Read Online Death and the Jubilee by David Dickinson - Free Book Online

begging for emergency
funds from the Bank of England.
    Was there another way? There must be. He looked up at his ancestors on the walls. The streets outside were filled with the normal racket of rushing people, omnibuses, hawkers peddling the latest
in new umbrellas and top hats. Calm, Frederick, calm, he said to himself, remembering another of his father’s prescripts. ‘Calm in banking is everything, however shrill the surrounding
voices. Calm preserves, panic destroys.’
    Frederick Harrison was a tall man, plump bordering on fat. He prided himself on his dress sense, always smart but always one or two steps behind the latest fashion craze to adorn the persons of
the jobbers and the brokers. Then a different prescript came to his help. He could not go to the Bank. But the Bank might come to him. A visit in the early afternoon from the Governor, come to
express his condolences and indirectly to affirm his confidence in the bank, that might serve his purpose.
    He sat at his desk by the window and wrote a short note to the Governor. He knew that any sign of weakness would be misinterpreted, but that he must find some way of bringing the Governor to
Harrison’s.
    ‘It is with deep regret,’ he began, ‘that I write to inform you of the death of my father, Carl Harrison. His was the corpse found floating in the Thames some weeks ago. I know
that you worked closely with my father in the past and that you would wish to be informed of his tragic demise with all due speed. Naturally all the members of his family are prostrated by the
news, and, in particular, by the strange circumstances of his demise.’
    Now came the difficult bit. Frederick scratched his forehead and rested his pen on the tip of a finely waxed moustache. If he said that the bank would continue as before, that could raise a
question mark over its ability to do so.
    ‘As you know,’ he went on, his handsome copperplate flowing across the page, ‘our house has prospered mightily under my father’s guidance and we shall continue to run it
in the same fashion in honour of his memory. I do hope we shall have the honour of a visit from you in the near future, as you have so often honoured us in the past.’
    Frederick read his note through three times. He summoned a messenger and told him to take the letter to the Bank of England as fast as he could.
    Even as the boy began running through the City streets, dodging in and out of the traffic, one hand holding on to his hat, the other clutching the envelope, rumour was on the move again. Dead
bodies in these parts usually meant failure, men taking their own lives because they knew they could not meet their obligations. Fear of shame and ostracism drove many to suicide. Earlier that year
Barney Barnato, himself the darling of the Kaffir Circus, founder of his very own bank to advance exploration and promote successful speculation on the Rand, had jumped into the sea on a voyage
between South Africa and London, his fortune and his misdeeds carried to the bottom of the ocean.
    ‘That body in the river was Old Mr Harrison.’
    ‘Impossible!’
    ‘It’s true! The police identified him this morning!’
    ‘There must be something wrong with the house! People don’t get murdered if business is in good hands!’
    ‘How much money do we have with Harrison’s? Can we get it back?’
    ‘Harrison’s are bankrupt.’
    ‘Harrison’s are finished. It’s going to be the biggest scandal since Barings! Withdraw!’
    Even in the City there is a little respect for the dead. Men felt that maybe they should wait a while before sorting out their positions. Old Mr Harrison had been a widely respected man. His
good reputation held the vultures off for a little while. They decided not to act at half-past twelve. They would wait until three.
    The Governor of the Bank of England was a small plump man with a neatly trimmed beard. He was not, strictly speaking, a banker at all. Junius Berry had made his name and his