The Book of Hours (15 page)

“This man says he has permission to dig a trench in my front garden!”

Joe Eaves had the twinkling eyes and ever-present smile of a jester. “Lovely morning for a bit of yard work, your lordship.”

Brian surveyed the gouge Joe was in the process of digging in the earth and demanded, “What's going on here?”

“Mr. Seade thought it might dress up the place to put in a line of shrubbery.”

“Dress up the place!” Cecilia was so angry she literally spluttered. “Dress up . . . How about maybe starting with repairing the hole in my roof? The one I told him about last year!”

“I didn't agree to anything like this,” Brian declared.

“Well, sir, I suppose Mr. Seade thought since he was both paying and buying, it'd be all right to do a bit of work around here.”

“Well, it's not.” Brian heard Trevor and Arthur coming up behind him, but kept his gaze fastened upon the sweating young man. “So please fill the hole back in.”

A glint of something hard emerged deep within the smiling eyes. “But Mr. Seade specifically ordered me—”

“This is not Mr. Seade's property,” Brian snapped. He could not tell which angered him more, the man's lackadaisical attitude or the way he had upset Cecilia. “So pack up your tools and leave.”

“Mr. Seade won't be liking this, sir. Very particular about having people follow his orders, Mr. Seade is.”

Cecilia snorted. Brian replied, “Now.”

“I'd be watching how I cross the man,” Joe Eaves warned, the smile slipping away. “He's got the right to push you out sudden or easy, mind.”

“As a matter of fact,” Brian added, taking mild pleasure from seeing behind that smile. “I don't want you coming back on the property at all.”

“That is,” Cecilia snapped, “unless it's to repair my roof!”

Joe Eaves gave him a speculative glance. Brian found himself stiffening in response. Then the grin returned to all but his eyes, and he hefted all his tools before turning to Cecilia and saying, “I wouldn't be paying your roof too much mind, miss doctor lady.” He dumped the tools in the back of his truck, climbed in behind the wheel, ground the starter, and finished, “Not since Mr. Seade's already booked the 'dozer to come in next Friday and level the place.”

Brian watched the truck depart through the main gates, feeling no triumph whatsoever from the exchange. Cecilia seemed equally dispirited as she said, “I suppose I should thank you.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Arthur agreed. “I never did care for the chap.”

She glanced at her watch and declared, “I have to be getting to the clinic. It's my Saturday half-day.”

Trevor called after her, “Ready for tonight, dear?”

To Brian's eye, Cecilia's entire frame seemed to shudder slightly before she said, “I'll be there.”

Brian offered, “Show me where the leak is tomorrow, and I'll put a sheet of plywood in to fix the roof at least temporarily.”

She turned and rewarded him with a from-the-heart gaze. But her voice was tragic. “I suppose it really doesn't matter.”

“It matters a lot,” Brian replied.

When she had disappeared inside the rose-covered cottage,Trevor touched Brian's arm and said, “We really must be off.”

The church charity shop's bowed front windows remained the focal point of a gaggle of ladies and young girls. Which was why, when the vicar pushed through the door and bid the volunteers a good day and then proceeded to crawl into the display area, a stir enveloped the gathering on the window's other side. Brian slid in beside him; then the two helped Arthur ease himself down and in. But the real clamor began when Brian showed them how the roof and the top floor lifted off.

“That's as far as I got,” Brian said, carefully setting down the top stages.

“If the top goes, then so should the rest,” Arthur said.

“Look here,” Trevor exclaimed, pressing his cheek to the dusty display platform. “There is a three-inch base here below the level of the first floor.”

“Of course.” Arthur's creaky joints made hard going of getting down to eye level with the base, but he managed. “The front stairs rise a good eight feet to the level of the ground floor.”

Brian tried to ignore the little faces jumping up and down and pointing at him from four feet away. “What exactly are we looking for here?”

“A secret passage,” Arthur said impatiently. “Now do be a good fellow and help me lift.”

A woman's voice approached from behind them. “Can I help you with something,Vicar?”

“Oh, Mrs. Feathers, yes, of course, you must be wondering.” The vicar did not turn from assisting Brian and Arthur as they unloaded all the furniture and fittings from the next floor. “Mr. Blackstone here has received another riddle from Heather.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A riddle, Mrs. Feathers. A conundrum.”

“From Heather Harding? But Vicar, she's dead.”

“Yes, we are well aware of that fact, Mrs. Feathers. Heather set Brian here a series of puzzles. Arthur was good enough to bring me in on the chase. And chase it is, since we only have a few days left to solve them.” Trevor squinted down into the now-empty rooms. “Has my vision started to fail, or is the light going bad in here?”

