by Marie Laval
Vault twenty-six, third cabinet right after Secretum, fourth shelf, second left. Pull.
‘I think I’ve got it,’ she said as she wrote the last words and handed Knox her piece of paper. He glanced at the paper and his eyes widened with surprise.
‘You most certainly have.’ He gave her the paper back.
‘What is the Secretum?’
Knox’s face became red. ‘It’s a…hmm…special collection, not suitable for public display. Oscar must have hidden the file on the Brotherhood as soon as the new wing was refurbished, and when he found out the organization was trying to kill him in Algiers he sent you the map with the coded message.’
‘Please, Mr Knox, tell me what you know about the Brotherhood,’ Harriet asked. ‘I find it hard to believe my father would ever get into anything illegal or morally reprehensible.’
Theophilius Knox shook his head, and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
‘My dear, sometimes the best of us fall victim to circumstances which make refusing certain opportunities hard, if not impossible,’ he stuttered.
‘What kind of circumstances?’ She tried to remember her father’s exact words. ‘My father spoke of a difficult situation.’
Knox cleared his throat, but avoided looking at her.
‘You will have to remember that it was a long time ago, when we were very young men. Your father became very…ahem…close to a young woman who used to do the laundry and the cleaning for our college. They…well…’ Knox cleared his throat again. ‘The girl went on to have a baby.’
‘What?’ Harriet cried out.
Knox raised his hands as if to appease her.
‘Your father did his best, but he didn’t have much money in those days. He rented some rooms in a little house up in the Summertown part of Oxford. For a while nobody suspected anything. Unfortunately, Charles Callaghan got wind of the affair somehow. He was a fellow student—worthless and lazy, but as he came from a wealthy family, his antics were tolerated. However, your father, unlike Callaghan, wasn’t the son of an earl. If the dons had found out about his unfortunate situation, they would have thrown him out of Oxford. To keep quiet, Callaghan blackmailed your father and asked him to perform certain services for him—write his assignments and accompany him to betting shops, cockpits and houses of ill repute. Oscar was so desperate that he did Callaghan’s bidding.’
‘What happened to them, the woman and the child?’ Harriet asked.
‘Sadly, the girl and the baby—a boy—died in the cholera epidemic of ‘21, when both your father and I were in our final year.’ Knox sighed.
‘And Callaghan carried on blackmailing my father?’
He nodded. ‘After we graduated, we came back to London to seek employment. For a while it seemed things had settled down. I started working here, in my father’s bookshop. Your father got a post at the Museum, where Callaghan’s father was a trustee. But as soon as he started courting your mother, Callaghan started calling in favours again.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Harriet sank wearily into her chair, feeling suddenly drained and disorientated. ‘Lord Callaghan’s family were very wealthy, he must have had many friends from his own circle. What did he want with a man like my father?’
‘You forget the thrill of having power over people,’ Knox answered slowly. ‘Callaghan was always a rake. He founded his own little club, gave it a fancy name, but the brotherhood of the Silver Wolf was little more than a cover for wealthy, dissolute and arrogant young men looking for thrills and indulging in debauchery—at first. Oscar was different. He was honest and hardworking. Deep down, I think Callaghan admired him, envied him even. He wanted to control him, bring him down.’ Knox bent his head. ‘And he did, eventually.’
For a while, the silence in the room was only broken by the tick tock of the clock.
‘What about Archie?’ Harriet asked.
Knox snorted. ‘Your father didn’t see Archibald for what he really was until it was too late. All the man was interested in was the advancement of his career. He never cared about how he got to the top, as long as he got there. No matter how often your father tried to reason with him, he believed the Brotherhood was the best way of getting a promotion.’
‘There must be more to this,’ Lucas remarked. He came quietly to stand behind Harriet and rested a hand on the back of her chair as if to lend her some support. Although he didn’t touch her, she felt the heat and the strength from his body. She sat very straight, resisting the urge to lean back against him.
