Making Money

‘So …’ said Adora Belle, ‘a mad old lady — all right, a very astute mad old lady — died and gave you her dog, which sort of wears this bank on its collar, and you’ve told everyone that gold is worth less than potatoes, and you broke a dastardly criminal out of your actual Death Row, he’s in the cellar designing “banknotes” for you, you’ve upset the nastiest family in the city, people are queueing to join the bank because you make them laugh … what have I missed?’

‘I think my secretary is, uh, getting sweet on me. Well, I say secretary, she’s sort of assumed that she is.’

Some fiancées would have burst into tears or shouted. Adora Belle burst out laughing.

‘And she’s a golem,’ said Moist.

The laughter stopped. ‘That’s not possible. They don’t work that way. Anyway, why should a golem think he’s female? It’s never happened before.’

‘I bet there haven’t been many emancipated golems before. Besides, why should he think he’s male? And she bats her eyelashes at me … well, that’s what she thinks she’s doing, I think. The counter girls are behind this. Look, I’m serious. Trouble is, so is she.’

‘I’ll have a word with him … or, as you say, her.’

‘Good. The other thing is, there’s this man—’

Aimsbury poked his head around the door. He was in love.

‘Would you like some more minced collops, miss?’ he said, waggling his eyebrows as if to indicate that the joys of minced collops were a secret known only to a few.[6]

‘You’ve still got more?’ said Adora Belle, looking down at her plate. Not even Mr Fusspot could have cleaned it better, and she’d already cleaned it twice.

‘Do you know what they are?’ said Moist, who’d settled again for an omelette, made by Peggy.

‘Do you?’

‘No!’

‘Nor do I. But my granny used to do them and they are one of my happiest childhood memories, thank you very much. Don’t spoil it.’ Adora Belle beamed at the delighted chef. ‘Yes please, Aimsbury, just a little more, then. And could I just say that the flavour could really be brought out by just a touch of gar—’

‘You are not eating, Mr Bent,’ said Cosmo. ‘Perhaps a little of this pheasant?’

The chief cashier looked around nervously, uneasy in this grand house full of art and servants. ‘I … I want to make it clear that my loyalty to the bank is—’

‘—beyond question, Mr Bent. Of course.’ Cosmo pushed a silver tray towards him. ‘Do eat something, now you have come all this way.’

‘But you are hardly eating at all, Mr Cosmo. Just bread and water!’

‘I find it helps me think. Now, what was it you wanted to—’

‘They all like him, Mr Cosmo! He just talks to people and they like him! And he is really set on dismissing gold. Think of it, sir! Where would we find true worth? He says it’s all about the city but that puts us at the mercy of politicians! It’s trickery again!’

‘A little brandy would do you good, I think,’ said Cosmo. ‘And what you say is solid gold truth, but where is our way forward?’

Bent hesitated. He did not like the Lavish family. They crawled over the bank like ivy, but at least they didn’t try to change things and at least they believed in the gold. And they weren’t silly.

Mavolio Bent had a definition of ‘silly’ that most people would have considered a touch on the broad side. Laughter was silly. Theatricals, poetry and music were silly. Clothes that weren’t grey, black or at least of undyed cloth were silly. Pictures of things that weren’t real were silly (pictures of things that were real were unnecessary). The ground state of being was silliness, which had to be overcome with every mortal fibre.

Missionaries from the stricter religions would have found in Mavolio Bent an ideal convert, except that religion was extremely silly.

Numbers were not silly. Numbers held everything together. And gold was not silly. The Lavishes believed in counting and in gold. Mr Lipwig treated numbers as if they were something to play with and he said gold was just lead on holiday! That was more than silly, it was inappropriate behaviour, a scourge that he had torn from his breast after years of struggle.

A man had to go. Bent had worked his way up the echelons of the bank over many years, fighting every natural disadvantage, and it hadn’t been to see this … person make a mockery of it all! No!

‘That man came to the bank again today,’ he said. ‘He was very odd. And he seemed to know Mr Lipwig, but he called him Albert Spangler. Talked as if he knew him from long ago and I think Mr Lipwig was upset at that. Name of Cribbins, or so Mr Lipwig called him. Very old clothes, very dusty. He made out he was a holy man, but I don’t think so.’

‘And that was what was odd, was it?’

‘No, Mr Cosmo—’

‘Just call me Cosmo, Malcolm. We surely needn’t stand on ceremony.’

‘Er … yes,’ said Mavolio Bent. ‘Well, no, it wasn’t that. It was his teeth. They were those dine-chewers, and they moved and rattled when he spoke, causing him to slurp.’

‘Ah, the old type with the springs,’ said Cosmo. ‘Very good. And Lipwig was annoyed?’