Chapter 24
Art turned to look at me, a question in his dark eyes.
I drew a breath.
Damn everything.
But there was no way James could have known what was behind the door. I put my hands to the bricks to be sure it wasn’t a facade, a trick of the eye, a painting, but the wall was solid. I shut my eyes to think.
I stepped back to survey the wall for another opening, a sign of a crawl space or an entrance to an attic.
Nothing.
“We have to go back down, take one of the earlier ladders up,” I said quietly. “James said one of them led to a trapdoor in the alley.”
“He said there are constables, and we’ll be seen through the gates.” For the first time I heard a sharpness in Art’s voice. “I doan kill people.”
“Neither do I,” I shot back. “We’ll need a diversion. Just let me think.”
I put the map of this building in my head and walked around it to the alley, which connected to Ely Place—
A church bell rang behind me, followed by another immediately to my right.
The map pivoted in my head. “This is the wrong wall,” I said.
“But the door’s supposed to be to the right, innit?” Art asked.
“I know.” I pointed. “But that way’s north. Those bells were St. Etheldreda’s, which is behind us, and St. Peter’s, in Saffron Hill to the east.”
He drew back dubiously. “I’m sure James knows his directions—”
“And I know Hatton Garden, and I’m telling you, he must’ve got turned around,” I retorted. I carried the lantern over to the other wall. Like the one opposite, it was rough plaster. I ran my right hand along at eye level, searching for a crack. Nothing.
I dropped my hand lower and ran it back.
My fingertips dropped into a divot. “Here.”
He stepped forward.
“Hold the lamp,” I said. Art took it from me, and I brushed away dust. There was no door handle, but a small square not much larger than one revealed itself to my fingertips.
It was a hinged door, smaller than a Judas window, and I took out my knife, slid it into one side, and pulled it open, revealing a door handle, locked.
And now I could see the outline of a small, squat door, half the size of a normal one, the plasterwork done so perfectly it was barely visible.
With no hinges on this side, the door would open inward.
Art went to work with his picks, and the knob turned.
Cautiously, he pushed the door open and peered in.
I laid a hand on his arm, so he’d let me go first, and I swung the lantern over the threshold.
As I’d guessed, we were underneath the staircase that led to the upper floors.
The stairs were supported by vertical wooden beams set approximately every two feet apart, easy enough for us to slip through.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a glint of something shiny. I lowered the lantern toward it and found two small bells suspended from a thread, ready to be set off. I gave Art a warning look, and he nodded. I stepped inside first, and he followed into the area beneath the stairs.
I bent to slip off my boots and my wet socks, and Art did the same.
We ran the bare soles of our feet along the dry part of our trousers above the knees, to be sure we wouldn’t leave prints if the floor was dusty.
We eased between the vertical beams to the door.
Slowly, Art rotated the knob, and we slipped into the main room.
The air was still; it smelled of the musty wool carpet and the linseed oil used to polish the cabinets.
I pointed Art toward the door of the office, and he bent to examine the lock, withdrew his picks, and let us in with the faintest snick.
By the light of the lamp, we saw the safe, a shiny imposing black block with a silver circle on the front.
We could leave no trace of our work, so once more I put out a hand to halt Art, giving me a moment to study the room—the position of the chair, the carpet, and the drawer of the desk, left half an inch out.
When I dropped my arm, Art removed his coat. I took it from him, placing it against the bottom of the door, where the light from the lantern might sliver through, alerting a passing constable who might peer through the front window.
Art stepped toward the safe and paused to appraise it, his hands running over the front, top, and sides.
From his sack, he withdrew my leather wrap of tools and handed it to me.
Next, he set a small, peculiarly shaped box on top of the safe, crouched beside the dial, put his right ear to the metal, and closed his eyes.
There are minutes that last hours, and these were some of them.
I knew better than to urge him to hurry; I’d only delay him by saying a word. But as I watched, I thought of how so much that was precious to me depended upon this stranger’s hands.
His eyes opened and met mine, the handle of the safe pivoted, and the door swung out.
Art stepped aside, and we examined the contents of the six shelves without touching a thing.
Art pointed to what looked like the necklace lying on a black velvet tray and raised a questioning eyebrow.
Did I want to see it, just in case? I shook my head; only the copy would be left loose on a tray.
I pointed, and Art removed the largest rectangular box.
