Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] (22 page)

“But you
sneaked
in here with the maids, that’s what you just said. You aren’t allowed in here any more than the dogs are,” Simon said with sudden insight. “How did you manage to get the key from Dearborn? Because
that
you didn’t say.”

“I never gave it back last night, silly. I only pretended to, and you believed me. Even if I begged, Dearborn would no more give me the key than he would serve dinner in his nightcap. You have a lot to learn about being devious, Simon.”

“I’m convinced you’ll teach me,” he responded dryly. “What’s that dog up to now?”

Kate took one look, called out the dog’s name and went racing across the drawing room. “If you dare to lift your leg against that wall, I promise you I’ll—”

She jumped back, squealing, as Tubby began to bark, digging at a hole that clearly had been chewed through the ornate baseboard. “Blast it! Mouse!”

Simon laughed. “She’s frightened of a mouse? Oh, how will I ever move beyond this disappointment. She isn’t perfect.”

She shot him a darkling look even as she hastily lowered her divided riding skirt, as if now confident the mouse wouldn’t run up it to give her a bite on the nose, or some such thing. “I’m not afraid of mice. It simply startled me, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it to poke its head out at me. Now, where did it go?”

“If Tubby’s interest is any indication, friend rodent is now safely back inside the wall.”

“Well. Good. That’s where it belongs.” She leaned down to grab hold of the dog’s collar. “Come on, Tubby, time for you to leave.”

“How big were its teeth?” Simon asked, approaching the wall.

“What? It was a mouse, Simon, not a fire-breathing dragon. Besides, I didn’t notice. I mostly saw two eyes and a pink, wiggling nose.”

As Kate began pulling a reluctant-to-leave Tubby away, Simon got down on his haunches in front of the hole. He knocked on the wall several times, and then stuck his fingers into the mouse hole. “A-ha.”

“A-ha? What do you mean,
a-ha?
” Now Kate was hunkered down beside him, with Tubby still being held back. “Don’t put your fingers in there!”

He took hold of her arm. “Stand up, Kate, and step back.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Do you have any idea how I loathe taking orders? If you’ve found something,
tell
me.”

Simon got to his feet, brushing his hands together to rid the right one of any dust. “All right, since you asked so nicely. One, mice have sharp teeth, but it would probably take a dozen of them years to chew through a heavy baseboard such as the one in front of us.”

“Well, they did have the time,” Kate said consideringly. “Nobody’s lived here in—in
ever,
I suppose. Our grandfather had it built after the original one burned down. I told you that, didn’t I?”

“Another fire.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “Meaning?”

“I have no idea. It only seems coincidental, I suppose. If someone needs something gone, a fire is as good as anything else.”

“Do you want to know more, or not? That one, the first dower house, had been a good distance away from the Manor itself, I understand. Our grandfather had the remains razed and there’s a foaling stable there now, built right on top of the original foundation. Oh, I’m sorry. You were educating me on rodent teeth?”

He put the thought of coincidental fires—hellfires—from his mind, to return to the problems of the present. “And baseboards, yes. This one is no more than two inches thick at its base. Considering its ornate design, all the layers of wood it takes to create such an intricate pattern?”

“Allow me to hazard a guess. It should be thicker.”

“Yes. Layers. But this area is carved out of a single thickness of wood, just meant to appear to be layers. An entire section here is probably thinner, lighter, easy to slide behind the rest of the wall, or move in some way. Clever.”

Kate was practically dancing in place. “So you’re saying we’ve found it. A secret panel. You know, I always hoped it would be a secret panel. And that I’d find it, not Tubby. Because that’s why you’re knocking on the wall again, yes? The journals are directly behind this panel? Could it be this easy?”

“Or this logical. This isn’t a dower house, Kate. It’s a...” He struggled to find the right words.
Brothel? House of Pleasure? The Devil’s Playing Ground?
“I can’t believe this wasn’t the first place everyone looked.”

Kate jammed her fists against her hips. “That’s because no one was looking, except for me, and
they
asked me to before one of them must have realized I might somehow manage to trick Dearborn out of the key and come in here, so Valentine was sent to distract me.
And,
for your information,
your lordship,
Valentine did look in here. He searched it top to bottom the very first day he arrived at the Manor. Thoroughly. Right after he told me if I dared to attempt to go inside, he’d make my life a living horror.”

