Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/184

164 heaped around him. At the same time, he greeted his colleagues, who returned his salutation. The matter under discussion, which the various journals of the United Kingdom were discussing ardently, had occurred three days before, on the 29th of September. A package of bank-notes, making the enormous sum of fifty-five thousand pounds, had been taken from the counter of the principal cashier of the Bank of England. The Under-Governor, Gauthier Ralph, only replied to anyone who was astonished that such a robbery could have been so easily accomplished, that at this very moment the cashier was occupied with registering a receipt of three shillings six pence, and that he could not have his eyes everywhere.

But it is proper to be remarked here—which makes the robbery less mysterious—that this admirable establishment, the Bank of England, seems to care very much for the dignity of the public. There are neither guards nor gratings; gold, silver, and bank-notes being freely exposed, and, so to speak, at the mercy of the first comer. They would not suspect the honor of anyone passing by. One of the best observers of English customs relates the following: He had the curiosity to examine closely, in one of the rooms of the bank, where he was one day, an ingot of gold weighing seven to eight pounds, which was lying exposed on the cashier's table; he picked up this ingot, examined it, passed it to his neighbor, and he to another, so that the ingot, passing from hand to hand, went as far as the end of a dark entry, and did not return to its place for half an hour, and the cashier had not once raised his head.

But on the twenty-ninth of September, matters did not turn out quite in this way. The package of bank-notes did not return, and when the magnificent clock, hung above the "drawing office," announced at five o'clock the closing of the office, the Bank of England had only to pass fifty-five thousand pounds to the account of profit and loss.

The robbery being duly known, agents, detectives, selected from the most skillful, were sent to the principal ports, Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, etc., with the promise in case of success, of a reward of two thousand pounds and five per cent. of the amount recovered. Whilst waiting for the information which the investigation, commenced immediately, ought to furnish, the detectives