The Devil's Thief, page 25
With renewed determination Julianna searched for the cabinet latch. She still couldn’t find it, and she could practically hear the clock ticking. She had to get the pearl and be gone before the guard made his rounds again. True, he hadn’t been very thorough, but she had no way of knowing his routine. Perhaps every other hour he checked Blackman’s office. It was that loose end, again. In frustration she pushed against the wall, willing it to open. And it did.
Julianna was so surprised and delighted she almost squealed. It was a pressure latch triggered to open when you pressed on it. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought to press on the cabinet door before? With a grin, she reached into the cabinet and pulled out Blackman’s lockbox. She wanted to run with it, just leave now and open it later. But decency stopped her. And practicality. First, she was here only for Alasdair’s pearl. To steal anything more would negate whatever goodwill she was gaining by leaving behind the four hundred pounds. Second, the box was too big and heavy for her to carry it easily, and she had to be light on her feet going down those stairs. So she carried the box over to Blackman’s table and set it down.
She took out her lock picks, trying several for size. When she found the right one—truly, she was a natural at this—she maneuvered the pick in the lock, her intense concentration wrinkling her brow. She found the tiny latch inside several times with the pick, but it kept slipping off. Julianna forced herself to stay calm, focusing on the job at hand and pushing all other thoughts from her head.
When the lock clicked open, Julianna allowed herself only one small moment of triumph. She opened the lid and rifled through the contents of the box as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long to find the pearl, which was still wrapped in the padding Julianna had used. For the first time she actually felt as if this was going to work. She’d been mortally terrified that Blackman might already have disposed of the pearl. To find it safe and sound was such a relief that tears pricked her eyes.
She had just pulled the stack of pound notes wrapped in paper out of her satchel when a match flared in the corner of the room. She raised terrified eyes only to meet the cold, hard stare of Cam over the barrel of a gun.
Blackman chuckled behind him as he lit a lamp. “Took you long enough, miss, to get the damn thing.” He shoved Cam’s shoulder, and Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as the barrel of the gun dipped and jerked back up again. “Her standing there talking to herself, trying to figure out how the cabinet worked.” He laughed louder. “Funniest thing I seen all day.”
Cam shrugged. “She was good on the stairs. After all that racket pickin’ the lock, she didn’t make a sound comin’ up.”
“You owe me ten quid,” Blackman told Cam. “I knew she’d give back the four hundred instead of just stealing the pearl. I could tell she was that sort. Now get my pearl and my money, and get rid of her.”
* * *
Alasdair slammed his shoulder against the door one more time, ignoring the throbbing ache there from his first attempt to break it down. The door bounced in the frame but refused to open. Suddenly a hand appeared, reaching around him, and tried to turn the door handle. Nothing happened. Alasdair turned to look over his shoulder and found Wiley grinning at him sarcastically.
“On this end of town, mate, that’s how we generally try to open doors quietly.”
“Yes, quietly,” Ernest entreated in a harsh whisper from behind him.
“Really? Funny, it doesn’t seem to work on a locked door on this end of town, either,” Alasdair huffed, rubbing his shoulder. “I thought you said he was some kind of master criminal. Did you think he was just going to leave the door unlocked?”
“What the fuck?” a voice bellowed from above and they heard crashing footfalls, possibly coming downstairs. Then they heard a woman scream. It sounded like it was coming from the second floor.
“Julianna!” Alasdair shouted. He reached for the door again, but Hil shoved him back.
“Wiley, is there another way in? A window?” Hil asked sharply. He pulled a pistol out of his coat and aimed it at the door.
“Yes, sir,” Wiley answered. He was already running down the alley. “I’ll see you on the second floor!” he hollered back before he disappeared around the corner. He was hardly out of sight before Hil fired his pistol and shattered the door’s lock.
