He had only opened the study door a few inches when the hinges began screeching their resistance. He froze, listening for the answering silence from the kitchen in the basement below his feet, but their chatter was still audible and uninterrupted. Reaching inside his coat, he found the leather pouch and took out the small oil-can wrapped in cloth. He smoothed the grease into the hinges with his finger and then wiped them clean with his handkerchief. The pungent smell of the oil filled the air, and he prayed that it would soon be lost in the scent of candle wax in the hallway.
Inside the study the gas mantles had been turned down, but the roaring fire added to their dim ochre light. James surveyed the room, the curtains were open and he knew he could be seen from the street were anyone to look into the house. He dropped to all fours and crawled over to the writing desk.
The central drawer and the top drawer of the right-hand pedestal were locked. He reached for the ring of small brass keys in his coat pocket and opened both drawers. Their contents were disappointing – account books, invoices and receipts. Despite Harcourt’s attitude to spending he was obviously meticulous in running the household. James relocked the drawers and made his way back up the stairs.
The drawing room was lit by the tentative glow of a dying fire with no flames to penetrate the darkness. He left the door open far enough to allow in the light from the candelabra in the hallway and made his way to the secretary table. It was locked; a good sign he thought. Harcourt was bound to keep any confidential papers or valuables in a secure place. He could even remember Frank unlocking the secretary table on one occasion when he was searching for papers.
James took the small stub of candle from his pocket, lit it and placed it on top of the secretary table. He noticed his hands were shaking and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead and willed them to steady. None of the small brass keys would budge the lock of the central hinged panel.
He took out the belt of skeleton keys and lock-picks and carefully rolled it out on the carpet. His first choice of picks was correct and he felt the lock give way to his probing. Pulling down the cover, he was disappointed at the contents. Inside were a few banknotes, a small column of gold sovereigns, a snuff box and a selection of tie pins, but nothing that warranted the risk James was taking. He left them undisturbed.
As James was about to close the desk he noticed the thin scratch marks in the veneer of the desk top, caught in the spluttering light of the candle. Above the scratches, where there might have been a drawer or compartment, there was instead a blank wooden panel. He prised at the panel gently with an ivory-handled letter opener, but it would not budge. He knew there must be a catch or lever somewhere that released it, but where? Nothing was going as he had planned it. Charlie had been right. Picking locks was one thing, but burgling a house was different, the fear clouded your mind, pushed you into panic.
In the distance, he thought he could hear footsteps on the lower staircase. He strained to listen, blowing out the candle on top of the desk. There was no doubt now, he could hear a door opening on the ground floor. James closed the front panel of the desk and walked over to the doorway. Out in the hallway, he stood in the bend of the staircase. The voices were coming from the study below.
‘I’ll see to the fire and curtains in here, Emily, and you go up and bank up the fire in the drawing room and turn down the bed in the master’s room.’
‘Can’t you turn down the bed?’ the other voice replied. ‘I hates going in his room.’
‘You’re the under-maid and you do as you’re told,’ the first woman said. ‘You’ll soon learn. There’s money to be made in that room, between them nice silk sheets.’
James wondered for a moment if the maid would use the servant’s staircase, but knew instinctively that in her master’s absence she would not. He made quickly for the stairs and the second landing, stopping only to snuff out two of the candles of the candelabra in the hallway, listening to their feeble spitting, hoping the girl would stop and relight them and give him more time. He was on the second landing before he remembered the candle he had left standing on top of the secretary table. It was too late to retrieve it now.
He heard the girl stopping to relight the candles, as he had hoped, before going into the drawing room. The second-floor landing was in darkness and there were two bedroom doors before him. James opened the first and looked in but could see little in the darkness.
The other door was locked, with the key still in the lock. He reasoned that it must lead to an unused bedroom. Turning the key, he went into the room, closing the door behind him. He could hear the girl now, walking up the stairs to the second floor. His heart was racing and he willed himself to take in slow, quiet breaths in readiness to push past her and run.
