“We’ll need to track down how many stores you can buy that in later.” I went over the last of the bands but didn’t find anything useful. I was also on the dregs of my powder, so it was just as well. “I think I’m done here. Those bands are wicked, though, that’s not something you can bend with just hands. Tools definitely got involved here. And these locks are no joke, either, from the looks of it.”
“Yes indeed,” Henri agreed, still sketching. “Gibson, is it possible to take one of the safes back to my lab? I want to run some experiments on it.”
“Of course.”
I had a feeling I knew what kind of experiments. “You want to know how easy it is to make a mold of the lock, make a key to fit it?”
“That’s one of them, yes. And how easy it is to pick it.”
“I would imagine not very, but I do want to test that.” I had a feeling we should try someone who didn’t know the first thing about making molds in order to perform that experiment. After all, we weren’t sure who our thieves were. Were these professionals who somehow slipped in? Employees of the station who saw a good chance to get rich quick and took it? I could really flip a coin at this point. But if we were talking employees, then odds were they didn’t have a thief’s skillset. Which meant they had to figure out basics, like making molds.
Henri started putting tools back into the bag. “I think I’m done here for the moment. Where to next?”
“Maybe the gold company?” I offered. “I’m not entirely sure what all they do, to tell you the truth, and I need more info.”
“They’re a distributor more than anything,” Gibson informed me, carefully replacing safes and boxes back onto the shelves. “They’ve got a mining facility outside the city, but they refine and forge everything here in Kingston into either coins or ingots. It’s then shipped out from here.”
Interesting. “All the gold companies operate like this, or just this one?”
“All of them, I believe,” Henri answered. He closed the bag with a snap. “Gibson, should I come back for the safe?”
“No, I can have someone deliver it for you. Don’t worry about it now.”
“Splendid. Then let’s go interview the gold company employees.”
We might as well. There were a lot of interviews to do and really, I wanted to knock them out all at once. Sadly, we didn’t have that kind of time before work stopped for the day. This was definitely a case where you had to pace yourself. The first order of business was details. I had a feeling the devil would be in the details, and right now Henri and I didn’t have enough of them.
We trooped over to Gold Limited, the business that had just lost a huge chunk of change. It looked like a mercantile store from the front, maybe with a mix of a pawn store thrown in. Painted gold scales adorned the front windows, along with the name of the company in an arch over the top. Friendly enough, except for the iron bars lurking on the other side of the glass.
I leaned into Gibson’s side as we approached the bright red front door. “You’ve interviewed these guys, right?”
“Yes. They confirmed shipment of the gold for us, and I questioned the shipping clerks. I don’t suspect any of them.” Gibson gave a one-shoulder shrug before checking both ways to make sure the street was clear, then headed off across the pavement. “I’ve got solid alibies for all of them. I don’t think they were involved.”
“Even as informants?”
“The possibility’s there. I just have a gut feeling they’re not part of this.”
Sometimes that gut feeling was correct. Often, in fact, but sometimes even a veteran detective could be fooled. Gibson was right to listen to his gut but get alibies for them anyway. And we’d keep them on the suspect list until we got firm answers. Right now, I wanted answers more than anything.
The red door’s shop bell chimed as we stepped through. The front receptionist looked up with a professional smile that turned hopeful seeing Gibson’s red uniform. “Kingsman Gibson! Any breaks in the case?”
“Yes and no. Yes, as in very capable colleagues have joined me, and we’ve unraveled a bit more of how things were done. We’ve more questions of your shipping clerks, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Mr. Elwood left explicit instructions to aid you in whatever way we can. Please, come with me.” She did give Clint, who rode on my shoulder, an odd look, but was too well trained in customer service to say anything.
I assumed Elwood was their boss. We followed the perky receptionist down a very short hallway into the back room. It was brightly lit, the rectangular shape of the room crammed with packing supplies, scales, a wall safe that took up most of the opposite side of the room, and a loading dock door which was currently locked and closed.
Four clerks looked up at our entrance and flocked to Gibson with keen interest. I assumed them to be invested in the gold heist and wanted an update. They did double-takes seeing Clint, though, with one of them actually reaching out a hand toward him before thinking better of it.
My eyes roved over them: an elderly gentleman probably on the verge of retirement, a very pregnant werebadger, and two younger gentlemen who had to be related. Brothers, cousins, something of that ilk. The ginger hair and dusky freckles were a dead giveaway. Not to mention those jug ears.
“Kingsman Gibson,” the elderly man spoke in a slow drawl, his craggy dark skin lighting up hopefully. “A break in the case?”
“Yes and no,” Gibson answered again. “I’ve called in colleagues who are more experienced with theft than I am, and they’ve found some interesting evidence. They also have questions for all of you. Everyone, this is Dr. Davenforth. He’s a Magical Examiner with the Kingston PD. And this is his partner, Detective Edwards.”
Henri gave them a genteel smile. “Pleasure. If you don’t mind, we’re trying to get an exact sense of both the weight and the timing of all this.”
“Of course,” Old Man assured us, gesturing toward a row of barstools nearby. “Here, sit, ask all you want. I’ll talk with you.”
