Uncle Walter turned to the man. “Have you got the keys?”
Caro followed her uncle and the beadle out of the jewellery store and onto the busy concourse. They headed to one of the marble and wrought iron staircases that would take them to the second floor where more shops mixed with professional offices.
The skylight above filtered bright winter sunshine into the space, making the Christmas decorations glitter gaily. It was strange; it was as though she was looking at the arcade through different eyes. She had only been here a week ago and then, like all of these other shoppers around her, had gone about her business blissfully unaware.
She found Tobias had fallen in step with her.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked.
She smiled in spite of herself.
“For what?” she asked, not willing to let him off the hook – not immediately, anyway.
“For sending you on a fruitless errand all the way to Victoria Station.”
“You knew you were being followed?”
“Of course! I never forget a pretty face. I saw you and your friend in the cafe across the road.”
“If you’re not guilty, then why did you run?”
“I didn’t run. I walked. Quickly. And I wanted to see how persistent you really were. If you were prepared to suspect me, you might have been tempted to ask questions of other members of the troupe working out of the Palladian.”
Caro stopped on the second step of the staircase, which brought her eye to eye with Tobias who stood on the step below. She knew a question was written all over her face, but he shook his head in answer.
“Not here. Somewhere we won’t be overheard.”
He joined her on the second step and she felt him touch her elbow so she started to climb again, in step with him.
“I don’t know how I could have lost you at the station; you’re not easy to miss!” she said.
Caro watched him take her remark as a compliment but she could not detect any arrogance or ego in it.
“Remember what I said to you yesterday? Illusion is about misdirection. You weren’t really following me; you were following my scarf. So all I had to do to disappear was remove it.”
“As simple as that?” she breathed, recalling the moment clearly in her own mind.
“As simple as that,” he confirmed with an easy smile. “And you never even saw me walk back up the stairs right past you.”
They had reached midway along the gallery and joined Uncle Walter and the beadle outside an office. A small brass plaque beside the door announced its occupant:
Skeene & Roy
Solicitors
Blinds on the inside of the windows shuttered the view of the office. A handwritten sign in neat copperplate was posted on the door.
Christmas Felicitations
Our offices will be closed between
December 10 and January 7 inclusive
We wish our clients all the joy of the Season
The sound of shoppers rose up from the void. Caro crossed to the iron balustrade and looked down, estimating the distance it would take someone to get to the ground safely. Someone with a head for heights, that was for certain.
When she returned her attention to the office, she saw her uncle put his hand up to prevent the beadle from using his set of keys to open the door. Uncle Walter squatted down to look at the brass door escutcheon.
“There are fine scratch marks around the inside lip of the key hole,” he announced.
“The Phantom couldn’t have picked a better location and time,” Tobias observed. “A skilled lock pick could be in and out quickly, and he could work inside for days and never be noticed.”
Walter stood and nodded to the beadle who now used his master key to unlock the door. “Wait here,” he told the man who appeared happy to obey the instruction to remain outside. To Caro’s surprise, her uncle let Tobias lead the way in. She followed behind them.
Tobias took a few paces into the dim office and stopped.
“Do you smell that?”
Almost in unison, she and her uncle took in a deep breath. Caro could detect stale tobacco and musty air but little else.
“It’s a pity we don’t have the real Sherlock Holmes here,” she said. Both men looked at her. “If there is tobacco smoke, there might be cigar or cigarette ash. Holmes wrote a monograph identifying one hundred and forty types of ash.”
“That’s the difference between fiction and real detective work, Caro – we first have to find the ash,” Uncle Walter observed dryly.
The general layout of the solicitors’ office appeared to be the same as the shop below - a large room immediately inside the entrance and a back room beyond. The front space had, however, been divided by a low partition wall that enabled a small reception room and a private office for Mr Skeene, whose name was sign written in gold block letters on the door. The back room door was equally annotated for Mr Roy.
Tobias went to that door, took a few steps forward and stopped, then a couple of side steps and stopped again.
“The ceiling panel in question should be right below me,” he said, his voice soft and urgent.
He dropped to his knees and looked under the solicitor’s desk a few feet away.
“There are soot marks on the underside, probably from a lamp,” he said. He indicated the transom window high in the wall between the back and front rooms. “Where he was positioned, the desk acts as a shade so the light wouldn’t be seen outside at night. And our friend was confident enough to leave it here over several days – there’s an indent in the carpet.”
Tobias looked down at the large Persian rug which covered much of the floor in the room. He went to the edge of the carpet and rolled it back until the floorboards were exposed.
Caro could see little in the dim office.
“We need more light,” she said and Uncle Walter agreed, lighting the lamp on the desk and bringing it down to where Tobias now knelt, examining the floor. Caro drew closer to watch.
The two men discussed where to start before Uncle Walter pulled out his pen knife and inserted it between the butted ends of two of the boards. He levered up the end of one board by a fraction of an inch then, assisted by Tobias, pulled up the board. It seemed to come up easily.