Alasdair’s ears rang from the gunshot, blocking out any other sound for a moment and he panicked, terrified that Julianna was still screaming and he couldn’t hear her. He shoved past Hil, choking on the stink of sulfur, and this time the door crashed inward when his shoulder struck it.
Alasdair rushed into the hall, with Hil, Ernest, and Roger close behind. Suddenly Alasdair’s hearing returned and he heard shouts from the street outside, someone calling out a warning and voices answering, people running toward the door. Roger slammed it shut and threw his back against it. As fists pounded on the other side demanding entry, Ernest joined him. “We can’t hold it closed forever!” he shouted. The door shook behind them as bodies slammed against it.
A barrel-chested man came into view hurrying down the stairs. “Who are you?” he shouted.
Their appearance clearly confused him. Alasdair took advantage of his confusion and stepped forward to meet him at the bottom of the stairs. He put all his strength into the punch he delivered to the big man’s jaw, but he only staggered back a bit. Alasdair had to shake the feeling back into his hand.
Hil stood beside him, shaking his head. “Meet Jack Tate, Sharp. Pugilistic champion three years running on the circuit.” The guard grinned smugly at Alasdair. “Did you really think you could take him?” Hil asked with genuine curiosity.
Alasdair realized his friend was stalling, giving him time to recover. The guard seemed amused by their banter. Alasdair gave Hil a wry, conspiratorial grin. “Well, you must remember I’m a little sore from whipping Wiley earlier this evening.”
The guard’s eyes widened and he laughed. “Whipped Wiley, did you?” he growled. “I ain’t no scrapper like the lad. Can take a little punch like that one, for sure.”
Just then there was another feminine scream from the floor above. Alasdair’s blood ran cold.
Hil had been maneuvering himself around Tate and he used the distraction as an opportunity to smash the butt of his spent pistol against the larger man’s head. The guard crumpled to the floor with a groan. “Go, man!” Hil yelled at Alasdair as he leaned over and grabbed a cudgel from the unconscious man’s belt.
Alasdair took the steps two at a time and then stopped in confusion at the top of the stairs. Which way? He heard the front door burst open below him, followed by more shouting. He stood in indecision, unsure where to go.
“Release me!” he heard Julianna yell, and he turned left, skidding to a stop in front of the first door. It was open, and by the light of a small lamp he could see Julianna struggling with a large man.
With a bellow of rage Alasdair stormed into the room, but he stopped short when the man spun to face him, one arm wrapped around Julianna’s throat and the other hand pointing a gun at her. Alasdair cursed himself for not grabbing a pistol before rushing off to save Julianna.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” the man growled.
“I am Alasdair Sharp,” he said clearly, “and you had best unhand Miss Harte immediately.” He figured bravado might get them out of this predicament if nothing else would.
“Alasdair!” Julianna gasped. She had stopped struggling and was staring at him in shock. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” he told her with no small amount of exasperation. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Oh, Alasdair,” she said with feeling, and then she began to cry.
“Are you all right?” he asked, fear and fury warring within him. Was she hurt? Had he arrived too late? Him and his bloody pride! If he’d just listened to Hil and Wiley instead of attacking the boy in a rage, they would have gotten here in time to protect her.
“I’m fine,” Julianna sniffed. “It’s just so sweet of you to want to rescue me.”
The man holding Julianna sneered in contempt. “Well, this is so fucking sweet it’s all I can do to hold my dinner down. But you have to know that Blackman can’t let someone try to steal his things, now, can he?”
“Let me talk to Blackman,” Alasdair demanded. “I’m sure he has no desire to hurt Miss Harte.”
“You are,” the other man sneered. “And Blackman will hurt someone when he needs to.”
“You are Blackman?” Alasdair asked.
The man frowned. “I am.”
Alasdair looked at him in surprise. “Then why do you call yourself Blackman? I say, it’s rather odd to refer to yourself in the third person.”
