“Good morning to you, Mr Auditor,” Patroclus Finch began, striding to the window to reclaim Mycroft and park him in a chair by the fire. “These are tricky times, what?”

  “They are indeed, Finch. I am most grateful to you for coming.”

  “I am most anxious to help, Mr Auditor. I understand you are trying to put together a rescue package for Gorings.”

  “I am,” said Mycroft rather sadly. Tobias thought he made it sound it like one of the twelve labours of Hercules, the capture of the Golden Hind of Artemis perhaps.

  “How much would you like from us, Mr Auditor? I feel the collapse of Gorings could be like one of those great earthquakes at sea that sweep away all before them and bring ruin and destruction to the coast line. Finches, though a responsible and, dare I say it, a well-managed house, could be swept away in the backwash and the currents.”

  Mycroft rose and seized him by the hand. “I am so grateful for your offer of assistance,” he said. “I have just had Millman in here arguing for the best part of an hour about why he would not give a penny to the rescue.”

  “Did you persuade him in the end?”

  “I did, only with great difficulty, mind you. I tell you in confidence he has pledged half a million, maybe more.”

  “Then Finches will do the same, Mr Auditor! Put us down for half a million! Now, I will leave you. You have many serious matters to resolve, I am sure. So glad to have been of service to our country.”

  The Chairman of Finches strode from the room. Tobias could hear his cane clicking on the Parthenon floor without. Mycroft, he reckoned, had conjured a million pounds out of the fog in a little over an hour. Would it be enough?

  Mycroft took Tobias for an early lunch in the dining room. There was no point, he said to his young assistant, in declining the opportunities for food when they presented themselves. Heaven knows, Mycroft went on, tucking in to a large plateful of oysters, when they would eat again. He could still remember, he told Tobias, an interminable conference in the Foreign Office when the nation seemed on the brink of war which went on until seven in the morning without as much as a biscuit in the night hours. The Treasury mice, he averred, would not have stood for it. He had been forced to ask Mrs Hudson to prepare an extra-large breakfast at an earlier time than usual before his composure was restored.

  It was there that Inspector Lestrade, wearing his normal uniform of light brown mackintosh over a dark blue suit and a stained tie, hat in hand, found them.

  “Mr Holmes, sir, Tobias, I have come as soon as I could. The Catford Murders will have to wait!”

  “Would you care for some lunch, Inspector?”

  “Thank you, No, Mr Holmes, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my digestion lately, and that’s a fact.”

  In between forkfuls of finest Welsh lamb with potatoes roasted in goose fat and some lightly boiled vegetables, Mycroft filled in the policeman on the details of the case. He left nothing out, the arrival and spread of the rodents, the imminent collapse of Gorings, his own attempts to put together a rescue. He left the worst bit to the end.

  “There’s one other thing you should know, Inspector. We have incontrovertible proof that the Count is in town, and at the back of this business. Just take my word for it. The timetable for the next few days is as follows. Tomorrow morning we are to have a great conference at the Bank of England. That is where we will learn if the rescue effort has raised enough money to succeed. The rest of the day will be spent putting the money in place if it is there. At eleven o’clock the following morning, less than forty eight hours from where we are now, Gorings will hand over the second tranche of money. Or not, as the case may be.”

  “What would you have me do, Mr Holmes? How I wish I’d been more careful about the Count fellow at that printing press by the Silver Birches! We should have taken the rogue then.”

  “I think you should proceed on two fronts, Inspector. The first is the mice or the rats. I am no expert in these questions but it should be possible to discover if people are going into these banks and dropping the creatures off down their trouser legs while standing at the counter perhaps. Or maybe they introduce them into the general refuse left by the kitchens. Or they come in from the sewers. You must find the answer, Lestrade. Tobias here can give you a list of the places that may be affected. He firmly believes that the Bank of England will be hit by tomorrow morning.”

  Inspector Lestrade’s trilby was twirling round faster and faster in his hands as he took in his instructions.