She stopped for a while in the hallway as though she had heard him, but then went into the other bedroom. James felt his heart pounding faster and tried to steady his breathing, fighting the urge to run. After a while he heard the bedroom door close and her footsteps retreat down the stairs. He felt his heartbeat slowing again and as his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the darkness he fumbled around the perimeter of the bed, searching for a bedside table and candlestick.
When he found what he was looking for James lit the candle and breathed a sigh of relief, as the smell of sulphur and molten wax filled the air. He crossed to the window and looked out. Below he could see the gas lamps along The Gravel Walk, the popular promenade around the parkland, leading to the Crescent Fields. A high wall encircled the long garden stretching down from the house. At the side of the window was a gutter-pipe reaching down from the roof. James blew out the candle and sat on the bed, wondering what to do next.
Returning to the hallway, the light took him by surprise. The maid had lit a candle which now stood on the hall table, and fluttered in the breeze of cold air as he closed the bedroom door. Taking the candle, he went into Harcourt’s room and found what he was looking for. There in the corner of the room was a large and solid safe. He knelt beside it and studied the lock. It was going to take a lot of work. He unrolled the belt of tools and found what he was looking for.
James carefully unwrapped the blank key with its wax covering from the lint cloth and gently inserted it into the lock, turning it slowly and feeling it engage with the wards of the lock, discovering through touch and sound a little more about the mechanism. When he withdrew it, etched into the wax was a perfect impression of the lock. He smiled, studying the imprint, selecting in his mind the lock-picks he would use.
❖ ❖ ❖
The sudden noise was like thunder, driving all thoughts from James’ brain. Someone was rapping loudly with the head of a cane on the front door. Within seconds, he heard the answering sound of feet running and the door being opened. ‘You have left the front door unbolted again,’ a man’s voice muttered. The voice was indistinct, but James knew it was Harcourt. ‘How many times must I tell you, always bolt it when I’m out?’ he shouted.
‘It’s hard to reach up there, sir,’ the woman’s voice replied, ‘and the bolt’s stiff.’
‘I’ll get someone to attend to it,’ Harcourt snapped.
‘Yes, sir,’ the woman replied.
James fought against the panic, ordering his mind to compose itself. He wrapped the waxed key back in the lint cloth and rerolled the tool belt as he heard the front door slam closed. He must try to act as Charlie would; no mistakes, no panic. He heard the bolt being slammed shut on the front door with some force and then a key being turned in its lock. Then he heard the footsteps on the stairs. James peered over the edge of the stairwell and saw Harcourt.
❖ ❖ ❖
Belle tore into the room in Bridewell Lane. ‘Help me get this dress off, Jenny. I don’t have very long and I must change before I go to the theatre.’
‘Don’t you like the dress?’ Jenny asked.
‘Of course I like it,’ Belle said, tugging at the fastenings on the skirt. ‘It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever owned and I love you for
making it, but I cannot wear it to the theatre.’
Jenny remained seated at the table by the window, continuing with her sewing as though uninterested in Belle’s plight. Belle left off her exertions with the skirt fastenings and walked over to her. ‘I haven’t hurt you, have I? It’s simply that I want to keep it for best. You know it is the prettiest dress I own.’
‘No,’ Jenny replied, her face serious, ‘you have not hurt me.’ She laid down her sewing. ‘But you are hurting yourself.’
‘How so?’ Belle asked.
‘You think the dress will set you apart from the others. It will confirm their opinion of you; that you think too highly of yourself. Is that not what you think?’
‘Perhaps so,’ Belle replied, knowing that what Jenny said was true. ‘Why should I confirm their opinion of me?’
‘Why should you not?’ Jenny asked, not waiting for a reply. ‘If you went dressed in rags, would they think any better of you? Cauldfield has already poisoned their minds, but if you show that you are above his nastiness then it may give the others cause to think. Perhaps it will confirm their opinion, perhaps not, but what will you lose by it? I know who you are and so do you. You are gentle and caring, not cold and vain, so wear the dress with pride, just for today.’
