Perhaps it is superfluous to mention that my mentor is an extreme opponent for details. .Attention to details are pursued in cleaning, cooking, repairing clocks and watches and even simply walking around outside for his evening stroll. In most of what he does he pays minute attention as to how the activity is performed and to what tools are used. I've come to suspect that he sees everything as a watch mechanism. All parts of life have to fit perfectly and work in unison. If one part is not aligned the whole is useless. There is however one facet of his life to which he paid not much attention until recently. Money had never been anything of great concern. Not that the man was wealthy and could afford financial neglect, not in the least. He had what he needed and a little bit more to fund his exotic hobbies. Sometimes outsiders even funded his elaborate projects, which quite honestly made the endeavors possible in the first place. To Hubbard, money was something stored in a large stone chamber in a pyramid somewhere far away, when bullion was needed the banker would roll the entrance stone away and take out the requested amounts. The watchmaker's money was held by the Bank of England, a fine and old institution, which perfectly matched Hubbard's concept of a large stone vault in the depths of a pyramid.

Banks have always been institutions of permanence and stability, even though no building has more coming out and going in than a bank. The Bank of England was one such place, importance and a grandeur of wealth oozing out from between the very bricks it was made of. Dickens had the following to say about it: Bank of England, Threadneedle-street (Founded 1694), is divided into the following departments: The Accountant’s, the Cashier’s, and the Secretary’s, all of which have a vast number of smaller subdivisions, which are rendered necessary by the great and intricate business transacted by the Bank. The office hours are 9 to 4, and the Bank has a branch at Burlington-gardens, Bond-street. A fine institution indeed and one Hubbard was quite comfortable with trusting his money too. Even after the robbery that never happened.

This evening just after dinner we were visited by inspector Harris, full name Harris Rigby but everybody knew him simply as Harris.. Helen was just cleaning up and I was helping her a bit, or should I say she made me clear the table and I thought it wise to keep going until there were no more obvious chores to be done. Hubbard had pointed out a book on the history of the ancient Greeks and I did not want any interruptions that evening when I broke the text. The spine of a book can be said to be broken but what really happens is that the story is opened up and the text itself is broken. Starting a new book is always an exciting endeavor, where you slowly ease yourself into the world of the author's choosing. Even books on history, where you have to create and weave the stories yourself, have a textual depth to them. What is exciting about historical books is that they contain stories that really happened. Harris ruined that promised exploration of distant lands inhabited by people long forgotten.

 

Harris walked briskly up the stairs after Helen had opened the door for him. Before he even reached the dining room he was already shouting: "Hubbard this one's for you. It's a  bloody mess we're in!" My mentor who did not get easily excited was stuffing his pipe at the moment and ignored the stampeding inspector. "Davies tells me you're the man for the job. Says you're good at locks and bolts and mechanical things. Well I have a beauty here for you!", continued Harris as if Hubbard was listening to him. "Harris have a seat and take your hat off, you're indoors now", said the watchmaker, still ignoring the inspector's gaze. "Now, tell me what's going on and tell me in detail. Helen could you please make a cup of tea for inspector Harris?" Harris took off his hat and overcoat, which he carelessly put over the seat of a chair. He sat his heavy frame down and pulled out a pipe of his own which he furiously started to stuff with tobacco, all the while mumbling: "bloody thieves, can't leave them banks alone on my watch." "I take it you're here to tell me about a bank robbery", asked Hubbard pleasantly. "No shit Sherlock", replied the inspector.

As the Scotland Yard representative made himself comfortable with his pipe and a cup of tea, he calmed down somewhat. "This morning we received a report from the Bank of England on Threadneedle street that there had been a robbery that night. We arrived at the bank at around nine, where we found the bank manager almost in tears. Other than that we did not notice anything out of the ordinary, well at least not immediately. The cash registers were untouched. None of the windows were forced and the doors were all intact. We were shown into the vault where we again we found nothing special, no signs of break-in, nothing touched and no money, no nothing. Empty, completely empty it was. Not a sliver of paper not a hint of bullion. Apparently, this was the state which the bank personnel had found the basement when they came to work. Clean as a whistle. There was nothing to be done but go through the regular police work of securing the area and start the interviews. I had three constables with me, one I placed at the entrance, one I had stand guard outside the vault and one I asked to start interviewing the personnel. For hours I went through that place. No scratches on metal, indicating possible usage of crowbars or lock picking. The floor was dry, completely dry and no footprints could be found.