  “Very good, Mr Holmes.” There was a pause while the Inspector seemed to be trying to resolve some great difficulty in his mind. “Rodgers, that’s the name of the man, he’s Chief Inspector for the sewerage company. I met him at a police dinner last year. I’ll get on to him. And there may be some strange person at the Natural History Museum who will know about how to distribute the vermin.”

  “Good man,” said Mycroft, who had moved onto to a trifle adorned with much cream and of gargantuan size.

  “And the other thing, Mr Holmes? You said there were two.”

  “There are indeed. The Count must be staying somewhere, Inspector. London club, posh hotel, rented apartment, God knows where he might be. But you must try them all. You still have his description, I presume?”

  “We do, Mr Holmes, I’ll try to get it circulated to every policeman and every police station in central London by this evening.”

  With that Inspector Lestrade rose to his feet and strode rapidly from the Parthenon dining room. “There’s not a moment to lose,” he cried, “I shall report back early this evening!”

  *

  All through the afternoon Tobias sat at his place by the door taking notes of Mycroft’s meetings with the bankers. With some, he was charming. Would such and such a bank be interested in a little more government business, a greater share in debt issuance and so on? They would? In that case he felt sure such and such a bank would be more than happy to make a generous contribution to the rescue fund. How much, the bank might inquire? I couldn’t possible speak for you and your directors, but four hundred thousand, five hundred thousand perhaps? With others he was more ruthless, threatening to take away all Government business unless they increased the size of their contribution. The most astonishing example of all, he was to tell Tobias later that night, was William Johnston, the banker Mycroft had little hope of. The man walked in, shook Mycroft by the hand, gave him a cheque made payable to the Bank of England for six hundred thousand pounds and left the room without saying a word, not even good afternoon. The German banker Bucholdtz was bribed with the promise of a knighthood into making a contribution considerably larger than he had intended when he walked through the Parthenon doors. Lowther of Lowthers, another perfect specimen of England’s public schools played up and played the game. But by four o’clock, Mycroft was looking worried. His only consolation came from a plate of cucumber sandwiches and a trio of chocolate éclairs.

  “Never could see the point of cucumber sandwiches, myself, Tobias. There’s not much sustenance in a bloody cucumber, is there. They’re all water, really. Not like beef or chicken. Now then, young Tobias, we must widen the net. I feel we need more contributors. I know the Governor is canvassing the minor players all day today but we need more yet. That big stockbroking firm Newgate, could you get them here for six thirty? Oliver Newgate is our man. And those other brokers, Nicholson and Lewis? Billy Lewis, I think. And can you can also send word to the three big insurance companies, The Royal, The Victoria, the Charing Cross, here for seven eight and nine? They’re so vain they’d better have an hour each, Tobias, God help us all.”

  “Very good, sir.” Tobias was writing things in his notebook and fiddling with his contacts book and his diary with the other. Some stray fact had been bothering him all afternoon, nagging away at the back of his mind.

  “That’s it, sir! I knew there was something. There is a new German Ambassador here in London. He only presented his credentials to the Court of St James’s a couple of months ago.”

  “What of it, Tobias? Ambassadors come and go all the time.”

  “They do, sir, of course they do. But not many of them are called Von Stoltenburg!”

  “You must be joking, Tobias!”

  “I’m not, sir. They always print the new Ambassador’s name in the Times when they check in. He could be a brother or a cousin. It may just be a coincidence, of course.”

  “Coincidence be damned!” Mycroft roared. “And their Embassy is just round the corner in Carlton House Terrace, is it not, Tobias?”

  “Number Nine, I believe, sir.”

  “Well, we can put Lestrade and his people onto it when he comes back to report. Could you send Jaikie and his friend round there to keep an eye in the meantime?”

  “Of course, sir. I suspect Jaikie and his gang might be better watchers than the police. Less obtrusive, sir. Probably more devious.”

  “We’ll see what Lestrade has to say.”

