Jack Windrush Collection

Chapter 27

The house known as Dar-il-Sliem – "House of Tranquillity" – stood a bare hundred yards from the Grand Harbour. It overlooked the massed shipping of the Royal Navy and the associated merchant ships and transports, whose reflected lights danced across the dark water. Red shutters covered a score of windows that punctuated the baroque façade, with squat columns flanking the round-headed door.

"Gerolamo Cassar was the architect," Riley spoke quietly, "the same man who designed the Grand Master"s palace."

"Oh?" Jack had no interest in the architect.

"He laid the ground plan for Valetta as well," Riley said. "Europe"s first ever planned city. He was a genius of course."

"Was he indeed?" Jack said. "I am delighted to see you did not waste your time in the Knight"s old archives." He didn"t try to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "You were meant to be studying the house to learn how to break in, not researching its history."

"Cassar built this place, but a hundred and fifty years later it was altered for Vincente de Borg, a name which will mean nothing to you." Riley"s voice was neutral. "He commanded a small fleet of ships that fought the Ottomans, and everybody else in the Mediterranean."

"I don"t know the name," Jack said.

"The name is not so important, sir." Riley lifted a small telescope and scanned the building. "It was his reputation that counted against him. He was so successful that he made enemies, so on two occasions, people attempted to assassinate him. They may have been jealous husbands, for he had a reputation that way as well, or maybe rival captains who lacked his ability to make money from the enemy, or even men hired by the Turks, but he decided he needed an escape route if things got dangerous."

"A secret passage?" Jack said.

"Their Achilles heel." Riley adjusted the focus of his telescope and glanced sideways at Jack. "That means their weakness—"

"I am familiar with the expression," Jack said.

"Sorry sir," Riley said quickly. "I"m used to talking to… I am not used to talking to officers, sir."

"Carry on Riley."

"The escape route was a passage from a house by the waterfront, down by the harbour and into Dar-il-Sliem, Borg"s house."

"That will be our way in, then." Jack said.

"No, sir. That will not, begging your pardon, sir; if I have found out about this passage, then so will Stevensen. That is where he will concentrate his security." Riley"s smile was unexpected. "If we can arrange something there to divert Stevensen"s attention, we can get in and out of the building before he draws breath."

Jack nodded. "That might work. Good thinking, Riley. There is a corporal in you, I think."

"No, thank you," Riley shook his head at once. "I"d prefer to remain as I am, sir."

"As you wish." There was obviously far more to Riley than met the eye and potential for a higher rank than a corporal. "Now, it would be useful if we knew where Stevensen"s office was," Jack said.

"Upper floor, end room," Riley said at once. "The plans were in the archives, both the original architect"s design and after the eighteenth-century renovations. That room has been used as the office since the builders handed it over. I can"t see Stevensen having time to change anything in the last month."

"Show me." Jack took the telescope. The shutters were open at the window that Riley indicated. He saw the shape of a man and studied the face by what light a lantern provided. About forty, handsome, with cropped blonde hair and a thick moustache, he looked every inch the Swedish gentleman. "I"ll arrange a diversion," he said, "if you can get us inside the building."

"I work alone," Riley said.

"Not this time," Jack told him.

"You might make a noise, sir."

"I"m coming with you; that"s an order, Riley." Jack put an edge in his voice.

There was a moment"s silence before Riley spoke again. "You were a public-school man, sir, so you may well make a good cracksman."

"Thank you." Jack ignored the slight, but pointed, bitterness in Riley"s voice. The terminology "public school man" indicated a similar background. Jack stored that information for future use.

At a quarter to three in the morning, a halo glowed around the sliver of moon. Riley adjusted the canvas satchel he wore across his back and looked skyward. "The air is heavy. There"s a storm coming in."

"You could be right," Jack said.

"That could be useful," Riley sounded casual. "You took my advice about clothing then."

Jack glanced down at himself. Dressed in a mixture of black and grey, he wore soft-soled shoes and had pulled a dark forage cap over his head. "I feel as if I should be at a masque ball or a theatre."

