Love and Locksmiths

Clutterbuck

Brinkton would be no different to hundreds of other small English country towns were it not the home of Clutterbuck's Original Patented Oojamaflips. Josiah Clutterbuck had been born in Brinkton, and when he invented (and patented) his useful device, loyalty to his native heath -- or rather tarmac, for Brinkton was not that rural -- induced him to establish his manufacturing plant there and there only.

His product lived up to its slogan: "No home should be without several." Its fame spread beyond the land of its origin, across the Atlantic Ocean, over all the English speaking nations, into darkest Africa and the mysterious Orient, from Greenland's icy mountains to lands beyond the sea, from East of Suez to out where the west begins, and from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. It had indeed proved to be so indispensable that it needed no advertising -- an observation proudly proclaimed on billboards across the globe.

As worldwide sales increased, so did the Brinkton factory grow. Despite the urgent protestations of his advisers, Josiah obstinately refused to honour any other localities with his investment. The Brinkton facility expanded apace, with machine plants, joinery shops, warehouses, administration buildings, canteens, assembly sheds, transport depots, and first aid centres, until the site began to resemble a small town, as indeed it needed to be, for it provided employment for most of the working population of Brinkton and the surrounding area.

It may be noted here, irrelevantly, that Josiah's loyalty to the town of his birth did not extend to making his domicile there. He chose rather to live in the Bahamas, tended by a personal assistant, a personal nurse, a personal physiotherapist, and a personal driver -- four young ladies the sum of whose ages would soon equal Josiah's own. Let it be said in their behalf, however, that their personal files showed that what their ages lacked in years other attributes amply compensated for in inches.

The Bank

The bank account of Clutterbuck Industries Ltd was held by the Brinkton branch of the Wheatsheaf Bank. This made it the most important branch of the bank, more important than all the other branches put together. Indeed, many a city bank would have been delighted to have Clutterbuck's as a client. The vast sums which passed through this account however were by way of cheques and other bills of exchange. The Brinkton branch bank merely acted as a clearing house for paper transactions, and would not have held any more cash on the premises than any other small town branch bank were it not for an idiosyncrasy of old Mr Clutterbuck.

Josiah Clutterbuck insisted that all his employees should be paid monthly and in cash. His reasoning (the term is here used rather loosely to denote Josiah's cogitative processes) was that workers and management should be treated alike, and that as workers were paid in cash, so should managers be, and that as managers were paid monthly, so should workers be. His Chief Accountant had tried to persuade him that egalitarianism was too precious a principle to be applied equally to everybody, but in vain. The inconvenience that this method of payment imposed upon workers and managers alike was mitigated by the generosity of the amounts involved, and complaints against the system were muted.

Thus on the Thursday before the last Friday of every calendar month the salaries and wages department of Clutterbuck Industries was engaged in stuffing notes and coins into thousands of individual pay packets, ready for distribution the following day. The cash required for this was drawn from the bank soon after it opened for public business at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. It being necessary that this withdrawal should consist of the requisite number of notes and coins of each denomination, Clutterbuck's treasurer notified the bank the previous day of the impending withdrawal and how it should be made up.

Ordinarily the branch did not carry so much cash. Upon receiving this communication therefore the bank manager would put an order through to head office to supply the necessary amount, and it would be delivered by armoured car under guard and stored in the vault overnight. However, it was not the bank's policy for cash movements of this sort to be made in broken quantities. Notes could be requisitioned only in packets of 250, and coins only in bags of 100. Necessarily therefore the branch manager's requisition was a rounded up version of the amount actually required.

The morning after a delivery of the cash, before the bank opened its doors two tellers would enter the vault, and would there make up the amount of the impending withdrawal in the required quantities of each denomination, stacking it in cardboard trays on trolleys. When Clutterbuck's representatives arrived at the bank with the withdrawal cheque they would be escorted to the vault. Once they were satisfied that the cash was correct, they would depart with the loaded trolleys.

This system worked perfectly well for several years. And so, of course, the headquarters office of the Wheatsheaf bank called in a firm of efficiency experts to improve it.

