The House at Baker Street (16 page)

‘It could have been crossed off days ago if I’d just checked the man could actually walk,’ Billy said miserably. ‘And wasn’t blind. He could never have been that
man at the docks.’ He got down from the table and left the kitchen, no doubt off to find Wiggins.

‘Oh dear,’ Mary said, still smiling, when he had gone. ‘I ought not to have laughed, really.’

‘No,’ I told her. Then I burst out laughing too.

Sir George Burnwell’s house was a flashy, newly built, rather tasteless red-brick construction by the brink of the river in Twickenham.

‘Badly placed,’ Mary remarked. ‘I’ll wager the basements get flooded monthly.’

The Irregulars had been watching the house for a week. I’d told them I wanted to know who came and went, and by the way, just out of interest, what were the security arrangements? Wiggins
had snorted, demanded to know if I took him for a babe in arms and offered to burgle the place for me. But when I told him we were looking for papers, he allowed that we were more likely to know
what to look for, and agreed to just carry on following the comings and goings of the household.

I hadn’t told him we were coming tonight, I just told him the task was done, and to stop watching. He’d have insisted on sending one of the Irregulars with us, and I was trying so
hard not to pull those children into further crime.

It turned out Sir George hardly spent a moment of the day at his house, but he returned every night, no matter how late he was, no matter what amorous adventures he was currently pursuing.
Micky, the smallest and shrewdest of Wiggins’ boys, who was specially detailed to watch Sir George, was shocked by how many ladies the man was trying to seduce. And he wasn’t trying to
seduce rich ladies who knew how to handle an affair, or maidservants, who expected it, but the middle-class, respectable women who would fall deeply in love, and not survive his rejection and the
loss of their reputation.

Sir George, however, seemed to prefer to sleep at home. No doubt he had certain comforts installed there. His servants were given Saturday night and Sunday morning off, with strict instructions
not to come to the house during this time. They were even given money to sleep elsewhere. That left Sir George free to bring his most secret liaisons to his home, with no servants to spy and
gossip.

However, the Irregulars had discovered that, on this particular Saturday, Sir George was attending a house party in the Cotswolds and therefore his house was completely empty.

‘He won’t leave the party,’ Irene told us. ‘I know what he’s like. He’s already seduced the mother and the eldest daughter. Rumour has it he has set his
sights on the youngest daughter now. He’ll be preparing the way this weekend. He won’t leave until she is utterly charmed by him.’

‘It’ll destroy the whole family,’ I murmured.

‘He claims they seduced him,’ Irene said darkly. ‘That’s his trick, to make it seem like they are the guilty party and he is an innocent man being taken advantage
of.’

‘Burglary isn’t enough,’ Mary said vehemently. ‘Let’s burn his house down.’

‘Oh, we’ll find a way of injuring him, never fear,’ Irene told her, laughing gently. ‘Perhaps, though, in a more subtle way. Even if he is not your criminal, he is
certainly guilty of a great many crimes.’

We all three stood in the dark, in a lane by the river, close to Sir George’s house in Twickenham. The river lapped up against the bank, creating a peaceful, soothing atmosphere,
completely at odds with what we were planning to do. I don’t know about the others, but I felt sick with nerves. But no, I did not once think we should go back.

Larch and chestnut trees arched above us, rustling gently in the wind. Animals darted, unseen, in the undergrowth, and occasionally, an owl hooted. There was only a thin sliver of moon, and the
entire world was cast in grey and black shadow. On a night like this, in a place like this, it was all too easy to believe in the old gods, in Pan himself, whispering behind us, blowing gently on
our cheeks. We were only a few miles away from Baker Street, yet it felt like a different world entirely.

Before us stood a high red-brick wall, with a small wooden door set into it. Wiggins had found the perfect entrance. The door had no key hole, and Irene oiled the hinges from a small bottle and
simply pushed it open. We were lucky – it should have been bolted on the inside, but the servants were careless and the bolts were rusted open. Beyond the door lay a smooth lawn, almost black
now in the night; beyond that, the three-storey square red-brick home lay silent and dark.

Though we knew there was no one in the house to see us, we still crept round the edge of the lawn, shrinking into the shadows of the trees and bushes.

