Chapter 7

Into my duffel bag went three ingots; two to pay over, and one for possible conversion to cash. Even once I had the cash, I did not have an explanation for my parents. That would have to be worked on.
I moved myself back to Gourock, stepped out of the vestibule and pulled the door closed; this time wanting it to lock as I now held the keys. The tongue engaged, and so the house was locked, albeit insecurely. Once I had enough cash, I could get a man to repair the corner plinth that supported the door pillar.
Now I walked round to the back door, found the key for that lock, and unlocked it. When I pushed the door, it moved reluctantly at first, then swung more readily. I stepped in to the dull corridor, switched on the overhead light, and headed to the nearest door. I turned the handle and looked inside.
It was a sitting room, what is more commonly called a lounge. It had furniture, as I could see from the light behind me. I checked both sides for a light switch, and it was near my hand. I flicked the switch down, and the room light came on. This let me see that the windows were fitted with black curtains, probably to stop anyone seeing in. I guessed that the windows had double glazing, which makes the glass much more difficult to shatter if you want to break in. It was a wise design feature for a house you expect to be sitting empty for a while.
Furniture was a double sofa, two comfy lounge chairs, and a table against one wall. On the walls were a couple of paintings, and there was a wall bookcase with a neatly shelved collection of books.
Having seen what there was, I switched off the light and moved to the next door from the corridor, on the opposite side. This was clearly a bedroom, as there was a double bed with an ornate carved headboard, and a bedside cabinet on each side with an ornate bedside lamp sitting on each. Against one wall was a long dressing table with two drawers each side of the knee space. It was topped with a mirror running the full length of the unit.
Leaving that bedroom, the next door inwards took me into a dining room with a large table in the centre, clearly made of solid wood, and a set of six matching chairs parked at the table. A sideboard in solid wood stretched along one wall for about five feet. Next to it was a unit for storing wine bottles on their sides. It was filled with a dozen bottles, presumably of wine.

That was enough for me, and I moved over to a connecting door that by-passed the corridor and led direct to the kitchen. That proved a disappointment, as there were practically no appliances; just a sink with a drainer and a wood-fired stove, naturally empty. Next to it was a large fuel storage unit for split logs, but again empty. The kitchen was obviously not used yet. The inventor probably intended to install the appliances when he finally decided to live there.
This made me think: where did he live in 2026? I decided he must have had lodgings somewhere close to the tunnel, which he used when not travelling elsewhere. It would also act as his address for correspondence and bills, and give no clue to where he might have gone if he vanished.
I exited the kitchen to the end of the corridor, and expected another room on the other side of the corridor. There was a door, but it was secured with another button coded lock. I tried the original code from 2026, and it worked, so I looked inside, turning on the light switch just inside the door. It was a room filled with machines. One looked not too dissimilar to the time/place device, so I presumed that was what it was. It seemed surprisingly small for such a powerful machine, but who knows what machines will become in another sixty years. I didn’t want to guess.
Sitting on a desk or small table was another smallish box connected to a keyboard and a fancy TV screen, and there were other devices in the room that meant nothing to me.
I presumed that this was a subsidiary version of the laboratory, or at least the essentials. Sitting in a corner was an open box, and when I went over and looked inside it, I found a pile of these gold ingots. More? Where the heck was he stealing these from? Was it from a bank near here, or from the bank of England, or was it filched from the USA’s Fort Knox, or some other place that had banks holding gold ingots. With his disappearance, and possible death, it looked like I had inherited a great deal of wealth in the form of gold. As long as I had a means of converting gold to cash, I now had my own private bank to dip into whenever I had need of cash.
Touching nothing, I left the room and then reset the button lock at the code of 1943, my birth year. I would certainly remember that code.

I wandered back to the lounge, as that had an ambiance I liked. It made me feel comfortable. As I switched on the light, it reminded me that every room in this house was blacked out. Why did he want it all kept so secret? What did it matter whether a room had furniture or not? An empty room is not worth anyone breaking in, is it?

As I pondered that point, I was reminded by how good the furniture looked. It struck me that perhaps the furniture was valuable, and that was why it was not viewable from outside. This idea made me take a closer look at the chairs, trying to find if there was a maker’s mark on them. I found a small plaque pinned securely to each chair, displaying the name Howard & Sons, and an address in London. It meant nothing to me, but I memorised it so that I could look it up in the library if they had books on old furniture.

I raised my eyes and spotted the paintings on the wall, so I walked over to get a closer look. One painted with a lot of daubs of colour, showing a flower garden, was signed Hornel, who I presumed was therefore the artist. Another I found shocking, as it showed a figure in the foreground holding its hands to its face, almost as if screaming.