Belle drew up a chair and sat beside her. ‘If I had a sister, Jenny, I could not love her more than you. I will wear the dress and to hell with their opinion.’
❖ ❖ ❖
James suddenly remembered the candle stub he had left on the secretary table. Downstairs, he heard Harcourt muttering to himself as he opened the drawing room door. James listened intently but could not make sense from Harcourt’s mumblings. Then he heard him slam the door, his footsteps going back down the stairs to the hallway. He was running. James waited for him to say something, or raise an alarm, but there was nothing.
Then he heard Harcourt open the door to the basement stairs. ‘Make up the fire in the drawing room,’ he bellowed. ‘But first bring a bottle of wine up to the study, Emily.’
James edged noiselessly down the stairs to the first-floor landing and crept into the drawing room. He laid the tool belt out quickly, selecting the same pick he had used before. The wards resisted for a moment, but he managed to half close the lock of the desk before retrieving the candle stub. There must be no sign that anyone had been here.
He was half-way up the stairs when he heard the footsteps on the staircase again, but this time it was a woman’s tread. He walked slowly, keeping his body flat against the wall where he couldn’t be seen. At the top of the stairs he looked down and saw the girl struggling with a bucket of coal. He went into the unused bedroom again. Sitting on the bed, James reviewed his situation with all the calmness he could muster.
There seemed only one option now. He climbed out onto the window ledge and sat looking for a moment at the light from the kitchen window, far below. As he struggled to his feet he was conscious of the weight of his coat with all the tools in its various pockets. It felt like a lead coffin hanging from his shoulders, threatening to tip his balance.
He closed the window behind him and, taking out his knife, shaved a piece of wood off the frame and inserted it between the two sash windows to ensure that the top window stayed in place and did not come crashing down and alert the house to his presence. He reached out and grabbed the gutter-pipe with his right hand, keeping his body flat against the window.
The pipe felt sound and he edged over towards it, first with his right leg and then with his other arm. As he let it take his weight, his coat felt heavier than ever and his right arm began aching as though he was tearing through the newly healed muscles and tendons.
Chapter 27
James sank into a chair, ignoring their questions. ‘Could I have a drink, Charlie?’ he said. ‘Whisky or brandy, anything as long it’s strong. You’d all better have a drink.’
‘I’ll get them,’ John said.
‘Not for me,’ Charlie interrupted. ‘Best not. I can see from your face that there’s nothing to celebrate.’
‘The only part that went well was Belle getting me in there,’ James said. ‘Harcourt came home before I could take anything. There’s a safe in his … ’
James’ words were cut short. ‘I bloody well knew it,’ Charlie shouted. ‘We should have had a lookout and some way of warning you. I always took a lookout along with me, but you kept saying he’d be out for the night once he left.’
‘It wouldn’t have done any good. What could I have done even if I’d had a warning?’
‘Did he catch you?’ John asked.
‘No,’ James replied. ‘I got out of a bedroom window and climbed down a gutter-pipe into the back garden.’
‘So we’ve achieved nothing,’ Charlie said, ‘but at least you weren’t caught and you didn’t break your neck. I’d never of heard the end of it from Angela … I mean Mrs Hawker.’
James smiled and out of the corner of his eye caught sight of John grinning. ‘You’re wrong, Charlie. We have achieved something. I found his safe and I have this.’ He stood and took off his coat, fishing in a pocket for the belt of tools. Walking over to the table, he unfurled the belt and extracted the small carefully wrapped lint parcel. He placed the wax-covered blank key gently on the table.
‘What’s that?’ Charlie asked.
‘The safe in Harcourt’s room is a Chubb,’ James replied. ‘I can tell you enough about it for you to work out its type. And this, gentlemen,’ he said, picking up the key, ‘is a pretty fair impression of the lock.’