“Jones!” called out Uncle Walter. The beadle rushed in. “Get downstairs to the jewellers; tell them they might have an expected visitor in the workroom shortly.”
The man nodded, then vanished.
By then, Tobias had lifted the floorboards either side of the first, exposing the heavy cross cut joists supporting the floor and the ceiling below. “You can see what he’s done here,” he said. “He probably used a dovetail saw to cut flat on the back of the panel using the joists as a guide to the edges of the coffer. See how he’s glued those blocks to use as handles?”
“Why bother with that?” asked Walter, frowning.
“So he could get it positioned just so when he was putting it back, I think.”
“But he got it wrong by a fraction, didn’t he?” said Caro. “That was the thin line of lighter coloured wood.”
Tobias grinned up at her. “It was.”
Walter reached down and lifted the panel out by the crude handles.
“Hello up there, sir!”
Jones the beadle, along with Hargreaves and his apprentice, peered up at them, then blinked as a small scattering of sawdust snowed gently down on them.
“So now we know how he got in,” said Caro, stepping away from the hole in the floor, “but how did he get down and back up?”
Tobias rocked back on his haunches and stood up.
“Assuming it was just one man, he would have used a rope.”
“But that would have to be tied to something...”
Uncle Walter looked up from studying the floor boards. “Look at this.”
On the floorboards either side of the hole, at a right angle to the length of the removed boards, there were slight scuff marks.
“I’d say he turne
d one of the floorboards he pulled out to an angle across the opening and tied the rope round that.”
Tobias quickly examined the boards they had removed. “I’d say you’re right, Inspector,” he said, indicating marks on one of them which seemed to be where the rope had been looped around it.
Walter pulled out his note pad. “This dratted man has kept my men occupied for the past month,” he grumbled as he sketched out a diagram of the scene. “Heaven knows what he’s doing with the gems he steals. We’ve visited every pawn broker and jewellery fence in every square inch of the city. Every police district in the country knows what to be on the lookout for but nothing has shown up. I can only think he’s smuggling them abroad.”
When the Inspector had finished his diagram and notes, Tobias replaced the cut out panel and began to put the floorboards back in place but suddenly stopped.
Caro watched him reach down in the void between the floor and the ceiling below a few feet to one side of the makeshift manhole.
“I’ve found something.”
CHAPTER TEN
Caro caught a glimpse of gold. At first she thought it might have been a piece of jewellery, but as Tobias turned it, she saw it was nothing of the sort – though it was a ‘ring’ nonetheless.
“A cigar band,” Uncle Walter observed.
“May I take a look?” Caro asked.
She held out her hand and Tobias’s fingers lightly brushed hers as he laid the circle of paper in her palm. She turned it over. The artwork on it was exquisite. In an oval cartouche was an image of a pretty young woman. The colours were vivid red, blues and greens while the woman’s skin colour was delicately rendered and her hair a honey blonde. She brushed a fingertip over the embossed scroll work covered in gold ink.
She had never closely examined a cigar band before but it seemed to her this one must be from a very expensive cigar, and she said so, handing it to Uncle Walter.
His manner was thoughtful as he turned the tiny circle of paper around in his hand. “It looks near new. I don’t think it’s from when the arcade was built, and people collect cigar bands like these. You’re right, my girl – this is from a very expensive cigar. I’ll have my men run down every tobacconist in the city; we might be able to find who sold the box this came in. It’s another lead at least.”
They put the solicitor’s office to rights and locked it up once more. Caro slipped her arm through her uncle’s as they walked along the balcony.
“Thank you for letting me accompany you today. I know mother doesn’t approve, but it’s just—”
“Shhh,” he soothed, patting her arm. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. Estelle just wants what’s best for you. Besides, it’s not all altruism on my part. You really do have a gift for detection and I’m not so proud as to refuse help.”
Uncle Walter paused at the stop of the stairs. Caro looked at him questioningly.
“Just promise me one thing,” he said.
“Of course.”
“Don’t go investigating on your own, will you, love?”
“I promise.” Caro schooled her features into an innocent expression and waited for Tobias to call her on it. He didn’t.
Soon they were out on the street. Uncle Walter hailed a hansom cab and directed the driver to take him to New Scotland Yard. Caro turned to Tobias and inclined her head.
“I suppose this is where we part company, Mr Black. Thank you for not saying anything to my uncle about our previous meeting. You have put me in your debt.”
“You can repay the debt by calling me Tobias.”
Caro smiled. “Then you must call me Caro, all my friends do.”
“I’m glad to be included in their number,” he answered. “Now, shall I call you a cab? Where are you heading?”
“Fitzrovia... I have to visit a friend.”
Tobias nodded and looked out to the street. He raised a hand and whistled sharply. Up ahead, a top-hatted driver acknowledged the hail with a nod and negotiated the steady stream of traffic to reach the kerb. She gave the driver the address and found her hand in Tobias’s as he aided her into the cab. He said something to the driver she missed, then, to her surprise, he climbed in after her and closed the cab doors with a slam.
