It was hot.
There hadn't been a breeze or a cloud in the sky for what seemed like weeks. With that much sun beating down the mansion, built of hewn stone, just collected heat during the day and gave it all back at night. The old electric fans they managed to scrounge up only blew the hot air around the room they shared. After three nights of it they'd all had enough. They doused the lights, stripped down to their skivvies, undergarments in Actor's case, shoved back the heavy blackout curtains and threw open the windows.
To hell with regulations.
….And it was still hot.
"Jeeze!" Casino complained with a groan. "I feel like I'm stuck in one a those damn wool uniforms we gotta wear over there!"
"Try not to think about it." Chief replied quietly from his position under the window.
"Blimey!" The little pickpocket tried to raise up on an elbow. "You got no place givin' advice, mate. You don't even sweat!" There was creaking and groaning and desperate rustling as Goniff fought his bedding. "I can't get away from me sheets!"
"If you would make your bed properly you wouldn't become tangled in your sheets." Actor intoned. "And Chief is right. Try not to think about it."
The room fell silent as they tried their best to ignore the heat. It didn't work.
"Hey, Actor?"
"Yes, Casino."
"I can hear you sweatin' from here."
"A gentleman doesn't sweat, Casino," the conman corrected, the disgust in his voice barely concealed. "He perspires."
"Well, then, I can hear you 'perspirin' from here too."
Goniff gave a snigger and billowed his sheet up and down to try and create some kind of cooling air movement. "I'm not meant for this kinda weather."
"You weren't meant for winter weather either, man."
"Can I 'elp it if I got a delicate constitution?"
Casino gave a snort. "You lousy Limey, you'r just…"
"Shut up!" Chief commanded. And even though they couldn't see him they all knew his hand was up as a warning and his ears were stretched towards the window.
"What'r you on about now?"
"Listen!"
"Hey, music!"
"Yes. He has been going over quite regularly,… but only after he thinks everyone else is asleep."
Goniff rolled up on his side and propped his head on his hand. "Hey! We oughta all give 'im one a them ovation thingies out on the landing when 'ee comes up t' go t' bed!"
"Do somethin' like that," Chief told him through the darkness. "And he'll never go near that piano again."
"Yeah. Leave him alone about it." Casino agreed as he threw the sheet off, turned onto his back, and stuck his hands behind his head. "B'sides, it's a kinda nice thing to go to sleep by."
Goniff snorted a laugh. "If y' can sleep, y'mean!'
"Ah, the Gymnopedies." The con man sighed. "One of my favorites."
They listened for several minutes as the music drifted across the compound from the private wing. There was a pause at the end of the piece and they could all imagine the Warden sorting through the sheet music at his disposal before he started in again.
Actor shifted on his cot. "I don't believe I recognize that piece."
"Nocturne." The group's explosives expert supplied. "Mendelssohn."
"But I am familiar with Mendelsosohn and I am sure…" The cultured Italian started.
"The sister." Casino insisted.
"His sister composed? Are you certain?"
"'Course."
They could almost hear the skin folding into creases on Actor's forehead as he frowned.
"Casino?" The question hung in the warm darkness.
"Sisters. Remember? Three of 'em…." Casino chuckled. "And every one of 'em got piano lessons."
Actor smiled at the pride in the safecracker's voice. He knew Casino and his older brother had been responsible for the continuation of those lessons through a very stressful period of time in the family, even if their methods of obtaining the funds had been somewhat…questionable. And then he remembered… "You mentioned that your youngest brother played the violin…. Did you ever…?"
"Jeeze! Are you kiddin?!" And then he let out a belly laugh. "Ma tried. But can you imagine me? Me!?" The cot creaked as the east cost con shifted onto his side and propped his head on his hand. The music changed and Casino called out the title and the composer without missing a beat. "My first lesson…. Marcus showed up and started mouthin' off just as Ma was showin' me how to hold the bow." He snorted. "I ended up breaking the damn thing over his head!"
The other men in the room laughed.
"Blimey! What'd she do t'you?"
The cot creaked as the safe cracker shrugged. "Nuthin' Pop said it'd probably be better t' get me boxin' lessons anyway."
The music continued and a breeze finally found it's way in the window. As the room cooled, one by one, the men gradually dropped off to sleep.
g
Garrison tapped the music into an orderly stack and settled it back into its box and replaced the box on the shelf. He carefully let the fall down over the keys and then lowered the lid, taking a moment to buff his fingerprints from the shinning surface. He crossed the room and flipped the switch to turn the lights off. Thumbing the flashlight on he made his way back across the room turned the flashlight off and swept the blackout curtains back revealing a set of open French doors. He'd opened them when he arrived in hopes of cooling the room but the blackout curtains had defeated the slight breeze that was just rising from the west.
Rather than returning to the military section of the house through the hallways of the over heated mansion he made his way across the back terrace towards the main wing. A bright full moon was just rising and lit his way. He stopped and took a deep breath, with the breeze the temperature was finally dropping. Craig tipped his head back and enjoyed the sensation of cool air moving across his face. When he opened his eyes again he caught sight of the open window to the men's dormitory. The moonlight was bright enough that he could see it glinting off the suit of armor standing in the corner of the room….
Garrison enter the house through the kitchen in the basement and made his way upstairs fully intent on reading the men the riot act over breaking blackout regulations by leaving the curtains open over the window. It was hot. He understood that. They wanted the window open. He understood that too. But one wrong sleep-befuddled move and that open, curtain-less, window could become a beacon for a German bomber.
Craig turned the flashlight he carried off and got used to the darkness in the hallway before he opened the door. He stood on the threshold and surveyed the occupants soundly asleep in their beds. And just as he opened his mouth to start his lecture he spotted the pile of light bulbs scattered across the table that sat in the middle of the room. Even the flashlights that usually sat next to each man's bed were there.
He meekly backed out and shut the door. Turning for his room he shook his head and smiled, glad that he hadn't just barreled through the door and made a fool of himself by haranguing the men for being careless. It looked like they were actually developing a sense of responsibility after all.
He hadn't used the flashlight on the short trip up the hall as the route was well known to him so his eyes were fully adapted to the dark when he opened his door. He slapped at the light switch on the wall in an instinctive response to the level of light in the room but a moment later realized it was just the bright moonlit night outside his own open, curtain-less, window. He made a quick survey of the room that was rapidly cooling in the evening breeze and found them.
There was a pile of light bulbs on his small bedside table too...