‘I can’t imagine Callaghan sending assassins after Montague and his team, and going to the trouble of organising a fake rescue mission with a thousand pound ransom for the sole purpose of protecting a drinking and whoring club.’
He sounded suspicious. Once again, Knox’s colour deepened. He sighed.
‘You are right. There is more.’
Chapter Thirty
‘Would you care for a glass of port?’ Knox asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he walked to a cabinet, pulled out three tumblers and a bottle, and poured some liquor out. His hand shook so much that some liquor spilled onto the table. He immediately drained his glass and poured another.
What was the elderly scholar so afraid of? Lucas walked across the room to get his and Harriet’s glass.
‘Over the years, the Brotherhood forged links with the criminal underworld—prostitution, gambling, slum housing, you name it,’ the old man resumed. ‘To procure funds for his activities, Callaghan set up an underground art market to sell artefacts from the museum. As the chairman of the board of trustees, he had unlimited access to the building and the collections and, of course, blackmailed key employees into falsifying documents and ‘forgetting’ to catalogue certain artefacts, thereby erasing any trace of their existence.’
‘Men like my father,’ Harriet whispered.
Knox sighed. ‘The theft of the museum’s treasures has snowballed since the building work began at Great Russell Street. I gather that by now a significant number of the museum’s artefacts have been ‘lost’—in reality sold or given to the criminal barons Callaghan associates with in return for favours. For the past ten years, Callaghan has also been heavily involved in the floatation of railway companies—many of them fake.’ He looked at Harriet. ‘We are talking fraud and share scams on a grand scale here.’
Harriet sat rigid in her chair in front of him.
‘My father was party to that kind of fraud?’ she asked, her voice weak.
‘He had no choice, my dear, but he hated it, especially when precious ancient artefacts were taken away and sold to private collectors,’ Knox replied. ‘He had to carry out Callaghan’s orders and forge paperwork, help ship out valuable artefacts out of the museum without a trace, or secure buyers in England or abroad…’
Lucas looked at Harriet, pale and fragile in her wedding dress, her grey eyes huge and full of shadows. How she must hurt right now and feel betrayed by her father! What must it be like to learn that the man you had trusted and admired wasn’t as irreproachable as you believed? His most basic, primal instinct was to pull her up and enfold her into his arms, to whisper in her ear that he would keep her safe, always. Instead, he gave her a glass of port and resumed his place behind her.
‘There is something else…’ Knox whispered. ‘Do you remember the McNaughton trial two and a half years ago?’ he asked Harriet.
‘McNaughton?’ She frowned and rubbed her forehead lightly with her fingers. ‘Wasn’t he the man who shot the prime minister’s secretary? I remember there was a public outcry when he was acquitted on grounds of insanity.’
Knox nodded and took a deep breath. ‘At the time, he claimed he was being coerced into carrying out the assassination by members of a secret organisation. He said the man he wanted to kill was Robert Peel himself, not his secretary.’
‘No, not murder as well!’ Harriet was now as pale as her dress.
Knox nodded. ‘McNaughton was a wealthy but
fragile young man who became interested in art, science and ancient history,’ he explained. ‘He met some people he should never have mixed with.’
‘Let me guess. The Brotherhood?’ Lucas asked, arching his eyebrows.
‘That’s right. Oscar met him a couple of times. He found him volatile, easily suggestible, eager to impress. McNaughton told him that the Brotherhood demanded he prove himself by some spectacular action as a kind of initiation rite, something which would leave its mark, like shooting a public figure. Someone suggested that Robert Peel, the prime minister himself, would make a perfect target.’
‘Oh my God!’ Harriet’s hand flew in front of her mouth. ‘But why?’
‘At the time, several of the criminal barons associated with the Brotherhood were feeling threatened by Peel’s determination to combat crime and set up a well-organised, efficient police force. He was also trying to establish a parliamentary enquiry commission to tackle the ever-growing issue of railway fraud. Callaghan was keen to protect his investments and keep his name and the name of his associates out of any investigation.’