The Experts Report

After an investigation involving much use of stopwatches, tape measures, clipboards, and slide rules, the efficiency consultants produced a one hundred page report which proved, by means of logarithms, graphs, pie charts, and contingency tables, that by adopting their recommendations the bank could reduce wear and tear of the floor covering by 3.17%, and save 5.39 man hours annually. What use might be made of the time thus saved was not specified, that question being left, one presumes, to be the subject of a further assignment.

Impressed by the handsome binding of the report, the Chairman and Board of the bank adopted its recommendations in toto.

The Counting Room

The principal result was the construction of an additional strong room, referred to as 'the counting room' to distinguish it from the main vault. Its door opened onto the floor of the bank not far from the front entrance. Under the new system this room would be used for the making up and paying out of the cash for Clutterbuck's salaries and wages.

The heavy steel door of the counting room was opened and closed by a conventional lever handle on both sides, an upward movement of which would shoot the door bolts home, and a downward movement withdraw them.

There was however a notable innovation in the means of entering the combination for locking and unlocking the door. Instead of a standard rotary dial, denigrated in the consultants' report as 'an outdated mechanical contrivance,' the combination for the new door was entered by pushing numbered buttons on a keypad mounted on the doorframe outside, recommended by the consultants as being 'an up-to-date electrical device.'

Once the counting room had been installed, the representative of the safe manufacturers who supplied the door demonstrated its operation to the staff of the bank. They were then ushered away while he changed the combination unobserved. He departed after having revealed the new number to the branch manager in the privacy of that individual's office.

The New System Goes Live

On the morning of the first operation of the new system there was an atmosphere of expectancy in the bank. At half past nine, two junior tellers, Bob Kilroy and Harry Johnson, were at their posts behind the counter, preparing their stations ready for the bank to open at ten o'clock. They watched as Mr Pringle, the branch manager, emerged from his office and walked in stately fashion the length of the floor to the counting room door.

Pringle ostentatiously looked to his left and right to ensure that there was no-one near to observe his movements, and punched four digits on the keypad in succession. He pushed the lever handle down and swung the door open. He stood by the open door with an air of supercilious smugness while Mr Fosdyke, the chief teller, assisted by the senior teller, wheeled two trolleys loaded with trays of cash from the vault into the counting room. Once they were safely inside, Pringle closed the door, pulled the handle up, and again punched digits on the keypad. He tested that the lever handle was now immovable and walked majestically back to his office, pleased to have demonstrated to his staff that he possessed powers which they did not.

At ten fifteen two clerks and a security guard from Clutterbuck's entered the bank. One of the clerks proffered the customary withdrawal cheque to a teller at the counter. The teller telephoned the manager's office with the news. Pringle came out of his office and escorted the trio to the counting room door. He then realised that their proximity imperilled his ability to enter the secret combination code unobserved, so he escorted them back to the counter. He returned to the door and opened it.

Pringle now found himself in a quandary. He could not leave the door while it was open when there was a great quantity of cash inside the counting room, but he had somehow to convey to the Clutterbuck's men that it was now permissible for them to return. They were conversing with the tellers at the counter, and paying no heed to him. He forced himself to make the undignified sounds and uncouth gestures necessary to attract their attention. Once the trio was safely inside the counting room, Pringle closed and locked the door.

As he lingered outside the room waiting for the Clutterbuck representatives to check that the money was correct, Pringle was aware that he might cut a somewhat ludicrous figure in the eyes of his staff. He tried to counter this by pacing to and fro with his hands clasped behind his back, his head down, and a frown upon his face, in the image of a man deep in serious thought. Whenever he glanced up and caught the eye of one of the junior tellers behind the counter, however, he could not help suspecting evidence of a hastily suppressed smirk. His disquiet was relieved when his secretary appeared at the other end of the floor and called, "Telephone call for you, Mr Pringle."

Grateful to be back in his office, Pringle snatched up the phone. "Pringle here."