Irene had met us here, in Twickenham, dressed like a man, in battered brown trousers and a loose jacket, a cap pulled down over her face. Mary had wanted to dress like a man too, but she had not
been trained as an actress as Irene had, and doubted she could carry it off. Irene walked and carried herself like a man; Mary would have been all too obviously a woman in trousers. Besides, the
only male clothes she had access to were John’s and she would have been swamped in them. So instead, she wore her bottle-green walking habit, which had shorter skirts than her usual dresses,
and no petticoats to get caught. Irene had warned us not to wear black, as it did not fade into shadows like grey and brown and green did, so I wore an old dress, black once, which had turned grey
and lost all lustre.

You have never seen such an odd collection of housebreakers.

We went up to the large French windows on the ground floor that opened out onto the lawn. Irene studied the lock, as Mary kept watch. I kept out of the way.

‘Can you do it?’ Mary whispered.

‘A very simple lock,’ Irene said. ‘You’d think he’d have better security arrangements.’

‘Can you see it, in this light?’ I asked.

‘Just about. It’s easier to pick locks by feel than sight anyway,’ she told me as she pulled a thin wire and what looked like a nail file (which I’d read about in some
ladies’ magazine, but not seen for myself ) out of her pocket and began to manipulate the lock.

‘He probably keeps anything incriminating locked away in his study. That’ll have better locks – and a safe too,’ Mary said. I looked along the line of the house. There
was just enough light to see, and I have always had good vision.

‘Look,’ Mary said, pointing upwards to the first floor, the second window along from where we stood. I looked up. The white moonlight shone directly onto the windows, casting sharp
shadows and highlighting flaws that would not have been noticeable by day. I scrutinized the window Mary had pointed to. All the other windows had white painted frames, but the paint was old and
blistered and was heavily worn where the sashes were pushed up and down. The paint on this window was pristine.

‘Sealed, I bet,’ Mary whispered.

‘That must be his study,’ I agreed.

The lock clicked open, and Irene led us into the dining room.

The curtains were half drawn inside the room, and we walked slowly, trying not to bump into anything. We could not see much, but what we could see was opulent and substantial. The table was
large, mahogany, with chairs set around it. At one end of the room was a dumb waiter – Sir George clearly didn’t want his meals interrupted by servants. Curtains shielded all kinds of
alcoves around the edges of the room, and couches were scattered here and there. There was a trace of a thick perfume and the room felt airless, which I could imagine would cause a tightly laced
woman to faint after a while. It looked like something out of one of the Gothic novels I secretly read on stormy winter evenings.

‘A seducer’s paradise,’ Irene remarked.

‘Wouldn’t work on me,’ I remarked, with more than a touch of asperity. Well, it wouldn’t, not now. But when I had been young and impressionable . . . Irene smiled at me,
as if secretly reading my thoughts.

Nor me, but neither of us is a romantic fifteen-year-old,’ she replied.

‘Fifteen?’ Mary exclaimed, pushing back the curtains over the alcoves, either trying to find the door or being unashamedly nosy.

‘His favourite age,’ Irene replied grimly.

‘I still say we burn his house down,’ Mary said, darkly angry, as she found the door and opened it. We had not been whispering; we knew no one could hear us. The house had that
waiting, echoing feeling that buildings do when they are empty. Behind me, I could hear Mary and Irene chatting with each other.

‘Does your husband know you have such a pyromania?’ Irene asked. Mary giggled.

‘Oh yes!’ she replied happily.

I knew the joking was just to cover nerves. I imagined they were like me, inwardly quaking, jumping at every single noise, nervous to touch anything, in case we left a trace, no matter how
invisible. The hallway was opulent too, full of rich colours and glittering fittings, with doors leading off all over the place. The house felt not just lifeless, but joyless – as if the acts
of pleasure that took place here were just a matter of a mechanical act rather than a matter of love.

The stairs rose above us, and we climbed up them to the first floor, counting along to what we thought would be the room with the sealed window. There was a heavy mahogany door to the room with
a large lock, but when Irene turned the door knob, it swung open.

‘He’s an idiot,’ Irene remarked.