She left her arms drop to her sides. “And then he left, and here we are. He probably forgot he and I had long ago found the key. Satisfied now?”

“Valentine searched the building?”

“Isn’t that what I just said? He did, and with his two paper-skulled dogs along with him.” She finally smiled. “Clearly not mousers, are they, Tubby,” she said, bending down to scratch behind Tubby’s ears. “Good dog. Good, good dog.”

While Kate was speaking, Simon was running his hands over the thick wooden panels decorating the wall. It wouldn’t be anything too obvious, the mechanism that opened the wall, and nothing that could be easily activated by mistake, such as a maid cleaning a wall sconce with too much enthusiasm.

“In fact,” he said to himself, turning to look at the rest of the room, “it might not be here at all.”

That remark seemed to serve to clear Kate’s mind of anything but the project at hand. “You mean you’re wrong? For goodness’ sakes, Simon, and here I was, all hot to tell Valentine he missed something so
obvious.
”

“Move,” Simon ordered shortly.

She did as he asked, this time without hesitation or argument. “You think there’s some sort of mechanism beneath the carpet? But the footmen take the carpets outside once a year, to beat them. Surely they would have noticed a
mechanism.
”

“You’re right.” Simon rubbed at his chin, once again inspecting their surroundings. There had to be something, or else his conclusion about the baseboard was incorrect. But it couldn’t be. He’d felt cooler air against his fingers as he’d stuck them inside the hole. Why would there be cool air, when the drawing room should be backed by another room. At least the architecture dictated that, and the line of building and windows that stretched much farther than this room. No, it was all a matter of locating the damn trigger.

Fireplace? Too obvious. Chandeliers? A ladder would be necessary to reach any of them. Mirrors? Paintings? Again, a conscientious maid might discover the mechanism simply by cleaning either framed piece. Moving a certain book in a bookshelf? Except there were no books or bookcases in this room.

What else was there that wouldn’t be dusted or lifted or in some way moved?

Think, Ravenbill! She’s searching on her own now. If she finds the damn trigger before you do, you’ll never hear the end of it! But this wasn’t a contest, not at the heart of it. They should be working together, as a team.

“It doesn’t move,” Kate said, tugging on one of the pair of ornate sconces flanking the nearby fireplace. “I suppose that would have been too easy, in any event. Do you know what I think, Simon? I think we need simply to tear it down. I mean, who cares how it works? We just need to bash it to pieces and get inside.”

A pair of sconces. Two. A team...

“Stay where you are, Kate,” he said as she was clearly eager to go searching for sledgehammers. He walked to the other end of the large fireplace and put his hands on the matching sconce. He gave it a pull. Nothing happened. “Now we do it again, but this time we do it together. On the count of three. One...two...
three.
”

Both sconces tipped forward. There was a clicking sound, and a four-foot-wide panel moved backward at least six inches, then slid to the left, disappearing behind the rest of the wall.

Kate let go of the sconce. “Oh, my God! Simon, we found it. We found it!”

And they had. Unfortunately, the moment Kate let go, the wall slid shut once more.

“It has to be both of us, at the same time,” Simon concluded. “The baseboard is thinner so that the panel can easily slide behind the wall. Clever. The real trick, however, is in getting the panel to remain open.”

“No one person could do it, could he?” Kate asked. “If the sconces must be depressed in unison. Do you suppose then a third person somehow then props open the panel?”

“Too crude, after all this intricacy.” Simon shook his head as he paced up and down in front of the fireplace. “Two is a shared secret, the highest honor to be bestowed by the Master. Three, as in most associations, would be unmanageable. Then again, if it takes two, it would be impossible to act without each other, unless a third was brought in, which clearly wasn’t the plan. I imagine the two would be the Master and the Keeper, or in other words, your father and Adam’s, and before them, your grandfather and whoever was the Keeper when he was alive. There would be absolute trust between them, as well as a subtle reminder that he who attempted to act alone would fail in any case. The devil’s honor, I suppose.”

