Chapter 6 #2
“Belonged to King Louis the Fourteenth himself,” Mr. Ingram assured his prospective buyer.
He was a compact little man of slightly less than average height, with a neatly combed mat of carefully arranged graying hair upon his head, and a slightly strained expression upon his face.
Clearly he did not enjoy having the authenticity of his wares questioned.
“Truly a magnificent pair, and extremely rare. Stolen by a French duke who was an adviser to Louis the Sixteenth at the time of the Revolution. Poor chap barely made it out of France with his head on his shoulders. One can only imagine the remarkable events in history to which these handsome pieces were witness,” he continued, embellishing his sale with a whiff of intrigue.
“The workmanship is so superb, I almost hate to part with them,” he added wistfully.
Jack sauntered nonchalantly toward the back of the shop.
An ancient, battered sword caught his eye, and he paused for a moment to study it.
He didn’t think an old, rusted weapon like that could be worth very much, but he decided that if he ever had a home of his own, that was the kind of thing he might like to hang on the wall.
All the other ornate furnishings around him made him feel uncomfortable, as if the furnishings themselves thought they were better than him.
“Pssst!” Grace tipped her head slightly in the direction of the jewelry cabinet.
Jack nodded once. He glanced back to make certain that Mr. Ingram was still engrossed in making his sale.
“Think of the dinners they have overheard—the drama, the mystery, the romance that has unfolded before their elegant presence,” Mr. Ingram continued, making it sound as if the candelabra had eyes and ears.
“What an impressive addition to your home these pieces will make—you shall be the envy of all those who see them….”
Feigning interest in several objects that lay between himself and the jewelry cabinet, Jack surreptitiously continued his trek to the back. One more quick glance to make sure that Mr. Ingram was still engrossed in making his sale.
Then he slipped behind the cabinet and ducked down, unobserved.
Grace had been wrong, he realized, cursing silently. A small padlock clamped the door to the case closed. Jack had not yet mastered the skill of opening a lock without the benefit of a key. He thought he could probably break it off easily, but that would make too much noise.
Better to unscrew the pins holding the hinges in place.
He raked his gaze over the table behind him, where a number of objects were waiting to be cleaned and tagged before being put on display.
A small, gleaming dirk lay in a nest of packing straw.
Checking once more to make certain Mr. Ingram remained occupied, Jack snatched the dirk and bent down to set to work.
The point of the blade fit almost perfectly into the head of the screws.
Working quickly, Jack twisted the blade round and round, releasing the small screws and setting them silently on the floor.
Finally the hinge to which the lock was linked was freed.
Jack pulled it off and eased open the door to the cabinet.
A dazzling array of jewels sparkled before him.
Glittering rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emeralds of every size and color were artfully arranged in glorious necklaces, brooches, rings, and earrings.
Within that single case there was sufficient wealth to keep him comfortable for his entire lifetime—or possibly two.
One quick sweep of his hand across the blue velvet-lined case and he could be on his way to a new life—one that was free of perpetually searching for food and wearing blistering boots and sleeping on the streets.
He wondered what the penalty for such a tremendous theft would be.
Would they hang him if he was caught, or worse, put him in jail for the rest of his life?
“…I don’t know,” the boiled dumpling of a wife was saying, shaking her head until her powdery jowls trembled. “I had been hoping to find something bigger, perhaps with a bird or two worked into the pattern—or maybe even some fruit….”
Jack hesitated, torn between stealing a few pieces or just taking the whole bloody lot.
He had never been presented with such a fabulous amount of wealth, and the allure of it was overwhelming to the point of making him feel sick.
He might never know what it was to be starving and desperate again, he realized numbly.
He could buy a home, fill it with food, and keep the lamps and fireplaces burning day and night if it pleased him.
He could buy clothes as fine as or better than the ones that fat old codger at the front of the store had stuffed himself into, and never have to worry about where he was going to sleep that night, or finding food in the morning.
He could be truly free, in the way that he believed only great wealth could make a man.
He fantasized about this for a long, heady moment, tempted to the point of dizziness by the possibility of the life that lay shimmering before him.
And then he remembered that if he took everything, Mr. Ingram would certainly notice, and be bellowing for the police within a matter of minutes.
Jack would be caught, and Jamie, Simon, Annabelle, Grace, and Charlotte would be implicated by their presence in the store at the time of the robbery.