Riley threw him an odd look, opened his mouth and closed it again. "Yes, sir. You won"t be easily recognised; you"ll merge with the shadows and the soft shoes are quieter," he said. "Sir."

"I"ve arranged for a slight diversion in fifteen minutes from now," Jack said. "Hopefully, that will give us time." He glanced at Thorpe, who stood a yard behind them, chewing on a wad of tobacco. "You keep a good look out, Thorpe. If you see or hear anything suspicious, give us a blast."

Thorpe held up a hunting horn. "Yes, sir."

"Come on then, Riley," Jack said.

"Wait for that cloud to hide the moon, sir." Riley watched the sky until the moonlight faded. "Right, here we go." He tossed a grapnel hook onto the top of the wall that surrounded the house and swarmed up with Jack at his back. Riley reversed the rope so it dropped to the inside of the wall and they slid down, landing with a soft thump.

"Give it a moment in case somebody saw movement." Riley"s voice was as calm as if he was sitting in his wife"s parlour. "Right sir, keep behind me and move smoothly." He ducked low and ran toward the house. Jack followed with his breathing nervously harsh as they slammed against the back wall beside the window they"d already selected. Riley tested the shutters. "Closed and bolted," he said. "See where it holds? That"s where the bolt is."

"What now?" Jack asked.

"Watch and learn." Riley flicked the canvas satchel from his back. "Keep watch, sir." Removing a well-swaddled bundle, he revealed a brace-and-bit and showed it to Jack. Fitting a large cutting edge, he placed the central point against the wood of the shutters close by the bolt and carved out a circular hole some six inches in diameter. The noise of metal on wood seemed to reverberate around the quiet garden.

"Can"t you do that quietly?" Jack asked.

"No. Keep crow – watch – sir, if you please." Thrusting his arm through the hole, Riley drew the internal bolt and pulled the shutters open. He tested the window, grunted when it refused to open and removed another bundle that contained a small stone. "This is a glass cutter"s stone." It took him only a few seconds to cut through one of the panes and unhook the catch inside. Placing a piece of dark paper over the circular hole in the shutters, he dragged the window open and climbed inside the house, with Jack at his heels.

Stopping to close the shutters, Riley lit a small bull"s eye lantern, adjusted the aperture so that only a pencil-thin sliver of light probed into the dark and moved confidently toward the door.

Jack followed, hoping that Riley had studied the internal plans of the house as thoroughly as he had the outside. The door led to a marble-floored corridor, with the lantern-light picking out the grim faces on a succession of portraits.

There were only a few steps to the door on the opposite side of the corridor. Riley turned the door handle and grunted when he found it locked.

"Can we force it?" Jack pulled his watch from his pocket; he had allowed fifteen minutes before the diversion; five had passed, and they were not yet within the room.

"I"ve got a betty." Riley produced a wallet that contained a selection of pick-locks, the mirror of the one Bulloch had handed to Jack. "Hold this please, sir," he handed over the lantern. "Keep the beam on the lock."

"This lantern"s hot," Windrush took the lantern.

"It gets hotter." Riley knelt at the lock and fiddled with his pick-locks. After a remarkably short time, there was a slight click, and he pushed the door open and moved inside the room.

Jack followed and closed the door. The room was square, dark with the exterior shutters closed and surprisingly stuffy for its size. Riley remained just within the doorway as he probed with the thin beam of light. "There"s no safe," he said, "so anything important must be in the writing bureau."

They moved toward it, feet silent on the thick carpet. A long-case clock ticked softly in one corner of the room, with the light of the lantern reflecting from a glass-fronted bookcase.

The writing bureau was heavily carved, with a column of locked drawers on either side of the sitting aperture. Riley unlocked each drawer in turn before opening them from the bottom up. He took out a folding ruler, measured the breadth and height, fiddled underneath and shook his head.