Everyone else got back to work, although I could tell they kept one ear trained on us as we took the offered stools.
“Kingsman Gibson asked about the schedule before,” Old Man said ruminatively. “What happens is, we get a shipment of unrefined gold in from our suppliers, and we spend some time in shop applying our mark to things, and double-checking quality and such. Then, when we get an order in, we package it into the crates and weigh it all, create our own invoice that goes with the shipment. We only ship it out on the evening train, as it has no stops and is more secure that way. We time it so the gold goes to the train yard fifteen minutes before the evening train leaves—less time for a would-be thief to lay hands on it, you see. Not that it did us any good this last time.”
I wrote this down in a leather book as he talked—in English. I was still faster in it than Velars. “Doesn’t that make it tight, to get it on the train?”
“It does,” he allowed amiably. “But they expect us, too. We’ve got it worked out to a science. They normally have it in the safes and on board about five minutes before the train departs.”
That was extremely tight. If the thieves didn’t even know if the gold would be on board until five minutes prior to departure—in this day and age it wasn’t like they could text that information to someone. So how had they known? “What are the odds this was a competitor’s work? Stealing from you, I mean.”
He shook his head before I could get the full question trotted out. “A competitor wouldn’t wait for it to be shipped. With our mark on the ingots and coins, it becomes that much harder to sell without the providence paperwork. A competitor would know this and strike here, at the company.”
Good point.
“We’ve taken precautions here in the shop, too,” Old Man continued without prompting. “We’re not allowed to step outside the room an hour before or after the shipment goes out. Just in case. I can vouch that no one had a chance to call or alert anyone on this stolen shipment.”
“I’ve heard over three hundred thousand crowns was stolen,” Henri prompted, his own notebook in hand. “But how much weight is that? Gold coins and ingots separately.”
“Ah. Well, ingots are four hundred thirty-nine troy ounces—”
I blinked at him. Troy ounce? “I’m sorry, a what?”
“It’s a unit of measurement for precious metals like gold,” Henri explained. “Slightly less than a regular ounce. An ingot is about twenty-five pounds.”
Old Man nodded peaceably. “Twenty-seven-point-four-three, to be exact. We lost six ingots and three boxes of gold coins.”
“How are the coins packaged?”
“Coins are sectioned off in bags of one hundred coins each, five bags per box. That makes each box five hundred troy ounces—a little over thirty-four pounds. That’s standard industry practice. Makes it easier on all of us if we use the same weights and packaging. The ingots are the same, where it’s two ingots a box. Always two ingots a box—the weight gets to be too much to easily carry otherwise.”
I scribbled numbers like mad. “That also industry standard?”
He nodded several times. “It is.”
“And how well known is this knowledge outside of your industry?”
“I wouldn’t think it common knowledge. But not hard to find out, either.”
It did amaze me that even without Google, people seemed to be able to lay their hands on the right answer. Or maybe I was just conditioned to Google everything. I shared a speaking glance with Gibson. We’d wondered how the thieves knew how much weight to bring and put in each box—but if the boxes held a standard weight, then the thieves would know just by the contents. They could easily make the swap, gold for lead, without a scale being necessary. “So, the total weight of everything?”
“Between the weight of the ingots and the gold coins, it came up to just over two hundred sixty-seven pounds. At least, the portion stolen is that much.”
I whistled low. That was a lot of weight to shift in a hurry. “So, whoever stole this had to carry two hundred sixty pounds of lead shot on, then carry the same weight back off. That’s a lot to cart about.”
“That it is. And the bands, the metal ones around the crates, we have special tools for those. Not something many people can manhandle themselves.” Old Man tipped his head down and gave me a pointed look. “You’re looking for some mighty strong people, Detective.”
Dryly, I answered, “I think we guessed that, sir.”
We ended up at Amelia’s Bakery because, frankly, we could all use sugar and caffeine after taking a look at the situation. Gibson looked done, just utterly done, but then he’d been banging his head against this particular problem for a full week without getting any closer to an answer. That had to be frustrating. Even more frustrating that my cat had found a clue he’d missed despite going over the car three times.
Henri, of course, was just tired from life in general. He downed a cup of tea before his cinnamon roll arrived, then ordered another, but frankly didn’t look any better despite the caffeine now in his system. I really had to find a way to get him to go home and sleep tonight instead of pulling overtime at the precinct. Again.
I absently petted the purring cat in my lap. Clint was sprawled out like some woman’s fur stole across my thighs, vibrating with his purrs. It was incredibly cute, which was partially why I indulged him, despite the purple fur he left all over my black pants. He was beyond pleased with himself to be so useful today, and he’d probably be unbearably smug about it for the next week. For today, though, he definitely deserved all the pets.
Taking a bite out of my cinnamon roll, I enjoyed the flavor and sugar and felt my mood lift. It was hard to eat good food and feel bad at the same time. As I ate, I thought about the mechanics of the theft. “Two hundred and sixty-seven pounds of gold. That’s a lot of weight for one person to shift. Even two people. Most people can’t carry a hundred pounds any real distance.”
Henri’s head came up. I could see that intelligent mind crunching on data. “Were all the bags in the compartment accounted for after the theft?”