  Jaikie was quick to memorise Tobias’s rather vague account of the Count’s appearance. “Is he the big bad villain, this Count person? I can tell by the way you talk about the geezer that yous all fink he’s very important. Did he organise all them rats and mice or whatever they are? Is he the evil mastermind behind the whole thing? What a coup it would be for the Du Cane Road Irregulars to catch the bugger!”

  Jaikie moved off towards Carlton House Gardens whistling What a Friend We Have in Jesus as he went, dreaming of fame and glory for his gang.

  Willoughby of Willoughby and Sons and Sunny Rowlandson of Rowlandsons kept their appointments at four and five o’clock. Both came late and stayed only a few minutes. Each pledged the sum of three hundred thousand pounds to the rescue fund. Sunny Rowlandson brought more intelligence of the state of affairs in the City.

  “Bank of England’s gone now,” he announced. “Those mice or the rats have eaten through all their cables. That’s four of our leading financial institutions without a voice to the outside world and the Governor of the Bank of England marooned in his quarters. They say he’s taking it very well, mind you, the Governor.”

  “I seem to recall,” said Mycroft, “that one of his tea planting ancestors got caught up in one of those sieges in the Indian Mutiny, Lucknow, Cawnpore, one of those. Every day until they were relieved the fellow served tea at four o’clock in the afternoon to the entire garrison at his own expense. Finest Darjeeling too, they say.”

  “Good for him,” said Sunny Rowlandson. “Our man’s going to need all his reserves to lift the siege of Gorings tomorrow.”

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer looked worried. He was, they said, the most formidable politician in the Cabinet after the Prime Minister. A dashing orator, he was always portrayed in the cartoons of the time with an enormous nose, which was, indeed, his most prominent feature.

  “I’ve just had three quarters of an hour with a collection of primeval backbenchers, Mr Auditor. Could you get me a drink, do you think? Very large whisky and soda would do fine. I’ve always said it was one of the redeeming features of these damned clubs that a man could get a drink at any hour of the day or night!”

  Tobias slipped away to procure refreshments. Mycroft, he noted, was moving into the Armagnac, the brandy from southern France that had sustained him through a long night in the adventure of the Silver Birches.

  “And what did these primevals have to say, Chancellor?”

  “They said, Mr Auditor, that they were totally opposed to any attempt to rescue Gorings. Just totally, you know. Absolutely, I say. Utterly, don’t you see? Those were all words they used a lot. Of reasons for their blind belief in the sanctity of free markets, not a word.”

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer took a very long draught of his whisky and soda. At one point Tobias though the man might be about to finish it all in one go. He could see now, he thought, why the duties on Scotch whisky had not been increased in the last three Budgets when the current Chancellor was at the helm.

  “Damn it, man, you’ve got much greater expertise in these financial waters than I do, Mr Auditor. The Prime Minister tells me that you believe a rescue is essential.”

  “And the Prime Minister tells me that the Government is not prepared to assist a rescue in any way. Is that your position also, Chancellor?”

  “No, it is not. If you believe that a rescue is imperative I personally would follow you into the breach. But I have to support the Prime Minister. Any administration where the PM and his Chancellor are at loggerheads is bound to fail in the long term.”

  “And you have the primevals to contend with, have you not?”

  “There are more of them on this subject than you might think, Mr Auditor. But I am sure they can be managed and massaged if the need arises. The Prime Minister is very adept at devising schemes which seem to satisfy their every demand. Only when inspected in the cold light of day do they realise that they are really a phantom, a chimera. But by then it is too late. The caravan of politics has moved on.”

  “I should tell you, Chancellor, the current state of play. I think we have been quite successful here in rousing financial support for a rescue. The leading insurance companies are about to come here any moment now. I do not yet know how successful the Governor has been. The rats have got the Bank of England now. The City is under siege from the four legged vermin. Nor do we know if all these bankers will honour their promises at the great conclave tomorrow morning. It could be a close thing. I shall, of course, keep you informed.”

  “Thank you, Mr Auditor.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer finished his drink and headed for the door. “If there’s anything I can do, day or night, don’t hesitate to call me. Your messengers are becoming the most famous in the capital!”

