He got to the front gate in time to see a small figure dressed in black fling itself at the metal barrier and begin to climb. Assuming that no one leaving a property in such a manner was doing so after lawful entry, Thaddeus stepped forward to apprehend the fleeing criminal.
“Now then,” he said as he gripped the surprised intruder as soon as his feet touched the ground. “What are you up to?”
He found himself, to the astonishment of them both, looking into the shocked and pale face of Rémy Brunel.
“You!”
The girl struggled, trying to pull herself free of his hands. “Let me go!”
Thaddeus snorted with laughter. “Not likely,” he told her. “I know what you did. I know what you took! And now you’re going to pay for it!”
She fought like a wildcat, in a flurry of limbs and with nails like claws, but Thaddeus wouldn’t let go. He was taller, and despite the able muscles he felt in her thin arms, he was stronger, too. He wrestled her against the wall and pinned her there, ignoring the stream of French she spat at him. He suspected the translation may be a little unladylike.
“What are you doing here, eh? Thought you’d come and steal from a defenceless old man, did you? Didn’t bank on those dogs though, did you? Now, tell me where the Ocean of Light is.” He shook her, running out of patience. “Where have you hidden it?”
“I don’t have it,” she hissed, still struggling. “You stupid fool! Let me go! I don’t have it!”
“Not on you, no – but somewhere. Tell me.”
The girl shook her head violently, hair flying around her head. “I did not take it! Imbécile! He did!”
Thaddeus frowned. “Who?”
“Abernathy. Your precious Lord. He is the thief, not me!”
Thaddeus laughed again, in disbelief this time. “My God, you circus lot really do know how to spin a yarn, don’t you?”
Rémy began to fight him again, but Thaddeus still refused to let her go. He wrapped one arm around her and held her fast against him, using the fingers of his free hand to issue a shrill whistle. A cab drew to a halt on the other side of the street.
“Come on, my girl,” he said, the mass of her hair tickling his nose. “It’s back to Scotland Yard for you.”
“Don’t do that, Mr Rec.”
The voice that spoke behind him was thin and reedy. Thaddeus turned to see a young boy standing in the dawn shadows. It was another face Thaddeus recognised.
“J? What the blazes are you doing here?”
The boy pointed at Rémy Brunel, who was currently kicking at Thaddeus’ ankles. Thankfully, he was still wearing his police-issue boots.
“I’m wiv ‘er, Mr Rec.”
Thaddeus looked between his captive and the street boy. “What? Oh, no, J. I thought we’d talked about this? The last time I caught you? You said, no more burglaries. You said you were going to go to the Sally Ann.”
“We weren’t stealing! I was just… ‘elping,” J said. “Anyhow, it ain’t stealing when the fing is already stole!”
“What?” Thaddeus said, confused.
“I told you, foolish man,” growled the defiant girl in his arms. “I did not steal the Darya-ye Noor. Abernathy did.”
“I fink you should listen to ‘er, Mr Rec,” said J, stepping closer. “That Abernathy, ‘e’s bad news. And I don’t know ‘er there too well, but she’s a good sort. She bought me breakfast, di’n’t she? After I tried to rob ‘er, ‘n all. So, ‘ow about you listen? Just for an hour or so, like. You was always good at that, Mr Rec. Listening.”
“I don’t have the jewel,” said Rémy. “So if you imprison me, you will never get it back.”
Thaddeus tried to think, but couldn’t concentrate with the girl still struggling against him. “Stop,” he said into her ear. “Please, just stop, for a moment. Let me think.”
She calmed then, but he didn’t let her go. Thaddeus looked down, saw her bruised and bloodied bare feet, and absently wondered where her shoes were. If he took her back to Glove now, he’d have no more proof in his favour than if he’d hauled a random woman in from the street. And he’d be risking walking back into the lion’s den. But the idea that Lord Abernathy could somehow be responsible for all this was preposterous. Wasn’t it?
