The shadow of the Wolf

by R. Austin Freeman

“I have,” said Thorndyke. “They were five-pound and twenty-pound notes, mostly passed in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland.”

“That’s the lot,” said Miller, “and first-class forgeries they were; and for a very good reason. They were made with the genuine moulds. Some six years ago, two moulds were lost or stolen from the works at Maidstone where the Bank of England makes its paper. They were the moulds for five- and twenty-pound notes, respectively, and each mould would make a sheet that would cut into two notes—a long, narrow sheet sixteen and three-quarter inches by five and five thirty-seconds in the case of a five-pound note. Well, we have been on the lookout for those forgers for years, but, naturally, they were difficult to trace, for the forgeries were so good that no one could tell them from the real thing but the experts at the Bank. You see, it is the paper that the forger usually comes a cropper over. The engraving is much easier to imitate. But this paper was not only made in the proper moulds with all the proper water-marks, but it seemed to be made by a man who knew his job. So you can reckon that Monk was as keen as mustard on getting those moulds.

“And get them he did. On our authority, Wilkins made him a duplicate key—we didn’t want to blow the safe open—and sure enough, as soon as he opened the door, there were the two moulds. So that’s that. There is an end of those forgeries. But the question is, Who and where the devil is this fellow Bromeswell? And there is another question. This only accounts for the paper. The engraving and printing were done somewhere else and by some other artist. We should like to find out who he is. But, for the present, he is a bird in the bush. Bromeswell is our immediate quarry.”

“He seems to be pretty much in the bush, too,” remarked Thorndyke. “Is there no trace of him at all? What about his agreement and his references?”

“Gone,” replied Miller. “When the Inn was sold most of the old papers were destroyed. They were of no use.”

“It is astonishing,” said Thorndyke, “that a man should have been in occupation of those chambers for years and remain completely unknown. And yet one sees how it can have happened with the change of porters. Duskin was the only link that we have with Bromeswell and Duskin is gone. As to his not being known by sight, he probably came to the chambers only occasionally, to make a batch of paper; and if there were no residents in his block no one would be likely to notice him.”

“No,” Miller agreed; “Londoners are not inquisitive about their neighbours, especially in a business quarter. This is the place, and those are his rooms on the second floor.”

As he paused by an ancient lamp-post near the postern gate that opens on Fetter Lane, the Superintendent indicated a small, dark entry and then nodded at a range of dull windows at the top of the old house. Then he crossed a tiny courtyard, plunged into the dark entry and led the way up the narrow stair, groping with his hand along the unseen hand-rail, and closely followed by Thorndyke.

At the first floor they emerged for a moment into modified daylight and then ascended another flight of dark and narrow stairs, which opened on a grimy landing whose only ornaments were an iron dust-bin and a gas meter, and which displayed a single iron-bound door above which appeared in faded white lettering the inscription “Mr. Bromeswell.”

The Superintendent unlocked the massive outer door, which opened with a rusty creak, revealing an inner door fitted with a knocker. This Miller pushed open and the two men entered the outer room of the “set” of chambers, halting just inside the door to make a general survey of the room, of which the most striking feature was its bareness. And this was really a remarkable feature when the duration of the tenancy was considered. In the course of some years of occupation the mysterious tenant had accumulated no more furniture than a small kitchen table, a Windsor chair, a canvas-seated camp armchair, a military camp bedstead with a sleeping-bag and a couple of rugs and a small iron safe.