But no, I knew I had to do this. Otherwise, this paper would just keep spreading lies about Violet.
I made my way toward the receptionist. She looked up at me, without saying anything, and I took my cue.
“I need to see Keegan Coors,” I told her in my most authoritative voice.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” I said, trying to keep a confident air.
“What is it concerning?”
“Uh, it’s private.”
The girl’s eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. Evidently she thought I was a source. “Who shall I tell him is here?” she asked, tapping the numbers on the phone that led to her headset.
“Tell him it’s a friend of Violet Despuis. Tell him it’s about Greek news articles.”
I was pretty sure that would get me in. Sure enough, the girl muttered into her headset for a moment, and then pressed a button on her desk, motioning to the clouded white glass door to her right.
“Through there, third office on the left,” she told me before going back to her other things.
My heart beat in my chest as I made my way toward the door. This was it. I’d never done anything like this before. I was about to blackmail someone into leaving my friend alone. Would this work? How would he react? Was I even doing the right thing?
That last thought flittered through my brain as I made my way past rows and rows of cubicles and to the third office, where Keegan Coors was stencilled onto a frosted glass window. I stood outside the door and wondered for a minute.
After all, wouldn’t it be better if I just told the world what he had done? Keegan Coors was a plagiarist. Was I any better than he was if I used that information to blackmail him into leaving Violet alone?
Before I got a chance to really answer the question myself, the door opened in front of me and I found myself standing in front of a rather short man with a goatee and about fifteen extra pounds on him.
“Yes?” he asked, annoyance on his face obvious.
“Keegan Coors?” I asked in reply.
“Obviously.” This conversation was definitely not off to the best start. “What do you want? I’m a busy man.”
“I need to talk to you. In private.”
“You’re the one who wanted to talk to me about Greek stuff?” he asked, turning and making his way back into his office. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but I almost felt like his shoulders tensed up a little bit, despite his casual demeanor.
“That’s right,” I said, entering his office and closing the door behind me. It was tiny; barely bigger than a cubicle, but a little bit more private. There was just room for a desk and two small chairs in front of it.
“Well? What is it?”
“I know you’ve been plagiarising your works from Greek newspapers.”
Keegan looked at me carefully as he sat down. I stayed standing. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure why; maybe it was because I figured if I sat down now I wouldn’t be able to get back up again.
“You said to the receptionist you’re a friend of Violet Despuis?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So, let me guess: she sent one of her little minions here to threaten me because she’s angry that I wrote some stuff about her that she thinks is a bit exaggerated.” He leaned casually back in his chair. I definitely didn’t like this guy.
“No, actually. She has no idea I’m here. In fact, I don’t think she even read your article. She glanced at the headline, said it was probably worthless drivel like everything else you’ve written, and moved on.” Ok, so I was exaggerating a little bit, but I figured Coors deserved it. The smirk only fell from his face for a split second.
“Ok, so you’re here to try and get me to stop writing stuff about her. Well, let me let you in on a little secret, sweet cheeks: I’m kind of a big deal around here. You see, the owner recognizes me as a bit of a genius when it comes to reporting. Besides, it’s not plagiarism if you’re translating something someone else wrote. Not that I’ll ever admit to doing that in public, but just so you know. You can threaten me all you want, but I’m not going to keel over and stop writing about your little girlfriend just because you think you have something on me. Cromwell will definitely keep me on, no matter what.”
Ok, that was it. When I’d walked in here, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. But now, I absolutely knew. I shot Coors my best fake smile.
“Oh I’m sorry, I’m afraid you’ve completely misunderstood me. I’m not here to threaten you, I’m here to warn you.” I leaned forward toward him. “You see, I don’t like cheaters. I especially don’t like cheaters who use their positions to abuse my friends in public. So, I’m going to ruin you. I’m going to go down the street to The Guardian, and I’m going to show them the articles you wrote, and the articles that you stole from the Greek papers. And trust me, I have a pretty big collection of them. And then we’ll see just how much Cromwell wants to back you up. After all, he’s only going after Violet because she put his son away for being a piece of murderous trash. Will he really defend you when your reputation is in the toilet? After all, you’re not family. That’s why I’m here. To tell you that you should be Googling a new career path, and fast. No one in journalism is going to touch you come this time tomorrow.”
Coors’ face had paled to an almost ghostly white by the time I’d finished. He sneered at me.
“Get out of my office.”
“You’re welcome,” I said in as frigid a tone as I could muster. By the time I left, I was absolutely seething with rage. That man was so pompous, so full of himself, and so absolutely unremorseful about the fact that he had been plagiarising.
I did exactly what I’d threatened to do and walked the few blocks to The Guardian offices, where I spoke to a nice reporter and gave her all the information I had. She thanked me, and I made my way back to Kensington. When I walked in, Violet was drawing on her whiteboard.
“Have you threatened the journalist, then?” Violet asked me when I walked in, and I stopped and did a double take.
“Do I talk in my sleep, or something?”