“On, thank you, driver,” he called and the carriage lurched into motion.
“I’ll travel with you as far as Soho,” he said, “there’s someone I need to see.”
There was something in Tobias’s tone of voice that made her think the visit was not a professional one. A sweetheart perhaps? His wife?
She straightened her posture. Really, it was none of her business who he saw, just as her business was none of his. She thought of her upcoming interview with Bertie.
Oh Bertie, how can I refuse you and not ruin our friendship?
Caro remembered the scarf in her coat pocket.
“I have something of yours,” she said, drawing the length of fabric out.
“Thank you. I was hoping you might find it,” he replied, but made no move to take it from her.
The silence that suddenly came between them seemed awkward, almost oppressive in the intimate confines of the cab. Nothing at all like the easy familiarity of her friendship with Bertie.
“So...” she began, conscious of having his full attention. “How does a soldier become a magician?”
He smiled at her and she felt a tingling in her toes that became a warmth throughout her body. She no longer felt the outside cold.
“You have the question the wrong way about,” he said. “It should have been how did a magician become a soldier.”
“You’ve always been a magician?”
“In a way. My older brother taught me my first card trick when I was five. But when I grew up I knew I would have to make a proper living and I fancied to travel, so I chose the Army, went to Sandhurst and served in India, Yemen and Egypt.
“Then I had a run in with a girder.”
“A Ghurka?”
“No,” he smiled, “it really was a girder. An iron one. Very heavy. I was a lieutenant in the engineering corps stationed in Yemen. My company was sent out to build a bridge and to train some of the local men.”
He shook his head at the recollection.
“I was climbing up some scaffolding to check on the work when a girder above, which hadn’t been bolted securely, came down on top of me. I was pretty messed up.” He touched a hand to his shoulder as if recalling. “I broke a collar bone and my back was severely bruised from the fall.
“There was little I could do in my hospital bed while I recuperated, so my sergeant gave me a pack of playing cards. I got tired of Solitaire and, before I knew it, all those tricks I learned as a boy came back to me. I recovered and returned to England with my company five years ago. I thought I’d got the wanderlust out of me, but no sooner had I resigned my commission than I found myself hitching a ride across Germany with a troupe of itinerant performers. And found I was good at being a magician too.
“But now I’m home again, at my father’s behest, and he’s telling me once again I need to settle down, join my brother in business. So I shall. This will be the last season for The Dark Duke.”
“Doesn’t that make you sad?”
“Not really. In fact, I’m rather looking forward to it. I learned a lot as an engineer in the Army, so much that can be applied here at home – especially mechanical engineering. I think there’s a time when one must ‘put away childish things’, don’t you agree?”
She smiled at him but said nothing and turned to look out of the window. She thought of her law studies and her mother’s opposing desire to see her daughter wed and with a family of her own. Perhaps it was time she grew up also, and take up her responsibilities. Perhaps it was selfish to hold onto her dream of becoming a lawyer.
She sighed inwardly.
Perhaps, despite her misgivings, she should accept Bertie’s offer of marriage. After all, who knew her better than he did? At least he would let her finish her studies
and not demand she break them off immediately.
She was unaware she was lost in her own thoughts until she sensed Tobias watching her closely. She turned to face him and felt a heated blush burn her cheeks. There was something in his expression which fascinated her and, for a moment, she felt a deep longing. What would it be like to kiss him?
“Now there’s a trick – disappearing so far into your own thoughts you were no longer here,” he said, his voice barely audible over the steady clip-clop of the horse and the sound of the traffic around them. “A penny for them?”
She inclined her head, as much to distract herself from the question she had just posed herself, as it was to answer his enquiry, she spoke.
“You were talking about the future, making the decision to grow up and move on. I was just thinking about my future. There’s a decision I’ve been putting off making... partly because the dream I have to be a lawyer is really just a fantasy, and partly because there is something comfortable in holding onto one’s dreams – even the unattainable ones.”
She paused and frowned before continuing.
“You’re lucky. You’ve pursued your passions, not once but twice. The thought of simply being someone’s wife with no identity of my own...” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking like this.”
“I’m glad you feel you can,” he said. “This decision you’re making... is that part of your errand today?”
She nodded. A lump had formed in her throat. She felt the cab slow and approach the kerb.
“Soho, Sir.”
Tobias acknowledged the driver, then took Caro’s hands in his.
“My father gave me a word of advice in his last letter, the one which prompted me to come home – ‘don’t follow your passion, but always bring it with you’. Life and circumstance doesn’t always give us what we want, but there is always something better if you’re willing to look for it.”
He opened the door and she started to pull her hands away, but Tobias kept hold of one and dropped a brief kiss on the back of it.
“Until we meet again... Caro.”
The cab pulled away and she swallowed the lead in her throat as she watched familiar streets pass by, bringing her closer to her decision, closer to her fate, her destiny.
The Thief of Hearts Page 6