He stopped and looked at the figurines on the mantelpiece. “Wait a moment. Let’s try something, Kate. These brass figurines lining the mantelpiece. They have to play into all of this in some way. Ah, Eros and Aphrodite. The god of...desire,” he improvised quickly, “along with the goddess of pleasure and eternal youth, among other things.”
Such as the patron of prostitutes....

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a man of many talents, Kate, including the ability to read. All the names are engraved on each base.”

She peered at the dozen statutes, one by one. “Chaos, the Void. Nemesis, Retribution. Tartarus, the Abyss. Gaia, the Earth. Erebus, Darkness. Nyx, the Night. Thanatos, Death, Apate, Deceit, Hypnos, Sleep, Moros, Doom. Eros,
Carnal
Desire—more than you said, Simon. And Aphrodite.” She turned to look at him. “Why did you first say Eros and Aphrodite?”

“As I recall the thing, many believe them to be mother and son. Some of the rest of them could go together in various ways, but these two seem most obvious for your grandfather’s purpose. Pick one up, Kate.”

They each picked up one of the statuettes, Kate still puzzled, Simon praying he’d see what he hoped to see. And there it was: an opening in the back of the surprisingly heavy piece. He lifted the statute of Chaos, just to make certain he was correct. There was an opening in the back, but it had been cut in an entirely different shape. Hypnos also had a hole cut into its back, and that was cut in yet a third shape. Each also was a different weight. Unless he was right, they could be here all afternoon until they discovered the correct combination of gods.

“Simon? There’s an opening in—”

He was truly excited now. “Yes, now let’s hope I’ve chosen the correct pair. Go back to face your sconce. All right. Now look closely—feel behind the candleholders. We should be hunting something to hang them on. Ah, I’ve got it. Do you feel the hook, Kate? Behind the middle holder.”

Her smile was part triumph, part terror.

“I do. We hang the gods at the same time, don’t we?”

“On the count of three, yes.”

She bit her bottom lip between her teeth, and nodded.

This time, when they let go, the panel remained open.

“A combination of weights and pulleys attached to the panel, I’d say,” Simon told her as, together, they peered into the darkness. “Looks to be a set of stairs. I’d like you to remain here, Kate, while I investigate.”

“I’m sure you would. I’d like any number of things, but we can’t always have what we— Tubby! Come back here!”

But the dog, who had seen too many years and too many good dinners, was clearly feeling young and spry and hot to catch himself a mouse, kept going, disappearing down the dark staircase.

“Stupid dog. He’ll go tumbling and break his stupid head. Tubby! Simon! Candles, we need candles,” Kate said, even as Simon was employing a tinderbox on a small candelabra. “Hurry! This is all my fault. I should have put him outside immediately.” She was already on the dark landing.

So much for keeping Kate upstairs; if I leave her here, she’ll only follow, and I can’t close the panel on my own.

“Just let me go first with the candles,” he said, and stepped onto the short landing ahead of the marble steps. He took his time, Kate’s hands on his shoulders, their major accompaniment the sizzle of generations of cobwebs succumbing to candle flame.

What would they find? The journals, lined up row by row, decade by decade? Clearly that’s what Kate assumed they’d see, believing the Society met for its other functions upstairs, in the drawing room and other rooms in the dower house.

But Simon knew the contents of his brother’s letter, his confession of the terrible things he’d done. If the beginnings of the Society were here, then what lay behind this door had to be at least somewhat a mirror of the chamber Holbrook had described.

Tubby was at the bottom of the staircase now, trapped in a small foyer, facing a closed door and barking a demand for entrance. The stairwell itself, the door in front of them, had been crafted as well as anything else Simon had seen since entering the dower house. A small chandelier hung over their heads, festooned in cobwebs.

“We’re about to see the journals, Simon. How can you simply stand there? Try the latch,” Kate suggested rather obviously as she patted at her head, as if worried about more cobwebs.

“Yes, I never would have thought of that. Should I also pray it doesn’t require a key?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Simon, how can you stand there and joke when—” She took the candles from him and pushed past him to open the door, take several steps inside. “No, no. This isn’t real. It can’t be real.”