"There you are, sir. I"ve done my bit. There are no secret drawers in this bureau." He stepped back as Jack sorted through the drawers. He had only a vague idea what Bulloch and Reading may want, so took every piece of paper he could find, sliding them into the black canvas bag he wore. There were some documents that looked official, several personal letters that he glanced at but discarded; a few maps and some forms that were partially filled in.

"There"s somebody in the corridor, sir," Riley"s voice was urgent. He closed the shutter of his lantern. The sudden intense darkness was stifling.

Jack heard the soft tread outside and tried to make himself as small as possible beneath the bureau. He had not brought a weapon and knew that if the householder caught them here, the British Army would not support him. It was obvious that Riley was an expert cracksman so being in his company would be tantamount to guilt without the necessity of a trial.

There was the murmur of voices speaking in a language that Jack didn"t recognise but guessed was Swedish. He could neither see nor hear Riley and wondered if he was still there – or had he somehow managed to ease away in the dark.? Jack flinched when somebody pushed open the door and walked in.

The flicker of a candle highlighted a strong chin, proud nose and high cheekbones, and then a second man pushed the door wide open. For a second Jack saw him clearly, a tall man with a weather-beaten face disfigured by a black patch over his left eye. A second man joined him, less tall but broad, with short hair so blonde it was nearly albino and a mouth like a man-trap.

"Is there anything amiss?" The tall man"s words were in English with a soft, slow-speaking drawl that Jack could not place.

"No, sir, the door had not been locked." The first man stepped inside the room and held the candle high. Jack remained still beneath the desk as the yellow glow pooled around him. He knew Riley would have the sense to keep silent, glanced at the open drawers and prepared to thump anybody who stepped too close. The man with the eye-patch would be a formidable opponent though; he looked as if he had survived about forty tough years of life.

The candlelight flickered and then steadied as the man looked around. "Nothing amiss, sir," he said, and both men left the room, closing the door. There was the scrape of a key turning in the lock, a soft click and then silence.

"Give them five minutes," Riley"s voice was soft in the dark, "in case they linger outside."

Jack nodded, aware of the thumping of his heart. Although he had organised the diversion, the sudden racket from the opposite side of the house still made him start. There was the sound of raised voices, a loud bang and a rattle as if somebody was rolling a steel drum over a cobbled road, which, Jack thought, was quite likely knowing O"Neill.

"Right, Riley, let"s get out of this."

Riley knelt at the door, picked the lock in seconds and slid into the corridor. Their retreat was much faster than their advance had been as Riley sped out the window, pushed the shutters closed and ran to the surrounding wall. The noise from O"Neill"s diversion rose if anything, with loud voices, the blast of a whistle and a high-pitched barking.

"Dogs!" Riley groped for the rope he had left ready for their retreat. "Get out of here, sir; blasted dogs!" There was genuine fear in his face as he looked along the line of the wall. For the first time that night, Riley hesitated. He stumbled and would have fallen had Jack not supported him and hoisted him upward.

The dogs erupted around the side of the house; three large mastiffs, all teeth and fury and slavering jaws. Jack leapt for the rope an instant too late and swung helplessly for a second. He felt the searing pain as the leading dog clamped its teeth on his ankle. Swearing, Jack kicked out, feeling his flesh rip as the mastiff worried at him. He tried to pull himself up the wall, but the weight of the dog held him back; he kicked again, once, twice, and swore as a second dog barged in to grab at his flailing leg.

"There"s somebody there!" The call was in English, with that same drawling accent, and accompanied by a wide splay of light across the garden. One by one and then in twos and threes, lights came on in the house as unseen hands opened the curtains and threw back the shutters.

Jack turned his head away from the light so as not to be recognised just as a pistol cracked out two feet from his head. He flinched and blinked as the muzzle-flare temporarily blinded him. "What the devil!"

There was a loud howl from beneath, and he felt the pressure on his leg relax. He jerked it free and scrambled up the rope, to see Riley lying prone on top of the wall, holding a short, double-barrelled pistol. "I hate dogs," he said. "Up you come, sir."