Chapter Text
“We don’t have very many rules,” said Lloyd Gillis, the club president. He ran a work-roughened hand through his graying hair. “But the ones we have, ye’d better pay heed to them.”
Archibald Ferrell, gentleman safe-cracker, put an interested look on his face, but he’d heard the rules before.
“We don’t care what you do extra-curricular-like,” said Gillis. “So long as you don’t reveal the existence of the club. And so long as you don’t do any thievin’ out of safes you break as part of club challenges. For challenges, you get the serial number out of the inside of the safe, and that’s it. Understood?”
Murmurs of agreement.
Ferrell looked around the basement room. Most of the usuals were there — Harding, Underwood, Pinche, Rowle, Barrett. They wore masks covering their eyes, but there was no mistaking Harding’s ham hands (how he picked locks with those mitts, Ferrell had no idea), or Barrett’s twisted lip, or the other men’s giveaways. He knew they recognized him too.
There were a couple of newcomers, shuffling uncomfortably at the rear of the group of men, wearing the patched garb of dock workers or costermongers. Ferrell knew they wouldn’t last. They’d heard about the club somewhere and hoped to pick up some burgling tips. Burgling tips weren’t what the club was about.
Another newcomer intrigued him. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, and his clothes were of fine materials but had seen better days. Servants sometimes wore the fine castoffs of their masters, but this man didn’t have the manner of a servant. Besides, the clothing fit him too well. He had a flexible mouth, firm chin, and black curls that peeked from under his red flat cap.
“And if you get in trouble with a challenge or an extra-curricular, don’t come runnin’ to us,” Gillis droned on. “We don’t exist, see. You’re on your own, although a few former members now in Newgate might be willin’ to help ye.”
It always amused Ferrell how Gillis tried to strike fear into his members, because the man who ran the safe-crackers’ club was really an old softy who’d gotten any number of club members out of trouble.
“Excitin’ news tonight,” said Gillis. “Chubb’s released a new design. That means a new contest.”
The club members murmurered with anticipation.
“Most of you know where to find the details. The rest of you, come see me after the lecture.”
The lecture was not of particular interest to Ferrell. He was fascinated by lockpicking, but cared nothing for opening safes by prying apart the walls.
When the meeting came to an end, he was frustrated. He wanted to talk to the man with the unruly hair. But approaching people who were new to the club was forbidden. The man would need to speak with Gillis to get details about the contest. Ferrell settled for hanging around outside the door with a hand rolled cigarette. He watched the man exit the building and head off toward Pimlico.
~~~
Ferrell sat forward in his chair in the Pringles Club gaming room and studied his cards with dismay.
His luck was turning against him.
No, if he were to be honest with himself, he would have to admit it was his skill that was falling short this day. Far too many times, his memory of the cards already played had turned out faulty. And now he had lost the last of the coin he had budgeted for tonight’s gaming — and it was only nine o’clock in the evening.
“I’ll spot you some coin, old boy,” said his fellow player, Bartley, pushing a mop of blond hair away from his eyes.
“I thank you kindly for the offer, Bartley, but as you know, I never allow myself to fall into debt,” Ferrell replied firmly.
“You’ll never climb the ranks of popularity that way,” Bartley persisted.
“And well I know it,” retorted Ferrell. “I am out of touch with the modern Zeitgeist,” he lamented.
“Yes,” said Bartley in a musing tone of voice. “You have some skills and interests that are uncommon, do you not?”
Ferrell glanced sharply at his companion.
“I know of your...hobby,” Bartley told him. “But do not worry. Your secret is safe with me.” He sat back and stretched his long arms over his head, then resumed his position at the table, hunched over his cards.
Ferrell worried, especially when Bartley emphasized the word “safe.” Bartley was not a scoundrel, but he wasn’t the epitome of honorable behavior either.
“And speaking of that,” Bartley went on in a low voice, “if you wish, we could continue playing against your...time and expertise, rather than your writing me an IOU.”
Ferrell’s higher instincts warned him against this sort of loan. He didn’t know what Bartley knew about him or what he wanted safe-cracking skills for.
At the same time, he was overcome with curiosity.
