A Fairly Dangerous Thing

by Reginald Hill

  ‘That’s not here,’ said Joe. ‘I think the earl keeps it in his bedroom.’

  ‘We’ll get it on the way back,’ said Cess. ‘Now let’s work.’

  In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Joe and set about directing them to the chosen pictures with as much speed as possible. He felt unwell when he saw the first one rapidly removed from its frame, rolled up, and pushed into a card board cylinder produced from one of the canvas bags. But the feeling was soon overtaken by his growing sense of urgency and desire to be far away.

  They took nine pictures in all, mostly what Joe would have expected. From pictures, they moved on to silver and porcelain, again being most selective. Obviously it was of first importance to satisfy the specific demands made by Bertie’s customers. Each piece had a receptacle specially prepared for it in one of the bags. Someone had put in a great deal of preparatory work.

  Joe’s initial sense of the eeriness of the place had quickly worn off under pressure of the work. But gradually it returned. The dark figures moving silently through the darkened rooms assumed the air of predators; the family portraits on the walls seemed to take on new dimensions and loom fearfully, as though sculpted not painted; the whole atmosphere of the place seemed instinct with hostility.

  They hate us! thought Joe. All those who had ever used these rooms, ghosts of haughty noblemen and forelock-tugging servants alike, they all hate us. Only the shuffling crowds of weekend sightseers might applaud, and they are too ghostlike in their reality to leave traces of their being here. But the others … this place meant a way of life for them and we’re wandering around it like a supermarket, picking up whatever we fancy and dropping it in the basket.

  Only we don’t intend to pay.

  ‘The Round Chamber, Joe. Joe! Stop farting about like a zombie. We’re moving on to the Round Chamber. So move!’

  Joe moved.

  The Round Chamber figured large in Bertie’s shopping list. It was a small domed room on the top floor, a dome echoed in the glass cupola which arched protectively over the central display-table. Around this table at a distance of about a yard ran a wooden barrier of a type much stronger than the usual single-stranded rope fence which elsewhere stopped profane feet from sullying ancient carpets. And there were always two stewards on duty here during the day. For in this room the hoi-polloi could cast their envious, amazed or, more often, exhausted gazes on some of the Trevigores’ most precious knick-knacks.

  It was an odd collection, whose only generic justification was that most of the items were unique examples of their kind.

  More importantly to present purposes, they were all worth a lot of hard cash.

  There was jewellery. An early medieval topaz brooch. Diamonds set in Italian gold. Rubies prised from their original settings—the fruits of empire.

  There was some fine glass. A couple of pieces of Bohemian ruby by Kunkel, two dishes and a goblet in Bristol white, painted by Edkins. And other pieces whose historical associations more than compensated for their comparative commonness.

  Cess was glancing at his watch now as Lord Jim started on his usual bloodhound performance outside the chamber, suspecting that this room might have some additional alarm safeguard built into the door.

  ‘We’re running late,’ said Cess through clenched teeth. ‘We’ve got to be out of here soon.’

  The time-limit, Joe decided, was set by the revelry going on back in the Rowley Room. Once that broke up, they were in all sorts of trouble. There would be people wandering around, cutting off their escape route back through the private apartments. Joe had no doubt that the stuff they had taken was leaving the Trevigore estate in Chubb’s car. He hoped it was big enough for five passengers. No, six! For the first time in an hour he thought of Maggie sitting trussed up in the cave. Please God she was all right.

  But the part of his mind (the larger part, he had to confess) concerned with personal survival had ferreted out one piece of comfort. Chubb’s car. Of course! it wasn’t a car; it was the van which had made its way so circumspectly along the park road, whose flashing lights, far from being an effort to scare away prowling lions, had been a signal to Cess. Plenty of room there.

  Again he felt the comfort of being in the company of men whose professionalism was so apparent.

  Jim declared himself satisfied and they entered the Round Chamber.

  To Joe’s surprise, Third Man, Cess and Bertie went straight to the glass cupola and lifted it off together. Expecting each second to hear the shriek of alarms, he backed slowly towards the door.