‘Or very clever,’ Mary mused thoughtfully. She was frowning as Irene went into the darkened room, and motioned for us to wait outside. She peered round, and then waved us in. We were
silent now. It was beginning to feel serious.

There was a candle and matches on the desk. Irene placed the candle on the floor by the desk and lit it. Shielded by the wall, it cast a dim light, whilst not being visible from outside. We
looked around.

The study was, like everything else in the house, stupefyingly dull. There was a thick green carpet, with thick green velvet curtains looped at the window. A large, heavy mahogany desk (the man
must have destroyed an entire mahogany forest furnishing this house) was by the window, with a row of locked drawers and a green leather blotter – but no blotting or writing paper. One wall
was lined with books, and the other walls were hung with hunting prints on panelling. In the centre was a large table with ornate legs, the top covered in scattered maps and timetables. Obviously
he had been planning his country weekend carefully. Sir George Burnwell might be an accomplished seducer, but judging by his study, he was a deeply boring man.

That was when I started to think we were wrong.

In the far corner, by the window, sat a massive bronze-green safe. Irene and Mary stood in front of it, assessing it. It was three feet by three feet, and stood on four legs designed to look
like lions’ feet, which were clamped to the floor. There was no manufacturer’s name, but I could see where the plaque had been before it was removed. Of course, if someone knew who made
the safe, they could also find the original plans. The door of the safe not only had two large bronze key holes, but a combination lock too. It looked impenetrable.

‘Can you . . .’ Mary asked.

‘I doubt it,’ Irene said, staring at the safe, but not touching it. Mary reached out to it, but I grasped her arm and stopped her.

‘Look,’ I said, pointing. A thin wire led from the back of the safe and into the wall. It looked like a telegraph wire.

‘Electric wire,’ Irene told me. ‘Either it will give anyone who touches the safe an electric shock, or it will send a signal to someone. I’m sorry, Martha, I have no idea
how to crack this safe.’

It all felt like such an anticlimax, but I admit, there was a hint of relief in my sigh.

‘We’d better leave then, whilst we can,’ I said. I bent down to blow out the candle, but noticed Mary standing in front of the safe, smiling slightly.

‘Mary?’ I asked.

‘An easily opened back door,’ she murmured. ‘An unlocked study door – and then an impregnable safe? That doesn’t make sense.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Irene agreed.

‘It feels like . . . it feels like we were led here,’ Mary continued, still staring at the safe, still smiling that strange smile. ‘As if everything was designed to pull us
towards this safe, which we cannot open, and so there we stop.’

‘Mary?’ I asked.

‘Clever man,’ she murmured. ‘Leading us here, and then sending us away.’

‘Mary, can you explain?’ Irene demanded. Mary turned round to face us, grinning widely.

‘Do you know what I would do if I had something very precious to keep safe? Pictures, jewels, papers, that sort of thing? Something that must never be found?’ she asked.
‘I’d buy the biggest safe I could find. I’d put it where everyone can see it. I’d make it easy to get to. And then . . . I’d make it impossible to crack. I’d
make it the kind of safe that someone would spend hours trying to get into, and then fail, or just give up and walk away. The kind of safe that looks like it’d keep all the secrets, so no one
would look anywhere else. And then I’d put all my secret papers in a shabby old cardboard box in plain sight.’

Oh my. What a clever plan. Why would you search anywhere else except that challenging safe? And even if you did crack it open and find no secrets, you’d assume there was an even more
formidable safe somewhere – you’d never think to look elsewhere. Hiding in plain sight!

Mary’s deduction was worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself.

‘Mary, you are a devious woman, and I hope John Watson appreciates that,’ Irene said, laughing.

‘He does, he likes it,’ Mary told her. ‘Now, let’s search the rest of the room for some sort of shabby old box.’

‘It might not be here,’ I objected. It seemed like such a clever plan for a man like Sir George.

‘No, it’s here,’ Mary asserted. ‘The rest of his house is for seduction. Anyone could stumble across it.’

‘I agree,’ Irene added. ‘This is his room alone, the one he can be sure no one would want to enter – or is allowed to. I bet even the servants don’t come in when
he’s not here to keep an eye on them.’