by Robert Cole
***
The next day, Abigail flung the door to our attic workshop open and asked permission to enter.
Naturally, she is always welcome wherever Rupert and I are, but her innate good manners prevent her from entering that room.
Her manners, and her consideration for mere personal safety, naturally, considering the fact that often Rupert might have the odd explosive device sitting around, or something delicate in the way of knock-out drops boiling away over the gas fire.
"Good morning, Rupert. Well, Simon?" she said as she came towards the long deal table where we do most of our work. "Do you have all the measurements you need?"
"Good morning, m'lady." Rupert made a minute adjustment to a cogwheel and added a bit of white powder to the stone bowl in the center of the table.
I was busy with sealing wax and a small knife, referring to a list of notes in Abigail's neat hand.
"We've made a good start," I said. "I think we could have quite a creditable copy made in a week or so."
Abigail examined the paraphernalia spread on the scarred old table with the interest she has in all things technical and scientific. I, sadly, have no such interest. I am good with my hands only when it comes to picking pockets or locks. I do have a good eye for detail and measurements, and Rupert is quite handy with all sorts of infernal devices.
Between us, however, we can generally manage to make quite creditable copies of jewels of various kinds. Pearls, luckily for our present endeavor, are quite the easiest to copy. A bit of paste, some sticking plaster, some ground up oyster shell, and bob's your uncle. Really, one wonders why such a useful skill isn't taught in the public schools.
"Good," Abigail said absently as she toyed with a cog or gear or something mechanical of that sort. "Then it all comes down to the right time and place."
"I could do a smash and grab, m'lady," Rupert offered as he poured a milky mass into one of the forms I had just finished. "Mr. Simon could restrain me and I could drop the copy as if it was the real necklace."
"Hmm," Abigail said, "a possibility, a distinct possibility. I was hoping, however, for something not quite so common, a touch less of the everyday."
Abigail, as you can see, has the soul of a true artist. I believe it runs in her blood. She has no hesitation in going through the most elaborate scenarios to acquire something Rupert or I would simply grab and make a run for it.
This is one of the countless things I love about Abigail, but it can be a bit wearying. Once we spent three weeks in a smoky cottage in Scotland, so close to Loch Ness one could smell the fish on the breath of the monster, carrying out an elaborate scheme which came to naught in the end. But was Abigail downcast? Was she disappointed? Little you know her if you suspect any such thing. She simply picked herself up and at once concocted an even more convoluted plan, which succeed admirably. There! That is the woman I adore!
"There could be a break in at that ghastly townhouse of theirs," I suggested as I began carving another mold out of sealing wax. "God knows, it would take them forever to miss anything. And there were some rather tasty bits of silver."
"Focus, Simon!" Abigail pulled up a stool and began running a finger down the sheets of newspaper we had spread to protect the table. "We're not after Georgian pepper pots. We're after the Tears of the Whatever."
"Tears of the Leviathan," I said. "And with any luck, and our usual skill, we shall not draw any tears from Miss Belle's leviathan of a papa."
"Leviathan is quite apt, my dear chap. Mr. Wilkerson is immoderately large, isn't he?" Abigail said as she slid one page aside and began on another.
Then she jumped up. Her stool toppled over behind her with a clatter which would have brought our landlady running if she were still capable of such an energetic feat.
"Here we are, here we are," Abigail shouted, her finger on a column of smudgy newsprint. "Just the thing! Just the thing indeed! Neat, clever and, I vow, never been done before."
She seized one of my tiny knives and cut out a strip of paper. She waved it in my face with an air of triumph.
"Simon, we're going to the…" Abigail held the strip of paper close to a gas jet, "…Alhambra Music Hall this very night as ever was."
"But, but, Abigail," I began.
I should have known better. One does not argue with Lady Abigail Moran.
If she wished to go to a music hall, to a music hall we would go.
"May I at least wash my hands and put on a clean shirt?" I asked with a sigh.
"You may," she said kindly. "And your lovely new waistcoat, the one you've been dying to wear."
"Abigail!" I said, shocked. "Never in a million years. One does not wear a silk waistcoat to the Alhambra!"