Nine
An Uneasy Truce
Thaddeus stared at J for another moment, and then nodded once, sharply. After all, what could he lose by listening? As long as he didn’t let the girl out of his sight, he could still take her to the Yard whenever he wanted. And what he really needed was the jewel. If he could make her feel trusted, he might persuade her to give up its hiding place. He’d be in far better a position taking her to Glove with the Darya-ye Noor than without it.
“Very well,” he said. “I will listen. But you’ll both have to come with me.”
The girl swore again, and struggled. “Non. It is a trick. I will go nowhere with you. Nowhere!”
“A trick! That’s rich, coming from you!”
“Mister Rec,” J interrupted. Thaddeus looked at him to see the boy glancing around them uneasily. “It’s getting light a bit sharpish, sir. Not sure we should dilly-dally around and about much longer, like.”
Rec nodded. “Go and get in the cab, J,” he told the boy. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got somewhere we can go where no one will come looking for us.”
* * *
They arrived back at the Professor’s workshop just as the sun was trying to paint the sky a rosy pink instead of its usual all-pervading grey. The air over Limehouse Basin was already thick with noise and smog. The wind had risen with the weak sun, and the sail ropes of the boats moored in the oily water clinked against the masts – chink-chink-chink – as if trying to keep the shouts of the dockers to time as they loaded their holds.
“Well, well, well,” cried the Professor, as Thaddeus pushed open his door. “I was expecting you to be far longer. Does this bode well? I –“ He stopped as Thaddeus led the girl and J inside. “What’s this? Visitors?”
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Thaddeus told him, as he took the workshop keys from the hook beside the door and locked it. He wasn’t risking the girl’s escape for anything. “I needed to bring these two somewhere none of us would be found.”
The Professor nodded. “Very well,” he said, and then looked pointedly at J. The boy’s eyes had grown as big as saucers at the sights inside the large room. “On the strict understanding that no one touches anything. Understand, young man?”
Thaddeus watched as J nodded and stuck his hands in his ragged pockets in an uncharacteristic show of obedience. Thaddeus almost smiled. He could remember being as awed by the Professor himself on their first meeting, so many moons ago.
“Good,” the Professor beamed. “In that case, welcome, and do have some tea. I’ve lit the fire, it’s so cold a morning. Warm yourselves…”
He led the way to the other end of the workshop, to the area that acted as his living room. Thaddeus had rarely seen the Professor anywhere but here in the workshop, and on the nights that he had stayed through the dark hours, working on some elusive invention that he couldn’t get quite right, the Professor had always stayed, too. Thaddeus suspected that he didn’t have anywhere else to go – this place was his whole life, and where he lived, too. Thaddeus would have gladly swapped his cramped, sooty rooms with Mrs Carmichael to live here, among the odd and assorted detritus of the Professor’s mechanical obsessions.
“My goodness, my dear, what have you done to yourself? Have you no boots?”
The Professor was staring at Rémy’s bare feet. Thaddeus realized that one of the dogs must have bitten her – he could see the angry marks of teeth and blood along her left heel – and felt a momentary pulse of guilt when he remembered how roughly he’d dragged her to the cab.
“I lost them,” she
said, quietly, her accent softer now she had stopped shouting. “Inside Abernathy’s grounds, when the dogs came.”
The Professor frowned. “You broke into Abernathy’s home? Who are you?”
“I am nobody,” said Rémy, “and I did not break in. But I tried to.”
“I’ve still got yer bag, Rémy,” J piped up. “Held on to it as best I could. Fink you’ve got some slippers in ‘ere, ain’t yer?”
“Well, you’d best wash your feet before you put them on, at least,” Thaddeus told her awkwardly.
She looked up at him, her gaze defiant but still cool, as if to make sure Thaddeus knew that his opinion was not even worth her anger. “Do you not think I know that?” she asked. “I suppose you think we circus people enjoy the dirt, yes? That even when we are dressed in finery, we long for it?”
