On a row of pegs behind the door hung a silk scarf in a brown and blue Paisley pattern. The keys were not conveniently hanging next to it, nor under it—he checked.
On a work-bench to his left, under the east window, lay various tools and a dozen or so pieces of rock, of varied size and colour but undifferentiated and uninteresting in his eyes. Pettigrew apparently liked the view of trees and the omnibuses, hansoms, motor taxis, and horse-drawn vans in the Cromwell Road, for the government-issue pedestal desk faced the south window. Against the right-hand wall stood a filing cabinet and a bookcase.
Desk, cabinet, and bookcase, appropriate to the grade of keeper, matched Smith Woodward’s in the office below. Whether they were keyed alike he was about to discover.
He crossed to the desk and pulled open the centre drawer to find paper, envelopes, a book of penny-ha’penny stamps, blotting paper to fit the pad on top. The first drawer on the left held an old fountain pen with a cracked cap, a bottle of blue-black ink and another of India ink, a paper knife, and other odds and ends. The second drawer down was locked.
Smith Woodward’s desk key turned in the lock. So much for government standardization! The drawer slid open to disclose a plethora of keys.
For a moment he stared, scarcely able to believe his luck. There they lay, the big iron key for the iron gate and three rings of small brass ones for the display cases. The latter even had tags with the numbers of the cases they opened.
He began to feel a sense of inevitability. Everything seemed to conspire to help him: the keys falling into his hands; Pettigrew’s absence when short summer nights made a betraying torch unnecessary; one lucky coincidence after another. Dame Fortune favored those with the guts, brains, and patience to take advantage when opportunity offered.
Long patience had made tonight possible, but for the next few hours time was of the essence. He picked up the keys, stuffed all but the large one in his pockets to stop them jangling, and hurried to the door.
Now caution was called for. He had crossed the line; if he was caught coming out of Pettigrew’s office laden with Pettigrew’s keys no excuse would serve, his goose was well and truly cooked. Opening the door a crack, he peered through the narrow gap.
The view was singularly uninformative. Eyes shut, head cocked, he listened. His heart thundered, but no whisper of external sound reached him.
Pull the door open; step through; close it, gently; lock it and take the key. He tiptoed ten long yards to the iron gate. Set in a grid which filled the archway, it was backed by a wood and glass screen and door which kindly limited the view of the interior, as did the double row of rectangular pillars within.
The clumsy key turned silently. Not a creak escaped the well-oiled hinges. And the door opened with equal ease. He was inside the Mineral Gallery.
He cast a long, yearning look at the Colenso diamond, but a hundred and thirty carats of crystallized carbon was too conspicuous, too recognizable. The rest of the diamonds he passed with a disdainful sneer. They were all paste copies of famous stones, including the uncut Cullinan, a monster at over three thousand carats.
Without a jeweller’s lens, the heavy lead glass invented centuries ago by Herr Strasser was virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. They were all inanimate objects, unchanging, never alive, their value artificial, one very like another in all but size. Studying them taught nothing. What did it matter whether the public gaped at genuine gems or counterfeits?
Moving on, he opened case after case. His inside breast-pockets filled with amethysts, sapphires, garnets, topazes, aquamarines, rubies, emeralds. Kind of Sir Arthur Church to bequeath his splendid collection to the museum!
He hesitated over the Transcarpathia ruby. It was an uncommonly large stone, famous half a century ago, but few colored jewels achieved the lasting notoriety of the largest diamonds. Weight for weight, though, a large ruby was more valuable than a diamond. He pocketed it.
Under the arch to the meteorite pavilion stood the case of precious stones mentioned in the Bible. Superstitiously, he left it untouched.
The rear exit was close by, with little-used stairs right down to the basement. He had the key to the door. Alas, the innocent wood was backed by another of solid steel, and only the police had the key to that. No choice but to return the way he had come.
He started back along the north aisle, glancing from side to side to check that he had closed all the cases. Had he locked the iron gate behind him? In a sudden flash of paniche could not remember. The patrolling constable probably tried it every time he passed.
The constable might even now be on his way upstairs after his cup of tea. The gate was two hundred feet away, nearly the whole length of the gallery.
His immediate impulse was to run. Sweating again, he tried to force himself to be calm, to think. The urge for speed won.
Feet thudding dully, he loped towards the entrance. The keys clinked in his bulging pockets. Suspiciously bulging—so many details he had not envisioned! But it would take too long to return Pettigrew’s keys to his desk.
As he approached the entrance he slowed, and stopped, panting, to one side of the arch. Craning his neck, he could see through the glass that the gate was still closed. No police countenance frowned back at him. Bent double, below the level of the glass panes, he crept forward and reached for the handle of the inner door.
He had locked it, quite unnecessarily. Dammit, he cursed under his breath, what a waste of time! Fumble for the key, open a crack to listen, reach through to try the gate.
It, too, was locked. All that panic for nothing.
The big key turned easily. A moment later he was out, feverishly locking door and gate behind him while straining for the sound of boots.
The nearest stairs were in a nook just around the corner from Pettigrew’s office. He had avoided them before because, on the ground floor, they opened to Smith Woodward’s office, right beside the police post. Now, time slipping away, he unlocked the door at the top and tiptoed down the narrow, gloomy stairwell, heart in mouth, clutching his pockets to keep the keys quiet.
On the ground floor, only a wall and a yard or two separated him from the police.
Back in the basement at last, in the dim light beneath grumbling pipes, he leant weakly against the yellow brick wall and blotted his brow. He would not use those nerve-racking stairs again.
Just a little farther, to the staff cloakrooms, and he was safe. He had left his hat and attaché case there. From here on, he was just a late-working employee on his way home.