"It's Fosdyke here, Sir, in the counting room. Just ringing to let you know that the Clutterbuck's people are ready to leave as soon as you open the door, Sir."

Pringle's response left Fosdyke wondering where the manager could have learned such an expression.

In high dudgeon Pringle strode the length of the floor to the counting room and released the Clutterbuck's trio. When they had departed with their cash, and Fosdyke and his assistant had taken the residue of the money back to the vault, he slammed the counting room door shut, and locked it. In bitter mood he returned to his office.

Being the sole holder of the combination code had at first seemed to be a privilege and symbol of power, but he now saw it as having relegated him to the menial role of doorman. He rang head office to discuss the matter. At the end of that call he was smiling again, and sent for his assistant, Mr Salmon.

When the Assistant Manager arrived, Pringle greeted him amiably. "Ah, Salmon, I have been in touch with head office about you, and they agree with me that your performance shows that you are ready to assume more responsibility."

"It's kind of you to say so, Sir."

"Not at all. As a start, head office has agreed, on my recommendation, that from now on you too will be entrusted with the code for the counting room door."

"Thank you, Sir." Salmon blushed with pride.

Pringle tore a leaf from a memo pad and wrote the four digits on it. "There you are, then." He handed the slip of paper to Salmon. "I suggest that you memorise the number and destroy the note." His conspiratorial tone suggested that that might best be done by eating it.

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

Back in his own office Salmon memorised the number and then hid the note in the traditional manner by taping it underneath the top right hand drawer of his desk, alongside the combination of the vault door.

Salmon Takes Over

The following month the junior tellers behind the counter of the bank watched with eager anticipation as the Assistant Manager entered upon his new role. Eschewing the air of majesty which Pringle had favoured, he sauntered to the counting room, beaming with great bonhomie upon Bob and Harry. They smiled back insincerely. Having admitted Fosdyke and the money into the counting room and locked them in, he returned to his office.

Calculating that Pringle's humbling experience the previous month had been the result of a failure to plan for the handling of the Clutterbuck staff, Salmon had issued instructions which he was confident would now remedy that weakness.

When the men from Clutterbuck's arrived, they were shown to his office. They remained there, attended by Miss Fernwood, the secretary he shared with the branch manager, while he went to open the counting room door. He had instructed Miss Fernwood to count to sixty before despatching them to follow him. Miss Fernwood, having left kindergarten some two score years ago, permitted herself to translate the instruction into adult terms and, correctly divining that Salmon wanted an interval of one minute, consulted the sweep second hand of her wrist watch to afford him this leeway.

Salmon began to enter the numbers on the keypad, congratulating himself on his prescience. He turned to see where the Clutterbuck's men were, thinking that perhaps he had given himself too much of a head start. The motion of his body caused his finger to slip.

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

The strident alarm sounded loudly throughout the bank. Salmon sprang back in fright, as though the keypad were suddenly red hot. The Clutterbuck's envoys were grinning at his discomfiture as they approached.

"Something's gone wrong," he explained to them, superfluously.

"You've entered the wrong number," the security man told him, with the condescension often shown by wage earners towards salaried staff.

"What shall I do?" Salmon asked in desperation.

"Why not try entering the right number," one of the Clutterbuck's clerks suggested irreverently.

Failing to detect the sarcasm, Salmon attempted to take the advice.

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

"You have to clear the wrong number first," the security man said contemptuously.

"How do I do that?" Salmon pleaded.

"They're all different. Could be anything. Didn't they give you any training when they installed the system?"

Salmon recalled that there had been something said along those lines, but he had not been paying attention at the time. "I was off sick that day," he lied. "My secretary was there. I shall ask her."

He led them back to his office, where Miss Fernwood, on being apprised of the problem, informed him that depressing and holding the zero key for three seconds would clear the wrong entry.

"Right," said Salmon decisively. "Let's start again. Remember to count to sixty, Miss Fernwood. No, wait a minute. There's an extra key to press now, so make it sixty-one. No, that won't do. I've got to hold it for three seconds. Let me see, you'd better count to sixty-four, or perhaps sixty-five. Maybe sixty-six, just to be sure."

