Page 84 of Speculations in Sin

The second was even stiffer than the first. I calculated that twenty frustrating minutes had passed before the bolt finally withdrew.

I folded up the wire and thrust it into my coat pocket before turning the door handle and cautiously and quietly opening the door a crack. The hall without was empty. No sounds came to me from downstairs, no voices, no footsteps.

The bank had closed, the employees gone home, I realized. That meant it was past six, the time I was due to be home myself.

Miss Swann had robbed me of my last hour with Grace, and that I would never forgive.

The hall was very dark as I left the strong room. I made my way carefully toward the stairs, my hand on the wall to guide me. I wondered if Miss Swann had remained behind or had gone back to Marylebone to be with her sister and grandmother, deciding to deal with me tomorrow. Or perhaps she waited in the lower rooms to admit Mr. Jarrett to kill me and rid her of my body.

The last thought poured fear through me. I halted, took a deep breath, and glided down the stairs, as silent as a ghost.

No one assailed me as I went, and no sound filtered through the building. Not even the rumble of traffic on Leadenhall Street, which would still be thick at this time of the evening, could be heard.

When I reached the first floor, I hesitated. I was almost free, but if I ran to the nearest police station or all the way to Scotland Yard to find Inspector McGregor, how could I prove that Miss Swann was responsible for what she’d done? Mr. Kearny would babble all if he were caught, but Miss Swann could easily contradict him.

I wondered if Miss Swann had her own office, or if she simply wandered about the building giving orders. I recalled that when Cynthia and I had sat in Mr. Zachary’s chamber, Miss Swann and the maid had entered through a small door in the back wall. I’d assumed it led to a servants’ staircase, but now I decided the door was worth investigating.

After a long listen, I hastened down the hall toward the front of the building, trying to make my footsteps as quiet as possible. The hall seemed to have grown longer, and it was certainly spookier in the near darkness.

But it had an empty feeling, as did the rooms I’d passed. Miss Swann must have departed as usual, in order to not drawattention to herself. I did not even hear the doorman, though they must employ a night watchman of some sort. I decided that if I encountered a watchman, I’d simply tell him I’d been locked inside the building and convey relief that he’d found me.

No one moved in this corridor—on this entire floor—but me. I reached Mr. Zachary’s office, which I found unlocked. I entered very, very quietly, half expecting Miss Swann to be standing behind the door with another vase.

The office too was empty. It was a showpiece, I realized, furnished to impress the investors who came to see how their money was doing. Mr. Zachary, and Miss Swann with the tea trolley, were poised to give them a show, ensuring their visitors of the bank’s efficiency and exclusiveness.

The door behind Mr. Zachary’s desk was locked. I sank to my knees and used my wire to open it. This lock was much easier, as it was a small, standard lock, not the more solid ones of the strong room. I had it open in less than a minute.

It was too dark to see what the chamber within contained. I found a desk by bumping into it, then groped over its contents until my hands closed around a matchbox. This building had gaslights, I recalled, and a small room would have a sconce. I located this by feeling my way around the wall and encountered one above the desk.

Taking a chance no one would see this light, I struck a match. My hands shook so that it took several tries, but by the match’s light, I turned up the gas and lit the sconce.

The dim glow showed me a small, windowless office. The trolley that had borne tea for Lady Cynthia and me had been shoved against the back wall, a narrow door next to it likely the one leading to the back stairs. The maid would carry the tea up, put it on the trolley, and wheel it out as she had for our visit.

The desk was small, an elegant lady’s desk, and beside it was a bookcase that held books and boxes for papers like the ones Sam had used. The desk’s single drawer was locked, but the key was in the keyhole. Presumably, Miss Swann did not believe anyone would violate the sanctity of this room nor ever dream of opening her desk.

I unlocked the drawer and went through its contents and soon came upon a ring containing many keys. I simply looked at them without lifting them, but several resembled the key Mr. Kearny had shown Joanna and me that he said opened the strong room door. There were too many here for Miss Swann to carry without her pockets clanking, but I assumed she took what she needed when she needed them, and left the rest behind.

I also found, shoved all the way into the back, a paperweight that glimmered in the lamplight. A smear of something black marred one side.

Letting out a breath, I closed and locked the drawer, sliding its key into my pocket.

I turned out the lamp and left the room, then took the time to pick the lock closed. I wanted no one in here but Miss Swann and the police.

I hurried across the muffling carpet of Mr. Zachary’s office and out into the hall. It was then that I heard the footsteps on the stairs, ascending toward me.

They were bootsteps, hard and hobnailed. They did not move with the deliberate pace of a watchman checking every corner, but with determination, up and up. With them came the sharp click-click of a woman’s heels.

I shrank back into the shadows beside the door. The two people reached the first-floor landing, then they continued on up the stairs, heading for a higher floor. A man’s voice rumbled down.

“Just give me the keys, missus, and wait outside.”

“Of course I am not going to give you the keys,” Miss Swann answered. “You finish your business and then I will lock up after you again…”

Her matter-of-factness chilled me most of all. Miss Swann was prepared to let Mr. Jarrett—I’d recognized his voice—kill me in cold blood and carry me off, upon which she’d lock the doors as though nothing had happened. After all, she could not let Jarrett possibly steal old records from the strong room.

Once they’d reached the upper floors, I dashed down the hall as quickly and quietly as I could and started down the stairs.

Not quietly enough. The footsteps halted, and Jarrett let out a curse. Then he charged after me.

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