3 of a Kind Read Online Free Page B

struggled to keep up with her and Uncle Bill’s orthopaedic loafers waddled from under his coat-tails. Two plain clothes SO42 agents followed at a distance, their eyes flicking left and right to evaluate their surroundings.
    Tilly reached the imposing building, which occupied an entire block of Chancery Lane and was accessed by one reinforced door with a large surveillance camera angled over it. They were met by the tight-lipped manager of the depository, who looked them over quizzically.
    ‘Allow mae,’ explained Uncle Bill, offering up his creased leather ID wallet.
    ‘Specialist Operations branch 42 …?’ the manager read aloud. ‘Never heard of it … until I got a call at 4 a.m. this morning.’
    ‘Well, let’s just hope ye don’t have tae hear from us again,’ said Bill and barged past him into the foyer, where the two SO42 agents took up position.
    Tilly and Knightley followed in Bill’s wake, passing a pair of uniformed security guards. The manager scuttled along behind them.
    Moments later the whole ensemble descended in a narrow lift, which opened out on to a secure basement guarded by a giant vault door. It was forged out of layers of laminated steel, welded together with rivets the size of dinner plates. The manager rose on tiptoe and typed a long sequence of numbers into a keypad, then a series of complex locking mechanisms rotated, gears engaged, pins retracted and bars slid apart, causing the door to gradually swing open on a set of unfathomably thick hinges.
    Tilly, Bill and Knightley stepped through the huge doorway into a long corridor, lined with compact-sized, individual steel boxes. Tilly walked straight to the box marked 1339 and tapped on it with a black-painted fingernail.
    The manager made a show of reaching into his jacket for the master keys.
    ‘Of course, this is highly irregular …’ he protested.
    ‘I’m tipped to get an A-star in Chemistry. Open it, or I’ll blow the bloody door off,’ she warned.
    Knightley and Bill exchanged a concerned glance.
    The manager flushed and inserted one key into each of the two locks, then turned them together. A click accompanied the door nudging ajar.
    Tilly reached over and tore it open to reveal …
    A rectangular drawer with a metal lid. She lifted the lid and groped around in the dark, vacuuous space, until her fingers found something sitting at the back: it was approximately the same size as a hardback book, but it was slim, smooth and cold. She pulled it out.
    It was a finely carved ivory box , with an array of cryptic-looking geometric designs spanning every side of it. On closer inspection, there appeared to be characters lurking behind the maze of etched lines: a winged figure; a serpent; and a man with a forked tail. Tilly fumbled with the box, trying to locate the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. She then shook it violently and raised her hands, preparing to shatter it on the steel edge of the deposit drawer.
    ‘Wait – !’ Knightley shouted, causing everyone to start. ‘It’s not a toy.’ He prised it out of Tilly’s determined grasp.
    ‘Aye,’ agreed Uncle Bill – although he had no idea why. ‘Erm, what is it then?’
    ‘It’s a “ puzzle box ”,’ answered Knightley.
    ‘So it is a toy –’ Tilly demanded, reaching to grab it back.
    ‘Ah-ah,’ insisted Knightley. ‘If you break it you risk destroying what’s inside. They’re known to be booby-trapped.’
    ‘So let’s X-ray it,’ Tilly countered.
    Knightley shook his head. ‘It’s lined with lead. This is no ordinary box,’ he whispered in awe. He turned it over in his hands, analysing the markings. ‘Puzzle boxes are based on designs from the Mayans and the earliest African tribes. But this one appears to be Parisian in origin, mid-eighteenth century, one of only a dozen if my hunch is correct. It is made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of moving parts. You might guess it’s made of ivory. In fact, it’s made of bone. Some say … human