A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [114]
My crêpe-rubber soles whispered on the bare boards of the stairway, more noise than stockings would have made but less difficult to explain if I were discovered. Although how I should explain what a youthful prostitute was doing out of the dormitory with spectacles on her nose, the latest in patent shoes on her feet, and a set of picklocks in her hands, I did not care to meditate upon. Best not to be caught, Russell.
The upstairs door had a solid lock, but its security was nullified by the key hanging on a hook just out of sight inside the adjoining storeroom. I unlocked the door and put the key back in place, let myself into the Temple building, closed the door with exquisite care, and stood in the blackness, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light that I knew must be there. In a moment, a rectangle swam into view, the end of this corridor as it was illuminated from the light below. I stayed where I was for another two minutes, then moved slowly forward, my left fingernails brushing the wallpaper.
In six steps, I had found my confidence. After ten, I stopped abruptly. Something? I put out my hands, felt only air, squatted, and my fingers came into contact with cold metal: a large tin bucket and a mop beside it, waiting for me to put my foot in it like some vaudeville turn. I exhaled, edged around them, and scuffled more cautiously towards the light.
A full-sized safe is not an easy thing to conceal. Freestanding, it tends to buckle floorboards, and hidden, it reveals its presence by the unnatural thickness of the wall. I was looking for something smaller, for personal items such as jewellery or, I hoped, deeds, contracts, or correspondence. I thought Margery would not have it in the ground floor, the public rooms; however, I hoped it would not be in her bedroom. Although I had once had a tutorial from a bona fide (and never caught) cat burglar who claimed, I think truthfully, that he had once varnished a sleeping man’s fingernails, I did not relish the idea of examining a room with a sleeping occupant.
This house in which Margery lived and where downstairs the business of the Temple went on was a deep brick structure wedged in between the corner house next door, now the Refuge, and the Hall, originally built as a theatre. As with the Refuge, the top storey was used mostly for storage. Margery’s quarters took up the first floor, and the ground floor and basement were given over to the Temple’s offices, meeting rooms, and soon-to-be library. The stairs were at the back of the building; a wide corridor connected them with Margery’s bedroom and dressing room, at the street end, and the other rooms: on the left side, the meeting room where the Circle gathered and then Margery’s chapel; on the right side, first a small lumber room, then Margery’s study, where she and I met for our tutorials, and finally the gorgon Marie’s room, just before Margery’s pair of doors at the end of the corridor.
I thought Margery would want her private safe in one of two places: the study or her dressing room. I considered the dressing room somewhat more likely, and although in cowardice I wanted to investigate the study first, I should have to go past that door and pray that neither Margery nor Marie were insomniac tonight. A light burnt directly over Margery’s two doors, and the only escape, if someone came into the corridor from the stairs, would be through Margery’s dressing-room window onto the street below.
The building was silent, but nothing in London is ever, entirely still. There was movement, but not close, perhaps even on the street outside. I eased down a few stairs and peered into the still, bright corridor, with its apricot wool carpet on the floor, the watercolour landscapes on the