Page 83 of Speculations in Sin

I went cold. She must mean Mr. Jarrett, who’d pretended to want to help Sam. I had to concede that Miss Swann seized opportunities well.

I regarded her with a complacency I hoped confused her. “I am only a cook, as I told you,” I said. “But you have no idea what powerful friends I have. They are good friends, honest ones, and they don’t give two straws about the fate of Daalman’s Bank.”

“They ought to. We control much of the wealth of this nation.”

I recalled Mr. Monaghan warning Daniel away from deeply investigating the bank. “Perhaps you should look to see where all the wealth of this nation is actually going.”

Miss Swann regarded me with narrowed eyes. She had no faith in my declarations, but I could see that some part of her wondered what I meant. I closed my mouth and tried to look wise.

Miss Swann firmed her lips and backed away, finished with the discussion.

I scrambled to my feet as she turned, trying to fling myself at her. But my head hurt, I was clumsy, and I stumbled. Miss Swann deftly let herself out the door before I could reach it, and she shut it in my face.

I grabbed for the handle. Too late. I heard one key turn in the lock, then another in the second lock. I banged on the door but got no reply but Miss Swann’s footsteps as she marched away.

“I want to go to my daughter, you bloody woman.” I hammered on the door until my hands hurt, then I turned my back to it and slid to the floor, my head aching so much I wanted to be sick.

“Panicking and raging will accomplish nothing,” I told myself. “Daniel will come for me.”

It might be a long time, however, before Daniel realized I was not with Grace or back home in Mount Street. He’d return to the last place he’d seen me, in the window of Daalman’s, and he’d find me. Hopefully before Miss Swann returned with Mr. Jarrett to kill me and dump me in the river.

This would never do.

Miss Swann’s mistake was underestimating people. She had a high sense of her own importance and a low sense of others’. Kindhearted Sam was dispensable. A cook was nothing more than a woman who sweated in a kitchen all day and only knew how to slap chops and potatoes onto a plate.

This cook had been a charwoman’s daughter and had run through the streets of London fending for herself. She’d also had a husband she’d learned to hide things from, and she’d discovered how to survive.

“Shall I wait for Daniel to rescue me?” I asked the air in a quiet voice. “I think I shall not.”

The sky had gone dark while Miss Swann lectured me, the winter afternoon over, but the gas lamp below the high window leaked some of its light upward. It was enough, once I’d sat still awhile and let my eyes adjust, to make out shapes in the darkness.

I climbed to my feet and felt my way about, finding row upon row of cabinets, storing who knew what records in their recesses. A person could read the history of Britain, I thought, going through these drawers.

The strong room was tidy, as I’d expected it to be. Miss Swann would never let a scrap of paper be out of place. The fact that Sam had smuggled out some of the records showed how resourceful he truly was.

I found open shelves and ran my hands along them, coming upon locked boxes that likely contained more papers. I reached up the shelves as far as I could, fearing to climb up on them. I was dizzy from the blow Miss Swann had dealt me, and I’d more than likely fall.

I’d worked my way around the room, beginning to despair of discovering anything but locked cabinets and boxes, when I happened upon a loose shelf. Its back corner tilted, one of the supports having worked itself loose.

My heart beating faster, I removed the few boxes from the shelf and pulled it all the way out. It was held in place not by wooden pegs or metal brackets, but by a thick wire fitted into a slot in the wood. The wire had worked free on one end, which had made the shelf rock.

Much tugging and twisting on my part freed the second end. I pulled out the wire with glee and only hoped it would not be too thick.

My mother would have been appalled if she’d realized one of my childhood friends had taught me to pick a lock, even more if she’d known it was Joanna. Neither Joanna nor I had much use for the skill these days, and I prayed that I remembered it.

The locks on this door could be turned with a key on either side. At first, I feared there’d be no keyhole on the inside, but this was a large room full of confidential papers. If someone needed to research, they might want to lock themselves in and not be disturbed. Of course, with their two-key system, a second person would have to let them in and out.

I bent the wire until it was pliable. I needed two tools for the locks, one for tension and the other for picking, but I’d have to make do.

I folded one end of the wire fairly tightly and slid the bent side into the bottom of the first keyhole. I fiddled a bit until I could feel the bolt move slightly. Trying not to become too optimistic, I held that steady and slid the other end of the wire into the hole with it.

Pushing the second half of the wire high into the lock, I wriggled it firmly but gently, wanting to move the bolt without breaking the wire or jamming the lock. The procedure is simple to explain, but sweat broke out on my forehead as I worked, despite the cool temperature of the room. Another reason I wanted to escape is I had no intention of succumbing to the cold in there.

The lock was very stiff, probably because it hadn’t been used in a while, and the lock was old. It had been kept in working order, obviously, but not oiled very recently.

At long last, I felt the bolt lift high from its seating. Carefully, I moved my tension wire and, to my relief, heard and felt the bolt slide back.

Letting out a breath, I eased the wires from the keyhole and went to work on the next one.

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