on with it.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said, and then felt awkward about saying it, as though we were on a date.
“I’ll send a message Friday morning with a meeting time and the location of the rendezvous point.”
That had certainly never been said to me on a date before.
“Very well.”
I left the pub with mixed emotions. It had gone better than I had thought it might. I didn’t exactly like the idea of Major Ramsey accompanying me on the job, but I supposed there was no help for that. At least he seemed to be the sort of man who wouldn’t get in the way now that he knew what was involved. I thought back over my tutorial. Really, it had been a fairly vague explanation, all told, but it was difficult to describe the process without a demonstration. And he would get that soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I spent the next day preparing as I would for any other job. Or perhaps that’s not quite accurate. It wasn’t the same as any other job. For one thing, I didn’t know any of the specifics. The major himself had rung up to tell me, with a terseness that surely boded ill for his subordinates, that his men had not ascertained the make of the safe in their reconnaissance. So I would be going in blind, which was against every cardinal rule of Uncle Mick’s.
My uncle was one of the most jovial, spontaneous fellows you would ever meet, but he had always stressed the importance of preparation and serious focus when it came time for business. I knew this job was that much more important since our freedom—to say nothing of the fate of England—was at stake. I tried not to let those little details bother me. Only think about the pertinent things, Uncle Mick would say. Don’t get distracted.
He had said as much in the letter he had sent with the major. I had opened it when I returned home. It was short, but it brought tears to my eyes:
All is well here, Ellie girl. Don’t worry about me. Focus on the task. You’ve all the skills you need. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’ll succeed.
I was glad he had written to me. It was just the added boost of confidence I needed.
The morning after my dinner with Major Ramsey, I got up early and drank a strong cup of tea with a bit of toast and marmalade. Then I went to Uncle Mick’s workshop.
It was a small building where he kept his locksmithing tools, as well as the tools of his less legitimate enterprises. The place had always been something of a magician’s lair to me, a land of enchantment where Uncle Mick worked his wizardry on locks that gave up their secrets to him with a wave of his hand.
One entire wall was covered in pegs, each of which held a key spanning every imaginable size and description. As a child, I had always loved to run my hand along the wall and hear the tinkle of the metal as the blades knocked against one another. I still thought it the grandest musical instrument I could imagine.
Along the other wall there was a rolltop secretary where Uncle Mick did his bookkeeping, and a tall, wide wooden cupboard with many small drawers that contained a vast assortment of tools and lock parts: wrenches, picks, pins, tweezers, plugs, springs, cylinders, clay for impressions, metal pellets for casting, and just about anything else you might care to name, plus more besides.
The center of the room held a long worktable that was even now scattered with a few projects on which he had been working.
But it was none of these items I had come for. I moved through the crowded but tidy space and to the back corner of the room. There against the wall was an old safe that had been there for as long as I could remember. I’d asked Uncle Mick once where it had come from, and he had said he’d picked it up at an auction before I was born.
I’d been quite young when I’d taken to playing with it. I suppose, in the beginning, it was merely a matter of my wanting to mimic what I saw my uncle do as I sat for long, happy hours watching him work. I would turn the knob, feel the clicks of the wheel. Sometimes I would place my ear against the cool metal and listen to the