As soon as he left, Miss Fernwood consulted her watch and muttered under her breath. "Did you say something, Miss?" one of the clerks asked. She shook her head. "Only I thought it sounded like 'pompous little squirt'" the clerk continued. She glared at him disapprovingly, but her frown was belied by a hint of a smile on her lips.

When Salmon arrived at the counting room door a lady with a small girl was about to leave the bank, and had stopped to check her purse. In order to prevent her from observing his actions Salmon stood up very close to the door, his chest almost touching the keypad, and brought his hands to the front, fumbling for the keys.

"Mummy, what is that man doing up against the wall?" The little girl's voice rang out loud and clear.

Salmon spun round in alarm. The woman was glaring accusingly at his nether regions. Fearing that he was indeed in disarray, Salmon looked down and hastily felt to ensure that he was decent. This gave him the appearance of a man tardily adjusting his dress outside a public convenience. The matron swept her child behind her defensively and declaimed, "Disgraceful! If my husband were here, Sir, he'd give you a good thrashing!"

Salmon stammered, "I..., I...," then gave up and fled to the sanctuary of his office.

Thirty minutes elapsed before Salmon could be persuaded to try once more, this time successfully, to open the counting room door. During the interval the clerks from Clutterbuck's had been in conversation with Bob and Harry, and the story of Salmon's debacle had spread throughout the bank in several lurid versions.

That afternoon Salmon sought an interview with the manager. "I have been thinking about our security arrangements, Sir. I think that Mr Pilbeam, as Chief Cashier, should also have the combination to the counting room door, in case I was off sick or on leave, for example." Seeing from Pringle's expression that the manager was about to refuse this request, he swiftly added, "Unless, of course Sir, you would prefer to operate the door yourself in those circumstances."

The scowl with which Pringle had initially greeted his assistant's suggestion cleared immediately. "Well thought, Salmon. Yes, see to it then will you?"

Pilbeam's Turn

When Salmon apprised Pilbeam of his new role, the Chief Cashier recognised immediately that he was being handed a poisoned chalice. "Mr Salmon, don't you think Fosdyke should be given the combination? Then he could let himself in."

Salmon pretended to give the matter some thought, pursing his lips and humming gently. Actually he was recalling an incident which had occurred at the staff Christmas party, when Miss Fernwood had icily declined his invitation to drive her home, and had gone off with Pilbeam instead. "That wouldn't do, Pilbeam, would it? For one thing, he wouldn't be able to lock the door behind him, would he?"

"He could lock the door from the outside. The senior teller could take his place inside the counting room, assisted by one of the juniors."

"I don't think so. That might make us dangerously understaffed at the counter."

"I didn't realise we lived in such perilous times, Mr Salmon."

"Perilous times? What are you babbling about, Pilbeam? Who said anything about perilous times?"

"Why, you did, Mr Salmon. You spoke of the danger inherent in our being one clerk short on the counter."

"I hope I don't detect a note of insolent sarcasm in your remarks, Pilbeam."

"I hope you don't as well, Sir."

"Watch it, Pilbeam, just watch it."

"Oh, I do, Mr Salmon. Eternal vigilance, that's my motto. A small price to pay for liberty, don't you think, Sir?"

"Don't think you're getting away with it. I've got my eye on you."

"Have you, Sir? It's gratifying to know that my efforts on the bank's behalf do not go unnoticed."

"Humph! Well, anyway, your request is denied. You will operate the counting room door."

Pilbeam and Fosdyke Conspire

A frustrated Pilbeam reported this exchange to his friend Fosdyke, who sympathised with him, adding, "He's wrong anyway, you know. I COULD lock the door behind me from the inside."

"What, you mean there's a keypad inside too? I didn't know that."

"No, there's no keypad, but there are a couple of buttons marked 'lock' and 'unlock.' You don't have to enter the combination."

"So once I've used the keypad to open the door to let you and your assistant in with the money, I can go back to my office and you can lock the door using the interior button?"