He was about to offer to get a bowl of water for her feet when the meaning of her words sank in. “So it was you! At the circus, and at the Tower – Little Bird! I knew it! You did take it, didn’t you?” he asked, his anger flaring again. “The Darya-ye Noor. All this nonsense about Lord Abernathy – you were just trying to throw me off the scent. So look, I’m going to give you another chance – and let me tell you, you don’t have many of those left, Rémy Brunel. Where is the jewel?”
“I. Do. Not. Have. It,” she said, very slowly and deliberately.
“Then you sold it. Who to? Where has it gone?”
She shook her head and looked at J. “You said he was a good listener.”
“‘E usually is,” the boy said lamely. “‘E’s just a bit riled up, ain’t ‘e? Tell the truth, I don’t fink either of you are being much ‘elp to the other, are yer?”
“Quite right, my boy, quite right,” chipped in the Professor. “Now, obviously I am a newcomer to these events, but it seems to me that there is a lot of talk with no real meaning. Miss Brunel – it is Miss Brunel, isn’t it? Yes. I am going to get you some water and a cloth, and while you bathe your poor feet you can tell us exactly what happened. Hmm?”
He bustled off as Rémy turned her face to stare into the fire, its orange flames reflected in her large, fierce eyes. The Professor returned a few minutes later with a bowl of water and a towel and placed it in front of the girl, who nodded gratefully and dipped one foot after the other into the welcome warmth.
“Now then,” the Professor began. “I’ve known Thaddeus for a long time. I’ve watched him grow from a dirty urchin of a boy to become a good and trustworthy man. So, I am going to ask him what it is he has against you because whatever it is, he must have good reason. And then you will have your chance to reply. I gather, Thaddeus, that you think Miss Brunel is at the heart of your misfortunes.”
Thaddeus swallowed his anger long enough to reply. “I saw her at the Tower on the night the jewel went missing. I was given it for safe keeping, I saw her face – and then it was gone. She stole it. She’s the reason that the police think I am a thief.”
The girl looked up at that, and he saw genuine surprise in her eyes. “They blame you?” she asked.
“They think I took it.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Well, then. It seems Lord Abernathy has played us both for fools, Mr Policeman.”
Before Thaddeus could speak again, the Professor held up his hand. “Rémy. Tell us what happened. No lies, do you understand? The truth, my dear. It may not set you free, but it really does make life so much simpler. Yes?”
She stared at the fire again for a moment before nodding. “I was there to take it. The Darya-ye Noor. I tried to take it. I thought I had.” She looked up at Thaddeus. “I took it from your pocket. But I did not steal the Darya-ye Noor.”
“At last!” Thaddeus exclaimed. “A confession!”
Rémy Brunel shook her head. “You are not listening to me. It was not the Ocean of Light that I took. I thought it was. I had intended to take it. But…”
“But?” prompted the Professor.
“When I got back to the circus – when I gave it to my master, to Gustave – he saw that it was a fake. I saw that it was a fake. The stones had been swapped, and that must have happened when the plinth was smashed because the stone I saw under glass was real, I swear it.”
“Swapped?” Thaddeus spat, after a moment, “Of course they weren’t swapped! What sort of idiot do you take me for?”
Rémy looked up at him. “They were. And if you did not swap them, then it must have been Lord Abernathy. It makes sense, does it not? Who would believe a frail old man, and a lord at that, would stoop so low as to steal? No one, of course. No one did. A perfect crime, you could say, especially since there were others – you and me – to take the blame.” There was a brief silence and then she added, “So you see – you and I, Thaddeus Rec – we are the same.”
“We are not the same,” he said immediately. “We are nothing like the same! I am not a thief. I will never be like you.”
She gazed at him steadily, before nodding. “But that is what they are calling you. And you can say whatever you like, but it is what they say that matters in this world. You should know that.”
