PUB CLOSING TIME WAS PAST AND THE CATHEDRAL CLOCK CHIMED THE half of an undisclosed hour. In murky light, two male figures could just be made out emerging through the late April mist from the alley at the back of the abbey of England’s first martyr, in St. Albans. One was carrying a Gladstone bag, and, like phantoms, they crossed the street known as Holywell Hill. The other drew keys from his coat pocket and opened the door to a pottery shop. Not a soul was in sight and, unwitnessed, they entered the building and switched off the alarm, keeping the interior dark.

In the dimness it was possible to make out that the room was furnished with round tables—each grouped with chairs, a set of paint pots, and brushes for potters to decorate plates or other pieces, before they were fired in the kiln. The door and windows at the front of the shop had been replaced—perhaps in the last hundred years. They admitted a degree of yellowish light, and potentially exposed the room to any passerby along Holywell Hill.

On the left side of the front door was a desk and cash register, while a door at the rear opened into another passage and, possibly, further rooms behind the wall. Along this wall were three sets of freestanding stripped pine shelves, laden with unglazed pottery awaiting artistic inspiration. And behind these shelves ran an unbroken wall of fine, eighteenth-century wood paneling, which a flashlight, switched on for a moment, revealed to be of a mellow, honeyed color. It was this paneling, more than anything else, that attracted the intruders’ interest.

The two men turned their full attention to this wall and, working in silence with systematic efficiency, quickly cleared the shelves, neatly piling their contents onto the tables. The street lighting gave an eerie incandescence to their work, throwing strange shadows onto the panels. The shelves cleared, they carefully pulled the dressers back from the paneling and employed them as a screen, so that they appeared unremarkable to the outside world, while effectively concealing the movement behind them.

Now they removed their coats and placed them over the backs of the units to block out any light that might throw their movements into relief. A laser flashlight was switched on again, and a neatly rolled pack of tools was unfurled from the Gladstone. This was placed on the floor along with another small laser flashlight and a solid rubber-headed mallet. Both men donned gloves; neither spoke; the taller of the two kept a careful watch on the outside world.