  *

  The stockbrokers came together, and in a great hurry. Oliver Newgate and Billy Lewis had the air of men with another, more urgent, appointment, an evening reception in Belgrave Square perhaps, a society dinner in Mayfair. They pledged fifty thousand each to the rescue fund and fled the field, not even pausing long enough to take off their coats.

  Mycroft brushed some more psoriasis flakes from his shoulders. Tobias had noticed that the incidence and intensity of the disease seemed to increase with stress. He swirled the remains of his Armagnac round in his glass.

  “I do not like it, Tobias. Until we know the Governor’s take and what these insurance men may offer it is impossible to know if the final rescue figure will be enough. I pray it is, but I fear it is not.”

  There was a knock at the door. Inspector Lestrade burst in, his eyes bright with excitement. “I think we may be making progress, Mr Holmes! We have men at all the major banks not yet affected, one lot on the surface near the kitchens, and another lot, handpicked by the excellent Mr Rodgers, are patrolling the sewers in case the villains come in that way. I found a remarkable man called Piper at the National History Museum. He is going to read through all their literature to try to establish the particular strain. The men from the City are going to send him some droppings s soon as they can. With some strains, can you believe this, Mr Holmes, if you dropped in a dozen of the creatures they could have turned into twice that number in a couple of days. This Natural History man is going to send word of his findings as soon as possible, probably in the small hours of tomorrow morning. And inquiries are going on at hotels and clubs and such all over London. The game’s afoot Mr Holmes!”

  “Well done, Lestrade, well done indeed.” Mycroft had decided not to tell the Inspector about the possibility of the Count staying at the Embassy. He had not been impressed with Lestrade’s men’s ability to follow people successfully through the streets of London in the Adventure of the Silver Birches. “There is one other thing. Let us suppose that the Count is here. Let us suppose that he has a day of triumph or disaster tomorrow. He will probably want to go home to the Fatherland. Deutschland Uber Alles and all that.”

  “Of course he will! The bastard will want to get back to Germany or my name’s not Lestrade! Trains, boats, ports, private yachts, I shall get onto it straight away. Why didn’t I think of it before!” Placing his hat at a rather rakish angle, Lestrade fastened his mackintosh and sped through the door. He shot up Pall Mall in the direction of Scotland Yard.

  *

  The insurance men, Tobias discovered, had quite different concerns from the private bankers. Men like Lord Millman had only their own Board of Directors to contend with and the Board always supported its own officers. But the insurance men were running public companies. They had shareholders, annual general meetings, annual reports on their minds. How were they to tell their people that they had, effectively, gambled a great pile of their shareholders money trying to rescue a bank whose own imprudence had caused its downfall? Failure, they cried with one voice, should not be rewarded with rescue. And they were unhappy with the time scale – a mere twelve hours or so before the money was to be committed. They would have liked to be able to hold informal, maybe hypothetical, conversations with their shareholders, many of whom, they assured The Auditor, were footless and fancy free and liable to sell out of one insurance company and flee into the arms of another. The man from the Royal, a devout Quaker who rarely missed a meeting, repeatedly reminded Mycroft of the virtues of prudence and restraint.

  Mycroft, Tobias felt, did his best. He assured the insurance men that there would be much less to insure if Gorings were allowed to go under. He reminded them of their wider obligations to the City of London and the health of its financial institutions. He spoke of his own position, how he disliked rewarding failure as little as they did, but that he felt that the wider interests of the financial system were more important than petty moments of schadenfreude.

  But he made little impact. The three insurance giants subscribed thirty thousand pounds each, hardly a King or a Goring’s ransom. Tobias suspected that they had agreed the figure beforehand. He also suspected that even if he Governor had raised a million or so they were still short. But he didn’t want to ask Mycroft for his own conclusions. Mycroft’s brow was darkened now. He was standing by the window once more, staring out into the rain and the fog, smoking another of his pungent Virginia cigarettes.