Charlie took the key from him and examined it, turning it in his hand as though meeting the imagined resistance of a lock in his mind, assessing each angle and edge of the wax impression, registering the shape of each line and mentally constructing each microscopic turn. Then he smiled and put it back on the table. ‘I tell you, young ‘un, I couldn’t have done better me self,’ he laughed. ‘I can make a key from this without a doubt.’
‘It’s one thing to have a key,’ John interrupted, ‘but how are you going to get in? We can’t pull the same trick again.’
‘We could bribe one of the servants,’ Charlie said, ‘but we would need to do some fishing first and it would take time.’
‘Never!’ James exclaimed. ‘Can you imagine what Harcourt would do to those girls if he even suspected they were complicit in robbing him? How long do you think it would take him to get out of them that they were involved? Besides they’re probably already too scared of him to take a bribe, and we don’t have the time for elaborate plans. We’ll have to break-in this time.’
‘That’ll take some organising,’ Charlie said.
James grinned at him. ‘I know how it can be achieved and when. There’s a ball next Saturday and nothing is more certain than that Harcourt will be in attendance. I saw the invitation on his dressing table. I may not know Harcourt as well as I believed, but I do know he will be there.’
He paused, thinking through the plan he had put together on the walk back to the house. ‘The ball starts at six o’clock and the orchestra will play two hours of formal dances, which will hold little interest for him. Between eight and nine the assemblage retires to the Tea Room for drinks and buffet. It’s then that Harcourt and his friends will make their appearance, but he’ll have been drinking for most of the night before that, readying himself for the more lively quadrilles and country dances.’
‘How do we get in?’ Charlie asked.
‘The garden at the back of Harcourt’s house slopes down to the parklands and backs onto The Gravel Walk, the path that goes round the park. The basement of the house is below ground at the front, but level with the ground at the back.’ He hesitated, picturing the terrifying view he had had, sitting on the window ledge. It seemed well worthwhile now. James could already see the interest on Charlie’s face; see his mind working. ‘There are bars on the back windows on the ground and first floor, and they could be forced, but it’s too near the kitchen to risk the noise, but the gutter-pipe l
eading up to the roof passes right by a bedroom window on the third floor and that window has no bars. That’s how I got out.’
‘Then we have a place of entry,’ Charlie said.
‘Better still,’ James replied, ‘I have already greased the window frame so that it moves freely. When I got onto the ledge I shaved off some wood from the window frame and jammed it between the two windows so they stayed in place. Pull the wood out and the window will slide open easily, provided he does not notice the catch is undone. The only problem is that the bedroom door is kept locked from the other side, but the key is left in place, at least it was tonight.’
‘I’ve taught you well,’ Charlie replied with more than a little pride evident in his broad grin. ‘You’re a better apprentice than I would ever have thought.’
‘There is one other problem,’ James interrupted. ‘And perhaps it is the worst of all. It was one thing sliding down the gutter-pipe, taking my time, but even then I felt the weakness in my arm. It aches like the devil now and I may not have strength enough to climb the pipe.’ The room fell into a momentary silence.
‘Then I’ll do it,’ John said. ‘I’m used to climbing.’
‘That makes sense,’ Charlie said. ‘You’ve prepared the way well. All John needs do is climb in. There’s no need for any fancy stuff. He can open the bedroom door with an outsider if it’s locked.’
‘What’s an outsider?’ John asked.
‘James knows what I mean,’ Charlie replied. ‘Leave it for now, I can soon teach you how to use one.’
‘Is it decided then?’ John asked. ‘Shall I do the job?’
‘We could wait until I am recovered,’ James said. ‘But the opportunity is so perfect and the job needs climbing skills, not an amateur cracksman, with a weak arm. Besides, in truth you would probably do a better job than me, if my luck tonight is anything to go by.’
Avon Street Page 26
