Charles Palliser (127 page)

“Yes, we would,” I said to him.

“I ain’t going to tell you unless I’m ’lowed to make one with you.”

“That you nivver will,” his mother said firmly.

“Do you have an idea, Joey?” I asked.

“More nor a hidea. I knows exackerly how you can get in and out without no chance at all of being seen from the street. But I ain’t going to say.”

I tried surreptitiously several times to make him say more during the next few weeks

— but always without success — as the difficulty of the undertaking was increasingly borne in upon me. For when Mr Digweed and I visited Brook-street a few days later we discovered that all the basement and ground-floor windows were stoutly barred with iron, and that the area railings were topped by fierce spikes — including a fan-tail palisade where the railing met the house which made it almost impossible to climb up to a window above the ground-floor. We went round to the mews at the back and, negotiating our way between the piles of horse-dung, discovered that, as we had feared, the back-wall of the house-yard comprised the stables and coach-house and since the story above them obviously held the living-quarters of the coachman and grooms, there was no possibility of entry by that means. We noticed, however, through the open stable-door, that the wall into the back-yard of the neighbouring house, No. 49, was badly broken-down. This house, which was on the corner with Avery-row and much smaller, was shut up and appeared to be empty, though unfortunately it was just as well defended as No. 48.

When Mr Digweed reported back on what he had learned from an acquaintance he had cultivated in the public-house, we were even more downcast: “It would be a divil of a job to get in through a winder. You need the best part A FRIEND ON THE INSIDE

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of twenty minutes with an auger and centre-bit to take out each of them bars. That’s if you’re lucky.”

“We’d need to remove two before even I could squeeze through,” I said. “Isn’t it possible to do it any faster?”

“You have to go slow to keep the noise down.”

“Forty minutes!” I exclaimed. “Even on a moonless night that would be a risk. What then?”

“Lift out the panes and cut the glazing-bars. That’s j’iner’s work and I could do that in five minutes.”

“So it could be done in under an hour?”

“No, for I’d need to keep stopping for the watch and the police-patroles. We’d need someone else so as you and him could keep look-out both ways up the street and warn me when to lay off.”

“We dare not trust anyone else,” I said. I hesitated for I had had it in mind to put a proposal to them for some time. At length I asked : “Would you consider letting Joey act as look-out?”

Though at first they were resolutely opposed to this, at length I managed to persuade them that it would involve little risk to Joey and would considerably increase his father’s safety.

Joey was informed of this concession when he returned later that day.

“Oh, prime!” he cried, clapping his hands. “Now tell us what you’ve fixed to do.”

We summarised the plan and when we had finished he laughed and said: “I ain’t never heerd nothin’ so green. You wouldn’t hardly have time to get your bit agin the bar a-fore you was nabbed. I knows a much better way.”

“Then tell us!” I cried.

“Well, it was the name of the street that fust set me to thinking.”

“Brook-street?” I asked.

He nodded: “I wondered if that meant the street follered the course of an old river.”

Baffled by this I glanced at Mr Digweed but he was leaning forward intently with his mouth slightly open in the position that indicated a readiness to be enlightened.

“There’s a number of them as has been bricked over — oh, years and years ago.

There’s the fleet, in course, and the Wallbrook.”

“And is Brook-street one of these?” I asked.

But I could see Mr Digweed shaking his head.

“No, it ain’t,” he said.

“No,” said Joey, that’s right, it ain’t.” He paused and looked slyly triumphant: “But I found out that it crosses one such and that’s how it got its name, I s’pose.”

I began to perceive what point he was aiming at and saw that his father was following his exposition with growing excitement.

“You see, years and years ago,” Joey went on, “the Tyburn-brook (not the one by the park but the old King’s-Scholars’-pond) run down that way from across the New-Road, and there was a bridge where Brook-street crossed it.”

“Avery-row!” exclaimed Mr Digweed.

