Eighteen
When Charlotte returned to the corridor, Lord Ingram and Lieutenant Atwood emerged from the easternmost bedroom. They looked disappointed.
“No safe that we could find,” said Lord Ingram. “You might be right after all, that one needs to access it from the secret passage itself.”
Charlotte nodded. “By the way, I spoke to Lady Ingram just now.”
Lord Ingram had first suggested that his wife might be at the château. But judging by his reaction, one would have thought the idea had never occurred to him.
He mastered himself quickly. “Did you learn anything from her about Moriarty?”
“Yes, that he’s been deposed and Madame Desrosiers is in charge now.”
The men stared at her, then looked at each other, then back at her again.
“Does this mean—” Lord Ingram began.
“Yes and I don’t think the château is prepared for what is going to happen.”
“They handled the ferret attack with perfect aplomb,” said Lieutenant Atwood. “Are you sure they will be unequal to tonight’s travails?”
“I’m afraid Moriarty’s people have seen that nonchalance and realized that the château could handle any distractions dreamed up by art thieves. And I’m afraid that they will now try devices and methods that art thieves couldn’t even conceive of.”
“Such as?” ask Lord Ingram, his expression tense.
She shrugged. “Whatever it will be, let’s finish what we need to do and get out. I’m going into the passage.”
Lord Ingram gripped her arm. “You realize that you mean to empty the contents of Moriarty’s safe?”
“I can’t prevent his return. But I do believe I can make it a little less triumphant.”
For Mr. Marbleton’s sake, if nothing else.
She glanced at the young man who had become so important to her sister. From his post outside the linen closet he watched them, his face solemn. They’d been speaking in low voices. She didn’t think he had overheard anything, but their demeanor would have been enough to indicate the gravity of the situation.
“Tell Mr. Marbleton for me,” she said to Lord Ingram.
“Tell him yourself. Let me go into the passage instead?”
He could. But all she had were twelve digits, not a fixed combination for the safe. She trusted that she could do the trials faster.
“I’ll be fine.” She lifted Lord Ingram’s hand from her sleeve and held it for a moment. “And now more than ever, I need you gentlemen to keep an eye on things. Give me all the cigarettes you are carrying, by the way.”
The request was met with a look, but Lord Ingram extracted a cigarette case from his jacket and handed it to her. There were three cigarettes inside. “Do you have any?” she asked Lieutenant Atwood.
He did, adding four more to her collection. She thanked them and went on her way.
As she passed Mr. Marbleton, he looked at her inquiringly. But she could only give him a quick pat on the shoulder.
Time to go into the belly of the beast.
The guard in the linen closet had been removed. Charlotte reversed her jacket and put it back on—the material was ordinary black wool on this side.
The walk from the linen closet to the stone door of the secret passage felt like squeezing down the esophagus of some very large beast, especially as she went down the steep steps. The descent was greater than she expected, from the position of the spy port in the room where she and Lord Ingram had acted out their little scene. It was possible periscopes had been built into the spy ports, so that the watchers wouldn’t have the tops of their heads bump up against the ceiling of the secret passage.
The walk space widened a little toward the end. She kept close to the left wall—Lieutenant Atwood, while giving her the cigarettes, had warned her about the piss bucket to the right, though of course he had not called it that.
The mechanism, too, was on the left, a lever that would swing a portion of the wall open. There was a bolt that would keep the door shut—as always, Château Vaudrieu worried about infiltrators—but now it was unbolted.
She took a deep breath and inhaled cigarette smoke. When she opened the door, even in the dark, she could see a cloud of smoke billowing her way, overwhelmingly pungent.
“You already back, Mercier?” said a man not far to her right, startling her.
She gave a deep grunt of assent and turned left to head to her spot.
“What did you do down below?” the same man asked. “They never tell us anything. Just do this, do that.”
She tensed.
“No talking in here, Poulaine, you know that,” said another man.
She looked back. This man was farther away from her than Poulaine, at the western end of the passage, his profile momentarily lit as his cigarette glowed with a pull of breath.
“Ah là là, Barre,” grumbled Poulaine, “talking to you is like pissing in a violin. Can you be any more of a stick-in-the-mud?”
All the same, he shut up.
Charlotte exhaled.
She walked carefully—it wasn’t easy to get around the camera stands with her paunch. When she reached the last camera stand, she unbuttoned her jacket, her waistcoat, and her shirt and reached into the great space created by her prosthetic stomach to pull out a large piece of thin woolen cloth. This she draped over the stand.
With Livia in the westernmost room in the corridor and Mrs. Watson and the maharani in the room just west of the linen closet, Barre and Poulaine were both west of the stone door and Charlotte had the eastern section of the passage to herself. She hoped that in the dark, with the distance, the draped camera stand would appear to the two men as the silhouette of a person with his eyes fixed to the camera
Then she tiptoed to the spot where Lord Ingram had hidden when Madame Desrosiers and Lady Ingram had come into the secret passage, behind what he’d thought to be a flue.
