One Shoe Gumshoe

"Famous for silver plated plates, trays and teapots?"

"Yes, they were but ... and this is the clincher, when Goldbergs silver plated the common base metals they used, like nickel-iron, they applied a very thin plate of pure gold, a few pennies-worth per item, to ensure the silver plating would be even and more lustrous."

"Which means?"

"Which means that theoretically they could silver plate solid gold just as well as a thin layer of gold plate. I found a book about silver plating that mentioned Albert Goldberg's father, Abraham by name, as perfecting the method in the 1870s. So, they could silver plate on solid gold, but why would any respectable silversmith cover a valuable metal with a cheaper one?"

"Unless your silversmith was not so respectable?" Mary suggested.

"Indeed, unless your silversmith wanted to hide the gold to get past the ports actively looking for gold, and avoid import duty. They melted down the gold, recast it in the form of plates, trays, teapots, whatever they could cast, plated it in silver and stamped it all up as cheap, electro-plated silver plate and shipped it to the States, paying a little import duty for such cheap low-price imports and their stock in trade for their new business in New York. Then melted it all down again and recast it into gold ingots. Then sat on it for a few years until the hue and cry went down and sold it anonymously through an agent to, of all people, Fort Knox."

"I think you're right, they did. Then they used that money on the other side of the continent and bought their way into the emerging film industry."

"They cheated the Cavenaghs and apparently killed Cavenagh's uncle who had accompanied them over to the States to keep an eye on their investment. That's where the 'eye for an eye' came in and poor Brad Gold was murdered."

"Only the Goldberg's weren't murderers, Ed, they didn't kill Cavenagh's uncle, I believe that he was in on the scam all along."

"Yes? What are you telling me, Mary?"

"Cavenagh's uncle was almost certainly a man called Bernard Cavenagh, who was probably Alfred Goldberg's main contact when the Cavenaghs were recycling stolen gold and silver through Goldberg's silversmiths. They could use small amounts of gold to improve the lustre of the silver plate on stolen goods, with the Goldbergs changing the assay stamps for resale, but the gold bullion stolen was too hot to handle and there was too much of it to dispose of and get a decent return. They must've mulled it over for years, as you said, the Yard were still looking for it in 1909 and still talking about it in 1916.

Emigrating the whole Goldberg family to New York, and taking their stock of cheap silver plate with them, was a perfect cover. If they were trying to pass off silver plate as solid silver, the customs people would be immediately suspicious of a relatively poor immigrant family. No-one would pass off expensive goods as cheap plate deliberately, so who would think of assaying something already apparently stamped as electroplated in London?"

"Yes, I can see that," I said, "and the gold was stolen, and the capital produced was turned into a moving picture empire that has entertained the public for years, so the only ones who lost were the Cavenagh family that stole it in the first place. The Goldbergs would be almost like modern day Robin Hoods, except that we don't know what the fate of the trusted Cavenagh uncle was."

"I do know his fate," Mary said, "or at least I'm 99% sure I do."

"How?"

"Brad told me that when they came into America as Goldbergs they wanted to become more American, so when they applied for US citizenship, which was an easy written test for English speakers, they changed their name to Gold. And, Ed, I'm guessing here, when my husband's namesake, his 'uncle' Bernard and his wife became US citizens they changed their name from Cavenagh to Cave."

"Bernard Cave? ... Bernie Cave?"

"Yes, Albert's best friend and next door neighbour, who has been a partner in the Gold Studio forever and who regarded Brad Gold as almost his son."

"Blimey, Mary, it makes sense, and Cummings clearly knew all about it, while Cavenagh was clueless during his earlier dealings with Gold, buying his flat, and must've found out once Mullinger, the lifelong friend of Gold, let slip what his birth name was and his history."

"Yes, and Brad must've suspected something when reintroduced to Curly Cavenagh by Keppel when he moved back to London from East Anglia and the briefing about looking for gold and silver bullion."

"Which is why he was in contact with 'C', to look into his family's East London connection without involving the Federal Government."

"Yes. So Gold was killed in vengeful rage for the death of an uncle, who was not only still alive and living more than comfortably as a wealthy Californian but, as you said, regarded the man that Cavenagh killed with as much love as if he was his own son."

