The customary inquest followed, and after careful examination of the
various witnesses, and a visit to the place, the jury, by the coroner's
direction, returned a verdict of "wilful murder." Then the strange
affair passed into the hands of the police. The hounds of the law were
laid upon the scent, and they were active enough in their efforts to run
the Clareborough family down, but without success: for they had suddenly
disappeared from The Towers, as completely as they had from their town
mansion, but what direction they had taken was not discovered.
They were "wanted" for the clearing up of the death of their two
servants, whose bodies were identified by the domestics brought up from
the country house; but the witness particularly sought for was the old
housekeeper, who, it was presumed, would be able to give a pretty good
account of the doings at the great mansion. But she could not be found,
and the suspicion at once arose that she had been murdered by the men
who made the attack upon the safe after obtaining leave to go up to town
on business.
Search was therefore made in the town mansion, and also in the adjoining
house with the curious underground works, but without result, and the
disappearance of the old lady's body added to the mystery.
The family were wanted, too, soon after, upon another charge--that of
coining, for upon further investigation of the supposed wealth banked in
the strong-room, it was found that the coins were base.
But it required a far more than superficial examination to prove this,
official after official from the Mint declaring them to be genuine
according to the ordinary tests. Their weight was absolutely correct,
the workmanship was perfect, and they gave forth a true ring, but upon
every sovereign being broken in half, though there was nothing to see,
the coin appearing to be of gold with the proper amount of hardening
metal added, the application of the acid test showed that something was
wrong.
The examination of the bars of metal supposed to be gold, and discovered
in the underground place beneath the old professor's house, gave the
explanation, the two chests delivered by the railway company helping the
matter, for after the police had removed a layer or two of old books,
they came upon small oaken boxes containing ingots of the base metal
used in the manufacture of the coin, these being of an ingeniously
compounded alloy, whose constituents, after metallurgical analysis, the
Mint authorities kept secret.
Examination of the cellarage proved quite startling, from the perfection
of the dies, presses, and rolling mills, all of great power, beautifully
made, but of foreign production.
There was a small furnace, too, with crucibles, and other paraphernalia,
the most interesting find being the small ribbons of metal from which
the round counter-like flats had been punched, and some pieces in a box
ready for being pressed.
These last ribbons of metal proved to have been made from the base metal
ingots, after the old fashion of producing silver plate--before the
introduction of the cheap electro-plating system--by which the pure
metal is deposited upon the base.
Old silver-plated goods were made by taking a bar of copper and placing
at top and bottom a thin slip of pure silver, which was made to adhere
to the copper by heat. Then the silvered copper bar was passed through
rolling mills till it was flattened to the necessary thickness, and came
out with its due proportion of silver on both sides, ready for working
up into shape, with the addition of pure silver finishings to the parts
likely to be most worn.
The Clareboroughs' sovereigns were, then, thus made, careful analysis
proving that each ingot of alloy was prepared with the addition of
one-half of pure gold, that is to say, one fourth part at top and
bottom. This was fixed in the furnace; then the ingots were rolled to
the right thickness, the flats punched out, and afterwards passed
through the die press, to come out so perfect that for years these coins
ran current by thousands, even the banking companies receiving them
without demur, and it was not till long after that Chester discovered
that his two-hundred-guinea fee was all perfectly base.
The learned said the production of such coin was an impossibility, but
the Clareboroughs proved to them that it was not, and the Mint
authorities were puzzled by the perfection attained. But at last it was
remembered that about twenty years before, a very clever metallurgist
and chemist, who had held a high position at the Mint, was discovered in
an offence against the rules of the establishment, which resulted in his
immediate discharge and degradation, he having escaped a criminal
prosecution by the skin or his teeth.
This official had married a lady of the name of Clareborough, and it was
suggested by an ingenious personage as being possible that to this man
was due the manufacture of the base coinage.
The right nail was hit upon the head, for at the time when, some seven
or eight years earlier, the Clareborough family were, through their wild
expenditure, utterly penniless and hopelessly in debt, this man, after
many experiments, so advanced his project that he laid it before James
Clareborough, who jumped at the idea; his brother Dennis and cousin
Robert, both helplessly aground and forced to enlist in cavalry
regiments, eagerly joined, and in a very small way the coining was
begun, but they were terribly crippled by the cost of each piece. James
Clareborough was for producing something cheap, saying that it was
absurd to be making imitation sovereigns the material for each of which
cost ten shillings; but his uncle's theory was that only by the great
perfection of the coins could success and immunity from discovery be
assured.
The uncle had the support of the two younger men, and after a while the
skill begotten from practice enabled them to produce the coins more
rapidly; improved machinery was obtained from Belgium; four more
impecunious members of the family were sworn in to join in the secret of
what they called their private bank; and at the end of three years the
mansion in Highcombe Street was taken, fitted up by foreign workmen, and
by degrees the machinery brought in through the book-collector's house,
and all done without a suspicion being raised.
The generally-accepted idea in fashionable sporting circles was that the
wealth of the Clareboroughs came from their clever gambling
transactions, and many a speculator was ruined by trying to imitate
them, notably their two servants.
The various difficulties in the Clareboroughs' way dissolved upon being
attacked; wealth rolled in as fast as they liked to make it, working
hard under the guidance of their uncle, the professor, who kept the
position of captain over them, for in spite of James Clareborough's
overbearing ways, he gave up, as did the others, feeling that everything
depended upon their being united. The old man's occupancy of the
adjoining house, where he made his genuine love for collecting old works
act as a blind for the receiving of heavy cases of metal, served them
well, and the servants never once had a suspicion that there was a
communication between the two buildings, or that the stern old
housekeeper was the professor's wife.
Her part was well played, too. She never left the town mansion when all
the servants went down to The Towers. And it was at these times that
the young men came up frequently, ostensibly to visit Paris or attend
meetings, but really to work hard in the well-fitted vaults to replenish
the strong-room, whose contents they wasted fast.
Self-interest, as well as clannishness, held the family together. Use
had made the labour of production familiar, and they might have gone on
for years in their life of luxury unchecked, but for the one weak link
in their chain--the strongest and most overbearing man among them. His
plainly-displayed passion for his cousin had been the cause or quarrel
after quarrel with Robert Clareborough, one of which culminated in
blows, the use of the revolver, and Marion rushing off, believing her
brother dying, for the aid of the surgeon with whose name a recent case
had made her familiar.
Of the further career of the family nothing more was known in England.
The police were indefatigable, but they had keen, shrewd men to deal
with, and the culprits completely disappeared. Suspicions were
entertained that they might have had something to do with the
distribution of a great deal of base coin in Germany, but it was never
traced home to them, and to all intents and purposes the name of
Clareborough soon died out and the mysterious business in Highcombe
Street was forgotten.