The passage was directly over a gallery Charlotte had visited on the night of the reception and there had indeed been a large fireplace at roughly this spot. And according to the pictures Mr. Marbleton had taken with his detective camera, there was a chimney on top of the roof also at this spot.
Except on the night of the reception, both arriving and leaving, Charlotte had not seen any smoke rising from that particular spot on the roof, when all the while a fire had burned merrily in that grate.
Whatever the contents of the safe, Moriarty wanted them. Charlotte could be sure then that Madame Desrosiers also wanted them. And she would have searched the house thoroughly. Where could this safe be that she had likely not found it?
Charlotte did not consider hers a particularly good deduction—there was so much of the house they hadn’t seen. But it was worth a try.
She struck a match, to light a cigarette and to study the “flue.” Brick and mortar. Brick and mortar. The scalding heat at her fingertips forced her to extinguish the match. She used the lit cigarette to light another one, walked back to the camera stand, and placed one of the cigarettes next to the camera, away from the draped blanket so that it wouldn’t catch fire, but would be visible to the other men in the passage.
She hoped that it would be enough to disguise the second cigarette, which she would be putting to use behind the flue. But no matter how she prodded and pried, she couldn’t find any loose bricks.
The back of her head throbbed. Was she wrong about the location of the safe? About the existence of the safe altogether? She tried the “front” of the flue, even thought there was barely room for her to fit between the flue and the wall. Again nothing.
Surely Moriarty couldn’t have set the opening panel of the safe on the side facing the rest of the passage. Then again, if he’d never expected to be in here except by himself, then perhaps it made sense to have it open to the side where there was the most space for him to maneuver.
<
br /> She put out the cigarette still in her hand and felt this side of the flue, examining the bricks row by row. At last, where it was almost too high for her to reach, a brick moved slightly at her touch. And it had just enough space around it for her to pull it out.
She set the brick down carefully. Standing on her toes, she put her hand through the space vacated by the brick and felt for the mechanism, activating it as gently as she could. She braced for a loud pop, but a part of the flue swung forward almost noiselessly.
She let out a breath, went to the camera stand, and used the cigarette there to light yet another one, taking care not to let anyone see two points of light. She adjusted the blanket she’d draped earlier over the camera stand. It should obscure the safe behind it.
When she was done, she sat down before the safe that had been revealed. It was twice as large as she’d anticipated. And the combination lock itself was massive, almost the size of a ship’s wheel.
The combination locks she’d seen in her lock-picking practice all had a wheel that went from zero to ninety-nine. But this one went up to one hundred ninety-nine.
Ah, now it made sense. The code had deciphered to be twelve digits, which was too many numbers for a three-number combination. But if she was dealing with a safe that had a four-number or five-number combination, some of them triple digits, then the total number of digits worked.
Which meant that the first number was either one, fourteen, or one hundred and forty-nine. Fortunately, she could put her ear to the safe and hear the tumbler pin fall into place. Still, trials lay ahead of her.
She set to work.
* * *
Mrs. Watson felt as if she were in a dream. She knew that she was under surveillance. She knew that elsewhere in the château her companions were taking enormous risks. Yet here she and Sita Devi were, sitting on a sheepskin rug in their ballgowns, drinking wine and talking, while a fire crackled in the grate.
Were they young women again? Had time flown backward?
Sita Devi had described, in some detail, her yearlong pilgrimage to many of India’s holy sites—the trip might have been undertaken to avoid being her son’s adversary at court, but she’d come to appreciate the experience deeply.
Then she had made Mrs. Watson tell her all about her own years in India and Mrs. Watson had obliged.
“But I guess everything I experienced was from the colonial perspective,” she said after a while. Her husband had been, after all, an army physician. And his presence in India, and consequently her own, had been a direct expression of colonial power and control.
“Maybe,” said her old friend. “But it was also from your perspective and I’ve always enjoyed your perspective.”
Mrs. Watson unclenched somewhere inside. “Thank you.”
Sita Devi inclined her head. She looked like a very regal, very beautiful bird, with her gleaming black gown, golden mask, and tall purple plumes rising from that mask. Mrs. Watson gave an inner sigh of sheer aesthetic appreciation.
“I—” she began, and stopped.
“Yes?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Watson, a little embarrassed. “Just that when I was in India I remembered you often.”
She’d been happily married, but she’d worried, especially when she was happy, about Sita Devi.
“I—” She looked as embarrassed as Mrs. Watson felt. “I used to have violent thoughts about your duke.”
She meant the late Duke of Wycliffe, the first person Mrs. Watson took up with after the maharani returned to India—and also her very last protector.
Mrs. Watson’s eyes widened in surprise. She couldn’t help giggling a little. “You did?”
Sita Devi sat cross-legged, one elbow on her knee, her chin in her palm. She turned her face to gaze into the flames leaping in the fireplace. “I loved to imagine him walking into doors. And then I would imagine you feeling a terrible revulsion for that clumsy dolt—and missing me very desperately.”
