Daisy Hart told me the story a few weeks ago. It was a bad business but I’ve no sympathy. I’m surprised old Grumble Rumble would let it happen. He always ran that bank as if every penny in it had come from his own pocket. Nothing ever happened that that nasty little man didn’t know about.
He’d have made an excellent jockey. He stood five feet short in his socks though he never appeared in public without the shoes he had made specially at Cutsforth & Co. They gave a lift to his dignity, if not much to his height. His greying hair, so carefully groomed, every thinning strand placed to best advantage. I only recall ever seeing him in collar and tie. In fact, always in a tailored suit, jacket sternly buttoned over his spare frame. if you knew him, you wouldn’t suggest he’d have made an excellent jockey and you’d never call him Bill.
No one ever called him Bill twice. I remember when he was an assistant manager and Richard Snape had sauntered into the office we all shared. He skimmed his hat toward the hat stand in James Bond style.
‘Morning, Bill!’ he had called. Before the hat had hit the floor, the Rumble Rottweiler went for him.
‘Richard. You will have noticed that I do not name you Rick, Rickie, Dick nor Dickie and I will ask you not to speak to me as Bill, Billy, Will nor Willie. My name is William and if you cannot address me in that way, then be so good as to call me Mr. Rumble.’
Dick was a hefty six-footer but left the room like a naughty schoolboy and did not return until Mr. Rumble had gone to see a client. It was Dick who had invented the name Grumble Rumble and it was that epithet we all used around the office when the little man was not in evidence.
When Marjorie Hamilton-Hill retired as branch manager to pass her remaining days arranging flowers and doing good works, it was Mr William Rumble who succeeded her and not Dick Snape nor myself. I didn’t mind but Dick took it badly and transferred to the Islington Branch. I stayed on for about six months then snagged my own little branch out in the wilds of Surrey. I was under Grumble Rumble’s command for a while, therefore, and soon learned that he ran the bank like a well-oiled machine and soon weeded out those who could not aspire to his high standards.
I was a little surprised, therefore, when he took on young Thomas Cutsforth. It may have been because Tommy was the son of Grumble Rumble’s shoe supplier and he wanted to help the father out. It was clear that Tommy was not cut out for the shoe trade and it soon became even clearer that he wasn’t destined for the financial world either. At least, not in the way anyone had thought.
Daisy told me that Tommy had been there for three months when the first of the money was missed. Tommy wasn’t blamed, of course. He had all the answers when the internal inquiry was held and he was Grumble Rumble’s ‘blue-eyed boy’. Norah Johnson left quietly with an excellent reference and nothing was said.
Five months later, a second and larger sum of money was unaccountably missing. Head office began their own investigation and the police were called. People often think the police are slow but Daisy testified to the fact that they were very thorough. They took their time but they got their man.
No one was more surprised than Mr Rumble to find himself at the station ‘helping with enquiries’. It seemed that the sums of money missing had all been signed out by William Rumble Esquire. He tried very hard to explain it but could not understand how it could have happened. He had no memory of signing any sums of money to the foreign bank account. How could they believe that he would do such a thing? When they showed him the signed transfers he was no wiser. Yes, it was his signature but no, he had not signed them.
He looked very small standing in the Magistrate’s Court. Even his Cutsforth shoes had lost their power to raise him up. The pitying looks that Mrs. Hamilton-Hill gave him from the bench as she committed him for trial at the Crown Court only made things worse. It was ‘an open and shut case’ as they say. Mr. William Rumble was sent to jail for five years. Daisy tells me that Tommy Cutsforth hasn’t been to work for weeks. His landlady says he’s gone abroad to work. I dare says he’s gone abroad but with half a million pounds in his pocket I doubt if he’s doing much work.
I can’t say for certain what happened to Mr Rumble, but I have watched a number of prison dramas on the box and I have a good imagination. It probably went something like this.
‘21365 William Rumble, get stripped off and put this lot on.’ William stared at the prison clothing before him then quietly undressed, pulled on the stiff trousers and buttoned the itchy shirt.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a tie,’ he said.
‘Oh dear! I’m afraid Saville Row was shut when the Gov’nor went shopping for you. You’ll ‘ave to manage without. Get them shoes on and ‘op to it.’
‘May I not wear my own shoes? They were specially made for me.’
‘No. Sir may not wear his own shoes. Sir will wear standard issue and like it.
‘ The prison officer was beginning to tire of this little man.
Sometime later a shabby man named William followed the officer to his assigned cell.
‘ere Groves. This is your new cellmate. I’m sure you’Il make Bill welcome.’ William opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. The man who spoke seemed very tall and very wide. He also appeared very strong and very ugly.
‘Well Bill, come in and let’s ‘ave a look at yer. ‘Well, look at you Bill. You know you would have made an excellent jockey and come tonight Bill, when the lights go out, I’m going to give you the ride of your life.