Violet turned and grinned at me. “You cannot after all of this time think that my methods require your subconscious to reveal your secrets in your sleep, do you not? First of all, I know that you were angry about the articles that were written about me and about our investigation. Then, we had breakfast with Charles Dartmouth, a man who deals in secrets, whose company is currently attempting a takeover of The London Post-Tribune and who would love to see its value plummet for his own reasons. Afterwards, you come to me and ask for a man who speaks Greek–I have known of the plagiarism of Keegan Coors for a very long time. Evidently Charles gave you enough information for you to uncover it on your own as well. And now this morning you left, and you were obviously pre-occupied; you did not so much as complain about the fact that I put chia seeds in the smoothies I made for breakfast.”
“So that’s what the gross taste was,” I said, scrunching up my nose.
“Those are called vitamins,” Violet replied with a smile. “Anyway, I presumed that you have been to The London Post-Tribune and that you have threatened Keegan Coors with exposure if he does not leave me alone. Which I must say, while I personally do not care for his writing, I do admire the loyalty of your friendship.”
I shot Violet a wry smile. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not that good of a friend. That had been my initial plan, and then I wondered if I was being selfish by hiding the fact that one of England’s best up-and-coming reporters was absolutely cheating his way up the ranks. Then when I finally met him, he was such an abhorrent human being that I went over to The Guardian and gave them all the information I had. We’ll see what comes of it.”
Violet burst out laughing. “That is wonderful! Really, I am far happier that you have exposed that cretin than simply using the plagiarism as blackmail. He is scum, that man. Charles will be happy as well.”
“Why didn’t Charles just go to the p
aper himself?” I asked. “I mean, don’t papers have to protect their sources?”
“Yes, but for a man like Charles, that is still too much of a risk. Sometimes these things become known all the same, and for a man in his position, he cannot be seen as the type of person who speaks of the things he knows. And so, he needed you to do it, so as to make it impossible that anyone could ever trace the source of the information back to him. I suspect he also did not tell you directly what it was to look for?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He just told me to look into Keegan Coors’ writing, and to look globally. I actually stumbled upon the plagiarism by accident, I thought Bergen Gruppe or The London Bank of Commerce were paying him off.”
“Ah, that is also an idea, that. I admire the way you think, and that you got to the truth in the end, accidental or not. You have the makings of a detective in you yet.”
“Thanks,” I laughed. “Although I’m not sure that’s on the table for me. I got accepted to the Imperial College of London yesterday.”
“Ah, mais félicitations! That is wonderful news!” Violet said, taking me into a hug. “Whether or not you decide to accept, I am glad that you went through with the application and that you now have options.”
“Yeah, me too,” I smiled. “Now, show me how we’re going to stop three thieves tomorrow.”
Chapter 20
I ended up getting a reply from Jake later that night.
That’s amazing news! I’m sorry I didn’t get this text earlier, my phone died and I didn’t notice. Congratulations!
I felt my heart warm at his words, but I couldn’t help but wonder if his excuse was perfectly real. After all, it felt like Jake had been a bit distant for the last few days. Was he ignoring me on purpose? Surely not. Was there another woman? No. Absolutely not. I refused to think that way. I was just being crazy and overly paranoid. There was literally no evidence of anything being wrong, we just kept missing each other over the last few days. Still, I couldn’t stop that nagging feeling, no matter how much I knew it was ridiculous.
Thanks. I’m not sure if I’m going to accept, but it’s good to have the options.
Absolutely, came Jake’s reply a moment later. Hey, how’s your case going?
Good, we should be finished by tomorrow night. We’re going to try and stop a robbery in progress at the Ritz.
I thought you were solving a murder?
It turns out the murderer is one of the Terrible Trio that’s been all over the news.
No kidding? Well, listen, I want to hear all about it. Can you clear your weekend? I feel like we need to catch up.
Sure, I replied, my heart constricting slightly. I knew that Jake probably legitimately did want to just have dinner and catch up on my case, but I couldn’t help that nagging feeling deep down that told me that he was going to break up with me at last. I have to go. Big day today, I replied.
Stay safe! Jake texted back as I put my phone away and sighed. I knew I was being irrational. I knew that listening to that little voice in my head that always thought the worst of everything wasn’t a good idea. But I just couldn’t help it.
Still, today was way too important a day to dwell on my relationship with Jake and whether it was coming to an end. After all, in less than twelve hours, Violet and I were going to be stopping a major heist committed by three men, one of whom was a likely murderer.
“I have invited an outside consultant to join us today,” Violet said with a smile as I heard a knock on the door. “Ah, there she is now.”
I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Mrs. Michaels saunter into the room, wearing a pastel purple velour tracksuit, looking bright and chirpy this morning.
“Violet! Cassie! Thank you so much for inviting me to help with your plan,” she said as she plopped herself down on the couch, immediately making herself at home. “It has been way too long since I have been involved in this sort of thing but I will endeavor to do my best.”
Violet and I both shared a smile.
* * *
Four hours later Violet had outlined her plan, and then we’d gone through it in great detail. Mrs. Michaels had given her input, and had decided that she was going to come along as well, as a guest of the hotel.