Julianna gave a nervous laugh and Blackman tightened his hold on her throat, choking the sound off. Alasdair took a menacing step forward, attempting to bluff his way through the ordeal by reaching for his empty pocket. Before he could get to it, Blackman shoved Julianna at him. Alasdair dove to catch her as she stumbled and nearly fell. It was a clever maneuver because if Alasdair had actually had a gun with him, it would have prevented him from drawing it. He instantly shoved Julianna behind him.
“Julianna, get away!” he ordered.
“Alasdair, no,” she protested.
“That’s right, miss,” Blackman said, widening his stance and training the gun on Alasdair. “You don’t want to leave now, do you? We’re not done talking.”
Alasdair heard Julianna take several steps back and move off to the side. She didn’t leave the room and when he looked back, he saw that she was pressed against the wall by the door.
“Talk about what?” she asked warily. Alasdair returned his gaze to Blackman.
“What I’m going to do with you two,” he said ominously, gesturing with his head to an open lockbox on the table beside him. “I can’t let word get out that Blackman allows this sort of thing.”
“I was only taking the pearl, as you surmised,” Julianna rushed to assure him. “I was leaving your four hundred pounds you gave me and taking the pearl back. As I told you the other day, I must have it back.”
Blackman was shaking his head. “And I told you, the price is now eight hundred pounds.”
Alasdair looked shocked at the paltry sums. “Don’t either of you know how much that pearl is worth?” he asked incredulously.
Behind him he heard Julianna groan. “Really, Alasdair, are you trying to drive up the price?” He winced in chagrin as their captor laughed.
Suddenly Blackman’s face blanched. “No!” he shouted. A shot rang out from behind Alasdair and then a loud crack rent the air. Alasdair whirled around to see a large bald man crumpling to the floor. Julianna stood next to him with the broken leg of a chair clutched in her hands. She was as white as a ghost and trembling.
“He tried to shoot you,” she said in a small voice.
Alasdair looked back and saw a fresh bullet hole in the wall. The shot had come closer to Blackman than to him.
“Bloody, stupid little bugger,” Blackman raged. “Did you kill him? It would serve him right. Can’t see two feet in front of his face, he can’t. He almost shot me.” He was shaking his head as he kept his gun trained on Alasdair.
“He’s your brother!” Julianna exclaimed in shocked horror.
Kneeling next to the fallen man, Alasdair pressed a hand to the man’s chest. “He’s still breathing,” he told Blackman, who didn’t seem very relieved.
“Up,” he said, waving the gun at Alasdair, who slowly stood up, maneuvering himself between Julianna and the weapon. “That’s done it, then. Can’t very well leave you alive to go telling tales. Don’t like witnesses.”
Alasdair could tell from the look in the man’s eyes that he was going to shoot. If he managed to dodge the bullet, he could rush Blackman and take him down. The man took a step toward him, his gun in his outstretched hand. Alasdair knew that the closer Blackman got to him, the better his chance of inflicting a mortal wound. But Alasdair was frozen in place, unwilling to move and expose Julianna to harm.
It happened in an instant, but it was as if Alasdair were watching the scene unfold through a wall of water, slowing everything down. There was a mighty crash and a body came flying in through the window, slamming into Blackman right before a gunshot rang through the room. Julianna screamed and Alasdair stumbled, expecting to feel the painful sting of a bullet. Instead he heard Blackman cursing. Wait, not Blackman.
“Bloody hell, you stupid sod!” Wiley said breathlessly from the floor as he rolled off Blackman. “Standing there like a fuckin’ idiot as he fired at you! Is that what they teach you up at them fancy schools?”
“Wiley!” Julianna cried out. She rushed past Alasdair and fell to her knees at the boy’s side. She reached for him but he shoved her hands away.
“I’m bleeding like a pig,” he said weakly. “Don’t get none of it on you.”
Alasdair came out of his stupor with a shake of his head. “I’m the idiot? Who told you to jump in front of a loaded gun?” His heart was beating triple time as he, too, knelt at the boy’s side, across from Julianna.