"Yeah, and I will have to go straight to visit both Albert and Bernie as soon as I get back home to Burbank and explain why Brad was killed. I am not looking forward to that conversation."

"So Brad Gold really was a victim of the sins of the fathers."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FAREWELL

THE train left the station in a cloud of white steam, taking Mary away from me forever, it seemed. She was about to throw herself back into the charged atmosphere of make-believe adventure and romance that is the movie business, as a single, unattached, desirable and very beautiful woman, in my mind to be surrounded by slavering wolves in the guise of leading men used to getting their way with any women they temporarily desired. While I returned to my life as a single and seriously unattached bachelor, who had been touched by love twice in my lifetime and already resigned to coping with the loss I felt heavy in my heart.

It would be hard to get over Mary, the lovely girl behind that highly public persona.

I know my pain was self-inflicted, but it would be all my own fault this time. I chided myself for being such an old fool, especially as Mary had warned me at the outset not to fall in love with her.

I know why she warned me, but who can really help having any significant influence over how we feel about someone special who has drifted into one's life only to be snatched back again in the realities of the different lives we lead?

I tried my hardest to be brave, to straighten my back, hold my head high and cheerfully wave her on her way home with God speed.

I tried, but at the end I was left confused and heartbroken.

Now she'd gone and I was alone once more, my shoulders slipped into a slump of depression that I had fallen into and I felt wearied by the effort of simply going on, however much I knew I had to. We both of us had obligations which kept us each side of an ocean.

She had slipped a brown envelope into the inside pocket of my jacket, I had noticed, immediately before we embraced on the platform.

I had already been paid well enough for my detective work and neither expected nor needed a bonus, but it would have been churlish to raise any argument at our emotional time of parting.

If it was in the form of a cheque or banker's draft I could always tear it up or ignore it. I really wanted for nothing that money would buy.

I didn't even feel like going back to the office after a week away, although I thought there might be some post there to deal with. Instead, I decided to go back to my digs to retrieve the magazine I borrowed over a week ago and return it to the library as soon as they opened at 9.30 this morning. Thus severing my last personal involvement with the Gold case.

With my recall to New Scotland Yard, confirmed to start next Monday, I had a few days yet to close down the Mile End office and get everything in order before commencing my new role as a Chief Superintendent of Detectives.

The young librarian was there in my local library as usual and she blessed me with one of her rare smiles when she returned my battered library card in exchange for the returned magazine, whispering, "Did you know that one of Marcia la Mare's newest films, from 1938, a Cowboy and Indian adventure romance, "The Western Frontier", was on at the Roxy all this week and they have a special matinee on early closing Wednesday afternoon?"

"Are you going to see it?" I asked quietly.

"Well, Mr Onslow," she leaned over the counter and I imagine she must have spoke in hushed tones, "yes, although I've seen it twice before when it came around the circuit the first time, but I would love to see it again. Wasn't it a shame though, what happened to Miss la Mare's husband? I think a lot of people will go to see it in sympathy of her losing her hero. And he wasn't just playing a hero, Brad Gold was a true real life hero, I think. I am going to go with my friend Mavis, would you like to come and watch it with us?"

The statement from both authorities of New Scotland Yard and Gold's family, was that Brad Gold was a hero, who returned from a bombing mission over Germany, and shortly after died of his wounds. There was a short private ceremony in a synagogue close to his birthplace in East London, which made the front page of all the national newspapers, before his body was flown back to his family in California.

I whispered back, that it was indeed a pity about Bradford Gold, but that, "I have trouble watching flickering films, as they give me such terrible headaches and I haven't been to the pictures for over twenty years. Besides that, I've perforated by eardrum and need to keep it covered up. Probably won't here a thing for another month."

I pointed to my discrete cotton wool bud in my ear.

"Oh dear, Mr Onslow, that's such a shame, but the new colour pictures are so much smoother and less flickery than the old black and whites used to be and the sound is like actually being there where the action is happening. Tell you what, Mavis and I normally go to the tea bar just around the corner immediately after the main feature finishes," she told me, "If you want to join us after the film for tea we would tell you all about the movie."