Wondering how the hell they had done it I decided to take a break and talk to the bank manager. Perhaps he knew more of this madness. He was in his office talking to various clerks and messengers. 'I've informed the owners and they are not happy, not happy indeed', he told me. 'This is most unfortunate, if only it had happened a week later. I was about to retire you know', he rattled off. 'Calm yourself', I said, 'all hope is not lost, we will get at the bottom of this.' 'I already did and it's empty, you saw for yourself!' It was impossible to talk to the man and I decided to try later. Instead I spoke with his assistant. Assistants usually know just as much as their bosses do, plus a bit more. His name was Friers and had been with the bank for ten years. 'Tell me, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in and around the bank lately?' I asked. 'What exactly do you mean by that?' he asked. Even though he was getting cheeky with me, at least he was prepared to talk. 'Anything that should not happen in a bank', I said. 'Nothing comes to mind right now sir. We always have small things that occur at the registers angry customers and such and we've had some construction on the roof to replace a faulty chimney, It's been going on for a while now. 'The annoying customers or the construction?', I asked. He did not think this was funny and continued blankly: "Can't remember much more than that really. We had a problem with the loading of a small number of gold bars a week ago, but that was resolved on the spot.' 'Gold bars?', I asked, 'what exactly happened to them?'

'We sometimes store small quantities of gold for other banks. These bars are usually in transit from the continent and we keep them in our vault until the recipient bank sends for their pickup. This particular lot was going to a branch of the Bank of Scotland. Last week on Tuesday we moved the gold from the vault into the back of the bank. All under guard of course. We did not want to move the gold through the bank for everyone to see so we moved it during the night and place it in such a way that it could be easily loaded into a waiting carriage. Anyway, when we started moving the bars into the back of the carriage that would take them away, we realized the beams were not thick enough to hold the load. Bars of gold spilled all over the streets. Nothing went missing and nobody really saw what happened. It was just an embarrassing situation. We put all the bars back into their boxes and finished loading them.

"Exactly why are you telling me this?" I asked the clerk. "There was nothing peculiar about the transport or the boxes other than that they were the wrong boxes", he told me. "Wrong boxes?" I asked, "how would you know?" "Well sir, we normally store bars of gold in our own wooden cases when they come in from the outside. They have the bank's mark stamped on each side. These ones where the exact same crates, but without the insignias", he said, "We thought it damn peculiar but made nothing of it. Chances are we were using the ones we had and there were simply not enough to go round. It was just peculiar, you see." He told me other tidbits of gossip and the like but nothing really interesting, people who had gotten fired, inflammatory cases of bank receipts gone missing of important accounts and the like. I questioned various other staff members but they all claimed it had been business as usual. People walk in and out of a bank on a regular basis, clients, suppliers, chimney sweeps, construction people, the lot really. At first I became curious about the construction people barging in and out but they were restoring the chimney system and would only visit the roof and the basement underneath the vault. A guard was posted at all times when they were in the building and were followed any time they were even close to the money. There is no access to the vault from the basement where the boiler is and I checked, nothing was altered, moved or broken into. Of course the roof itself was inspected as well, but everything checked out, new chimney, new pipes. They even added a small tool shed in case the roof started leaking again as it has many times in the past. Finally I interviewed the construction crew and they gave the same account as I heard from everyone else, the stories checked out. If you think I've missed anything please let me know.

"Can I ask you to show me around, I would like to become familiar with the layout of the premises." I said. "Absolutely inspector, where would you like to start?", Friers asked. "Here would be fine, tell me how the bank operates and how money is transported within the building", I replied. "Very well", replied Friers slipping into the normal tone of voice used for customers. We exited the bank manager's office and went into the main hall. "This here is what most of our clients see and where they do most of their transactions. We have numerous desks where customers can fill out checks and deposit slips. In the center of the room against the back wall the central register is placed. We take care of all direct interaction with clients here. As you can see we keep cabinets with business account registers available right behind it. If you will be so kind as to look up you will see the rest of our client's documentation and financial information". Friers was gesturing to parts of the second level that were visible from the main hall. All around the upper level one can see rows and rows of shelves containing various forms of paperwork. Staircases all around provided quick access to the clerks below and all through the day a stream of people can be seen traversing the floors and stairs. "There is not much of interest here inspector", said Friers, "let me take you into the back instead." He walked with me into a hallway just behind the central banking area from where small corridors spread out into offices and numerous small rooms. "This is where the real banking happens, all of the requests from customers are processed here. We mainly check the amounts and register the transactions. Most of what we do revolves around verifying to see if the requested amounts are actually available. Of course we also take care of our own internal finances here. Interest rates, financial forecasts are all calculated in these offices. Now, perhaps I should better take you downstairs." Friers guided me towards the back of the bank into a room that connects to the road behind the bank. "This is the room I told you about, we do all of our shipping here. It provides access directly to the vault and the basement, let me show you", he continued. Friers walked to the far right corner of the room and opened two wide doors that opened a large black hole in the wall. Upon closer inspection it contained a set of slightly downward sloping stairs that wound into the earth. "Follow me please", said Friers. "The underground portion of the bank is divided into two areas, one on top of the other. Immediately below the bank is the vault." I interrupted the assistance's explanation wondering how the rooms were connected: "Are these stairs the only access to the vault?" "Yes they are", said Friers, "That was done quite intentionally I believe. It makes it easy to guard."

