'You know how to use this stuff, Doc?'
Younger nodded.
'All right then,' said Littlemore.
The two men knelt down and fitted rope ends through the pulleys. Rappelling is not very difficult even without special equipment; with a friction hitch, which allows the descending man to play out rope at his discretion, it's simple. Younger, who had learned the skill in the army, formed a loop with a short length of his rope and stepped into it with his heel.
Littlemore, picking up the crowbars, followed suit.
The two men rappelled down the side of the Treasury Building, kicking off the wall every ten feet or so in the darkness. The welloiled pulleys made almost no sound as the rope played through them, but it wouldn't have mattered if they had creaked. The wind's howling would have covered the noise in any event.
'Over here,' whispered Littlemore when they reached the cobblestones. He led Younger to a large manhole cover, which he had first seen the day of the bombing. 'Let's try the crowbars.'
The manhole cover bore the familiar logo of the New York City sewer department.
'We're going into the sewers?' asked Younger.
'This is no sewer,' whispered Littlemore. 'I checked the city maps yesterday. This is how they got rid of the gold — down this hole. That's why there was no getaway truck.'
The manhole cover had two small slats into which Younger and
Littlemore each inserted the bent tip of a crowbar. They tried to pry it up, but the iron circle wouldn't budge.
'Didn't think that would work,' whispered Littlemore. 'It's locked from the inside; you can't open her up from out here.'
'Hence the acid,' replied Younger.
'Yeah — hence,' said Littlemore.
Younger withdrew three slim cases from his coat. The first contained an empty glass beaker, a pencil-thin glass tube, and a pair of laboratory gloves. Inside each of the other two cases, lined with crushed blue velour, was a well-stoppered vial of transparent liquid. Wearing the gloves, Younger opened these vials and poured a portion of each into the beaker, creating the acid he'd described to Littlemore. No chemical reaction attended this admixture — no change of color, no precipitation, no smoke. To the mouth of the beaker Younger now attached the burette — the thin tube — and began drizzling the acid along the perimeter of the manhole cover. Angry bubbling commenced at once on the iron surface, with an accompanying acrid reddish smoke.
'Don't get it in your eyes,' said Younger.
By the time he was halfway around the manhole cover, Younger had exhausted the beaker's supply. He had to mix another few ounces of the aqua regia, requiring him briefly to hand over to Littlemore the two glass vials, unstoppered, while he took apart his apparatus. At that moment, a particularly savage gust of wind blew through the alley.
'Shoot,' whispered Littlemore. Younger looked up. White bubbles were sudsing on the top of the detective's black shoe. Somehow keeping his voice to a whisper, Littlemore gasped, 'It's going through my shoe! Do something, Doc — it's on my foot. It's burning into the bone!'
'That's not my acid,' said Younger.
Littlemore's gasping came to an abrupt halt.
'What is that,' asked Younger, 'baking soda?'
'Anyone else would have fallen for that,' said Littlemore, genuinely annoyed. 'Anyone. How'd you know it was baking soda?'
Younger looked at Littlemore a long time. 'Give me those,' he said, referring to the glass vials in the detective's hands. Soon the entire perimeter of the manhole cover was seething with corrosion. 'Now we wait.'
A few minutes later, Younger rose and took up a crowbar, offering the other to Littlemore. They strained to wrench loose the manhole cover, but with no success. 'Maybe the acid's not strong enough,' said Littlemore.
The two men stood over the manhole cover. Littlemore gave it a stomp with one foot. As he was about to administer another, Younger said, too late, 'I wouldn't do-'
Littlemore s shoe punched loose the acid-cut manhole cover. They could hear it rushing away from them, as if sucked down into a vacuum. For an instant Littlemore remained poised over the now-open manhole, one foot already inside it, body twisting and wavering, struggling for balance. Then he said, 'Shoot' — and fell in.
As Littlemore disappeared down the hole, his flailing arms grabbed Younger's ankle. Younger was almost able to arrest their fall, but he couldn't hold on, and a moment later he too vanished down into the earth, leaving only a crowbar lying across the manhole.
Younger found himself sliding down a chute at an alarming speed. There was no light at all. There was, however, sound: that of his own body smashing into curved walls, and that of Littlemore yelling in front of him. They flew around hairpin bends and sailed over bumps, plummeting downward in the sightless black.
Mr Brighton kept them in suspense all day about his plans for the Radium Fund. Every time Mrs Meloney veered round to the subject, he deflected it — whether artfully or absent-mindedly, Colette couldn't tell.
They dined in the Garret Restaurant, high over the southern tip of Manhattan, overlooking a sanguine sunset on the Hudson. On their way down the elevator, Mrs Meloney declared herself a nervous wreck from eating in so lofty a perch and insisted she must go home. Colette said that she would go as well.
'Don't be silly, dear,' said Mrs Meloney. 'You must visit Mr Brighton's dial factory. He is especially proud of it — and justly so.'
'Please say you will,' said Brighton.
'Is there time?' asked Colette. 'Dr Younger will be waiting for me at Trinity Church at nine-thirty.'
'Waiting at the church?' asked Brighton. 'Why — are you — you're not getting married, are you, Miss Rousseau?'
'Getting married tonight?' laughed Mrs Meloney. 'Mr Brighton, girls do not marry at night. And if they did, they would not spend the day of their wedding visiting paint factories. Not to mention the fact that Trinity Church will be good and locked up at this hour.'
'Oh, dear,' said Brighton. 'There's so much I don't know. But I do have keys to Trinity Church. I'm on the board of directors. Would you like to see the interior, Miss Rousseau? It's very fine.'
'I've seen it, Mr Brighton,' said Colette, who had spent several hours inside the church on September sixteenth.
'Miss Rousseau doesn't want to see the church, Mr Brighton. She wants to see your factory.' Mrs Meloney turned to Colette: 'There's plenty of time, my dear. The factory is quite close by. And from the factory, the church is only round the corner. Now don't disappoint him — or me. Please.'
Mrs Meloney left in a taxi. 'Do you like to walk, Miss Rousseau?' asked Brighton.
Colette was suddenly tongue-tied. So long as Mrs Meloney had been there, Colette had not quite understood herself to be spending time with a man solely in pursuit of his money. Now she did feel that way, and it seemed to infect everything she said or didn't say with a false and hypocritical tinge. 'I like walking very much,' she replied.
Brighton offered her his arm. Colette pretended not to see it, but Brighton didn't see her not seeing it, and left his elbow suspended so long that Colette was obliged finally to take it. Brighton seemed strangely tall walking next to Colette; their gait never managed to synchronize. Samuels maintained a respectful distance behind them.
'We'll be right on time,' said Brighton cheerily. 'My second shift of girls is just finishing up. I do want you to see the factory in action. But you must be cold, Miss Rousseau.'The wind had kicked up bitterly; Colette had not dressed for it. 'Here — I brought another little present for you. They will help keep you warm.'
Brighton drew a gift box from his coat. Inside was a double-tiered diamond necklace matching the stickpin he had given her earlier.
'Oh, dear,' said Brighton, 'it's the choker. I meant to give you the gloves first. Never mind. May I?'
He clasped the necklace on Colette, who, wishing Mr Brighton had spent the money on the Radium Fund instead, stammered out a thank-you, sensing to her dismay that if she didn't accept his gifts, he would never make another contribution to the Fund. It was the first time Colette had ever worn diamonds; they felt cold against her
