Page 18 of The Gentleman’s Thief

“How did you do it? How you make the candles all blow out at once?” I demanded.

“I may be clever, dear heart, but that was not me!” There was laughter in his voice.

“What?” I turned in his arms and looked him in the eyes. To my dismay, I found he was telling the truth. “Then what happened?”

“Pour us a drink and we’ll sit, yes? And do not touch the Ardbeg.” He warned, “That bottle is worth a king’s ransom!”

Betraying myself I smiled pleased that we shared an appreciation of excellent whiskey. I returned the dusty bottle of Ardbeg to the back of the cabinet and poured us both a glass of Port. I settled in my fireside chair opposite Sebastian and awaited his tale!

“I owe you an apology for abandoning you like that. It was rude and thoughtless”, he began.

“It was.”

“It’s just—Look, I saw an opportunity, and I could not let it go, especially when the candles all blew out.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man from whom I took the fob watch is Mr. Cecil Davidson; he was a housemaster at Winchester School. My client boarded there ten years ago. He was involved in some sort of boyish high-jinks by the sound of it, and Master Davidson inspected his dorm. He confiscated this watch which had been left to my client by his grandfather.”

“Let me have a look at it!” Cavell passed the fob watch to me.

“My client complained to the Headmaster about the theft and Master Davidson denied ever seeing the watch. With his defiant attitude in trying to prove the man a liar, my client was expelled and finished his schooling elsewhere. Anyway, he saw Davidson at an exhibition at The British Museum last year. The man was wearing his grandfather’s watch. Although tempted, he was wise not to take matters into his own hands. I was contacted through the demimonde and have been observing Davidson off and on. He never left the house with the watch and so, I greased the palms of a maid. She told me he slept with the damn thing under his pillow! I was planning a break-in. However, as you can imagine, when I saw him in the audience tonight with that watch on display I knew I could not leave the Society without it.”

It was indeed an interesting tale. I inspected the watch.

“It is French, and… quite beautiful!” I exclaimed dreamily. “Eighteen karat gold body in a golden case decorated with floral ornaments in champlevé enamel. Did you know that this type of enameling is done by carving cells in the gold case, which are then filled with powdered enamel and heated? It is a quite remarkable process.” I said in an impassioned tone. I looked past the watch and saw Sebastian’s eyes glazed with lust.

“Goodness Benedict. You have no idea what you do to me when you speak so passionately about antiques!” I grinned, my eyes holding Sebastian’s gaze.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed for midnight, and the mantle clock followed a second behind, but even though it was late I could not go to bed, not yet.

“Something happened to me tonight when the candle lights were extinguished.”

Sebastian sat forward. I passed the watch back to him and he secured it in his jacket pocket.

“As you know there was quite a kerfuffle with ladies screaming and attempting to find the door. Well, someone purposely knocked me down to sit back in my seat. I did not realize until the electric lights went on, but whoever it was used sleight of hand, removed my kerchief from my inner breast pocket, and replaced it with this—”

I opened my jacket and threaded my fingers into the pocket to retrieve the square letter. Sebastian’s brows rose when I unfurled my fingers and he saw the stamp impressed to the back of the cream paper.

“What are you waiting for? Open it, man!” Sebastian stood and then knelt at my feet. I broke the wax seal, stamped with FS, unfolded the crisp paper and together we read the spidery black handwriting:

You are chosen

Come to 11 Adam Street at 9 p.m.

06-01-1898.

-Fratres Seminis-

“What does that mean? Fratres Seminis?” I asked.

“I believe it means Brothers of the Seed.” Silence fell between us as that phrase sank in.

“Who the devil are the Brothers of the Seed? And, come to think of it, what do they want with me?”

“Do you have paper and a pencil handy?”

“I do, in my study”,