Page 81 of The Art of Theft
The guard’s request was cut short. There was a brief scuffling. When it was silent in the corridor again, Charlotte opened the door a crack, then went to stand directly before the spy port.
A short while later, Lord Ingram and Lieutenant Atwood pulled the guard, already bound and gagged, into the room. Lieutenant Atwood pulled out a handkerchief, soaked it in chloroform, and secured it over the man’s nose and mouth.
Livia had asked them earlier whether they planned to use chloroform to remove the guards. All the gentlemen sighed sadly: Alas, it would take several minutes of holding a chloroform-drenched cloth over someone’s face for them to become unconscious. But they could use it after the guards were incapacitated, so that they didn’t wake up too soon to make trouble.
They stowed the man under the bed, where he wouldn’t be visible from the spy port. Lieutenant Atwood left, raising a finger to indicate that they had one minute. Lord Ingram went to stand near the door, closing it as if he’d just come in.
Only then did Charlotte leave the spot before the spy port. “Was it your wife?” she asked.
“No, just some other women.”
He took her hands. They did not say anything. The clock on the mantel ticked. When there were fifteen seconds left, she said, “I—I had better go.”
“Please don’t,” he said. Again he sounded as if he meant it.
She dropped her gaze. She found herself reluctant to continue with the script, but now she must. “I think it would be best if we kept things as they are.”
He dropped her hands, took a step back, and turned his face away. “I know why you think as you do, my dearest friend. But if you change your mind in the next hour or so, you’ll find me here.”
?Charlotte needed a moment outside the door to collect herself. Then she strode toward the linen closet.
Mr. Marbleton had taken the guard’s place. His mask had been taken off; his jacket, which they’d had specially made in London, turned inside out to closely resemble the château’s livery. Mrs. Watson and the maharani had gone into the bedroom immediately to the other side of the linen closet, and Livia should be in the room farthest down the hall—that the company had kept others from coming into this corridor meant that they themselves must now be the ones to distract the watchers.
When Mr. Marbleton was certain no one else was in the corridor, he let Charlotte into the linen closet. Lieutenant Atwood, already inside, had found the mechanism that opened a secret door at the back of the linen closet.
“Watch out for steps,” Charlotte whispered.
The secret passage was located between floors. Lord Ingram had not come across any steps in the passage itself, so the change in elevation must happen somewhere between the linen closet and the passage.
Lieutenant Atwood went in alone. Seconds passed. There came the soft, slow grinding of stone on stone.
Light from the corridor seeped in from underneath the front door of the linen closet. But it penetrated only a few inches before dissipating into the shadows. Where Charlotte stood, she could barely see her own hand held in front of her eyes. Where Lieutenant Atwood had disappeared, the darkness was stygian, a thick impenetrability that seemed only to grow blacker as he opened the door to the secret passage where the cameras were.
The grinding sound stopped.
“You at the western end, anyone in your rooms?” said Lieutenant Atwood, sounding uncannily like Monsieur Plantier.
“Oui, monsieur,” came the reply. “Une dame.”
That would be Livia, sitting in a room at the far end of the corridor, nervously playing with the buttons on her gloves, as if she were waiting for someone else to show up.
“You in the middle?”
“Two women in the yellow room.”
“You at the eastern end, what about you?”
“Two men in the blue room earlier, but they left one after another just now. So I’ve no one.”
This was the configuration they intended. Artworks in the galleries or not, at least so far their plan had held.
“Then you come with me,” said Lieutenant Atwood. “We need more men below.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
More careful grinding of stone on stone. Footsteps in the dark. An almost noiseless scuffle. An interval during which LieutenantAtwood must be tying up the unfortunate watcher. A soft grunt of exertion as he dragged the latter into the linen closet.
A strong odor of cigarette smoke clung to the unconscious man.
