Paris or Millmans in Vienna or Millmans in Frankfurt.

  “No final decision has yet to be taken on whether to appoint such a committee,” Mycroft was holding his stomach as if he expected an attack at any moment.

  “I am glad to hear it.” Lord Millman began to calm down. His cheeks were just red now. Then he slapped his hand very hard on the arm of his chair.

  “I see, Mr Auditor, I see it all now! You threaten an inquiry into possible irregularities in my bank’s share offering! Now you are trying to blackmail me! Would I be right in supposing that this inquiry would vanish back into the obscurity it deserves if I took part in this ludicrous rescue? That there is very definitely a quid for a quo?”

  “I’m not sure, Lord Millman, that you fully appreciate what a public inquiry would be like. For a start it would be held in public. Expensive barristers with nasty minds would be hired to cross examine not just yourself and your colleagues, but the various other people, politicians and so on who were in receipt of your largesse. Questions would be asked about how many of the beneficiaries sold their shares on the Monday morning at an eye watering rate of profit. The newspapers would be full of it. I have little doubt that the general public – not that bankers have ever cared much for them – would grow more and more hostile as the inquiry went on. It could all become rather unpleasant.”

  “My family have never cared about public opinion, Mr Auditor. I repeat my question. If I agree to join the rescue party, will you see to it that the inquiry goes away?”

  “That depends, Lord Millman. It depends on how much money you propose to put into the fund.”

  “Does it indeed. I never thought the Government of Great Britain would employ a blackmailer as Auditor of all Government Departments.”

  “Nonsense, my dear Lord Millman. A great deal of Government business is conducted with trade-offs of various kinds. We’ll build another warship if you drop your opposition to the old age pensions. It happens every day, as you know very well. I repeat my question. How much are Millmans prepared to put in?

  “Do I have your word that you will drop this inquiry?”

  “That depends on how much you contribute.”

  “I am not prepared to mention any contribution until I know that the inquiry has disappeared.”

  “Then, Lord Millman, you may have to wait some time.” There was a temporary silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of an elegant clock, rescued from an aristocratic Paris house during the Revolution. It was Mycroft who broke the deadlock.

  “Would you care for a Turkish Delight?”

  “No, thank you,” Lord Millman pulled out a pink cigarette packet with a portrait of a cavalier smoking a pipe. “I’ll have a Passing Cloud, if you don’t mind, Mr Auditor. And let me try to settle this question once and for all. If I agree to subscribe a quarter of a million to your rescue fund, will the inquiry go away?”

  “I’m sure you can do better than that.” Tobias thought Mycroft could have made a successful gambler, that face so inscrutable nobody would ever know if he held aces or twos and threes.

  “I haven’t got all day. Half a million, then.”

  “Done,” said Mycroft. “I had hoped for more. Indeed, when you go away and think about it, I hope you will feel able to increase your contribution. But for half a million I shall dispose of the inquiry.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Lord Millman and he set off back to his own headquarters in the Square Mile.

  “Is there really a call for an inquiry into the Burton share offering, sir?” Tobias had finished his notes.

  “Good Heavens, No, Tobias. I only thought of it last night. I dare say I could have whipped up some interest in the affair. Or, I could, now I reflect upon the matter, have launched one on my own authority. Half a million might not be enough. But at least Millmans are on board now.”

  “Sir, there is a great deal of news. We have half an hour before the next banker.”

  “Give me the headlines, Tobias.”

  There was a knock at the door. Jaikie was waiting for Tobias in the hall, grinning from ear to ear.

  “That bloke's going to get a right shock when he gets back to his bank, Tobias. Them mice or rats have called. Not one bloody phone, not a single telegraph line working. All down. And them people is shouting away like mad, blaming the English workmen, one of them shouting on the steps that the day of judgement is at hand. You can take bets now as to who’ll be next to go.”

  “Millman's have gone now, have they? God above, Jaikie, things are getting serious.”

  Tobias hurried back into the room and brought a clutch of messages over to Mycroft, standing by the window and watching the chaotic traffic in the fog.

  “Let me give you Spencer Bishop first, sir. He says that a large German firm is taking out a series of bets or shorts. Shorts, sir?”

  “Shorts, Tobias, are a gamble on a security or a bond or a currency falling in value. You borrow some securities from an intermediary like an insurance company or a bank to the value, let us say, of one hundred pounds for one hundred units.

  “When the value of the unit falls to, let us say, seventy pence, you buy a different hundred units and replace the ones you have borrowed. You keep the thirty pounds left over. You could, of course, lose a great deal if the units went up not down, but gamblers are usually certain that their horse is going to win. In which country are these bets being placed?”

  “A limited number in Argentina, in the expectation that shares and bonds and the currency will all go down. But the majority are here in London, sir. Joint stock banks, insurance companies, finance houses of every description that are traded on the Exchange. Spencer adds that he may find out the identity of the firm or man behind it all later today.”

  “This is bad, Tobias, very bad. What else?”

  “There's worse, sir. The General Manager of the Casino in Monte Carlo confirms the story. He doesn't have a name either. How come he is so well informed, this man? Never mind for now. Here comes the killer punch, sir. Viktor Ephrussi of the Ephrussi Bank in Vienna's Ringstrasse says they were approached very recently to act as the front organisation for a very rich German gentleman planning this particular coup. Ephrussis didn't like the sound of it and said No. But Viktor says they were dealing with a man called The Count. Just the Count. No name.”

  “By God, Tobias, we can provide the name! Graf Wolfgang von Stoltenburg is back in town! I have suspected as much for days now! These rodents are very clever diversions, designed to take our minds off the main problem, that of keeping the wretched Gorings afloat. Don't tell a soul about this, Tobias. It would only make everyone jumpier than they already are. The Count must have a spy or informant inside Barings who told him what was going to happen. He has moved fast. But by God, Tobias, I swear he is not going to succeed! I want you to write immediately to all the contacts in the Underground Library with whom we have been in touch in the past. Ask them where the Count is to be found. That chap in Paris is usually very well informed. You could, of course, conduct this whole affair from a private residence in Hamburg or Berlin, but I feel that the Count, as a former soldier, will like to be on the field of battle at the death. Maybe he's staying in a suite at some grand hotel with crates and crates of vermin tucked away in his changing room. You'd better get Inspector Lestrade here as soon as possible.”

  The Underground Library was the nickname for Europe's Auditors of all Government Departments, a place where they could exchange information without going through the official channels. Tobias set to work. Mycroft seemed to be muttering to himself by the window. Tobias thought he could hear the words 'bloody count' occurring at regular intervals.

  *

  At one minute past twelve the porter ushered in a middle aged gentleman whose hair had recently turned white. Patroclus Finch, the Chairman of Finch’s Bank, was six feet tall and looked to Tobias’s trained eye like a grown up version of the perfect English public schoolboy, a refugee perhaps from Dr Arnold’s Rugby in the days of its glory. Patroclus boasted light blond hair, brown eyes, a handsome face and a Roman nose. Tobias had been surrounded by hundreds of younger versions of the type in his years by the Cam.