“That’s the ticket,” said Joey.

“So one of them big old brick shores runs across the street and …”

“And the house next door — No. 49 — is on the corner!” I exclaimed.

“That’s right!” Joey said.

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“So why does that matter?” asked Mrs Digweed.

Joey looked embarrassed and said: “Well, you mind that day I went off alone …”

His father nodded grimly.

“Well, I went there. You know how the old houses that are built beside a main shore sometimes drains straight into it?”

Mr Digweed nodded again.

“Well, No. 49 is one of ’em!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re sure?” asked Mr Digweed.

“I counted the streets going that way twice over.”

“Then that’s our way in!” Mr Digweed said.

Joey nodded and went on excitedly: “There’s just a rusted grate that you could lever off with a jemmy. Then you’d have to climb up into the petty-house.”

“Then where would you find yourself ?” I asked.

“In the back-yard.”

“And the wall from there into the yard of No. 48 is easy to climb and the door into the house is left unlocked!” I cried.

We looked at each other in excitement, all speaking at once. When we had quietened down we discussed the details: In order to be able to get to the house and back by underground ways we needed a night on which low-tide would occur at about three o’clock in the morning, for this would permit us to have an hour and a half in the house and still leave time to get away. Far from the river as Avery-row was, there was little danger of being caught by the tide but, in case we had to make our escape by the streets, we also needed a moonless night.

We learned from the almanac that we did not have long to wait for a date that met all the necessary conditions. The night of the 23rd. of June — only ten days away! — would be moonless and there would be a low tide at exactly the right hour. We made our preparations for the enterprise and when the evening of the 23rd. arrived — a fine summer night — all was ready. Since our best advice was that we should carry the incriminating tools with us for as little time as was necessary, it had been decided that Mrs Digweed should bear them — hidden beneath a bundle of laundry in a basket — as far as the entrance to the shores at Chancery-lane where Mr Digweed and I would rendezvous with her. He and I would make our way underground to Avery-row and enter the house by the means that Joey had discovered. Meanwhile Joey would get to Brook-street by the surface and take up his position opposite the house, from where he would make a sound like a tawny-owl if we were in danger of being detected from inside, and imitate a night-jar if the danger came from the street. (This trick he had learned from his experiences with his uncle.)

“If we fail to get the will,” I said, “we must not let it be known that we possess the secret of its hiding-place, for then they will move it and there will be no second chance.

So we must make the attempt appear to be an ordinary crack.”

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Mr Digweed shook his head: “I won’t steal nothin’ else to put them off the scent.”

I made no answer. I felt a sudden stab of excitement at the thought that the will and all that it carried with it might be in my hands within a few hours.

The hour came at last. We concealed in Mrs Digweed’s basket a crow, a spider pick-lock, a rope with a grapple (to be used only if we had to escape through the window), and a drill and bit for the back-door if it should prove to be locked, and she took leave of us. A few minutes later Mr Digweed and I set off by another route carrying our usual equipment — a lanthorn (though of the bull’s-eye design), a small trowel and a shore-hunter’s rake — leaving Joey to make his more leisurely way to Mayfair.

All went well and at about three in the morning we were beside the culvert of No. 49.

When my companion had dislodged with the crow some of the bricks holding the grate and moved it out of the way, he held me up and, putting down the rake, I clambered up the funnel. Then I helped him to ascend after me and a moment later we found ourselves in the little yard behind the house. From there we clambered over the derelict wall and made our way to the back-door which we discovered, to our relief, to be indeed unlocked. As we passed into the house I masked the lanthorn and only the smell of oil and hot iron betrayed its presence.

Now the darkness around us seemed absolute and we waited until our eyes were adjusted to take advantage of the faint starlight that came through the single dirty window. My hearing seemed — as always in the dark — unnaturally sharpened and, as we crept across the stone-flagged floor and passed the scullery-door, we could hear snores which indicated the whereabouts of the nightwatchman. Once we had gained the hall I released a narrow shaft of light and by its aid we made our way up the stairs until we found ourselves outside the high double-doors to the Great Parlour.

