Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Seventh Safeguard

Chapter 9 ~ The Bank and the Broomstick

Gringotts Bank was an imposing building. Its white dome rose high over the roofs of the shops and houses which surrounded it. Like some royal monument of oriental kings it looked, not a British bank. Even from underneath Harry's invisibility cloak, I could see how brightly it glittered in the sunlight. Armed guards in outlandish uniforms stood at the doors, scanning everyone who came through for 'magical concealment'. George Weasley, totally undisguised, and exactly what he pretended to be, was let through easily. The stooped and wrinkled old lady who tottered up to the bank on his arm, was let through also. The guards clearly thought that there was no sign of 'magical concealment' about her. And they were right. Thus the Death Eaters let a muggle detective walk right past them without a second thought. I, following some few steps behind him, was not scanned at all. It truly was a beautiful cloak.

If it was unlike an ordinary bank from the outside, it was even more so inside. Strange creatures ran it, creatures with strange sharp features, and long long fingers. And the building we saw above the ground was but a fraction of the actual size of the bank. The vaults were mainly in caverns, far underneath the earth. After George presented his key and asked to be shown to his vault, one of the strange little creatures – goblins, they called them, though the small and cunning looking persons bore little resemblance to the type of creature usually referred to by that name – led us down to tunnel opening. The conveyance on rails which answered to his whistle made me think of a coal cart from an old western film. When we had all got in and it started up, I changed my mind. It was far more like a roller coaster. We never actually went upside-down (a good thing, since there weren't any seat belts) but it roared on at a crazy pace, going far into the earth where the air became cold. It a very short amount of time I had completely lost all sense of direction. Tracks branched off in all directions and the movement of the cart seemed almost erratic. When we finally stopped at the Weasley twin's vault, a small padlocked chamber opening off of what what seemed to be a great natural cavern, I did not know whether we were right below the bank, or a mile away, and I had no notion how far below the surface we were.

The Weasley's vault opened to George's key, but from previous conversations about the bank, I knew that not all vaults could be unlocked by so simple a method. The roller coaster carriages answered only to the Gringotts goblins and were surrounded by only the goblins knew how many traps and pit-falls, which could at a moment's notice be set off from the bank above. I thought it looked very much as though the only way to get into a vault other than your own was either to completely and utterly convince the bank that you were someone else, or else to control the entire bank and have the obedience of the goblins.

"So there. Pretty formidable, eh?" said George when we were back out on Charing Cross Road.

"To the burglar, yes." replied Sherlock.

"Well that's the plan, right?"

"Not quite."

George looked positively intrigued. "What then?"

"You'll find out later."

"Aw. Come on. Tell me!"

But putting off George's requests, and thanking him for the help, Sherlock excused himself and in a very short time we were sitting with Mycroft Holmes in the Stranger's room of the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall. I am not certain at what point my friend had decided to bring his elder brother into his confidence, but it was clear that Mycroft had been made to understand the gravity of Sherlock's current investigations some time before I had. His unique position in the government of England made him a invaluable ally in such a case. I had my doubts as to whether Sherlock had really led him to understand the full strangeness of the matter, but he seemed well aware of the practical and pressing problem posed by the preposterous society that called itself the 'Death Eaters'.