Giving up at this point, and coming to the conclusion that the bottles of wine would prove to be valuable, I estimated that all the other contents of the house would be valuable in themselves; placed there as investments.

I now reckoned it was time to get the gold down to the shop and speak to Georgina again. I exited and locked the back door which, although it was at the back of the building was actually the front door of the house.

When I was back down to the main street I found I was a trifle early, so I walked around and looked in at the windows of the other shops. Many of them were aimed at the visitor, for Gourock was regarded as a premier resort as well as a starting point for steamer trips down the Clyde. I recalled being on Gourock pier when the sailor at the gang plank on to the paddle steamer called out, “Kirn, Dunoon, Innellan, Rothesay!” as the destinations for the trip across the estuary.

Noting on my watch that it was after 2 pm., I strolled back to the shop, hardly noticing the weight on my shoulder, and entered the again empty shop. It occurred to me that people visiting the shop would be those with a home in mind, having perused the adverts in the shop window. It was not a shop to enter and browse without something in mind.

Georgina watched as I came in, and raised her eyebrows. When I walked directly to her, she knew I was in serious mode.

“Welcome again, Mr McIntyre. What can we do for you this afternoon?” She was eyeing my weighty duffel bag as she spoke.

“Two more installments for my house, Georgina, and another request.” I dumped the bag in front of her, and opened its mouth.

She took over and lifted out the first ingot, and then the second. As she did this, she noticed there was another still in the bag. She looked up at me as I stood there.

“Have you miscalculated, Mr McIntyre? There is a third bar.”

“That is my request, Georgina. Can your business convert an ingot into cash for me? I realise the business would need to charge a commission for the transaction.”

She looked surprised, but also had a speculative look in her eyes.

“I would have to phone my boss, the owner of this establishment, as it is not something we have been asked before.”

I explained, “As you have to deposit the gold into your bank account and get it converted at the official rate they use, I thought that an extra ingot would not be sniffed at! You should be aware of what the bank charges you, so just charge me a commission on top of that, and we will all be happy.”

“What you say makes financial sense, Mr McIntyre. Give me a couple of minutes to speak with my boss on the phone.”

“He doesn’t base himself here?”

“No. His main base is in Greenock, and he has another shop in Port Glasgow, plus another in Kilmacolm.”

“Oh. I see,” I reacted, not knowing this. “I can wait.”

She reached for the phone she had on her counter, not concerned that I would hear her side of the conversation. She dialled the number.

“Mr Bourne? Georgina here. I have a customer, the one paying in gold bars ... yes, that’s the one. He has an extra bar that he wants to convert to cash and asks if he will do that, at a commission for us ... Yes, there is enough in the safe. Five per cent? Very well, I will inform him. Thank you, sir.”

She put the phone back on its cradle, and smiled at me.

“You have a deal, Mr McIntyre, if you are willing for us to take five per cent as commission.”

I pretended to squirm at this charge, but relented. “Deal. I need to have some ready cash if I am to take Sandy out for a meal at an expensive restaurant.”

She almost giggled as she retorted, “You would be able to take her out many times with that much cash!” She stopped to reflect and went on, “You are serious about taking her out like that? Isn’t she on the old side for a young man like you?”

“It was your idea at first that I should take a look at her; don’t you remember?”

“That was more in jest, when I found you were wealthy, but I have to agree she is a looker, my younger sister. I have no objection to you being interested in her, as long as you have honourable intentions. She told me that you were a fascinating young man, if a little shy.”

“I lost my shyness once I got talking to her, I have to admit. To change the subject, if I laid my hands on more ingots, will you be able to do the same conversion to cash?”

“I would have to plan ahead, and we would only be able to take on one of these at a time. You see, we don’t normally need a lot of cash in the office safe. Even when clients come in to pay a deposit on a house, it is often a cheque from a mortgage broker instead of cash: too much cash for most folk to have on hand.”

“I promise to not bring more than one ingot a week. That is apart from my installments of ingots for the house: four more, I think.”

“It is four, yes. Can you make it two each for the next two weeks? If Sandy is going to be around, and you phone me before you come, I can ask her to be with me in the shop. I can have the house documents, the missives, ready for when the final payment is made. My boss is also a lawyer, so it will all be checked for you.”

“That sounds delightful, Georgina. I’ll do that.”

She used a smallish desk calculator to work out what my gold ingot was worth in current bank terms as told her by her boss, minus the shop’s commission, then rechecked her calculations. When she confirmed that she was right, she wrote down the amounts she had used, and the final payment to be handed over. She showed this to me to prove her reckoning was accurate. I was able to do some quick mental arithmetic and swiftly accept her workings.