“I accept,” he said.
Ferrell vied for another several hours against Bartley. By the end of the evening, he had once again been thoroughly defeated.
“You win, old boy. How do you want me to use my skills on your behalf?” he asked the other man.
Bartley was polishing his pipe with great satisfaction, in preparation for a victory smoke.
“You have, no doubt, heard of Judge Milbourne?” he said.
Ferrell was instantly alert. The Judge was a force to be reckoned with in his world — that is to say, the world of Ferrell’s second hobby, snuffbox collecting.
Just how much did Bartley know about him, anyway?
“I have,” was all he said.
“And do you know his safe?” Bartley asked.
“I do not,” Ferrell replied.
“I am told the manufacturer is Hobbs, Ashley, & Fortescue, and the model is a newer one.”
Ferrell was definitely excited now. He loved the challenge of the company’s safes. They had one of the trickiest lock designs ever invented. “How is it you know this, Bartley?”
“That’s not important,” said Bartley. “Are you willing to make good on your debt to me?”
“Of course. I am a gentleman, or at least I contrive to come close to being one.”
“I charge you to open the Judge’s safe. Inside you will find a snuffbox. Bring it to me.”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a snuffbox and handed it to Ferrell. “Also, leave this snuffbox in its place. You have one week to accomplish this.”
Ferrell examined the snuffbox. It was nothing special — an inexpensive potato-pulp box, functional in terms of preserving the moisture in a day’s worth of powdered tobacco, but common, with little aesthetic interest. A collector such as Judge Milbourne would not consider it an acceptable replacement for anything in his collection.
“Not that I have any right to ask,” he said, “but why do you want me to do this?”
Bartley chuckled, a little self-consciously to Ferrell’s ears.
“It is a prank, nothing more. It will do no one any harm. I give you my word.”
Ferrell’s excitement won out over his common sense’s warning that Bartley’s “word” might be in need of a little polish. “I will do it,” he told him.
~~~
Ferrell, having achieved the interior of the Judge’s townhouse and his study without detection, was lost in the workings of the safe’s lock, basking in the thrill of teasing out its secrets in minute, precise motions of his fingers. He’d even forgotten about the “plop” of the leaking faucet in the nearby bathroom. It had blended into the environment of the challenge.
He had done most of the work in the almost pitch dark of the room, its window shrouded by thick curtains. Now when he opened his eyes, he discerned the shape of his fingers — a faint glimmer of dawn had begun to creep in.
Then he heard it. The most satisfying sound in the world. The sharp report of metal falling against metal that told him the final piece of the mechanism had yielded.
He brought the dark-lantern to bear and, in the sliver of light he’d allowed to shine through, opened the door of the safe.
His heart gave a great jolt, as if it had fallen from the sky directly into Hades.
The safe was empty.
Ferrell whirled, half-expecting to see a group of people watching him and laughing at his naïveté.
Of course, no one was there.
Anger and frustration held him rooted to the spot for several minutes. He kept peering back into the safe, as if the promised snuffbox might appear after all.
Finally, he decided on a course of action. He noted and memorized the serial number of the box, as he always did. Then he pulled from his pocket the cheap snuffbox Bartley had given him, and placed it inside the safe. He swung the door closed and made sure it was secure.
Then he crept out of the opulent townhouse by the back stair, and made it back to his rooms, where he gave vent to a fit of frustration.
~~~
At Pringles, Ferrell stalked through the rooms, leaving in his wake the alarmed stares of several other members of the club, until he found Bartley in the billiards room.
His angry gaze at the tall, slightly stopped man might well have set a pile of kindling alight.
“Why lie to me? Why send me to open an empty safe?” Ferrell demanded in a hiss, after backing Bartley into a relatively private corner.
Bartley blustered. He didn’t lie. It was some other fellow who had lied to him. Or maybe the Judge had removed the snuffbox from the safe for some reason. And anyway, there was no harm done, was there?
Ferrell was too angry to take it in. He fought down his urge to bloody the man’s nose, and stormed out of the club. No doubt he would be the subject of gossip, as he had nearly knocked down one or two members in his haste to leave. But he hardly cared.