Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [169]
“It’s not Morgan gold, I promise you that,” declared Lamont. “The J. P.Morgan Company has nothing to do with this.”
“Four millions in gold are lying in a room adjoining a sub-basement of the Morgan Bank,” Houston said to Lamont, “and you say your company doesn’t know about it?”
“It was an old foundation under Wall Street,” replied Lamont. “We don’t own the lot. We have nothing to do with it. Any number of people could have tunneled into it.”
One of the other bankers spoke up: “Maybe it’s your gold, Houston. There have been rumors about a theft from the Treasury on September sixteenth.”
“Treasury gold?” said Houston, affecting incredulity. “Don’t be ridiculous. Every ounce of my gold is accounted for and has been since the day I took office. Every bar and every coin. The Treasury has never been breached. Two of you men”—Houston addressed his Secret Service agents—“stay here and guard this door. No one goes in under any circumstances. Tomorrow when the fire has burnt itself out, we’ll see. My suspicion, Lamont, is that it’s another shipment of your contraband Russian gold.”
“I tell you Morgan has nothing to do with it,” said Lamont.
As soon as they were back out on Wall Street, leaving the palatial Morgan Bank, Houston asked Littlemore in a hushed and anxious tone, “Does the gold have our insignia on it—or did they melt it?”
“Melted almost all of it,” answered Littlemore.
“Thank heavens,” replied Houston.
“If you don’t want people to know it’s Treasury gold down there, Mr. Houston, you’d better plug up the hole in your alley.”
“What hole?” asked Houston.
Littlemore pointed across the street to the alleyway between the Sub-Treasury and the Assay Office, where the wrought-iron gate had been thrown open, and a troop of soldiers were inspecting the open manhole—from which smoke now poured out. Houston was about to hurry there with his remaining Secret Servicemen when he stopped and pulled a badge out of his pocket. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Littlemore. Take your badge back. I’m reinstating you.”
“No thanks, Mr. Houston,” said Littlemore. “I’m done with the Treasury for a while. Got a little police work I need to do anyway.”
Houston rushed off, leaving Younger and Littlemore by themselves. Younger lit a cigarette. The two men sported filthy faces, dirty hair, and torn, blackened clothing.
“At least it would be police work,” Littlemore muttered, “if I were a policeman.”
TWENTY-ONE
COLETTE WANDERED, lost in thought, onto the factory floor, a large high-ceilinged open room, where rows and rows of young women, hunched over long tables, used fine-pointed brushes to dab luminescent paint onto the razor-thin hands of fashionable watches. Between every two girls, an electric lamp hung suspended by a long wire from the ceiling, throwing harsh light onto their close and arduous work. But the girls’ studious hush was probably due less to concentration than to the entrance of Mr. Brighton, their employer, a few minutes before.
Colette herself contributed to their silence as well. A young lady in a diamond choker and elbow-length white gloves—who came in with the owner—was not a typical sight for the working girls. They eyed her warily as she passed among them.
Colette didn’t notice. She had only one thought in her head: ten grams of radium. It would change Madame Curie’s life. It would save countless people from death. Devoted to science, rather than watch dials or cosmetics, it could yield discoveries about the nature of atoms and energy heretofore undreamed of.
To be sure, it was absurd that Mr. Brighton should propose to marry her, having met her only three times in his life. Or was it? She had known she wanted to marry Younger the first day she met him, when he brought the old French corporal out of the battlefield.
Of course she could never marry Mr. Brighton. She wasn’t obliged to do that, not even for Madame Curie—was she? She owed Madame everything: Madame Curie had taken her in, given her a chance at the Sorbonne, saved her when she was starving. But that didn’t mean Colette