“I did miss you desperately—I tormented myself with thoughts of the life we could have had, especially in the early years.” Mrs. Watson’s fingers knotted together. “Did . . . did you ever find anyone?”
She’d prayed fervently for Sita Devi’s happiness. But she found herself growing ambivalent even as she asked the question. If there was no one in Sita Devi’s heart now, if . . .
“It took many years but”—her lips curved with a smile—“she did at last come into my life.”
Disappointment stung Mrs. Watson. But it was a flash as brief as it was ferocious. A great big grin on her face, she leaned forward and took Sita Devi’s hands. “Tell me all about her. Who is she, and how did you meet?”
Sita Devi drew back her hands, but only to cover her mouth as she laughed. “You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Then tell me faster.”
“She is my daughter-in-law’s aunt. She raised the girl so I’ve taken up with the woman who is more or less my son’s mother-in-law!”
Mrs. Watson laughed, too. “Strengthening family ties, are we?”
“I try. Oh, that woman. What a temper.” She shook her head, but the smile on her face was fondly indulgent.
“I’m so happy for you,” said Mrs. Watson, meaning every word even as her heart again pinched a little.
“Thank you.” This time, it was Sita Devi who took her hands. “Whatever happens tonight, Joanna, thank you for everything.”
* * *
“Will these women do something? All they do is talk and talk,” grumbled Poulaine.
When no one answered him, he grumbled some more and moved to the camera set up for what Charlotte thought of as room 5, one farther away from room 4, where Mrs. Watson and the maharani were.
“Now look at these two,” he said with long-denied satisfaction. “They’ve just closed the door and already he’s got her skirts up.”
Charlotte exhaled and hoped that would hold his attention solidly.
“Shhh,” hissed Barre from the far end.
Charlotte gave thanks for the blessed silence and turned the well-oiled dial. The final pin tumbled into place. She wiped away a bead of perspiration from the tip of her nose and opened the safe door.
A stack of gold bullions greeted her, so bright she was afraid they’d magnify the light from her cigarette tenfold. Above the bullions were pouches of gems. Charlotte enjoyed a good bauble, but alas, she was not that sort of thief, even though this must be misbegotten wealth.
A number of envelopes crowded the top rack. She put back those filled with currencies and deeds. At last she came to three padded envelopes filled with photographic plates. Next to it, another envelope bulging with what appeared to be letters. There were two other envelopes, both dark in color, the contents of which she couldn’t immediately judge. She removed another blanket, a pocket lantern, and a bobby’s nightstick from her false stomach and stuffed all the envelopes in, cinching tight the belts that held the stomach shell in place.
Her loot stowed, she closed the safe and the panel and slid the single brick back in its place. They’d discussed blowing up the safe to avoid anyone guessing that it had been opened by someone who knew the combination. It was not terribly difficult to do: All she needed was to leave a suitable quantity of powder inside the safe and close the safe door with putty except for one tiny space through which threaded a slow-burning fuse. Then light the fuse, leave, and half an hour later, kabloom.
But if she didn’t, Moriarty’s suspicions would fall not on Charlotte Holmes, but on Madame Desrosiers, his former mistress, who had every opportunity to find and open the safe during the time he’d been held captive. So Charlotte didn’t need to cover her tracks quite that thoroughly.
The blankets from her paunch she folded and set on the floor. The specially made pocket lantern, hardly bigger than a matchbox, she stuffed into her pocket, next to Lord Ingram’s cigarette
case. It would be perfect if Poulaine was still watching room 5, but he was back at room 4, which was closer to the exit. She weighed her choices and decided not to wait for him to move farther away: The sooner she got out of the passage, the sooner everyone could leave the premises.
Stubbing out a still-lit cigarette, the nightstick in hand, she sauntered toward the exit, the piss bucket on the other side an excellent excuse for stepping out.
As she neared the secret door, Poulaine struck a match to light a cigarette. In that flare of light, he glanced at her.
She held her breath.
“Merde. You are not Mercier. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
He charged toward her. She struck him across the cheek with her baton, then kicked him in the solar plexus. He stumbled back, crashing into the camera stand behind him.
Now where was the exit, exactly? But Poulaine was back on his feet. Another match flared—Barre, too, was coming.
“Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot,” growled Poulaine.
She fired her derringer first, at his hand. Poulaine howled as his revolver clattered to the floor. She rammed her shoulder into the exit. As soon as she and her stomach were through, she started to shove it shut. But Barre had reached the door and was pushing it open.
She wouldn’t be able to hold it against him for much longer. Should she run? Or let the door go and shoot him as he crashed through?
All at once the door moved in her favor, closing. Her colleagues had joined her, Lord Ingram and Lieutenant Atwood, most likely. Together they pushed back against Barre, the door closing, closing.
And wouldn’t close anymore.
Barre must have blocked it with something.
“Back!” Lord Ingram ordered in a fierce undertone.
As one they leaped back.
Barre fell through. Lord Ingram kicked him hard. Barre staggered back and hit the wall of the secret passage. They all three pushed the door shut and threw the bolt in place.
The Art of Theft Page 26