When we had followed the winding staircase one revolution downwards, we found ourselves in a small almost empty room. I had been here not long ago to do my initial inspection and found constable Jones still there. Jones had sat himself down at the only table present and jumped up when we arrived. "Sit down Jones, the crime has already been committed", I said. "I've seen the vault, there's nothing in there of interest to me." There were only empty boxes, empty shelves and a counting and distribution table, which was nothing more but a solid oak raised construction on which guards and clerks could place incoming or outgoing precious metals or paper. "Please show me the basement", I said. We continued our journey and made our way down the stairs another turn, until we arrived in a similar room, but one much larger. A wall of metal bars with a door separated us from the inside of the storage room. "It's nothing special really", said Friers, "We keep supplies here and shipping materials. Those boxes I told you about came from here." Indeed this was a messy, dirty, but otherwise normal storage space. The only difference with the room above us was that there was a fireplace here. Friers must have noticed that I was curious about this and he said: "Yes there is no access to the chimney from the vault. Before there was a bank here the basement was used for let's say entertainment purposes. It was the same with the vault upstairs but we had the fireplace removed and the hole closed." I went through the place with extreme care but could not find anything out of the ordinary. All the while Friers was standing there, curiously observing my actions. When my search yielded no new information I told him I had seen enough for now. We went upstairs where I tried to reason one more time with the bank manager, but to no avail. The man was a mess.

This evening when I reported back to the Yard I ran into Davies who said you might help. He said it reminded him of a certain case to do with Big Ben, no idea what he meant by that. As inspector Harris finished his story I noticed that Hubbard was blushing. "Ah yes I remember that, he was a good sport about that case", he said. "Not to worry inspector I think you will have the bank's money back in a couple of days", he added. "You must be joking, don't tell me you already know how they moved all that cash?" Harris asked with astonishment. "Yes it's quite simple actually. Tell me have they finished with the chimney?" Hubbard asked with a glint in his eye. "No they have not, in fact they will put the finishing touches on it in two days. Something about putting the top pipes on the main stove after the chimney has been finished." Hubbard was quite pleased with himself, his pipe steamed like a locomotive. Then we will see each other again after you have apprehended the criminals two days from now. My mentor would not say another word, getting Harris quite agitated. "Come now inspector, you have all the information you need. You're quite capable of figuring this one out for yourself", Hubbard said smiling, "two days and you will have your bounty."

There was nothing left for the poor inspector but to go home, which he did with a glum face. We did not hear from him for two days, not a sound or message. Nothing in the newspapers either about apprehensions or even possible suspects. The bank robbery itself made big headlines of course. All the two days before the inspector returned we had people in the store speculating as to how the robbers had managed to remove the money from the bank. Welder thought it was quite embarrassing for Scotland Yard and he vowed never to keep his money in an English bank. When I asked him where he would store his money instead, he started mumbling something about Swiss bank accounts. Hubbard was in a good mood, better than usual since the man could otherwise be found in various stages of melancholy. "You will see. He will figure it out at the right time", he kept saying to me and Helen. Helen did not care too much about the events at the bank. She was pre-occupied with the arrival of a French maid in Welder's household, about whom it was whispered that her cooking skills outdid Helen's. Every meal we were now asked if the meal was up to snuff and if she could make improvements. We were treated to a variety of Russian dishes of questionable content, of which I remember only some. Most of the of the lingering flavors reminded me of dried meats. Only after assuring Helen that her cooking had never been better and surely outdid any French cuisine no matter who prepared it, did she waver and retreated.

