Chapter 15
The following morning, after breakfast, I returned to our room to find Mary, home from her visit, sitting up in bed reading a letter. Her jaw was set and her face was pale. The sight drew me to sit on the edge of her bed.
“What’s happened?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Maggie’s pushing me out of the ring,” she said, her voice low.
A curse slipped from my mouth.
“I don’t understand it.” Mary was never one for blazing fury, but her eyes flashed at the injustice of it. “I’m good at thieving. You and I bring in more money than most, and I’m ready to come back. But some doctor she knows thinks my grief makes me susceptible to nerves. Have you heard the like?”
I shook my head.
“She’s giving me a fortnight to clear out.”
“A fortnight!”
She swallowed. “I wouldn’t mind so much if it was fair, but it isn’t!”
“No, it’s bloody not.” I gestured to her lap. “What’s that?”
“A letter from my aunt. I was afraid this might happen, from the way Maggie acted the day she took me out, so I wrote to see if I might stay with her, if I needed to.”
Dismay sank my heart. “Your aunt Jane? In Reading?”
She flapped the page. “What with my cousin getting married and having a baby, they don’t have room.”
“Well, I’m not sorry. I don’t want you to leave London,” I said. She managed a smile, and I leaned to squeeze her hand. “We’ll figure out something. And we’ve money put by. We can find you a place.”
“It’s good of you, but it doesn’t solve the problem.” Mary dropped her head back against the wall. “What am I going to do, Kit? All I know is thieving—and how to bake a decent loaf of bread.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Jonas can use you more than a day or two a week.”
“She can’t,” Mary replied. “I asked.”
“Well, there are other bakeries,” I said.
“I know.” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t want to fret you. I’ll find something.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Mary slid the letter under her skirts.
At her nod, I called, “Come in!”
The door was pushed open, and Bea’s face appeared around the edge, her gaze shifting between Mary and me. “Maggie wants to see you.”
Mary swung her legs off the bed.
“Not you,” Bea said. “She wants Kit.”
Worry pricked along my spine.
“I don’t think it’s bad,” Bea said hastily.
“Now?”
Bea nodded. “In the goods room.”
“Don’t fight it, Kit,” Mary said.
She meant she didn’t want me to argue about Mary being pushed out. There was no point in Maggie questioning my loyalty.
Trust Mary to think of me, even in the face of this.
As I left, Bea slid inside the room, asking, “Are you all right, Mary? You look peaked.”
I closed the door and headed for the inn. The fireplace was aglow, half the tables occupied, and Pat lifted his chin in greeting as I passed. I climbed the stairs to the first story. The door was shut, so I knocked, and upon hearing her call to come in, I entered.
She had repositioned the desk closer to the window, where she sat with a cup of tea at her elbow. It was fresh, still steaming. “Ah, Kit. Please sit down.”
I took the chair opposite, folding my hands in my lap, resolved to conceal all resentment at how she was treating Nell and Mary and to glean whatever I could, including what she didn’t intend to show.
She sat back, eyeing me for a moment. “Well, this is one way you’re different from your mother. You keep your face quiet.”
“She showed enough for everyone,” I said.
Maggie arched one eyebrow. “She was . . . spirited, to be sure. She knew what she wanted.” My heart lurched, for I suspected what she alluded to. When I didn’t reply, she added, “Your mother took drink to steady her nerves. I notice you don’t.”
“Amelia always said not to.”
That raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t remind me that she was the leader now. “A good rule,” she said. “I daresay you’re all better thieves than we were.”
It was too sweeping a statement to sound sincere. Was she trying to get round me with flattery? Or learn how cocksure I was?
“Amelia told me that you were the best,” I replied.
Maggie ran her broken forefinger lightly along the edge of the desk, left and right, just once. “Amelia told me you’re her best. After watching all of you, I agree. Your hands are quick and quiet. You notice everything and your memory is superb.”
This flattery was leading up to an ask.
“I mentioned I have a special dodge I’d like to try,” she said. “And I want you for it.”
Perhaps someone else might have been gratified, even eager, at being singled out.