“One thing I don’t understand,” I asked, “is why do the robbers need the algorithm at all? After all, the only reason they couldn’t get the night time code from Simon was because he never looked at it. But who’s to say that’s the case at the Ritz as well?”
Violet nodded. “It is a good question, that, and one that I have asked the manager myself. Because the safe is not meant to be accessed during night hours except in the case of an emergency, their setup is slightly different. The morning codes are sent to the phone of the manager, which presumably the robbers are able to access. However, the evening codes, which are sent at six pm, are sent to a phone kept in a secret location, known only to the manager, locked, and never accessed unless absolutely necessary. Tonight, it will be necessary to access it, since the diamonds and the ring will be needed for the party, but by the time the night manager has done so, it will be too late for the thieves as it means that they will be ready to move the diamonds, along with the armed guards, to the party.”
I nodded my understanding. That made sense. If they had half the codes, they could use the algorithm to work out the other half themselves, when the safe would be kept safest as it would be assumed no one had the code.
“Right. First things first, you two ladies need to get into your disguises,” Mrs. Michaels said when it was time for us to get ready. It was nearly two in the afternoon, and we expected the theft to happen between nine and eleven. Mrs. Michaels agreed with us that would be the most likely time for the thieves to strike.
Violet went upstairs for a minute, and then came down with a large box filled with wigs. She settled on a short, sandy-blonde wig that was quite a bit lighter than her natural hair color, but still seemed to suit her. I went with a shoulder-length chestnut-brown wig. When I finished tucking my hair and adjusting it, I was amazed at how different I looked with just the change in my hair style and color.
“That is a good color on you,” Violet said approvingly. “Now we need the makeup, and then I went and got our uniforms from the Ritz yesterday.”
Violet’s plan involved us pretending to be employees at the hotel. She had a long conversation the day before with the manager of the hotel, who was in on our plan and fully on board with it. After all, the hotel didn’t want anything happening to the jewellery in their vault either. All the press that had occurred after Kim Kardashian had been robbed in Paris a few years ago would be nothing compared to this, if the robbery was successful.
She came back down again a minute later with two suit bags and a box of makeup. Mrs. Michaels watched with interest as Violet began by handing me a box of contact lenses.
“Go into the bathroom and put these in,” she ordered. I looked at the box awkwardly.
“Um, I’ve never actually put a pair of contact lenses in before,” I said, laughing nervously. “Is it hard?”
“Really?” Violet asked, looking surprised. “Well, it is quite simple, yes. Put the lens on your index finger, hold your eyelids open with your middle fingers, and gently place the lens on your eye. When it is on, remove your finger gently, then blink a couple of times. There are a number of videos on YouTube that can help as well.”
“Ok, I might go have a look at those,” I said, taking my phone with me as I made my way upstairs to the bathroom. After a few false starts I managed to get the lens in my eye, and tried not to focus on how icky it felt. What if the lens rolled all the way into the back of my eye and got stuck there? I knew that wasn’t going to happen. After all, I knew about the anatomy of the eye, and I knew it was actually impossible for a contact lens to get stuck in the back of my eye. Even the odds of it getting stuck under my eyelid were impossibly low. Still, apparently my brain decided today was a good day to panic about things that weren’t
going to happen.
Looking in the mirror, my eyes had gone from blue to brown, and wow did it stand out. I looked completely different already! If I walked past myself in the street I was pretty sure I wouldn't recognize myself now.
Once Violet had done my makeup, I really didn’t recognize myself at all. Or her, for that matter. There was absolutely no way any of the three men would recognize us if they saw us now, unless they looked at us closely.
Mrs. Michaels left first, since she had absolutely no need for a disguise. She was simply playing the role of the lonely old widow who decided to spend a bit of time in the city, away from her garden and away from the drama of her knitting group.
Violet and I walked to Gloucester Street Station and hopped on a train for the four stations to Green Park Station, just outside the Ritz Hotel.
I felt like I was in an Agatha Christie novel as I looked up and saw the round, thirties-style bulbs advertising the Ritz Hotel, the Ritz Restaurant and the Ritz Club. The building behind it was grand, with alternating flags with the Ritz logo and the Union Jack flying over the street. Everything about it exuded class, but I was torn from my reverie when Violet grabbed my arm.
“Come, you are an employee, you are not supposed to gape at your place of work,” she chided me.
“Sorry,” I muttered as we made our way around the side of the building toward the back entrance.
“Now, before we go in, I was thinking that your American accent might be a bit of a giveaway, even in London. Can you do an English accent yet?”
“Roight, well, Oi shore can troi,” I offered up, and I noticed even Violet struggling not to laugh.
“All right, so definitely not that accent, then,” she said.
“Hey, it wasn’t that bad,” I protested.
“I mean no offense by this, but yes, it was that bad,” Violet replied. “Perhaps sticking with your American accent is the safest course of action after all. I recommend studying the English accent in the future, it is useful to be able to swap your voice at will.”
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