‘So he somehow convinced McNaughton to kill Lord Peel, but the young man shot Drummond instead.’ Harriet shook her head. ‘My father should have told the police. No matter what the consequences for him, his position at the museum, his reputation, he should have.’
‘He couldn’t, my dear,’ Knox said. ‘He was too afraid Callaghan would try to hurt you…McNaughton wrote to your father after he was convicted. The letter is now in Oscar’s secret file, along with everything else he managed to gather on Callaghan. He desperately wanted to be free, but what he wanted even more was for you to be safe. He was planning a new start with you. He told me Callaghan had finally agreed to release him on the condition he gave him the file once he got back from Algiers, and the location of the Garamantes emerald mines, if ever he found it.’
‘He was lying of course,’ Harriet said. ‘He sent his killers to silence him instead.’
‘I see…’ Lucas whistled between his teeth. ‘Now I understand why Callaghan would go to such length to silence your father. His involvement in an attempt on the prime minister’s life would definitely mean public disgrace at the very least, and more likely hanging for high treason.’
He drained his glass and put it down on the table.
‘I think it’s time we went to the museum to get that file.’
Theophilius Knox gasped.
‘You mean to go now, in the middle of the night?’
‘We need to act fast. Callaghan might have men watching the museum tomorrow.’
‘But how do you propose to get in the museum?’
‘I can pick locks, however large, if that’s what you are worried about,’ Lucas said with a shrug. ‘All I need are the right tools and I’m sure you have something I can use.’
‘You will need me to find your way around,’ Knox said.
‘I am coming too.’ Harriet stood up quickly.
‘That’s out of the question,’ Lucas started. ‘I will not let you take that kind of risk.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t even try and dissuade me,’ she warned.
‘That’s not a good idea, Harriet,’ he carried on nonetheless. ‘What if we get caught?’
‘If we get caught, I shall burst into tears and make up some story about wanting to retrieve some of my father’s things as a memento,’ she replied, tilting her chin. ‘I am sure the museum guards or the police won’t be harsh on a grieving daughter.’
‘You aren’t coming.’ Lucas stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders to look down at her. She might be determined, but he was as stubborn as her.
She stiffened under his touch as if he had hurt her. He dropped his hands and stepped back.
‘I hate to say this, but Harriet is right,’ Knox interrupted. ‘What’s more, she will be safer with us than alone here.’ He glanced around, an uneasy look in his eyes. ‘Callaghan knows where I live. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent his thugs around to pay me a visit anytime soon.’
‘What will you do once we have the file?’ Lucas asked.
The old man shrugged. ‘As soon as we have the file, we are going somewhere safe to look at it, then we’ll take it to Bow Street in the morning.’
While Lucas gathered the tools needed for their expedition to the museum, Knox showed Harriet to his modest lodgings above the bookshop. Sneaking into the British Museum in a wedding dress at night was not a good idea, so she quickly changed into the spare grey gown she had packed. She told Knox she didn’t care if he gave the wedding dress away or ripped it to shreds to make dusting cloths, as long as she never laid eyes on it ever again.
They got out of the shop through the back door and found Joseph, his driver, waiting for them in front of St Paul’s cathedral. During the short ride to the museum, Harriet kept her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her nerves were so taut, her chest so tight, she found it hard to breathe. Lucas asked the driver to circle the block a couple of times so that he could survey the museum’s immediate surroundings. Apart from a couple of policemen on the beat near Bedford Square, the streets were empty and quiet.
‘We’ll get in through there.’ Lucas pointed to a small gap in the fence surrounding the building site at the top of Great Russell street. ‘The gas lights aren’t working on that side of the street.’
He grabbed the satchel Knox had given him and opened the door.