I agreed that that might be quite enjoyable. I probably needed to be more sociable and it would be nice to hear young people talk about Mary and her performances, and speaking honestly about their opinion of her, not knowing of my once tenuous connection with the movie star.

Out of habit, I collected a couple of the newspapers from the library stand, to start searching the gossip columns for possible clients and sat in the otherwise deserted reference section, thinking instead that I would check for any crime and court news instead.

I took my coat off for comfort in the warm building and, in doing so, felt the envelope that Mary had pushed with a triumphant smile into my inside pocket when we embraced at the station early that morning. I pulled out what turned out to be a thick package and laid it on top of the newspapers. I was intrigued as it clearly contained something hard and metallic, judging by the weight.

I peeled the envelope open and shook out a pair of keys on a keyring, with a metal tag engraved with the name of Gold Pictures Ltd. Inside the envelope were two sets of legal foolscap sheets stapled together, plus a folded quarto page. I pulled out the documents and examined them.

Unfolding the quarto sheet revealed it to be a curious typewritten letter from the London office of Gold Pictures Limited, signed in a bold signature by "Jenny Mac", consisting of an invitation to a London world premier of a motion picture sometime in September 1941, some six or seven months into the future, the actual date, time and title of the film to be declared in a letter to me nearer the time, followed by a black tie dinner dance reception at the same hotel that Mary had booked into over the last ten days. The invitation continued that I was to be in company at the Film Premiere and dinner following with Miss la Mare and included chauffeured transport from my home and back again. I was instructed to RSVP Mrs Jenny MacArthur at the Gold Pictures Limited London Office.

The foolscap documents proved to be two identical copies of a tenant agreement, for the "furnished flat at 77 Denmark Hill Road", for a period delineated from immediate vacant possession as dated above (which was today's date) until one complete calendar month after the cessation of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany and her allies, when further occupation by the sitting tenant would be subject to a revised agreement. The Agreement stated that the flat owner agreed to pay for all utility services provided and complete cleaning-up of the recent incident in the flat before the tenant occupies the flat. One provision is that the owner would need to share the three-bedroom flat with the owner from time to time during the period of the tenancy, with one week's notice of arrival given. The agreed rent was to be one penny per annum or part of a calendar year and any sub-letting restricted to prior arrangement with the owner, all correspondence to be forwarded and returned through her London office of Gold Pictures Limited via Mrs Jenny MacArthur. The Agreement was signed on the back page by "Mrs Mary Jones-Gold, widow, owner", and witnessed by "Mrs Jenny MacArthur, executor of the Estate of Bradford Gold" and a treacherous solicitor very well known to me by the name of Matthew Conroy, my own solicitor. I only had to sign both agreements, keep one and return the other Agreement to Jenny at her office.

Well, it was a wonderful gesture by Mary, a vast improvement on my present digs and the area certainly had a friendly community, and was better for me than any cash bonus, which might have proved embarrassing, and I supposed Mary could consider me to be a trusted tenant to keep the place looked after until the end of the war and Mary could then realise its proper market value in restored peacetime.

The envelope still feel like it had something else in the bottom of it. I tipped it up and out fell a square of cotton. I smiled, realising it was probably one of Mary's handkerchiefs that her mother had embroidered with "MJ". I already had one that I kept in my pocket at all times since she gave it to me in that very flat that was now to be my home until the end of the war, although when that welcome event would be God only knew.

I unfolded the handkerchief and found a small business card tucked inside, one of her "Mrs Mary Jones, assistant private investigator" cards that she had prepared through the concierge at her hotel, a memento of our partnership together these past few days.

So few days, I thought, not long enough for a silly old man like me to fall in love, right? Wrong, I fell for her in the first two days. On the back of the card she had written a message in her small, neat feminine handwriting. As I read the note my heart missed a beat. Under her ranch address and telephone number in Montana she had written:

"My dearest Edgar, I hope you'll write me often about your every day life (that's a strong hint by the way), & I'll write you about my every day on set or ranch. I wish I could take you away from danger like Milly, my darling man, but I know you want & need to do your duty & I realise your country needs you now almost as much as I. Meanwhile, I will try and keep people's spirits up by entertaining them on the silver screen so they know what they are fighting for. I hope you'll ask me the question I wish for, my darling, when I see you again in the Fall & not wait until the end of the war, or I promise I'll come gunning for you on Feb. 29, '44,War or No War. All my love, yours forever Mary xxx."