I only felt my nerves tighten because I couldn’t be sure how Maggie truly thought of me, given what my mother had likely done.
I didn’t bother to conceal the mix of curiosity and wariness I felt, for only a fool jumped into a dodge without knowing the particulars.
“You’d receive a higher percentage, of course,” she added. “And believe me, it’ll be worth your while.”
“What is it you’re thinking of?”
“How well do you know Hatton Garden?” she returned.
Hatton Garden?
The name was a misnomer for an area approximately one square mile in Camden, north of the river.
There was no garden of flowers or herbs, only a tight weave of streets with nearly sixty shops, mostly jewelers and dealers in gold, silver, and the new Kimberley diamonds.
Six months ago, there had been two thefts in broad daylight, and since then, the stores had doubled their precautions, including adding private detectives, Chubb safes, and Yale locks, and going so far as to create paste reproductions of the most expensive items, leaving the real jewelry in a locked safe to be brought out only for the most discerning of customers.
I arranged my thoughts before I answered. “Amelia never had us work it because there are privies during the day and constables patrolling at night.”
“Let’s look at it.”
I expected we’d use Amelia’s wall map, but instead Maggie slid open a desk drawer and withdrew a page that showed Hatton Garden, hand drawn. “Leather Lane to the west,” she said. “Saffron Hill to the east, Holborn south and Hatton Wall north. What else can you tell me?”
At one time Amelia had thought we might work there, so we’d all walked it.
“There are three churches and Wren House, the big redbrick building, about here.” I pointed to the locations of each.
“A railway station to the east, on the other side of Farringdon Street. A brewery on the northwest corner and a fruit and vegetable market to the southeast.” I looked up to find her mouth curving in an approving smile.
“You know it well.”
I let that pass. “What sort of dodge are you thinking?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. But I’d like you to visit some of the shops and give me your impressions.”
“Do you have any in mind?”
“Not in particular. Any that might serve our purposes.”
I had a feeling she did have one in mind, but I was being lured in slowly, softened up like a potato brought to boil in a pot.
“I’m not sure I’m interested in this dodge,” I said cautiously. “With all the constables and new precautions, it won’t be easy.”
“All I’m asking is for you to look about, tell me what you see.” She studied me, her eyes looking a brighter green than usual. “There’d be no proper cut for doing this, but there might be something I could do for you in exchange.”
Such as let Mary stay on more than two weeks, I thought. It was likely Maggie knew that mattered to me, but I wasn’t going to show her that card. Not until I had something to trade.
“It might take a few days to visit all of the shops,” I said.
“I can give you the week, take you off dodging until next Monday.”
I didn’t trust Maggie’s intentions toward me.
But for now, I was only taking a measure of part of the city.
There was no risk in that. Also, staying close to Maggie, having some idea about her plans, might keep me safer than ignorance; and it wasn’t much to do in exchange for Mary possibly being allowed to stay.
The following day, I donned the most elegant dress I could find in the costume room, put on the gloves James had sent, and took an omnibus across Blackfriars Bridge.
At the far end, I walked north on New Bridge Street, crossing Fleet where the road became Farringdon.
I passed St. Andrew’s Church and cut west. Knowing shops had likely changed in the year since I’d been here, I planned to walk all the streets of Hatton Garden in a large S, drawing a provisional map of shops in my head, before dividing my task into Leather Lane, Hatton Garden, and Kirby Street and Saffron Hill, one each day.
I walked up and down, examining the buildings.
On every street, the original buildings had been divided into two or three shops, for although each one had its own door on the ground floor, there was a continuity of rooflines and similarity in the brickwork or the size and shape of the windows, particularly on the upper floors.
I observed three uniformed constables in constant motion.
It wasn’t surprising that of the eight thousand constables in London, several would patrol here.
The two recent dodges, by thieves bolder than us, had netted one hundred watches, which were smuggled to the Holland market.
It would have been a triumph, except that the four thieves were betrayed by one of their fences; two were in Newgate and two had taken to rowboats, attempting to evade arrest, and drowned in the Channel.