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With that, the long-eared guard waved to his silent companion, and the two disappeared down the stairs.
I opened my mouth to speak, but immediately Mr Ambrose held up a warning hand. I shut my mouth again. With a jerk of his head, he indicated for me to follow him, and took up his position to the right of the door. I placed myself to the left and stood straight, arms hanging loosely down my sides, just as he did. In this position we remained - one minute, two minutes, three. I was beginning to wonder what we were waiting for, when I heard it, or rather its absence: footsteps. They were gone. We had been waiting until the guards were out of hearing distance.
As soon as there was silence, Mr Ambrose sprang into action. Fishing two small pieces of metal out of his pockets, he bent down in front of the door of the wooden hut and began fumbling at the keyhole.
‘Where in God’s name do you have the keys for this place from?’ I hissed.
‘I don't,’ was his calm reply. ‘These are no keys. They are lock picks.’
‘Lock picks? What does a respectable gentleman want with lock picks?’
‘Nothing, probably.’ He threw me a cool glance. His fingers didn’t stop. They moved in an intricate dance, producing clicking noises from the lock. ‘But then, I never claimed to be respectable.’
He turned his eyes towards the lock again.
‘Listen closely now, Mr Linton. We have exactly twenty-six minutes and thirty-one seconds until the next shift of guards arrives - less even, if those two who just left should happen to meet Colonel Townsend and discuss with him our appearance here. I will need approximately another three minutes to open this lock, and there might be other, more complicated locks between us and the file inside the hut, so we will have to move fast. As soon as the file is in our possession, we will move to the tunnel at the end of the cave…’
‘What tunnel, Sir?’
‘Didn’t you see the tunnel at the other side of the cave as we came in?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Well, I did. As I passed it, I felt a breeze come up the tunnel. It smelled of sea air. There’s a direct connection to the coast through that tunnel. Judging from the general direction of the passage, it should come out somewhere near the harbour you told me about. If we go by that route, we might be able to make our escape before the soldiers realize they’ve been hoodwinked.’
‘And we might end up at a dead end and be trapped.’
‘We might. But better a risk in life than certain death, Mr Linton.’
I couldn’t argue with that.
‘What should I do?’ I ask him. ‘Can I help?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘Be quiet.’
I bit back a sharp reply. This time, his terseness might actually be more than simply annoyance at my presence and general feminine existence. I had no idea if one needed quiet to pick a lock; it might very well be.
‘And you can keep an eye on the stairs,’ he added in a voice that wasn’t quite as granite-hard as usual - rather more akin to slate, or sandstone. ‘Tell me immediately when somebody approaches, understood?’
For some reason, a smile appeared on my face. ‘Yes, Sir.’
I had been staring at the empty stairs for a few minutes when from behind me, I heard a click.
‘Done! Let’s go, Mr Linton.’
When I turned my head, I saw that the door was indeed standing open a crack.
‘What now?’ I whispered. ‘Should I stand guard outside while you go in and get the file?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don't want you to stay out here alone.’
He gave no more explanation, but silently beckoned me to follow him inside. I did so, feeling confused. What was that supposed to mean? That had sounded almost as if he wanted to keep me at his side because he cared more about my safety than about securing his precious secret file, the key to all his greatest dreams of wealth and power. But that couldn’t be the case, surely.
Compared to the distant, echoing hum of voices and clatter of cargo out in the cave, it was almost eerily quiet inside the hut. It was only a small, one-room building, made of wood, but still I felt as though I had entered a church, or a throne-room, or another place of majesty. And at the other end of the little room, only a few yards away from Mr Ambrose and me, stood the throne, the Holy Grail of this palace: a small, black safe, with a lock on its door that looked considerably more complicated than the one on the door outside.
