"There are two floors," said Culper hastily, necessity forcing him to put aside his doubts about the Dutchman. "Jake was to sneak upstairs into the offices while Alain was downstairs eating."
"I will warn him."
"How?" asked Alison. "You won't be able to climb up the side of the building."
"I will go in the front door, child, on some simple pretext," said van Clynne. There were no hatchets handy, and so he had to settle for the pistol Alison had just assembled. "There is no need for me to burglarize the place."
"Then you need an assistant to sneak upstairs," she said, volunteering. "I can easily slip away on some pretext."
The Dutchman threw her a doubtful look.
"Please," she said, taking up his hand. "Let me prove myself. I am very brave."
"I cannot dawdle."
"Let's go then," she said, running to the door.
"I will find Daltoons and have him organize reinforcements," said Culper, as van Clynne followed her down the stairs with a series of oaths.
"A girl and a Dutchman," the spymaster added as they disappeared through the door. "What will Washington send me next?"
Chapter Twenty-three
.
About roughly the same time that Claus van Clynne spied the crooked red bricks at the front of the tailor shop, a carpenter was walking in his oversized smock and apron down the city's east ward. He cut a tangled path toward the wharf used by the ferry from Brooklyn, smiling from beneath his broad-brimmed, if somewhat tattered, felt hat. Whistling a jaunty air — it might be "British Grenadiers," it might be "Yankee Doodle" — he headed back up the hill and, just as supper hour approached, found a large, dilapidated former creamery and set up shop on its rear porch.
It might be said that his chisel was strong but his saw not half as sharp as typical of the breed, for though he worked steadily for half an hour, he made so little progress that many a journeyman would have hailed him as an accomplished master.
The significance of this porch for our story is that it lay directly behind the painted brick building used by the British engineers to house some of their more important drawings and least important staff. The carpenter, who soon gave up his work to slip a long narrow bar and a pistol beneath his smock and apron, was none other than the well-disguised hero of our tale, Jake Gibbs.
Besides the costume and hat, Jake had added a wide bandage to his chin, wrapping it once around the bottom quarter of his face to obscure the rounded, often smiling jaw that was among his best features. Rubbing it, he made his way up the alley, crouching behind a barrel as the lone guard assigned to watch the building made his founds in front.
A young maple tree, tall but too slender to provide more than token support, stood nearby. A window with a solid-looking brick ledge and frame would give Jake a good boost to the second story, where his metal shim ought to make short work of the hall opening.
The guard's pace wasn't exactly up to parade-field specifications. It was more a mopey snuffle, difficult to time exactly but ripe with the sort of lackadaisical effort that promised the alley would be unsupervised for long stretches. In addition, the guard had recently acquired a new set of boots, and so his approach was easy to avoid — the leather soles made a sharp sound as they scraped the pavement stones. As they became louder, Jake dropped to his knees and made sure his body was well behind the barrel.
Once the scrapes began heading in the other direction, Jake rose and peered in the window. As Culper's diagram had predicted, it looked in on the dining room. The table had been set, which meant that the secretary would soon be down for supper.
Jake was about midway up when the guard's soles began scraping again in his direction. He hurried upward, reaching the window that according to Culper opened into a small storage room.
Unfortunately, Culper's information was wrong. It opened into an upstairs hallway, in full view of the office where his lordship worked.
Or rather, the office where he was just now emerging.
Jake ducked away so quickly his grip loosened and his fingers slipped from the ledge. The distance to the ground was not enormous, but he still met the earth with a resounding smack, his legs groaning from the unexpected shock.
Jake groaned as well. He fell to his back, holding his breath as the scraping from the front of the house stopped, then resumed with much greater vigor.
The Segallas, cleaned and reloaded after the plunge in the river, was secreted at the top of his right sock. As he reached for it, the guard appeared over him and ordered him to stand upright.
"I am trying," said Jake. "But I have had a wicked bee sting here, and cannot even stand up." He rolled over, scratching at his leg as if injured — and hoping for a chance to remove the pistol.
"Never mind that," said the sentry. "Explain who you are."
"I am a poor carpenter," said Jake. "As you can see from my tools on the porch."
"What is a carpenter doing working on a brick building?"
"Begging your pardon, sir, but I am working on that porch there," gestured the spy. "A man named Baxter hired me to do some work. I was chased here by a nest of bees."
"Baxter? That building belongs to an old woman named Fife."
Jake grimaced. "Baxter was the name of the fellow who hired me." He rose. "Jesus, the damn thing is back," he said, swatting at the air.
The soldier was not fooled. But Jake was able to duck the butt of his gun as he swatted. He pulled his pry bar from his belt and smashed it across the man's face. A harder smash to his skull knocked him senseless.
Jake took off his apron and used its strings to truss the redcoat. Pulling him back to the porch, he fastened him below the steps, blindfolding and gagging him so he could not call out when he awoke. Jake judged it would be several hours, if not longer, before he managed to free himself.
By the time the patriot returned to the window, Alain was entering the dining room. Jake gripped the brickwork and hoisted himself quickly upwards on the side, his fingers clinging to the smooth clay like barnacles to a ship's bottom. He was at the upstairs hall window in a trice, pushing his slender metal bar between the sill and the sash and gently nudging it upwards. In the next second, he had slipped inside, confident that he would soon be on his way back to Washington with the whole story of Howe's pending invasion.
Chapter Twenty-four
The chestnut floor planks were covered with a thin, fairly worn carpet, which provided little cushion for Jake's footsteps. With the first creak, he realized he had best proceed barefoot, and leaned against the wall to gingerly unbuckle and remove his shoes.
His destination was only a few feet away, not far from the top of the stairs. The house's owner, a hearty patriot, had taken the precaution of removing not only his furniture but many of his finely trimmed doors and shutters before fleeing. Thus anyone coming up the stairs would have an unobstructed view of the office, with Jake inside.
There was nothing to do but pray that wouldn't happen. Jake tiptoed across the hallway, shoes in one hand and cocked pistol in the other. Tucking the shoes by the door, he posted his gun on a chair within easy grasp and sized up the office.
Culper's intelligence had pegged the room as the most likely place plans for an invasion or other helpful records might be kept. In truth, this was but a guess based on its use by the senior staff. Jake realized at a glance that only a thorough search would confirm or deny it. The place was hardly a model of bureaucratic efficiency. There were three small desks, each covered with a variety of books, loose papers, and sketch upon sketch of maps. The center of the room was filled by a large table, whose smooth wood surface was neatly overhung by several layers of charts. Important papers and maps were stored without obvious order throughout the room, and indeed, throughout the entire house. The rumors of English efficiency were, in this department at least, greatly exaggerated.