“You set out to take something that was not yours,” Thaddeus grated. “Something that you did not earn. Only the worst kind of person – someone that has something wrong with their soul – does that. So now, you will help me get it back – wherever it is – and we will return it to its rightful owner.”
Rémy shook her head. “I will get it back,” she said, “but I will not return it. I cannot.”
Thaddeus threw up his hands in anger. “What is wrong with you? Is this how you like to live your life? On the wrong side of the law, with the lowest people you can find?”
“No,” she said, quietly. “But some of us do not have a choice.”
“There is always a choice. Always.”
Rémy Brunel dried her feet and stood up. Even standing as tall as she could, the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. “Not when you have others depending on you,” she said, softly. “Not when everything is down to you… But you will never understand.”
“We are trying to, my dear,” said the Professor. “But theft is a hard thing to justify. Why are you so determined to take this jewel?”
“You will never believe me. You will say I am lying, that I am making it up.”
“Well, you’ve got only yourself to blame for that,” Thaddeus pointed out.
She made a harsh sound in her throat and turned away as the Professor sighed and held up his hand. “Tell us anyway, Miss Brunel,” he urged. “That can’t hurt, can it?”
Rémy stared into the fire a little longer, and then shrugged. “Gustave… Gustave said I was cursed. That he was cursed. That he needed the diamond – I do not know, to break the curse, perhaps. He did not get the chance to tell me the whole story.” She turned to look Thaddeus in the eye. “You interrupted.”
Thaddeus could hardly believe what he was hearing. “My God! A curse now, is it?” He looked at the Professor for help. “She’s making it up as she goes along! She’ll say anything that she thinks will help her!”
The Professor held up a hand, nodding. “Yes, yes, Thaddeus. And yet…”
“And yet? How can there be an ‘And yet’?”
His friend ignored him, addressing only the girl. “The Darya-ye Noor is an Indian jewel, am I right?”
“Yes, Monsieur. It was mined at Golconda.”
Thaddeus shook his head. “What difference does it make where the stone came from?”
The Professor crossed his arms. “My dear Thaddeus, while your excellent brain can rarely said to be at fault, what I do sometimes have an issue with is your penchant for conservatism. You would be amazed what can be learned through a willingness to look outside what would be termed the acceptable in polite London circles.”
Thaddeus stared at his friend for
a moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t even know what that means.”
The Professor sighed. “All I mean, my dear boy, is that it never hurts to consider the possibilities. I, for example, have been examining new power sources. Steam has transformed our factories, our transport – our lives. But what if there were another, less dangerous, cleaner and more productive method of fuelling our machines? To this end, I have looked into all sorts of theories and myths – including the elusive stories of the efficacy of gemstones.”
For a moment, Thaddeus was stumped. “Precious stones… as a power source?”
The Professor shrugged. “To be honest, the idea seems as ludicrous to me as it does to you. But others believe it, and the myths support it, and belief is, as history has taught us, as immovable as fact in the hearts of those who hold it. And so, if neither of you two stole this gem, we must look at other people who may have taken it. And, my dear Thaddeus, as loath as you are to consider it, it would seem to me that Lord Abernathy must certainly be at the top of that list.”
“Yes!” exclaimed the girl, leaping up. She turned to Thaddeus. “You see! Even he believes me!”
“I didn’t say that – yet,” warned the Professor. “But what is clear to me is that both of you need this stone as badly as the other. So, I suggest you find a way to put aside your differences and work together, at least until you’ve found it. Thaddeus? Do you think you could do that?”
Thaddeus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is absurd! We’re taking police work into our own hands!”
“And what else do you suggest?” asked Rémy. “That we go to the police, right now, without the jewel? How do you think that would turn out?” She walked towards him, her chin raised high, and stuck out her hand. “Shake hands with me. Shake, and I swear I will help you find the Darya-ye Noor.”
“Thaddeus,” the Professor urged. “My boy, I believe this is the only way.”
The Diamond Thief Page 8