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Lord Jim, noticing the movement. ‘It’s safe enough. Try lifting one of those things off the cushion, that’s when the trouble starts.’

  ‘Can’t you fix it?’ asked Joe, puzzled.

  ‘No. It’s not linked up to the main alarm-system at all. You put us on to it. Beneath that velvet there’s a foam plastic cushion. Cells are impregnated with graphite which conducts an electric charge. Pressure on the cushion decreases the resistance. Lift something off, you increase the resistance. That triggers off the alarm.’

  This was Lord Jim at his most voluble.

  ‘Does that mean we go home now?’

  ‘No,’ said Jim, with a touch of pride. ‘We’ve got to lift things off without altering the pressure. Watch.’

  Bertie and Cess were crouched down over the table as though at some nerve-racking game. There were beads of sweat on both their foreheads.

  Bertie held a small pair of padded tongs around the stem of a crystal goblet, while Cess stood poised at his shoulder with what looked like a lump of rough-cast plaster of Paris in his hand. On it was painted a large number.

  ‘Weight equivalents!’ said Joe. ‘That’s why I had to find out those details.’

  ‘That’s right, I hope you got them right. Cess drops his just as Bertie picks up his. They’ve been rehearsing for weeks.’

  Suddenly there was nearly disaster. Something slipped out of the front of Bertie’s jacket, both men started back in shock, Lord Jim stepped swiftly forward and his outstretched hand caught the walkie-talkie about three inches above the velvet cushion

  ‘Christalmighty!’ said Bertie.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Cess.

  Both men surprisingly seemed the better for their religious outbursts and returned immediately to their job, sparing no time on recrimination.

  ‘Blue blue blue,’ murmured Lord Jim, testing the set.

  ‘Yellow yellow,’ came the comforting reply. Jim switched off.

  ‘Ahhh!’ said Cess and Bertie simultaneously as the lump of weighted plaster went down and the goblet came up.

  ‘Ahh,’ they said again in a different key as it became apparent this was going to be the only noise.

  They did one more, just to show they could recapture the first fine careless rapture. Third Man supplied the plaster substitutes from his canvas bag and packed away the lifted objects with the same meticulous care they all showed.

  ‘Right, Jim,’ said Cess. ‘We’ll finish off here. Fifteen minutes at the most. You make your way back to Tom’s room with Joe. Here’s his list. Pick up what you can of it on your way. Remember, Joe, you’re on a percentage of this stuff. But don’t get greedy. We’re running out of time. Fifteen minutes. Remember!’

  ‘Right,’ said Jim, taking Joe’s elbow and leading him through the door. The others were already back at work before they left the Chamber.

  ‘Nowt too easily broken,’ said Jim. ‘We’ve only got these.’

  He held up a couple of large plastic carriers he had taken out of one of the canvas bags. One of them contained a roll of thin cotton wool for wrapping purposes.

  ‘I’ll nick owt,’ Jim went on, ‘but I see no sense in breaking.’

  A reasonable philosophy, thought Joe. A man can do little more than set limits on the degree of his criminality.

  Despite their restricted carrying potential and the need for haste, they had made substantial inroads into Joe’s list by the time they
re-entered the private apartments. More and more Joe admired the speed of movement and thought displayed by the little square man. A new mood of buoyant optimism had swept over him, symbolically reinforced by their emergence from the shadows into the well-lit corridors and galleries of the private sector.

  ‘We’d best head back,’ said Jim, glancing at his watch.

  ‘No time for the private stuff?’ said Joe almost regretfully.

  ‘No time,’ echoed Jim.

  They retraced their steps carefully towards Chubb’s developing-room. There seemed to be no sign yet of the party breaking up, though little noise came floating up to the stair-head they had listened at on their outward journey.

  ‘They must be still at it,’ whispered Joe.

  ‘Mebbe. Can you get us into that gallery Chubb talked about?’

  ‘I think so.’

