What they were going
to do with it no one seemed to know, not even those who were most active
in collecting work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept.
Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to the
mystery of the situation.
"'Don't you long to know what we are going to do with our treasure
hoard?' Lena asked the Prime Minister one day when she happened to sit
next to him at a whist drive at the Chinese Embassy.
"'I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery,' he
responded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind
the lightness of his chaff; 'of course I know,' he added, 'that you have
been buying up building sites in commanding situations in and around the
Metropolis. Two or three, I'm told, are on the road to Brighton, and
another near Ascot. You don't mean to fortify them, do you?'
"'Something more insidious than that,' she said; 'you could prevent us
from building forts; you can't prevent us from erecting an exact replica
of the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They're all private
property, with no building restrictions attached.'
"'Which memorial?' he asked; 'not the one in front of Buckingham Palace?
Surely not that one?'
"'That one,' she said.
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