Hardly daring to believe the tranquility he found, he reholstered his pistol and took out the key he’d got from Samuel Stanley. He walked over to the cubicle with a tarnished brass 1 screwed into the plywood door, put the key in the lock, and tried to turn it. It would not turn. The other keyholders lined up behind him. They tried one by one to open the cubicle. They all failed. Bushell went on to the second cubicle, then to the third, then to the fourth. . . . He was on the seventy-eighth when, from two behind him, he heard a sound he had begun to believe he would never hear: a soft click. His head whipped back to the right. Lieutenant Toby Custine stood in front of cubicle 76, his mouth gaping foolishly wide, staring down at the lock that had just come open. Kathleen Flannery stood between him and Bushell. “Mother Mary,” she whispered.
“From whom did your key come, Lieutenant?” Bushell asked as everyone converged on the storage cubicle.
Custine glanced down at the tag taped to the key. “From O’Flynn, sir,” he answered in a slightly dazed voice. He took off the lock and opened the door to the cubicle.
Kathleen screamed and threw her arms around his neck. Bushell was not the least bit jealous. Had Kathleen not beaten him to it, he would have hugged Custine himself. There against the back wall of the storage cubicle leaned The Two Georges in its heavy, elaborately carved gilded oak frame. A lamp with a dangling chain hung from the cubicle’s ceiling. Kathleen yanked that chain. The lamp came on, filling the shadowy cubicle with harsh yellow light. Kathleen knelt by The Two Georges. “This is the painting, not a copy,” she said at once. She cocked her head and studied it. “It seems to be in good condition, too. It seems to be.” She sounded as if she hardly dared be more certain than that. Samuel Stanley pulled out his pocket watch. “We did it, by God,” he said, “and with a good hour and five minutes to spare, too.”
That reminded Bushell he had other things left to do, things he’d almost forgotten in the desperate race to find The Two Georges. “The ransom!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got to block it.” He dashed out of the storage cubicle and up to the company offices. The clerk was on the telephone, telling someone named Marge about what was happening. He got off an instant before Bushell yanked away the handset and brained him with it.
Bushell rang America’s Number Ten. The operator put him through to Sir David Clarke at once. “Don’t pay the bastards a ha’penny,” he barked when he heard Sir David’s voice. “If anybody shows up in the square, arrest him. We’ve got The Two Georges back, and it’s not harmed.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the clerk’s stunned expression: the fellow evidently hadn’t known everything that was going on. “Colonel, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Sir David said. “I’ll pass your wonderful news to Sir Martin immediately. I can’t afford to wait a moment - he’s about to leave for the Britannia’s berth. He’ll greet the King-Emperor with a glad heart now. On his behalf, let me say that you have the Union’s gratitude. And, for whatever it may be worth to you, you have mine as well.”
“Never mind that,” Bushell said. “The important thing is to have the painting behind His Majesty when he speaks tonight, and we’ve done it.” He glanced up. “Now I’d better get off the line. Here comes Kathleen. She’ll need to talk to the people at the All-Union Art Museum to arrange to get The Two Georges back where it belongs in time for the speech.”
Kathleen took the phone from Bushell as peremptorily as he’d taken it from the storage-company clerk. She dialed a number. When someone answered, she exclaimed, “We’ve got it!” Bushell could hear the shout of joy on the other end of the line. She gave her colleagues at the museum the address of Adler Cubicles, said, “Good,” and hung up. She turned to Bushell. “The lorry to take the painting home will be here in half an hour. Home!” She laughed at herself, and seemed to sag slightly. “You know what I mean. I’m so tired. I must look a fright, too. I’ve been living in these clothes.”
“You’ll always look good to me,” Bushell said, which made her smile. He rubbed his bristly chin. “You don’t need a shave, that’s one thing. Another is, as long asThe Two Georges looks all right, nobody’s going to notice you.”
“Mm, I daresay you’re right,” Kathleen answered. “Now whom are you ringing?”
“Major Walter Manchester, the RAMs he has with him, and the Victoria constables,” Bushell said.
“That lorry of yours is going to have itself a nice, strong escort on the way to the All-Union Art Museum. Now that we’ve got the painting back, I don’t aim to let it be stolen again.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that.” Kathleen rubbed her eyes. “I have the feeling I’m only thinking about half as well as I ought to be.”
“I know what you mean,” Bushell said. “Let me just ring Manchester here, and then we can go back and stare at the painting till they take it away.” When he got through to the major, Manchester bellowed in his ear, almost as if he were a male Sally Reese. Bushell finished giving him the news and turned to Kathleen.
“Reinforcements on the way.”
She nodded, then rubbed her eyes again. “I’ll be so glad when this is all over. After tonight, I intend to sleep for about a month straight.”
“What a wonderful idea,” Bushell said. He headed back toward The Two Georges. In spite of the other RAMs standing in front of and inside the storage cubicle, he feared something dreadful would happen to the painting if it left his sight even for a moment.
The little bald clerk tagged along. He was all but bouncing with excitement.
“The Two Georges was here all the time, right under my nose? I can’t believe it. Marge won’t believe it. I want to see it, just so I can tell her I did.”
Bushell found it hard to imagine this eager nonentity a Son of Liberty, but he managed. He let the man have the briefest of glimpses, ready to jump on him if his hands went into his pockets. Then he said, “Go back to your office. You can take a better look when they load it onto the lorry, and you can see it at the AU-Union Art Museum. No more now.”
Looking like a kicked puppy, the clerk turned away. Kathleen said, “Don’t feel bad, sir. If you come to the museum, have me paged.” She gave him her name. “I’ll see that you and, uh, Marge are admitted free of charge, and I’ll shoot you both to the front of the queue to view The Two Georges.”
“That’s very kind of you,” he said, and walked off a happier man.
“That is very kind of you,” Bushell said.
Kathleen shrugged. “It’s safe. It’s been safe here. No rats in the cubicle, the roof doesn’t leak - he deserves something for that, even if he didn’t know what was in cubicle 76.”
“We did it,” Sam Stanley said again, when Bushell walked into the cubicle. “You make sure we aren’t going to be out fifty million?”
“You’d best believe I did,” Bushell replied with feeling. “Sir David and I were even civil to each other. Will wonders never cease?”
“Two miracles in one morning.” Stanley didn’t sound as if he was joking. Bushell looked at him sharply. He didn’t look as if he was joking, either.
Every so often, Bushell’s hand would fall to the butt of his pistol. He had trouble believing the chase was over at last, The Two Georges recovered, the Sons of Liberty thwarted. He kept expecting an attack, kept waiting for gunfire to break out, bullets to fly, men to fall.