Then I noticed the embroidery on the tiny handkerchief in more detail. I wondered if Mr Sims or one of his tailoring acquaintances had a hand in the execution of the added embroidery.

Added to the "MJ" was a hyphen and an "O", "MJ-O".

It appears that I not only have a dancing date to look forward to after watching my first ever talking colour picture in the autumn, but a possibility of a new life in a brave new wonderful world at the world war's end.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Friday 28 September 1941

WHILE I waited for Mary's train to come into Paddington Station the events of the last seven months played through my head. The judicial system in England and Wales is a behemoth, tortuously slow and justice takes a long time. There are sound reasons for this, it allows better evidence to show up, more witnesses to come forward, better consideration of the facts and hopefully better judgements. And the accused too have longer to examine their consciences and reflect on the scales of justice.

During wartime, though, especially when the state is in peril and could collapse shortly after the next tide, the system is swift and vengeful.

McLean, Bellows and Rawlings, plus seventeen other guilty parties unknown to me, were hanged for treason before Easter, while Cummings and Finlay got twenty years' imprisonment and most of the others involved received anything between five and thirty years. Lord Carlos was stripped of his peerage and gaoled for twenty years.

Morely Makepeace was promoted to Police Commissioner and knighted for heading up the investigation leading to the eradication of the Nazi cell that threatened to bring down the Coalition Government, but no news of that ever reached the newspapers.

I was reinstated at New Scotland Yard as detective chief superintendent, and I gathered together a new team to investigate black market activities within the Metropolitan area. I asked for and had Jock assigned as my permanent driver, although I had Mary's little Ford to use that my brother-in-law Jack had collected and stored for us.

Bradford Gold was buried at home in Burbank with full military honours, having died during service with the Federal Government in a war zone. He was also posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by HM The King for bringing his damaged Wellington back from Germany and saving the lives of most of the crew.

I visited Gunter Petersen a couple of times in Mortlake and was pleased to see that he was much chirpier and making good progress with training in using his new false leg. His knowledge of Dutch, Danish, German and Norwegian fishing ports was extensive and I put out feelers with the few contacts I'd made in the intelligence service with Gold's case. When I last saw him, Gunter couldn't give me any details but he was involved in discussions with intelligence officers about helping contacting Danish trawlers at sea by submarines or fast torpedo boats, gaining intelligence and establishing a means of supplying radios and arms to resistance groups and provide channels for getting escaped or shot down aircrews out via the sea and get them back home.

Old Bert the caretaker was never charged with any offence.

Curiously no one ever asked what happened to Rawlings' police car, so my sister Hettie and brother-in-law Jack were never questioned about its disappearance. The little Ford motor car that Mary bought is stored in the yard at the flat in Denmark Hill and I use it occasionally when off-duty, although the petrol allowance only gives me about half to three-quarters of an hour's driving a week, and there are rumours that the petrol allowance for private cars will stop completely in a few months' time. Jack has offered to mothball it in one of his lock-ups until peacetime.

Pattie is getting on very well at her art school and she stayed with me in Denmark Hill at Easter and again during the long summer holiday. Her mother Martha was not a widow as I had supposed, but an unmarried mother, who inherited the tenancy on her lodging house from her mother's sister. Unfortunately, Martha was bombed out in March and, just before Pattie was due home from school at Easter, Martha rang me at the Yard and asked if I could put the girl up for the two weeks she was "home"; Martha had been rehoused in an old Underground tunnel, where she was sleeping in bunk beds in old disused tunnels, often 500 to 800 bunks per tunnel and she didn't want to subject Pattie to that environment where she didn't even feel comfortable herself. Apparently, a form of biting midge has adapted to the hot, humid and stuffy condition and the inmates were being bitten unmercilessly.