As I passed through a steel door set in spiked steel railings a hefty
commissionaire secretly pressed a bell that gave the alarm
downstairs, so that when I appeared two equally hefty commissionaires
sprang out and asked me for my password.
No; it was not the Bank of England, or the Tower of London, or
Buckingham Palace: it was one of the largest safe deposit vaults in
London. Each person who rents a safe there chooses a password--any
word he likes; "Annie Laurie," or "Mrs. Jones's Baby," or "Good Queen
Anne." Till the commissionaires know him by sight the depositor is
held up every time he goes to his safe and is asked to stand and
deliver. If he forgets the password he is turned away unless he can
prove his identity and his right to unlock his treasures.
Fabulous millions are locked away underground in the safe deposits of
London. The companies themselves do not know how much treasure they
guard day and night. Now and then the inquiry of an insurance
company reveals the fact that a fourteen-inch safe holds a cool
million pounds' worth of treasure.
When the commissionaires had looked me over with an expression which
inferred that I probably carried on me acetylene blowpipes, a few
six-shooters, and a dozen Mills bombs, they called the secretary, who
had promised to take me through Aladdin's Cave. The vaults resembled
the interior of a great Atlantic liner. In every direction stretched
long lit corridors with doors every few feet along them. What doors!
Some of them had handles like a giant's dumb-bells and locks like
young cartwheels. I imagine that the door of Lord Astor's safe would
laugh cheerfully at a howitzer.
The door of one vault was half open. Inside a man was sitting at a
table counting diamonds. A pile of white diamonds on a piece of
brown paper! Stuck on the wall with the splash of a gum brush
was--surprising sight--a coy Kirchner girl adjusting the suspender at
the extremity of a long, shining, slim silk leg.
On we went down the corridor, the secretary pointing out the vault of
the Duke of This and Lord That, making my head reel with a story of
title deeds and heirlooms and treasures beyond price. Another door
opened and the owner came out. At first I thought he was about to
give us some of the gold plate with which the room was vulgarly full.
"Could you," he said, "lend me a pencil?"
We gave him one.
On another floor I found the ordinary safes, much less spectacular
than the vaults, but, I think, more interesting. Here it is that men
and women hide their smaller treasures. You can have quite a nice
little safe big enough to take a pair of shoes for twenty-five
shillings a year.
I entered an avenue of them, looked at their clumsy hinges and their
astonishing locks, wondering what mysteries they contain. In how
many of them lie letters that would break up homes? In how many are
documents that would explain why So-and-So never married? In how
many of them are the riches of people whose friends think them
penniless? In how many are merely silly things?
"I think the strangest thing we guarded," said the secretary, "was a
penny. For thirty years a man paid three pounds a year to guard that
penny. No; he was not mad--only superstitious. He believed that if
he lost that penny he would have terrible ill-luck. When he first
deposited it he was poor, but he died worth a hundred thousand
pounds, and his executors then came and took away his mascot."
Another strange treasure was the hoof of a Derby winner. The owner
made a fortune from his victory, and when the horse died his wife had
the hoof mounted, and they kept it for years in a special safe.
Hundreds of safes in every deposit vault are filled with the jewels
of wealthy women. Now and then the owners come and look at them, and
sometimes before a ball or a reception they take them away for a
night or two. Hundreds also contain the treasures of women who do
not seem wealthy. What they contain no one knows. Once when a safe
that had not been claimed for twenty years was broken open--it
belonged to an elderly spinster--inside were found bundles of faded
letters tied up with faded ribbon, all that was left of an old
romance.
What other secrets lie hidden underground in such cold, tiled
avenues--what strange human stories that will never be known?
In one of the waiting-rooms I saw an ancient man with a white beard.
He was sitting over the contents of his safe, feebly fingering
documents and poring over them, his nose almost touching the papers.
The sight of him roused questions. How easy to write a dozen
speculations about him, his life, and his little tray full of musty
deeds and letters...
* * *
Outside over the wet pavements hurried the men and women of London,
unconscious that beneath their feet lay millions and--mystery.