Exactly two days later, around the same time of his first visit, did inspector Harris enter our abode again. He came in with his bowler in his hands and a slightly sheepish countenance. It was Helen who had opened the door. Helen, who is normally given only a cursory glance, was now treated to a loud 'Hullo' and a 'How're ya doing miss?' Harris did not rush up the stairs this time, but instead waited politely for our maid to show him into the library. Hubbard stood up and kindly extended his hand. "I take it you've met with some success?", he asked. Davies replied rapidly: "Indeed I have, how did you know all of this. All I had to do was wait and post officers at all the entrances and they walked straight into our arms. Jeremy my boy, your mentor is very clever. He figured out the whole thing and did not even leave his chair. Hubbard, you deserve a medal." "Now now", said the old man, "I did not do anything, it was you who actually caught the criminals. But tell me what happened?"

"After I got home", Harris continued, "I related to my wife all that you had said. She's a stoic that one and she calmly said I should do exactly what you had told me and post constables at all exits. Part of me was still angry that both an old watchmaker and my wife told me what to do, normally I resent even my superiors doing that, but there was no harm in posting a few extra men. That evening after I had my meal I went to the Yard and from there took several of the more alert officers with me to the bank. They took positions not directly at the bank but slightly at a distance. Nothing happened and after the first day I was called into the chief's office to explain why I had taken extra men from their regular duties to watch a bank that had already been robbed. It was embarrassing since the only I explanation I could give was that you sir had told me to do this. Luckily your name is familiar around the station and I was allowed to keep the men at their locations for one more day. Exactly two days later, just after we had changed shifts, constable Boyle noticed something queer. Good lad he is, very keen and very observant. I might have to persuade my chief to transfer him to me. Anyway, Boyle runs towards after me as I had just left and caught me in time to show me four construction workers leave the bank Don't be daft Boyle, I told him, you know they are doing construction work, now get back to your post before you really do miss something. 'Parden me sir but didn't you say the construction crew had left before the burglary and had not been back since?' 'Yes', I replied, 'and now they're back, what's your point?' See I was getting quite angry now. 'Well, sir no construction crew had gone back in since the robbery, so where did these men come from?' You should have seen me run and blow me whistle. My guys had them surrounded fast like. Not that they were going anywhere fast, not with them wheelbarrows."

"From there it was an easy case. We found the supplies and materials they had used in the little shed up on the roof of the bank. They had made themselves quite comfortable they sure had. Plenty of food, cards, even tobacco and alcohol. With a little chimney on top, which looked simply as if it was connected to the main building they could even stoke a fire to keep themselves warm during the night. My main problem was how exactly they had gotten into the vault. Obviously they had used the chimney but that only goes into the basement, there is no access from the vault to anything else other than the hallway and the stairs. Then I remembered the 'counting and distribution table' in the center. We went into the basement and sure enough there was a nice square hole in the ceiling, located right below the table in the vault, professionally covered with a crate. The hole must have been made during the nights they stayed at the bank because police officers were posted in the vault and basement any time construction workers are around. Then they simply waited and used the existing bank's boxes to put the money in, which they they then moved to the roof through a pulley system in the chimney from the basement. That's why the clerk was so confused because they only had  regular boxes left, all the official ones were on the roof."

"In short, the case was solved and without any actual sleuthing, well other than the flash detective work you did from your chair when I was here last. How the hell did you know?" Harris finished his recount with a long puff of his pipe, at least he tried because he found that the after so much talking the pipe had gone out. As the inspector was stuffing his pipe, Hubbard sat a bit straighter. "You had all the information already, you told me everything that was needed to solve the case",  the watchmaker said, "all you had to do was put the pieces together. You told me that they had constructed a tool shed on the roof. Why would a bank need a tool shed if they have space for that in the basement and why on the roof?  What also struck me as strange was that they were fixing all of the chimney stoves except the part that goes past the vault. Surely they would have worked on that as well. It was the only logical conclusion that the burglars were the construction workers who were still in the building, waiting for their next shift in two days." Hubbard averted his gaze from the inspector and had some more tea. "If you put it that way Hubbard then yes I can see why you would have told me to post constables around the bank for those days", said Harris. He stood up as if to leave and said: "Well, I would like to thank you very much. There is not much of an official thank you from the bank because they are trying to keep things quiet, it's a very embarrassing situation. However the manager did inform me that they have transferred a handsome reward to your account, and might I say you've earned every penny of it. Hubbard I must be going, but I will keep you in mind for any other mystery I come across." "I can't promise anything inspector, my expertise is watches and clocks, and an occasional lock fixing", Hubbard said as he gave me a wink. "You sell yourself short watchmaker, you have a good mind. I'm sure we will see each other again". Harris put on his coat and hat and with a brisk walk made his way downstairs and out of the store.