It was Mr. Wyndham, a bit stiff with drink, who finally spoke up. “Well, damn it all, Henry, will you tell us where you have hidden your bloody key?”
Mr. Fowler took no offense, but smiled benignly. He was not a serious drinking man himself, and he viewed the foibles of those who overindulged with a certain modest satisfaction. “I keep it,” he said, “about my neck.” And he patted his starched shirt front with a flat hand. “I wear it at all times, even while bathing— indeed, even in my sleep. It is never off my person.”
He smiled broadly. “So, gentlemen, you see that the crude attempt of a mere child from the dangerous classes can hardly be of concern to Huddleston & Bradford, for the little ruffian had no more chance of stealing that bullion than I have of— well, of flying to the moon.”
Here Mr. Fowler allowed himself a chuckle at the absurdity of it all. “Now, then,” he said, “can you discern any flaw in our arrangements?”
“None whatsoever,” said Mr. Bendix coldly.
But Mr. Pierce was warmer. “I must congratulate you, Henry,” he said. “It is really quite the most ingenious strategy I have ever heard for protecting a consignment of valuables.”
“I rather think so myself,” Mr. Fowler said.
Soon thereafter, Mr. Fowler took his leave, arising with the comment that if he were not soon home to his wife, she should think him dallying with a judy— “and I should hate to suffer the pains of chastisement without the antecedent reward.” His comment drew laughter from the assembled gentlemen; it was, he thought, just the right note on which to depart. Gentlemen wanted their bankers prudent but not prudish; it was a fine line.
“I shall see you out,” Pierce said, also rising.
Chapter 05
The Railway Office
England’s railroads grew at such a phenomenal rate that the city of London was overwhelmed, and never managed to build a central station. Instead, each of the lines, built by private firms, ran their tracks as far into London as they could manage, and then erected a terminus. But in the mid-century this pattern was coming under attack. The dislocation of poor people, whose dwellings were demolished to make way for the incoming lines, was one argument; another focused on the inconvenience to travelers forced to cross London by coach to make connections from one station to another in order to continue their journey.
In 1846, Charles Pearson proposed, and drew plans for, an enormous Central Railway Terminus to be located at Ludgate Hill, but the idea was never adopted. Instead, after the construction of several stations— the most recent being Victoria Station and King’s Cross, in 1851— there was a moratorium on further construction because of the fury of public debate.
Eventually, the concept of a central London terminus was completely abandoned, and new outlying stations were built. When the last, Marylebone Station, was finished in 1899, London had fifteen railroad terminals, more than twice that of any other major city in Europe; and the bewildering array of lines and schedules was apparently never mastered by any Londoner except Sherlock Holmes, who knew it all by heart.
The mid-century halt in construction left several of the new lines at a disadvantage, and one of these was the South Eastern Railway, which ran from London to the coastal town of Folkestone, some eighty miles away. The South Eastern had no access to central London until 1851, when the London Bridge Terminus was rebuilt.
Located on the south shore of the Thames River near its namesake, London Bridge was the oldest railway station in the city. It was originally constructed in 1836 by the London & Greenwich Railway. Never popular, the station was attacked as “inferior in design and conception” to such later stations as Paddington and King’s Cross. Yet when the station was rebuilt in 1851, the Illustrated London News recalled that the old station had been “remarkable for the neatness, artistic character, and reality of its facade. We regret, therefore, that this has disappeared, to make room, apparently, for one of less merit.”
This is precisely the kind of critical turnabout that has always frustrated and infuriated architects. No less a figure than Sir Christopher Wren, writing two hundred years earlier, complained that “the peoples of London may despise some eyesore until it is demolished, whereupon by magick the replacement is deemed inferior to the former edifice, now eulogized in high and glowing reference.”