February Prompt #7   Power Outage“So, how do you think he did it?” Joh

February Prompt #7   Power Outage“So, how do you think he didit?” John is scanning his eyes around the inside of the vault, lined withthe safety deposit boxes, every one of which is pulled out from the wall andgaping their emptiness. “That is what we are here tofind out, John. The pronoun may be a she, by the way.”“Okay. Equal opportunitycriminals…still doesn’t answer the question.”They are in the vault of Osmond& Sons, a private bank whose offices on the Strand shelter the assets ofsome of the wealthiest families in Britain. {…}This vault is three floors belowstreet level and supposedly proof against any attempts to break in. Yet thismorning, it had been opened to the scene that Sherlock and John are now seeing.It is no surprise that this case had come not via the Metropolitan Police, butrather from Mycroft. After all, the Sherrinfords have been clients of the banksince shortly after it was founded. His instructions had been clear.“Discretion, Sherlock. I need to remind you that there are secrets that nofamily would willingly share with the police and the outside world, least ofall ours.” Sherlock stirs from oneparticular box he’d been examining. “It is the question, John. Avault can be considered the ultimate locked-room mystery.” {…}At five, when the bank had closedand the regular employees gone home, Sherlock asked the three who knew aboutthe vault break-in to remain upstairs while he and John checked the vault again. They’dbeen left here, the heavy vault door barely ajar, to determine how anyone couldhave managed to do such a thorough clear out of the one hundred and sixteensafety deposit boxes, without having all the owners’ keys. {…}John peers over Sherlock’sshoulder as he inserts a different shiny brass key into the lock that Venetia Osmond had just locked. He waggles it about a bit and then thrusts it fully into thelock. Nothing happens. “Good. That proves that the master lock can’t beopened by a bump key.”“What’s a bump key.” Sherlock smirks. “Also knownas a rapp key. Did you know that making ten such keys, each slightly differentfrom the other will open ninety percent of all household locks? Burglaries are soridiculously easy these days.” John is appalled. “How… Imean, why?”Sherlock smirks. “Blame iton locksmiths. It was a trade secret, a bump key was often made at the same timeas the master key, tailored to be used to pull the whole cylinder free from thebox. If the internal mechanism of a lock is damaged or fails, the bump can beused to pull the whole thing out. It worked until criminals cottoned onto it. MissOsmond said all of the master locks were upgraded after 2006, and this is proofthat all of these were opened by a master key.  Sherlock is now examining the secondlock of box 112, to see if there is any evidence of it being picked."So, what was in Mycroft’sbox?” John can’t help his curiosity.“Don’t know. He’s got a safeat Parham and another one in the Diogenes Club for all those state secrets heworks with. Maybe he uses this one to keep his favourite cake recipe.” They share a giggle at that idea asSherlock continues his work, positioning his lockpicks at the entrance to thesecond lock. “Set the stopwatch on your phone, John. I’m ready.” He’sabout to time how long it takes to pick the second lock on the box, if thefirst lock has already been unlocked. That should prove decisively that the thiefhad a master key, which Venetia Osmond had sworn was in the possession of only threepeople: herself, the security manager and the bank’s chief cashier, all of whomhad excellent alibis that had checked out. They are also the only three employeeswho are aware of the vault theft; none of the rest of the staff had been told,and none of them had access to the vault in any case. “It’s the whole point, John.Restrict access to three keyholders and have a double key system. In theory itmeans that no bank employee with a master key can get access to the boxcontents unless the owner is present. And similarly, no client who is leftalone in the vault can get into other people’s boxes. It means we have threeprime suspects. Despite the alibis, any one of the three could have loanedtheir key to the criminal overnight.”“Aren’t there, you know,devices that can pick a lock in seconds?” “Of course, John. They’re calledsnap guns. They use a primary law of physics —the transfer of energy — to burstall of the driver pins out of a lock cylinder without sending the bottom pinsinto the gap. The driver pins are thrown out of the cylinder body entirely, upinto the lock housing. The good news is that a snap gun damages the cylinder inthe process, and there is no sign of that happening on any of the master lockshere.” “What about the client keys?Would they have the time to pick all of these individually or have they beendamaged by this snap gun?”“No sign of that in the locksI have examined so far. Doing it by hand takes time, exactly how much time iswhat I am trying to test here. And whoever he or she is, they’re good. Fast andwith strong fingers to keep it up all night. No bump, no snap, just good oldfashioned manual lockpicking. He flexes his fingers. Positioning his picks."Start the clock.”Twenty-eight seconds later, John watches as Sherlockturns the master key at the same time as the pick. There is a satisfying click,and Sherlock pulls open the drawer. As he turns to smirk at John, the lights goout. Read what happened next and the whole one-shot chapter here on Ao3, in my story “Missing Scenes”.  -- source link
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