“Didn’t,” Wiley said, wincing as he clutched his shoulder. “Jumped him, hoped his aim would be off.”
He yanked Wiley’s hand away from his wounded shoulder, ignoring the boy’s attempts to keep him away. The blood was seeping out, rather than pumping, which seemed a good thing to Alasdair, although he’d never attended a gunshot wound before. He pressed his hand against it to try to slow the bleeding even more.
“Ow!” Wiley shouted. “I’m shot, man! Take care.”
“Fer Christ’s sake, Wiley, it’s just in the shoulder.” Blackman’s voice took them all by surprise. He was shoving pound notes into a small lockbox. He slammed it shut, grabbed it off the table, and started walking quickly toward the door. He barely paused to nudge the prone form of his compatriot. When all he got was a groan in response, he kept right on moving. “Always was a stupid boy,” Blackman muttered. “We could have shared the profits on the pearl, Wiley,” he called back. “And none would have been the wiser.”
“Alasdair?” Hil’s voice echoed from the stairs, and in seconds he was there in the doorway, effectively blocking Blackman’s escape. “Who’s been shot?”
“Wiley,” Alasdair told him. “Get me something to stop this bleeding.” Though Wiley was trying to hide it with sarcasm and bravado, his pale face and the tremors wracking his body revealed his immense pain. “You saved my life,” Alasdair told him quietly. “Thank you. It is a debt I can never repay.”
“Too right,” Wiley agreed in a shaking voice. “And don’t you forget it.”
“Thank you, Wiley,” Julianna said tearfully. She gently took his hand and pressed the back of it to her cheek. “I can never repay you, either.”
“Did it for you, didn’t I?” Wiley said with some of his usual belligerence. “Knew you’d do something stupid like try to steal it back, even though you told me you wouldn’t.” Julianna bit her lip and looked incredibly guilty. “He loves you,” Wiley told her, laying his head back on the floor and closing his eyes. “Without the pearl.” His lips thinned as Roger knelt next to Alasdair and pressed a thick square of cloth against the wound. “Bloody fuckin’ Cupid, that’s me,” Wiley muttered.
Alasdair came to his feet and went over to Julianna. Very carefully he removed the broken piece of wood she was still holding in her hand and pulled her up into his arms. She was shaking like a leaf. “Yes, you are,” he said to Wiley, although he spoke to the top of Julianna’s head. She clung to him, her nose buried in his cravat.
“The others?” Alasdair asked in sudden alarm. “Downstairs?”
Roger scoffed. “As soon as the gunshots started up here, they fled like rats from a sinking ship.”
“What happened to this one? Is he dead?” Ernest had come into the room and indicated the large man who was still lying on the floor.
“No,” Alasdair told him, “but he did try to shoot me. Apparently his eyesight is quite poor. Julianna cracked him over the head for his trouble.”
“Can’t believe you’ve turned rat, Wiley,” Blackman said in a threatening voice. “You’ll pay for this. You ought to stay out of other people’s business.” Blackman was standing on the other side of the room and Hil had his pistol trained on him. “And you ought to have steered clear of the likes of them. All of them crazy, I tell you.” He gestured around the room. “Look at this mess. All they had to do was pay me my eight hundred, wasn’t it? And none of this would have been necessary.”
“Eight hundred?” Ernest said in disbelief. Alasdair quieted him with a glare.
Wiley looked decidedly green at the threat. “Now, Blackman—”
“None of your sweet talk, you little rat,” the man growled. “You brought her here. You vouched for her. And now look. Poor Cam is facing transportation for attempting to murder this here gentleman.”
“Cam?” Julianna said in disbelief. She glared at Blackman around Alasdair’s shoulder. “This was all your doing, Mr. Blackman, and that’s exactly what I plan to tell the police when they arrive.”
“We will not tell the police,” Hil told him calmly. “We simply want Miss Harte and the Stewart Pearl. Then we shall trouble you no more.”