“Seems fine by me, Georgina.”

She asked me to call her if anyone came into the shop while she went to the office and get the cash from the safe. I gladly stood sentry for her, but no-one dared to enter while she was gone. She returned with a cardboard folder in her hand and handed it to me to check.

I spent an inordinate amount of time going through all the banknotes before confirming that the cash matched her calculated payment amount.

“That’s correct, Georgina; thank you.”

I stuffed the folder into my duffel bag, and asked her, “Is Sandy in Gourock today, or somewhere else?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know where she is, but it is not in Gourock. She often doesn’t say where she is off to.”

My face must have revealed my disappointment, for she commented, “My God, she has really got to you, hasn’t she?”

I spread my hands.

“I wouldn’t know. I am not used to romancing girls.”

“Well, you are doing fine so far. Keep it up.”

“Hmm ... thanks. See you next week.”

With that, I left, albeit slowly. Was I hoping she would reveal Sandy’s whereabouts? Probably, but that’s me being stupid.

My duffel bag was bugging me, with all that cash inside. I couldn’t possibly arrive home with all that money in my possession. I had enough time that I decided to return to the house and find a place to hide most of it.

When I got there, I unlocked the rear house door and went in, thinking that the back door of the building hid you from being observed going in and out. The inventor must have used the front door purely for his time and space travel. It was simpler than having to go through the house to the ... what I now thought of as the plant or technical room, the business term for where the machinery, or plant, is housed.

Thinking for a little, I came up with the silliest solution: down the back of the sofa cushion. It may be silly, but who is going to look there for anything other than a lost coin? I had to distribute the banknotes along the back of the sofa cushion and also in one of the lounge chairs. I kept back a couple of five pound notes to hide on my person, and a tenner to hand to my mother towards the housekeeping. All I had to do was devise a plausible reason for having the cash, and that was in my mind on the way back to Gourock station. All I could think of was to say that a man I saw on the street had picked me and several other people, and handed us each a ten pound note with a demand that we do some good with it. I would tell her that her budget could do with a boost, and that I saw that as doing some good. It would do as an explanation this time, but if I wanted to help my parents in future, I had to work out a better strategy.

That was what I worked on as I waited for the train to leave, and then the journey through to Greenock Central. I was still lost for an excuse as I walked up Lyndoch street from the Well Park. The best I could think of was that a man would be walking ahead of me and I would see a packet fall from his coat pocket. I would pick it up and rush after him. Catching him up, I would hand him the packet, saying “You dropped this, sir.”

He would thank me, then tell me to wait while he checked it. This made it sound as if thought I might have removed something from the packet, and I was about to become annoyed, when he finished and said, “It is all there. Thank you young man, for your honesty. You deserve a ten percent reward.”

Having said that, he removed two bank notes and handed them to me. “Your reward for your honesty. Thanks again.” and started to move on, leaving me holding the notes. I mumbled my thanks, but he just waved goodbye and walked on.

I stuffed them in my pocket, in shock, assuming it to be two one pound notes. It was only later, as I thought about it how they were larger in size than I expected, that I pulled them out to look at them, and discover that they were fifty pound notes. One hundred pounds as a reward? That packet had to have held a thousand pounds in notes! He had to be weird to be walking around with so much cash held insecurely.

In 1961 the average weekly pay packet was around fifteen pounds, so this was approximately seven weeks wages for the average man!

I put this explanation aside for now, and continued working on long-term excuses to explain having cash to pass on.

I got home in plenty of time, so I gave my mother the ten pound note with my story of the man distributing cash with the injunction to ‘do good’. Mum was shocked, but accepted my story, as she regarded me as intrinsically honest and trustworthy. She patted me on the head as she thanked me, before adding, “Better not tell your father, Bob, or he might suggest we put it in the church plate on Sunday. I think charity begins at home, and we could do with a few extras this week.”

I told her I agreed with her assessment, and we parted, her heading back to the kitchen and me to my bedroom to open one of my school library books, typically years old. That reminded me to visit the public library after school on Monday, to see what I could find out about the firm Howard and Sons. Were they still in business, and what was their reputation as furniture manufacturers? I had never heard of them.

The rest of the weekend was routine: listening to the radio in the evening, church on Sunday morning, Sunday lunch, then a long walk after that, weather permitting. Although it was January, it was not very cold; just a noticeable breeze, requiring a coat, but walking briskly as a family the mile or so to and from the church keeps you warm.