Genevieve would lose everything, including the children she so obviously loved.
After all of her unexpected kindness to him, Jack could not risk hurting her so terribly.
There would be other jewelry cases, he assured himself philosophically.
Exhaling the breath he had been holding, he quickly selected two rings with enormous diamonds at their centers, a stunning sapphire-and-diamond necklace and a brilliant diamond brooch.
He crammed them in his coat pocket, then quickly rearranged a few of the remaining pieces so there was no discernible gap in the cabinet.
He closed the narrow door, repositioned the lock, and began to swiftly twist the screws back into the wood with the tip of the dirk.
“…if it’s fruit you’re looking for, madam, then I believe I have the very thing,” Mr. Ingram continued, temporarily abandoning his battle to convince his customers of the merits of the candelabra.
“There is a magnificent silver serving tray at the back of the shop that dates from the sixteen hundreds, which once belonged to King Charles the First himself. If you’ll just permit me—”
“Jack!” whispered Grace frantically as Mr. Ingram turned toward the back of the store. “Jack!”
There was no time to replace the last screw, Jack realized in frustration.
“You there!” barked Mr. Ingram suddenly. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
Had he been given an opportunity to reply, Jack might have been able to fabricate an almost credible answer.
Unfortunately, Jamie decided to help him by sending the heavy suit of armor crashing noisily to the ground.
“Run!” Jamie screamed, darting down an aisle, toward the door.
“Stop him!” roared Mr. Ingram, momentarily forgetting about Jack.
The corpulent couple at the front did their best to oblige.
The portly man stuck out his walking stick as Jamie raced by, neatly tripping him.
Unfortunately, this sent the lad plowing straight into the voluminous hooped skirts of his abundantly sized wife.
The impact caused her to fall flat on her backside between the table and the wall, effectively trapping her amidst the endless layers of her petticoats and the expensively wrought metal cage supporting them.
“Help!” she shrieked, her arms and legs flailing as she bobbed about like a great, overturned turtle.
“Got you, young ruffian!” huffed the man, snatching up Jamie by his shoulders.
Simon launched himself at Jamie’s captor, wrenched his walking stick away from him and began to whack him soundly in the shins. “Take your hands off him!”
“Help—murder!” cried the man, releasing Jamie in favor of trying to defend himself. “He’s trying to kill me!”
Mr. Ingram abandoned Jack so he could offer assistance to his poor customers.
As he rushed past Annabelle, who was looking magnificently serene in the midst of all the chaos, she leaped lightly onto a chair, pulled the painting she had previously been admiring from the wall, and smashed it upon Mr. Ingram’s utterly startled head.
“Why, you little—”
He did not finish whatever he might have thought to call her, but began to chase her along the narrow aisle instead.
Unfortunately, with the frame wrapped about his neck and shoulders like a cumbersome gilded collar, he sent a trail of elegant teacups, delicately cut crystal wineglasses, and several heavy decanters that had been painstakingly arranged on a magnificent sideboard smashing to the floor in his wake.
“Look over here!” called Charlotte, as Mr. Ingram was but an inch away from grabbing a fistful of Annabelle’s silky blonde hair.
Momentarily distracted, Mr. Ingram looked.
A fine Venetian tablecloth sailed toward him and landed squarely upon his head before draping over the picture frame, giving him the appearance of a small, high table with a round ball sitting on it.
“I’ll kill all of you, you vile wretches!” he roared, turning about and clawing furiously at the delicate fabric as he struggled to free himself. Chairs and small tables fell every which way as he churned himself in a mad circle.
“Everybody get the bloody hell out!” shouted Jack, causing the little bell above the door to jangle merrily as he tore it open. “Now!”
The children scrambled to navigate their way through the litter of broken china, fallen armor, and overturned furniture. They tore through the store in a desperate streak, too frightened to even glance behind to see if Mr. Ingram had managed to free himself and follow them.
“Run!” commanded Jack as they spilled onto the street.
The children needed no further encouragement. Each dashed off in a different direction, easily darting around carriages and shoppers as they made their escape. Jack raced across the road, then turned to take a final look to see if any of the children were being followed.
And felt his heart slam to a stop as he watched Charlotte trip just as she reached the shop’s threshold, only to be wrenched to her feet by the enraged and triumphant Mr. Ingram.