None of the others would hold a necklace of this size laid flat.
Like the box for my repaired bracelet, this one had been closed with a ribbon and a crimson wax seal stamped with the jeweler’s S.
I carried the box to the jeweler’s desk and put down the lamp at the corner.
From my pouch of tools, I chose a knife that could remove the seal without breaking it. My loupe. Two sets of pliers. The small sack of paste stones. The tiny bottle of adhesive.
I picked up the knife and said over my shoulder to Art, “Move away, please. I can’t concentrate with someone watching.”
Silently, he stepped toward the door, and I turned my back to him.
I began the delicate work of removing the wax seal from the ribbon. It peeled off with little difficulty, allowing me to breathe again.
I set aside the box’s lid. One look through my loupe told me this was the marquess’s heirloom.
I studied the way the necklace was attached to the velvet backing: two straight pins at the top, piercing the links beside the stones four away from the clasp, the clasp flat, the tiny emerald above.
At the bottom, one pin through the hoop connecting the ruby pendant to the chain.
I undid the pins and lifted the necklace away from the velvet.
It was heavier than I expected, and I set it on the table.
Given the stakes, I should have been shaking. My breath was shallow, my stomach twisting. But my hands didn’t fail me. They were steady.
In the corner stood a clock whose insistent ticks felt like a mocking reminder. What I would’ve done to silence it, but of course that was impossible. And as I settled to work, the sound vanished.
I began on the first of the jewels. It was delicate work, for the prongs were thicker than the ones I’d practiced on, sturdy talons around the gems, one at each of the four corners.
But they bent like any other, and by undoing three of the four prongs, I could ease the gem out and replace it with the fake.
I’d brought over twenty stones, and I found matches to slip in without difficulty.
The third stone, however, had some sort of adhesive holding it in.
Shoddy work by a jeweler. I bent the prongs back into place and moved on to the next stone.
The hours of practice told, for my hands managed the tools almost without my conscious direction.
“Kit.” Art’s whisper, barely more than a breath, came as I finished the fourth substitution.
I looked up. He had one finger raised. Pointing upward.
I held my breath to listen, and I heard it. Footsteps. Heavy ones, crossing the floor upstairs.
My heart skipped.
I prayed it was just someone using the privy.
“That’s the last, innit?” he asked.
“Almost done,” I whispered back.
Four wasn’t enough. I must get the fifth stone. Sarah and I needed it to start a life somewhere else. I wasn’t leaving without it. My hands were my faithful partners, and the fifth stone slipped in even quicker than the first four.
The footsteps above continued. Then came a cough, phlegmy.
“Done,” I whispered.
It felt like hours, but the clock told me thirty-seven minutes.
I allowed myself to sit back and draw a breath, letting it out in a ragged exhale, before I picked up the necklace and placed it on the velvet.
One of the three pins was missing.
My heart skipped again.
The footsteps were more distant—were they heading toward the stairs?
We’d been almost perfectly silent. He couldn’t have heard anything. Or would some instinct bring him down here?
I turned to Art, panic growing inside my chest. “I’m missing a pin,” I whispered shakily. The necklace wouldn’t remain in place without all three. The moment it was picked up, it would slide noisily around the box.
Together we scoured the top of the desk and the rug below. The hinges of the box, the edges, the velvet folds. Growing frantic, I began to consider looking around the workshop for another pin when Art whispered, “Your sleeve.”
I bent my elbow to look. There it was.
I sucked in my breath and released it, plucked the pin, and fastened all three in place, matching them to the previously made holes in the velvet. I closed the box, replaced the seal, and handed the box to Art.
He placed it on the proper shelf, closed the safe door, spun the knob twice, then carefully set it. “I’ was on three,” he murmured.
I hadn’t thought to check it when we arrived, for I hadn’t considered that might be a sign of an intrusion, like a thread with bells.
One last painstaking survey of the room: chair returned to its position, drawer ajar, nothing left on the table, no footprints.
I handed my tools to Art, and he put them in his sack.
He took up his coat and we slipped out the door as silently as we’d come, replacing our boots outside the secret entrance.
My hands were shaking, and I let them, for a moment.
As we reached the trapdoor, Art opened it and went down first. Before I climbed down, I placed my hands on my pocket, feeling the small drawstring pouch with the stones.
Three diamonds for Maggie.
One to plant.
And one for me.