That was the carriage fakement.
__________
In the light of a narrow-beam lantern, Pierce checked his watch. It was 9:04. That gave them an hour to find the key before Barlow provided his diversion to cover their escape.
Pierce and Agar moved stealthily down the creaking stairs into the depths of the cellar. They saw the wine racks, locked behind iron gratings. These new locks yielded easily to Agar’s attentions. At 9:11, they swung the grating door open and entered the wine cellar proper. They immediately began the search for the key.
There was no way to be clever about the search. It was a slow and painstaking business. Pierce could make only one assumption about the hiding place: since Mr. Trent’s wife was the person who usually went into the cellar, and since Mr. Trent did not want her coming across the key by accident, the banker probably hid his key at some inconveniently high location. They first searched the tops of the racks, feeling with their fingers. It was dusty, and there was soon a good deal of dust in the air.
Agar, with his bad lungs, had difficulty suppressing his cough. Several times his stifled grunts were sufficiently loud to alarm Pierce, but the Trent household never heard them.
Soon it was 9:30. Now, Pierce knew, time was beginning to work against them. Pierce searched more frantically and became impatient, hissing his complaints to Agar, who wielded the spot of light from the hot shaded lantern.
Ten more minutes passed, and Pierce began to sweat. And then, with startling suddenness, his fingers felt something cold on the top of the wine-rack crossbars. The object fell to the ground with a metallic clink. A few moments of scrambling around on the earthern floor of the cellar, and they had the key. It was 9:45.
Pierce held it into the spot from the lantern. In darkness, Agar groaned.
“What is it?” Pierce whispered.
“That’s not it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s not the ruddy key, it’s the wrong one.”
Pierce turned the key over in his hands. “Are you sure?” he whispered, but even as he spoke he knew Agar was right. The key was dusty and old; there was grime in the crevices of the prongs. Agar spoke his thoughts.
“Nobody’s touched her in ten years.”
Pierce swore, and continued his search, while Agar held the lantern. Agar looked at the key critically.
“Damn me but she’s odd,” he whispered. “I never seen the likes of it. Small as she is, delicate-like, could be a lady’s twirl to some female trifle, you ask me—”
“—Shut up,” Pierce hissed.
Agar fell silent. Pierce searched, feeling his heart thump in his chest, not looking at his clock, not wanting to know the time. Then his fingers again felt cold metal. He brought it into the light.
It was a shiny key.
“That’s for a safe,” Agar said when he saw it.
“Right,” Pierce said, sighing. He took the lantern and held it for Agar. Agar fished two wax blanks from his pockets. He held them in his hands to warm them a moment, and then he pressed the key into them, first one side, then the other.
“Time?” he whispered.
“Nine-fifty-one,” Pierce said.
“I’ll do another,” Agar said, and repeated the process with a second set of blanks. This was common practice among the most adept screwsmen, for one never knew when a blank might be later injured after a break-in. When he had two sets, Pierce returned the key to its hiding place.
“Nine-fifty-seven.”
“Crikey, it’s close.”
They left the wine cellar, locking it behind them, and slipped up the stairs to the basement door. Then they waited.
Barlow, lurking in the shadows near the servants’ quarters, checked his own pocket watch and saw it was ten o’clock. He had a moment of hesitation. On the one hand, every minute his accomplices spent inside the Trent household was dangerous; on the other hand, they might not have finished their work, despite the planned schedule. He had no wish to be the villain, greeted by the spectacle of their angry faces when they made their escape.
Finally he muttered to himself, “Ten is ten,” and, carrying a bag, he moved back to the dog kennels. Three dogs were there, including the new gift of a made dog from Mr. Pierce. Barlow bent over the run and pushed four squeaking rats out of the bag and into the enclosure. Immediately, the dogs began to yelp and bark, raising a terrible din.