As soon as they climbed down from the carriage, the driver clucked his tongue, gave a soft command to the horses and left. He was to come back after half an hour. Lucas made a larger hole in the fence for Knox, Harriet and himself to sneak through, and they went in. Although much of the new building was completed, the area immediately around the museum was still littered with piles of rubble, bricks, stones, wood and tools. Knox proceeded to one of the side doors leading to the basement—the one he said offered the best access to vault twenty-six.
Even though there was no guard around, they remained silent and held their breath as Lucas ran his fingers along the door to locate the lock, then pulled a pick and a wrench out of the satchel. The couple of minutes it took him to release the mechanism felt like an eternity. At last he pushed the door open.
‘Get in,’ he instructed.
She shivered as she entered the cold, dark basement. Lucas jammed a small piece of wood in the door to make sure it would stay ajar for them, and lit one of the candles he had taken from Knox’s shop earlier.
‘Which way?’ he asked Knox.
The elderly man looked around and gestured towards a door. ‘Down here.’
The light from the candle threw huge shadows on the walls as they made their way down a corridor cluttered with crates and display cabinets.
‘This one,’ Knox said at last, pointing to a massive black door. Lucas handed him the candle while he once again dug out some tools out of the satchel and started working on the lock.
‘We have to find the Secretum first,’ Harriet said when they walked into the vault. ‘It could be any of these.’
Lucas lifted his candle higher. The vault was lined with massive display cabinets, some with glass fronts and others with solid wooden doors.
‘I guess we’d better start searching then. At least we have a vague idea of what’s in that mysterious cupboard fifty-five,’ he remarked, a wide grin on his face.
She turned round without answering and opened the first cabinet in front of her. How could he make a joke when they could be caught by guards any second and arrested for trespassing?
Lucas tipped the candle over a crate. A few drops of hot wax trickled onto the flat surface and formed a puddle in which he stuck the candle. The three of them started searching, starting in a different corner in the basement and working their way towards the centre. The second cupboard Harriet searched was a black cabinet. She opened the drop-down door, pulled a drawer. The first object she saw was an ancient terracotta votive oil lamp. She held it in front of her and her cheeks grow ho
t. There was no mistaking the shape of the handle. She put the lamp down quickly and looked inside the cabinet again. The drawer was filled with similar lamps and amulets. She pulled out a book covered with thick black leather. She flicked through the thick yellowed pages, opened her eyes wide at the graphic depictions of men and women’s bodies engaged in intimate activities. The book slipped from her hands and fell on the ground with a thud.
She cleared her throat.
‘I think this is the Secretum,’ she called, bending down quickly to pick up the book and put it back into the cupboard.
‘Really? Let me see, just in case you were mistaken.’ Lucas came over. She couldn’t see his face very well in the semi-darkness, but she was almost sure he was smiling.
‘Trust me, I know what I was looking at,’ she said coldly, moving away. ‘The coded message said we had to look inside the third cabinet to the right.’ She stopped in front of a tall bookshelf.
‘On the fourth shelf.’ She stood on her tiptoes and extended her hand out, but it was far too high for her to reach. ‘What we are looking for should be the second item on the left.’
‘Let me do this.’ Lucas reached out from behind her. He pulled out a thick, heavy volume, opened it, and skimmed through a few pages.
‘It’s some kind of history book about Rome,’ he said, puzzled. He turned the book over and shook it. ‘There’s nothing hidden inside.’
‘Maybe it’s the wrong cabinet,’ Knox mused. ‘Unless…What’s that there?’ He pointed to what looked like another book right at the back of the shelf.
Lucas reached out again, and this time he dislodged a portfolio. ‘I think that’s it,’ he said.
He put the folder on the crate next to the candle and untied the green ribbon that held it together. Harriet and Knox stood next to him as he flicked through bundles of papers and letters. He held out a list of names and dates and a letter.
‘Members names, presumably with the date they joined the Brotherhood,’ he told Knox. ‘This looks like a catalogue of the artefacts that were sold. And this is the letter from McNaughton you told us about.’