Mr Digweed tried the handle and gently pushed: the door was locked. Instantly he set to work with the spider while I held the lanthorn, and within a few minutes he had opened it. We passed through and, as we had been advised, took the precaution of locking the door after us and placing a wedge beneath it to obstruct any attempt to force it.

I opened the eye of the lanthorn a little more, conscious of the danger of accidentally directing the beam towards the window for, despite the thickness of the drapes, the light might be perceived from the street if the shutters were not closed. By now Joey would be out there.

I turned the lanthorn and the shaft of light circled the room picking out furniture and objects at random. The shadows almost made it seem that there were figures seated on the sophas and chairs or lounging by the beaufet at the side of the room, as there probably had been a few hours before. I felt a surge of excitement as the beam fell on the great marble chimney-piece at the end of the room opposite the door, higher than a man’s head and gleaming palely.

I longed to start to tackle it but first we had to attend to other matters. The professional advice we had received was that as soon as you got into a house you made sure of your means of egress. (I vividly recollected how Barney, having entered my mother’s house, had found himself trapped inside it.) So we crossed to the window and, as we had previously agreed, carefully drew back the curtains to reveal the shutters: they were closed and their bars drawn. We very gently and quietly released the bars and the window catches,

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watching out for the spring-alarms — common on ground-floor windows but occasionally found on the first-floor — about which we had been warned, but to our relief there were none.

Now we brought out the rope and under my companion’s direction, I attached the hook of the grapple to a heavy sopha which stood with its back to the window, and left the rope coiled on the floor. Our efforts meant that we could now open the window within seconds and lower ourselves (though Mr Digweed only with considerable difficulty) down the side of the wall, and yet there was nothing that looked suspicious from the street. However, the window over-looked the area and would be difficult to escape from on account of the long, sharp spikes on the railings and the fan-tailed cluster at the juncture with the wall of the house, and I earnestly hoped that we would not have to make use of this means of escape.

Now at last we could turn our attention to the point of our efforts. We crossed the room and I shone the beam onto the entablature of the over-mantel behind which lay the hiding-place. I perceived a large heraldic device embossed upon it which, to my surprise, was already familiar to me — at least to a degree.

My companion was as surprised as I, though for a different reason.

“That were never there a-fore,” he whispered. “The safe-place must be behind it.”

The device was an elaboration of the design I had known all my life both from the crests on my mother’s plates and from the Mompesson and Huffam tombs in the church at Melthorpe. There the arrangement was of the kind known as a quincunx: five objects, in this case quatre-foil flowers, were so disposed that four occupied each of the corners of an imaginary square and the fifth was placed in the centre. Here, however, the quincunx was multiplied five times for the quincunx device itself was the element that made up the larger arrangement. In short, it was a kind of quincunx raised to the power of two, a quincunx of quincunxes, apparently carved from a single and enormous slab of white marble.

The over-mantel was so high up that we had to carry a couple of foot-stools over from near the windows and stand on them in order to examine it properly. Now Mr Digweed scrutinized the entablature closely, running his hand over its cold, smooth surface. After a few moments he pointed out to me that what I had taken for a single expanse of marble was in fact a number of dowelled segments fitted together.

“What’s more,” he whispered, pointing to a portion of the marble immediately above the design, “I’ll wager this piece drops away, for there’s a j’in here that’s wider than the others.”

I followed his hand and saw the crevice in the marble which my less skilled eye would probably not have noticed.

“But how is it made to move?” I asked. “And by what means is it secured and released?”

He frowned and continued his study for what seemed an age. First he ran his hand over the marble, paying particular notice to the joints and to the flowers, and then to my surprise he pressed his face to these last, touching them with his lips like a superstitious worshipper at a shrine.