Free SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman by Francis Selwyn

be done at all, it must be done by the cracksman's masterpiece, the jack-in-the-box.
     
    Dacre assembled it quickly. A horizontal stock of solid brass mounted on a horizontal iron cylinder below. Dacre turned the sharp screw which ran through the cylinder so that it bit into the wood of the door, just below the lock, and held the brass stock level with the keyhole. Through the barrel of the heavy stock ran a powerful screw whose point could be turned into the lock. It had a spherical head, drilled through to take a lever on which maximum pressure could be brought.
    Dacre inserted the lever and began to wind the heavy brass screw into the keyhole. The jack-in-the-box, properly used, would bring a pressure of three tons against the mechanism of an ordinary lock, and Dacre could feel the tension building up. From below he heard a woman's laugh, and then a man's. One more turn of the lever. There was a rending sound, far greater than the snapping of a lock, and the door burst open under the force of the instrument. Dacre cursed to himself, and listened. The voices below him were silent. However, he moved noiselessly into the room, still alert for footsteps, and went quickly to work.
    Closing the forced door behind him, he lit a candle. In the centre of the room was what he was looking for, an escritoire in the bowed shape of a Carlton House table. Two miniatures of a child's face, no doubt one of Kite's dead, had been placed in the centre of it on ornamental stands of chased silver. Dacre picked up the first stand, complete with its miniature, and dropped it into a bag. He took the second miniature from its stand, added the stand to his bag, and then, putting the little picture under his heel, he ground it to fragments. With a fine chisel, he burst open the drawers of the writing-desk, tipping papers in a pile on the floor. From one of the drawers he took what looked like a diamond necklace but would, almost certainly, prove to be paste. However, it had no doubt belonged to one of Kite's past loves and, as such, would prove useful. He added it to his bag. Then, for good measure, he selected a bundle of letters from the papers on the floor and took those as well.
    A dog barked, outside the house, but not very far from it. Dacre folded the canvas wallet away and moved back to the landing, holding the proceeds of the theft. As he stepped gently down the stairs and across the hallway, he could hear the man and woman moving about at the back of the house. There was activity in front of the house as well, by the gateway in the iron railings. In the darkness, Dacre entered the drawing-room, gently raised the forced window, and stepped on to the path outside. Two men were walking slowly up to the house from the double iron gate, and the wheels of a cab rattled away into the distance towards Holland Park.
    There was a bush between Dacre and the two men. As soon as they had passed it and were waiting for the front door to be opened to them, he sprinted over the soft turf towards the tall railings. The dog was barking again and he sensed that someone had let it loose. Without stopping to look, he retrieved his coat and cloak, stripped off the mask and Balaclava helmet, pitched the garments over the railings, and put his foot in the chain stirrup to follow. There was even time to remove the two stirrups before he walked, slowly and with his heart-beat gradually quietening again, towards the twopenny bus which ran between Hammersmith and Regent Circus.
     
     
    6
     
    It had been the most successful night of all behind the securely barred door and heavily curtained windows in Langham Place. Ellen Jacoby had presided over the customers, the girls, and the cash with all the aplomb of an experienced madame. Ned Roper felt an almost paternal pride in the girl.
     
    Four or five Oxford men, fresh from the Epsom course, had stumbled noisily in and joined the dancing in the large drawing-room downstairs. Undergraduates they might be, but Roper