“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I have a key. ” I added, taking Purcell’s gift from my pocket and holding it up.
She blinked and looked a bit surprised. “Oh. The vault. You’ll want Mrs. Jabril, then. I’ll ring her. Which box?”
“Pardon me?”
“Which box did you come to open? I should let her know which key to fetch.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I have a power of attorney and a key, but I don’t know which box it opens.”
“Whose box is it, then?”
“It was kept by John Purcell for Edward Kammerling.”
“Ah. Right, then. I’ll ring Mrs. Jabril. She’ll know.”
She turned away and used an old-fashioned phone that sat on the counter. “Mrs. J, there’s someone here for Mr. Purcell’s vault.” She listened a moment and then replied. “No, it’s not the same fellow as last time. It’s a woman with legal papers.” Another pause to listen and then: “Yes, ma’am.”
She turned back to me. “Mrs. Jabril will be right down to help you. Would you care to look around while you wait or would you prefer a chair?”
I wanted to ask something else, but instead I said, “Could you tell me about your angel?”
“In the window? Everyone asks about him. He’s not for sale, I’m afraid—the first owner made him and he’s become a bit of a mascot. It’s the angel Gabriel. He’s a messenger, you know, which is why he has letters. Rather clever that, don’t you think?”
“Very,” I replied, not remarking that Gabriel is also thought by some to be the angel of death. So far, I’d found the silversmith’s to be an interesting choice for whatever Purcell had hidden.
A door opened at the back of the shop and a tiny, elderly woman in a restrained designer suit passed into the room. She was thin and her skin was brown and wrinkled like a mummy’s. Her round head was accentuated by a mass of frizzy amber curls that defied attempts to tame them into something more fashionable. Sharp, emerald eyes glittered in her hollowed face and sought me out like a hawk looking for mice. She stepped through a break in the counters and walked toward us with a firm tread, concentrating on me as if she could read my history and intentions by looking at my face. Her demeanor was no more disconcerting than her aura, which was pure gold and lay close to her shape as if she were gleaming with light borrowed from a roomful of bullion.
She stopped next to the clerk and folded her hands in front of herself—the left one was heavy with big brass keys. “Good morning,” she said, her vowels as round and dark as plums.
The shopgirl jumped as if she hadn’t noticed the other woman’s approach, though I didn’t know how anyone could have missed her. “Oh, Mrs. Jabril! You caught me unaware.”
Mrs. Jabril barely turned her head and gave her a cat smile. “Keep your wits about you, Ivy, or I may catch more than your ‘unaware’ someday.” She retrained her piercing gaze on me. “You have paperwork to prove you should have access to Mr. Purcell’s vault, miss?” She also pronounced it “PURSE-el” like Jakob had.
I offered her Edward’s limited power of attorney, which I took from my bag. “I’m Mr. Kammerling’s agent. Mr. Purcell gave me the key. He’s unable to come himself.”
She chuckled, and it sounded like the rolling of well-oiled but very old gears. “Of course he is.” She took the pages and read through them rapidly. “Have you identification proving you are Ms. Blaine?”
I handed her my passport, which she studied for a moment before looking up again. “This will do,” she added, returning the papers and passport to me. “I see you have the key with you. Come. We shall go down. Ivy, I shall let you know when we are done.”
“Yes, Mrs. Jabril,” the younger woman replied, relieved. I had the impression the older woman made her nervous.
Mrs. Jabril led me back the way she’d come, through the door and into a small office at the back of the building. An odd sort of platform lift formed the floor in one corner and we stepped onto it. My guide pulled a safety cage down around us, put one of her keys into a slot on the nearest upright, turned it, and trod on a button with her foot. The lift lurched and then sank smoothly below the floor. “There is only the one key and no other entrance,” she assured me. “Our vaults are very secure.”
“Why does a silversmith need a vault?” I asked as the platform continued down into a cold stone cellar.
“Before the rise of the great banks,” said Mrs. Jabril, pausing to raise the platform’s gates as we bumped to a halt, “goldsmiths were often the bankers and moneylenders of the day. But there was no place to store your valuables outside your own home or to get a small amount of cash for a short term. Silversmiths would occasionally act as. pawnbrokers of a sort to the gentry. It was not unusual for a bachelor to put the family silver into storage with a silversmith until he married and had a use for it again. If his pockets were to let, he might borrow against the weight value of the silver and pay it back when he was in brass again. The British pound sterling was tied to the value per weight of silver at the time, of course, so it was like you were trading commodities for cash. Not a word of gossip would attach to a gentleman, or lady, who paused on occasion to visit their family silversmith.”
She stepped down from the platform and made a directing wave at the stone-walled room and its ranks of metal-doored lockers of all sizes, lit by dim electric bulbs that were strung somewhat sloppily from the ceiling. “The first owner of the shop built these to store his patrons’ articles. Steel doors were fitted to replace the old iron ones in the nineteen thirties. They withstood the Blitz without so much as a buckle.”
“It’s impressive.”
“I shall not say it is as secure as the Bank of England, but unlike the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, we have never been robbed.” When she smiled, her teeth gleamed like sharp pearls.
I could see why any thief assaying this place might think twice. The stone walls supported a collection of mechanical contrivances that looked, at first glance, like a fantastic Rube Goldberg device for catching mice or fetching objects from the tops of the vaults. But as I studied the brass gears and levers and trails of tubes and wiring, the shape of the machine emerged as a gigantic, moving guillotine that could probably make a party of robbers into hash in seconds—after securing all the vault doors with supplementary grids and bars, of course.
The rather grim mechanical marvel glinted with polish and oil, but even looking as deep into the Grey as I dared, I saw no sign it had ever fulfilled its deadly purpose. The vault was remarkably quiet in the Grey, except for the occasional flicker of Percy the poltergeist, though I supposed that shouldn’t have surprised me: Magic and technology have an uncomfortable relationship.
Mrs. Jabril smiled again as she saw me figure it out. “Mr. Jabril was fascinated with mechanics and clockworks. Had his father not been a silversmith, he would no doubt have become a watchmaker. Come along,” she added, walking forward into the stone embrace of the vaults.
I wondered exactly how distant was the relation between Mrs. Jabril and her mechanically inclined namesake. Given the sinister oddities I’d already encountered in London, I thought it might be healthier not to inquire.
“When was the last time anyone accessed this vault?” I asked as she stopped before one of the larger doors.
There was a tiny pause before she spoke again.
“You have all the right papers and you do not appear to be. malign in any way. You are not like Mr. Purcell and Mr. Kammerling, but I can see you are not. like other people.” She paused again before she added, “I shall answer your questions.”
She went still as she thought about my query, her eyes looking off to the side and I imagined—no, I was sure—I could hear the muted whirring of minuscule gears. “Just over three weeks ago, Mr. Purcell sent his assistant, Jakob, to place a few things in the vault. An unpleasant creature, that one. He also left a letter for me which asked that I open the vault for him later that week at half an hour before closing time. I did so. Mr. Purcell arrived exactly on time and replaced several objects as well as adding a box of papers and a letter that I believe is intended for you.”