It boggles the mind. “How many gold coins is that?” I ask.
“Let’s use the fifty-dollar eagle as the standard. In that case, the total number of coins would be . . .” He pauses to think.
“Eight hundred thousand gold coins,” Becky says.
“No, it’s . . .” The clerk counts his fingers. “Oh, yes, it’s about eight hundred thousand gold coins. You guessed right.” He smiles at her like she’s a performing dog.
“That seems impossible. Where would people keep it?” she says.
“We estimate that half of it went out of the country, back to Mexico, or Peru, or Australia, maybe Sweden or China—wherever the miners came from. They struck it rich, packed up their money, and took it home. Once California is a state, we’ll pass more laws to keep foreigners out in the first place. We want as much of that gold as possible to stay right here in the United States where it belongs.”
“We’re all foreigners here,” I point out, forgetting for a moment that I’m supposed to be a bit addled by mercury.
Becky shoots me a warning look. “If my friend wants to keep her money safe until she needs it, she can store some of it here?”
“Absolutely.” He twists in his seat and indicates the cage. “Our strongbox is the most secure in the whole city.”
The strongbox is little more than a traveling trunk, with breakable hinges and a flimsy padlock. It doesn’t contain a quarter of the amount in the safe that sits beside it. There’s so much gold in the safe that I feel slightly sick, like I would after eating a whole pie, when all I needed was a single piece.
“But the safe,” I say. “The safe looks safe. I want my money safe. In a safe.”
“My friend likes the safe,” Becky says. “The big black one. Is it available to customers?”
“That’s a Wilder Salamander safe, one of only a few in the entire state of California,” the clerk says. “It’s got double walls, insulated, to protect the items inside in case of fire. State of the art. But that’s the personal safe of one of our most elite customers.”
“But I just saw somebody put something in there?” I say.
The clerk smiles at me. “As I said.”
Becky says, “He must be a very good customer.”
“He’s very nearly a bank unto himself,” the clerk exclaims, and then, glancing at the gray-haired owner, decides that circumspection is called for. “But let me assure you that your friend’s money will be triply protected here. First by the strongbox itself, which only the manager has keys to. Then by the cage, which is similarly locked. And finally by the guard who patrols our building at night.”
“That’s a lot of protection,” Becky says.
“It’s not safe if it’s not in the safe,” I say, failing to sound angry.
Becky puts a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you go outside and get some air? I’ll join you shortly.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She knows I want to lay eyes on Mr. Keys if I can. I give her a grateful look and exit the bank without another word. Beneath the veranda, I scan the square for Mr. Keys and his guards, but they are already gone.
Becky joins me outside a few minutes later. “You’ve upset the poor gentleman. He’s very concerned that if you take your business to another bank, they’ll take advantage of you. On the positive side, young Mr. Owen—he’s the son of that other fellow—is impressed by my mathematical abilities, considering that I’m a woman, and he asked me to tea, which I reluctantly declined.”
I grin, in spite of the churning in my belly. “I’m getting sick from being near so much gold,” I whisper. “Let’s walk.”
We stroll into the plaza, and I feel a little steadier with each step. Halfway across the square, Jefferson slides in beside us.
“Hello, Lee, Becky. How’d you like the distraction? I ran into Sonia’s little gang and paid them to make a ruckus so you could slip past Mr. Key’s guards.”
“That was clever,” Becky says.
“We saw where Hardwick keeps his gold,” I say, and I describe everything we observed in the bank. “It’s more gold than I ever imagined. More than one man could ever spend or need.”
“Then I have some bad news for you,” Jefferson says.
“Worse news than ‘He has more money than we could ever steal’?”
“Yes, worse than that.” We cross the street and head downhill toward the Charlotte. The scent of saltwater marsh rises to greet us. “I found Hardwick’s main business office, which is at his house. His mansion, I mean. Takes up half a block. And I started following our pal, Mr. Keys, first thing this morning. This bank wasn’t his first stop. It wasn’t even his second.”
“Where was he going?” I ask.
“To other banks,” he says. “He took a large bag from Hardwick’s office, went to a couple of banks, made deposits, and then went back to Hardwick’s house to collect another bag.”
“I counted forty-seven gold coins in his deposit,” Becky says. When I look at her in astonishment, she says simply, “Well, something like that. It was hard to count and talk at the same time, so I might be off a coin or two. Assuming they were all fifty-dollar coins, which seems to be the most common denomination, that’s a deposit of two thousand three hundred fifty dollars. Three of those comes to more than seven thousand dollars! Just this morning.”
“More than three banks,” Jefferson says.
“Exactly how many banks?” I ask, my voice rising to a near-panic register.
“Eleven,” Jefferson says.
Becky and I stop in the middle of the street to stare at him.
“This was his eleventh bank visit of the day,” he assures us. “In and out within a few minutes at each stop. Like it’s something he does every day. But that’s not possible, right? There’s not that much gold in all the world.”
“Maybe there is,” Becky says. “According to Mr. Owens Junior—who seems a reliable compendium of details, even if he’s a bit slow at multiplication—California is home to at least twenty million dollars in gold.”
“No wonder I was so distracted when our boots first touched this territory,” I say. “It was like a constant ringing in my ears.”
Jefferson nods. “And Hardwick is trying to get it all.”
Becky resumes her journey toward the Charlotte and gestures for us to keep pace. “This job just got a lot more complicated,” she says.
“Yep,” I say. “We need to think bigger.”
“And smarter,” Jefferson adds.
Chapter Ten
When we paid Hardwick four thousand dollars to settle my uncle’s debt, we thought it was a lot of money. But it was nothing.
Four thousand to settle a debt.
A few thousand to auction off the pieces of someone’s house.
A few thousand more for a man’s freedom.
These little bits and pieces add up. No doubt this is how Hardwick’s fortune started. But it’s clear that the big money in San Francisco is now being made in property, through land sales and rents. If Hardwick is filling safes in eleven banks, then this is how he’s doing it.