  His navigational success that night had given him new confidence and it was justified once more when, a minute later, he pushed open a rather squeaky door and peered in at a scene which Dante might have regretted not inventing.

  The Rowley Room was lit only by the shaft of light from the ciné-projector which sent its images down from the end of the gallery they were at on to a large screen erected against the furthermost wall. Chubb was standing by the projector peering down with a melancholy mien at the activities below. He turned, unsurprised, when Jim touched his shoulder and stepped back into the shadows.

  ‘All OK?’

  ‘Yes. We thought we’d better get back. How long’s this going on for?’

  ‘God knows!’ said Chubb. ‘They must have been getting injections! There’s no sign of letting up either. This is the third time I’ve run the bloody film.’

  Intrigued, Joe crawled forward to the gallery rails (the ex-monastic ones, he thought; the monks must be spinning!) and peered down.

  The variety of activity below was at first fascinating. It was rather horrifying to realize that the general age-range seemed to be from fifty to seventy, but they were doing their best. Three or four couples were staging a kind of Grand National up and down the length of the room using furniture and the odd naked body as obstacles. An interesting type of Conga was being danced at the other side. Immediately below, two men were playing chess by candlelight, the board resting on the belly of a woman who appeared to be sleeping. It was at this point that Joe began to feel there was something a little self-conscious about the whole business. Real abandon seemed to have been abandoned and an upper-middle-class plastic substitute substituted. Over everything hung a stench of incense which seemed to be burning in your genuine incense-burners, probably looted by one of old Trevigore’s noble forebears. Joe knew from his reading of the quality Sunday papers that this masked the smell of ‘pot’ being smoked, and indeed several of those below were puffing gently away in a semi-stupor. No one anywhere seemed particularly close to orgasm. Joe almost wished the Hon. Jule and his generation were here to give the proceedings some life.

  The film, however, was much better. Perhaps because it had been shot while everyone was in the first fine flush of sexual activity. Or perhaps it was just that its technical inadequacies all combined to produce an effect of stunning depravity. The definition and reproduction were, as Chubb had forecast, very poor. Added to this, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of dust in the projector which produced an impression of looking at the naked figures on the screen through an eye whose iris was being chewed away by carnivorous amoebae. Thirdly the height of the gallery meant that the image was being beamed downwards, striking the screen at an angle of about eighty degrees, producing a slight elongation of figure. Momentarily full-length shots appeared like El Greco martyrs, and the effect in male close-ups was often very flattering.

  A hand gripped Joe’s ankle and he felt himself dragged back forcibly from the edge of the gallery.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Lord Jim. ‘The others will be here soon and we can get the stuff out to the van.’

  ‘Sooner the better,’ said Chubb. ‘This lot must be pretty well played out, surely!’

  They left him as they had found him, like a tubby god staring down at his creation in great perplexity.

  Once in Chubb’s room, Joe felt able to relax. It was almost like coming home. Soon the others would be here, they would pack the loot away, pick up Maggie, then be off. Another thirty minutes, an hour at the most, would see him in his little VW, heading for bed. Could he include Maggie in that too? he wondered. She might be concerned about her parents missing her and worrying. She was that kind of girl. Nice.

  Idly, he wandered over to the window and stared out to where the Blue Grotto lay in the darkness. He hoped to God she was all right.

  His gaze dropped to the lawn below and instantly all his altruistic prayers for Maggie’s well-being were forgotten.

  ‘Jim!’ he croaked. ‘Jim!’

  The other joined him in a flash and stared down with him at the file of policemen moving inexorably across the lawn and into the house through a doorway below. His hand went into his pocket and pulled out the walkie-talkie.

  ‘I switched it off,’ said Jim bitterly, flicking the control switch with his thumb.

  ‘Red,’ it said distantly, tinnily. ‘Red red red red red …’

  CHAPTER V

  Through the centuries, from the author of the Book of Job via Francis Bacon and P. G. Wodehouse to Doctor Spock, keen observers of the human scene have noted the beneficent effects of a touch of adversity in bringing out the best in a man’s character.