“Yes,” Gibson confirmed. “Nothing missing.”
“So, they didn’t hide their loot into one of the suitcases and get it out that way,” I mused aloud. “They had to carry it out themselves. Seriously, I don’t see how they managed with just two people. I think we’re looking for at least four people to pull this off.”
“Between sixty and seventy pounds each.” Henri’s mouth pursed. “Yes, that should be doable. Sixty pounds can be obscured in pockets, in briefcases, and the like easily. The coins could go into pockets, at least, not the ingots. They might clink a bit when they walk, but it wouldn’t be enough to draw someone’s attention.”
“And they’d have to move in a hurry,” Gibson agreed. He was slowly coming out of his moroseness as he cottoned onto our words. “We closed down the train yard pretty quickly after the theft was discovered. I’d say within fifteen minutes of the train’s arrival at Bristol, the theft was reported. We had them lock everything down, and constables were on scene in less than five. Of course, it took us longer, but no one was allowed to leave before we arrived and checked them ourselves.”
That likely had made a lot of people unhappy. Especially since it didn’t yield in an arrest. “And there was no place for them to hide the gold or tools while waiting to be searched?”
“No, we made quite sure of it. And we searched the premises too.”
I figured they had, but it didn’t hurt to double check. “Okay, then that just verifies it for me. It had to be at least four people. No way for them to move out quickly otherwise.”
“And someone had to get rid of all the tools,” Henri said slowly, staring blindly ahead as he reached for his tea. “They must have had quite a few tools.”
Gibson shifted in his seat, facing Henri more directly. “I’ve got my own list of possible items used for this job, but I’m curious what you think.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to ponder this more carefully, but off the top of my head, I’d say: the Raskovnik, silencing charm—they had no guarantee the guard would apply one, so they’d bring their own—whatever keys they managed to copy, or a skeleton key for the outer locks. A torch, small handsaw, fix-it charms—”
I interrupted this list because some of it I didn’t follow. “Wait, why the saw?”
“Only way to get through the wooden boxes without damaging the iron bands,” he said, then stopped dead. “Curse it. The wax seal was different. That meant the bands were changed.”
Oh dear. He really was tired if he was forgetting details like that. “Yeah, so they must have had some tools to deal with the bands.”
“Probably not welding tools, as the bands weren’t welded,” he muttered, to his cinnamon roll more than to us. “But pliers, duplicate bands, wax, and stamps at the very least. Then, of course, the lead shot. We still have the question of how they weighed the shot, so perhaps a scale? And something to clean the mess up with. Undoing the wax seals, reapplying them, shifting gold and lead about, they were sure to have made some mess. But the area was perfectly clean, wasn’t it?”
Gibson nodded confirmation. “That it was. I suppose that should have been someone’s first hint, really. What train baggage car has a cleanly swept floor that late in the evening?”
Truly. And I still wasn’t convinced the guard wasn’t somehow involved. If it was his job to patrol the baggage area, then how did the thieves off-load all the gold? How did they get past this man who was supposedly on duty? Was he just incompetent at his job, or were they that good? I leaned more toward the theory they’d somehow paid him off.
“I think we might need to do a dry run of this ourselves in order to get an idea of timing and tools. Something might occu
r to us that way. And I’d like to go into Bristol and talk with people there, too.”
“I’m game for that.” Gibson sank back with a tired sigh. “I’m so glad I fetched you two. This really isn’t our element in some ways. We’re not used to this kind of crime. Magical incidents, scandals, security for the royal family—that’s our forte.”
“Oh, come on, you helped us a lot during that city epidemic,” I refuted.
“Sure, because you and Davenforth took lead. You basically told us what to do. This is exactly why Queen Regina wanted you two on board. You think differently. You’re trained to think differently. We need that sometimes.”
Okay, that was fair. “Tell you what, Gibs. Let’s stop here for the day. We’ve got a lot to think about, a lot to do, but I’ve got a feeling we need to stop in at the precinct tomorrow and properly report in how much time we’ll need to tackle this one. That and help Henri’s friend get started.”
Henri blinked at me owlishly. “You think she’ll have already fetched Colette and dragged her to the precinct?”
I stared back at him with an arch look. “You’ve got a sister and mother, Henri. Have you ever seen them drag their feet when they’ve decided something needed to get done?”
His eyes crinkled up at the corners. “You make an excellent point.”
A thought struck and I requested of Gibson, “You can probably lay hands on this information faster than we can. See what sources there are for Raskovnik in the city.”
He nodded as he stood. “I can request the information tonight. Can I expect you at the train station in the morning?”
“Sure thing,” I promised him.
Henri waffled a hand back and forth. “I might not be able to get in quite that quickly if Colette really was hired today. I’ll send you a message of when to expect me.”
“That’s fine. I hope for your sake she has been. See you tomorrow.”
We finished off our snacks, I hefted a cat onto my shoulder, and we left the bakery. Since it wasn’t that far of a walk to our apartment building, we chose to not snag a taxi. Frankly, Henri could use the exercise. He’d been bent over a magical problem in one form or another for weeks now. His whole body was going to freeze in that position if he didn’t stretch it some.
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