He heard another splash, an immediate curse and then felt Johnny pressing close to him. Snare pulled away, recalling a medical record he had studied in one of the police files and the assessment why Packer’s downfalls invariably involved burly young men of limited intelligence.
‘Jesus,’ said Johnny, looking over his shoulder. ‘Never worked with anyone who managed to get hold of the stuff you do … it’s like a bloody guide-book.’
‘Grot a friend,’ said Snare. It was the sort of remark the man would remember when he’d been arrested. Might even cause further embarrassment to Willoughby’s firm if the man talked about drawings of the sort that insurers might possess.
The tunnel surround began to get smaller and they had to proceed at a crouch.
‘Now we’re right beneath the original building,’ said Snare. Positioning Packer where the narrowing began, Snare carefully measured along the slimy wall, making a mark where he had to begin digging and then insisted on measuring again, to avoid any miscalculation.
He brought another plan from the rucksack, a detailed diagram of all the alarm installations and wiring.
‘Where the hell did you get that?’ exclaimed Packer.
‘Same friend,’ said Snare. Confidently he traced their entry hole on to the sewer wall.
‘We’ll have to work cautiously,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘There are some vibration alarms in the flooring.’
Snare operated the drill, as he had in Brighton. Again the tool was rubber cushioned, reducing both the noise and the recoil. The man worked very gently, discarding the bits the moment he thought they were becoming blunt and needed a sharper edge to cut into the concrete and brickwork. Frequently he referred to the wiring plan, using a rule to measure the depth of his hole. After about thirty minutes, he put aside the drill, chipping instead with a chisel and rubber-headed hammer, constantly feeling in and scraping away rubble and plaster by hand.
He found the first cluster of wires after an hour. Then he rejected even the hammer, scratching an inch at a time with just the chisel head. When sufficient room had been made, he clamped the carefully prepared bypass leads, with their alligator clips, at either side of the wire cluster and then cut through.
Johnny sighed.
‘No sound,’ he said.
‘There wouldn’t have been,’ Snare answered. ‘This alarm only operates in the Scotland Yard control room.’
Because the adhesive tape they had used for the purpose at Brighton would not have stuck to the slime of the sewer walls, Snare knocked securing hooks into the bricks to hold the bypass leads out of the way.
He used the drill again now, still stopping every few minutes for measurement. It was a further hour before he turned the drill off and began gently prodding at the hole. Suddenly there was a clattering fall of bricks and concrete different from the rest and Snare turned, smiling at the other man.
‘The floor,’ he said. ‘We’re through.’
It took thirty minutes before the hole was big enough for them to clamber up, hauling the equipment behind them.
‘Thank Christ we’re out of there,’ said Johnny sincerely. The revulsion shook his body.
Snare motioned him to silence, then checked his watch.
‘An hour and forty minutes before there’s any guard tour,’ he whispered. ‘But I don’t want any unnecessary sound.’
He’d turned off his miner’s headset, using now a large hand-torch with an adjustable cowl, so that the light beam could be accurately controlled. Another plan came from the rucksack.
‘The Duneven room is above us and in that direction,’ indicated Snare, to his left. ‘The photographic room and restaurant is to the right and the stairs up to the ground floor should be immediately behind you.’
Johnny turned, using his own torch, but Snare stopped him.
‘Don’t forget the bags,’ he said.
From the sledge they were leaving near the hole, Johnny took a number of plastic containers, then walked towards the stairway.
At the bottom he paused, awaiting Snare’s lead.
‘The first six are pressure activated,’ said Snare.
He reached past the other man, laying a retractable plank stiffened at either edge by steel rods up to the eighth step.
‘Be careful,’ he warned.
Hand lightly against the hand-rail for balance, Johnny inched up the ramp. The door at the top was locked and Johnny knelt before it, torch only inches away.
‘Piece of cake,’ he declared. From his pack he took the dentist’s pliers which he had modified since the Brighton robbery, so that the jaws could be locked. Into them he clamped a key blank and impressed it into the lock. Against the impressions he sketched a skeleton and within minutes had shaped a key from steel wire. The lock clicked back on his second attempt.
‘Alarm at the top,’ cautioned Snare. He pushed past, the magnetised bypass already in his hand. He slipped it over the break and then eased the door open. From his pack he took a wooden wedge, driving it beneath the door edge to prevent it accidentally slamming and disturbing the leads.
Just inside the main hall, Snare went to a panel set into the wall, gesturing for Johnny to follow.
‘The first of the two alarm consoles,’ he said. ‘Open it.’
Johnny used a wire probe this time, easing the tumblers back one by one.
Snare had a plan devoted entirely to the wiring system that suddenly cobwebbed in front of them. He made Johnny hold it, freeing both his hands, and for fifteen minutes worked intently, muttering to himself, fixing jump leads and clamps.
‘There,’ he said, finally. ‘Castrated.’
‘You said two?’ queried Johnny.
‘This is the obvious one,’ said Snare. ‘The other one is identical but independently wired and concealed.’
It was a floor panel, just inside the cloakroom.
‘Clever,’ said Johnny, admiringly.
‘Unless you know the secrets,’ smiled Snare. Practised now, it didn’t take him as long to neutralise the second system.
‘What now?’ asked Johnny.
‘Now,’ said Snare. ‘We just help ourselves if not to the actual crown jewels, as near as makes no difference.’
He paused, checking the time.
‘And there’s still forty minutes before the attendant patrol.’
The Russian collection was in the main exhibition room, every piece under glass. They stopped, as the torches picked out the jewels of the Fabergé reproductions.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Johnny.
‘A miniature jewelled train,’ said Snare. ‘It’s usually kept in the Armoury, in Moscow, along with those Easter egg ornaments in the next case …’
‘Imagine those in a necklace,’ said Johnny, wistfully.
‘Beautiful,’ agreed Snare. Pity you’d never have a chance to wear it, he thought, cruelly.
‘What sort of people have jewelled trains and Easter eggs?’ mused Johnny.
‘Rich people,’ said Snare. ‘Very rich people.’
‘Didn’t they all get killed though?’ queried Johnny.
Snare frowned at the qualification.
‘Only because they were too stupid to realise the mistakes they were making,’ he said.
He moved forward, gesturing to Johnny for the bags he had taken from the sledge. Against the side of each exhibition case he affixed a handle, with adhesive suckers at either tip, then sectioned the glass with a diamond-headed cutter. Gently, to avoid noise, he placed each piece of glass alongside the stand, put each exhibit into a protective chamois leather holder and then, finally, into a bigger container.
Apart from the eggs and the train, Snare took the copies of the Imperial Crown surmounted by the Balas ruby, the Imperial Orb, topped by its sapphire and the Russian-eagle-headed Imperial Sceptre, complete with its miniature of the Orloff diamond.