  As far as Joe at this moment was concerned they could all get stuffed.

  ‘What’ll we do?’ cried Joe, in shrill, sweaty terror.

  ‘We’ve got to tell Cess.’

  Joe knew he should have felt shamed by the other’s unselfishness. Perhaps he would later. But just at the moment he couldn’t manage it. All it made him feel was endangered.

  ‘There isn’t time!’

  Lord Jim didn’t answer but rushed through the door. Joe followed, almost sobbing in panic. How the hell did they know? How? How? What had gone wrong?

  In the corridor Lord Jim halted a moment and seized him by the shoulder. Joe wondered if he was going to advise him to play up and play the game, but instead he said, ‘You tell Chubb. Then get out if you can!’

  Then off he went, pounding like a squat little bull along the corridor.

  This time Joe did feel moved. Somewhere deep down beneath the welter of terror and panic something like an unselfish emotion stirred. Warn Chubb. That was fair enough. A libation to the gods of chance.

  Then every man for himself, and to hell with women and children!

  Swiftly he made his way into the gallery of the Rowley Room.

  The film was still running. Amazingly, proceedings below seemed to have livened up again and a lot of interesting developments had taken place in the Conga chain. The smell of burning incense was still as strong. Surely whoever called the police must have warned this lot? But that was their worry! Joe had problems of his own.

  Chubb was sitting on a stool, his eyes closed, disconsolately puffing a very smelly cheroot.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ gasped Joe, ‘They’re here!’

  ‘Who? Cess? He’ll have to wait,’ said Chubb unimpressed.

  ‘The police! It’s the police!’

  ‘Oh God!’ Chubb was suddenly animated. He leapt up and flung his cigar over the rails. There was a shriek from below and an interesting variation of the Petroff defence was thwarted for ever as the chessboard-bearer shook the butt-end from between her rather flabby breasts.

  ‘The bastards! The bastards!’ gabbled Chubb, tearing the film forcibly out of the projector-gate. ‘Where are they? How long have I got? I’ve got to burn this!’

  You try to do someone a favour, thought Joe bitterly. And all he does is think of himself!

  Thus musing, he retreated to seek his own salvation. But the full reward of an ironic God for trying to help others was yet to be paid.

  Lord J
im’s huge hand caught him on the chest and hurled him back into the gallery.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he cried.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Joe, knowing full well who. ‘Cess?’

  ‘The pigs. I nearly ran into them.’

  ‘Oh God. Why?’

  ‘What’s it matter? Your mate, that Scotch git’s with them.’

  ‘Jock?’ said Joe wonderingly, then with dawning comprehension, ‘Jock!’

  Everything was clear. Jock’s Puritan conscience! His love of the house! Perhaps the police had contacted him after following Chubb. But whatever the full explanation, it spelt salvation.

  ‘It’s not us they’re after,’ he said. ‘It’s Chubb! And that gang of middle-aged delinquents down there! No wonder they’re not bothered. They don’t know—yet!’

  Lord Jim’s face did not reflect Joe’s exultation.

  ‘They’ll be glad of us too,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here. No, not that way!’

  He dragged Joe back from the door and jammed a doubtful Chippendale chair against the handle.

  ‘You know your way around,’ he said. ‘Get us out of here!’

  There were three other doors leading from the gallery. The first two were locked. The third opened on to a small room or large cupboard with no other exit. In the middle of the floor knelt Chubb, cigarette-lighter in hand, desperately blowing at a slowly uncoiling heap of film. He looked up in despair as they opened the door.

  ‘Bloody non-inflammable film!’ he said. ‘Are they here?’

  ‘Nearly,’ said Jim glancing back at the door, whose handle was being shaken vigorously. ‘Come on, expert! Where now?’

  Joe’s mind raced madly. Flight was impossible. Concealment then? Where? Not in here with the incendiary Chubb!

  ‘Paper? Got any paper?’ demanded the chemist hopelessly as his attempted bonfire went out again.