The stairs rose on his right, now, and ahead four steps led down to British Nesting Birds.
A shadow moved. His heart stood still.
“I weren’t asleep, sir,” protested a thick voice. From his seat on the steps, a stout police constable lumbered to his feet. An elderly man, he blinked bewilderedly as he movedforward, straightening his jacket. “Jest resting me pins a minute. The knees ain’t what they was.”
“I shan’t report you, officer.” He had to force the words through his constricted throat.
His one thought now was to get away without doing anything which might fix him in the man’s memory. His head averted, trying not to scurry, he carried on between the glass cases, scrutinized as he passed by the beady eyes of plover and pigeon. The policeman would surely presume he had come from the Lower Mammals, or perhaps down the stairs from the second floor. Anyway, the fellow would not mention seeing him, for fear of his unauthorized nap coming to light.
The door to the stairwell closed behind him. Down the stairs he ran, past the ground floor and on down to the basement.
An old man, confused with sleep, the constable would not remember whom he had seen—probably had not recognized him. The police seconded to the Natural History Museum could not know every employee by sight. No prompt outcry would make him recall the incident, for the substitution of paste for precious stones would not be discovered for ages.Shouldnot be discovered.
With an effort, he slowed his stride. The gloomy corridor seemed endless. At last he reached the still-gloomier pillared cavern beneath the east wing. He was halfway across when he heard the approaching tramp of police boots.
He froze behind a pillar. A regular patrol? Or had the constable upstairs reported his presence?
The officer passed no more than ten feet from him, swinging an electric torch so that its beam probed the darkest corners. If it was a search, it was far from systematic—but nonetheless alarming.
His heart pounding, palms sweaty, he ducked around thebrick pillar. Suppose the old man was suspicious, had called down to his colleagues in the Central Hall. Suppose they put a guard on the basement exit? He dared not try to leave carrying the jewels.
Better to lock them in his office overnight and take them home tomorrow at midday, at the end of the short Saturday workday, when he was one of a swarm of departing employees.
No, he did not want to keep them at home. He did not know how long it would take to find a buyer, and when the paste gems were discovered, the police might search everyone’s residences. And what if the theft was somehow detected before tomorrow noon? It would be safer to hide the real stones somewhere in the museum until the furor died down. Then, if they were found, there would be nothing to link them to him.
The torchbeam bobbed away, the footsteps faded. As he let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding, the answer came to him.
Perfect! He could hide the jewels tomorrow morning, before the museum opened to the public, and no one who saw him would ask what he was doing. No one else would conceive of looking there, however long he left them. When the moment was right, he could retrieve them with ease.
He should never have doubted himself. Not only was his plan brilliant to start with, but he was quite capable of improvising brilliantly when advisable. He was going to outwit the lot of them.
2
August 1923
Through grey drizzle, Daisy peered up Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge. She was sure she felt her shingled curls frizzing in the damp air, in spite of the protection of her blue cloche hat and cheerfully pillar-box red umbrella.
Among the drays and horse-lorries, taxi-cabs and ancient hansoms, chauffeur-driven motor-cars and damp errandboys on bicycles, towered at least half a dozen omnibuses. Like honeybees, they swooped to taste the queues of nectar-people at the flower-stops.
A Number 30 bumbled towards the corner where she stood, closely followed by a 96. She stepped back to make room for descending passengers.
Ah, there was a 74. Daisy hurried to meet it. Alec had assured her his daughter, Belinda, was perfectly capable at the age of nine of getting herself and Derek from St. John’s Wood to Kensington, but she was still anxious. They did not have to change ’buses, true. But brought up in the country herself, with occasional visits to London a matter of train and cab, she recalled her confusion over where to get off when she first came to live in town.
The 74 stopped. Three or four people stepped down, theconductor assisting an elderly woman, who stood on the pavement struggling to open her black umbrella. Daisy suppressed an impulse to help, and addressed the conductor.
“I’m meeting two children, two nine-year-olds. A little girl with ginger pigtails—”
“Aunt Daisy!” Derek thundered down the winding stair. “Aunt Daisy, is it true a gentleman goes first down the steps?”
“Yes.”
“I told you so!” Belinda scampered down behind him.
“And then he turns to help the lady down into the street,” said Daisy.
“Oh!” Already on the pavement, her nephew swung round, grabbed Bel’s hand, and tugged her off the platform.
Belinda landed safely, protesting, “Not like that, silly!”