“It's the people,” Arthur complained. “The crowd is clogging up the window.”

“Mrs. Feathers, would you be so good as to shoo all those ladies away?”

“Shoo the . . . Vicar, you must be joking.”

“Well, do be a dear and see if you can find us a torch. There must be one somewhere.” He turned to Brian. “Do you see anything?”

“The rooms seem laid out exactly as I remember.” Brian poked a finger into a windowless box. “Right down to the little chamber where I found the dollhouse.”

“We might have been wrong to concentrate on the cellar, after all. Darkness could refer to another such windowless room,” Trevor mused. “Very well, let's lift up the next segment. All together now.”

Three sets of hands pulled off the next floor, and the little girls outside danced harder still. They searched and unpacked and then unsheathed the ground floor, by which time the deck around them was littered with miniature sofas and upholstered chairs and fainting couches and dressing tables and dining room pieces and sideboards and postage-stamp-size Persian carpets and even a pair of Siamese kittens and an intricately carved West Highland terrier.

But the ground floor refused to budge. It was only after they had used the flashlight supplied by Mrs. Feathers and searched every inch for another secret room, then tilted the base on its side, that Trevor and Arthur shouted together, “There it is!”

There at the bottom segment's southern wall was another set of stairs—leading downward and away from the house. Trevor said, “Of course, a subbasement.”

“These old houses were often riddled with layer after layer of tunnels and vaulted chambers,” Arthur agreed.

“But we searched that wall,” Brian pointed out. “It was as tight as a drum.”

“It was also the most recently constructed.” Trevor slid out of the front area, then reached down to help Arthur to his feet. “What we need to do is search around outside the house, making a wider circle than we did before, and see if there is another way down.” As they were leaving the shop, Trevor turned back to the openmouthed woman and said, “Mrs. Feathers, would you be so kind as to put the house back together for us?”

It was only as they reentered the front gates of Castle Keep that Brian recalled, “Didn't you have a lot to do today?”

The question only spurred Trevor to greater speed. “Never mind that now. Which side of the house was it?”

“South,” Arthur said, holding his own to the pace the vicar set. “I say, perhaps it's out by where the old butler's house used to stand.”

He led them to a clump of overgrown ruins lying alongside the manor's boundary wall. Two stubby brick fingers rose to indicate where the chimneys had once stood. The three men separated and began kicking about the rubble, until Arthur cried out, “Here we are, lads!”

Brian and Trevor rushed over to where Arthur was tossing bricks and debris off a rusted metal lid. When they had cleared away the rubbish, they stood upon a metal cover five feet square and perhaps a quarter-inch thick. Trevor started scouting around, saying impatiently, “We need a rod or a crowbar to shift that thing.”

“I'll go get us a torch,” Arthur said, hustling off.

“There are some old tools by the stable,” Brian said, racing in the other direction.

He returned with a rusted hoe and a pickax. Together he and Trevor huffed and puffed and finally managed to shift the steel plate over far enough for Arthur to point the flashlight, peer down, and cry, “Success!”

This was enough for Brian and Trevor to redouble their efforts and finally slide the plate over far enough to reveal steep stairs worn to treacherous curves. Trevor took the flashlight, squatted down low, and said, “I'll light your way; you'll need both hands to grip the walls.”

“Take care there, lad,” Arthur cautioned.

The steps seemed to go on forever. Brian took them at a wary pace, pressing his hands tight against each wall, testing each stair in turn. The flashlight's beam was reduced to a feeble glow far overhead. He continued on mostly by feel until the next step broadened beneath his foot, and the wall to his right opened into pitch blackness. He started back up to where he could see the hand holding the light and called, “Drop the flashlight down.”

“Here we go,” Trevor called, his voice echoing off distant walls.

Brian caught the descending light, then gingerly made his way back down to the cellar. The beam illuminated a low-ceilinged chamber with something long and lumpy beneath a yellowed drop cloth. Brian stepped over, gripped one corner of the canvas, and tossed it aside. Instantly the air was clogged with clouds of dust. It was only when he could stop sneezing and hacking that he realized the two men were shouting down at him. Brian made his way back over to the stairs, and with streaming eyes he looked up to the tiny square of daylight.

Arthur's voice echoed down. “What is it, lad?”

Brian pointed the flashlight back to what lay revealed. “I've found Heather's wings.”

Fifteen

I
T WAS DEFINITELY A VERY GOOD THING FOR ALL CONCERNED
that there were no emergencies during her Saturday morning clinic. Cecilia saw to three elderly patients who needed medication and blood pressure monitoring, two young men mildly damaged by a Friday pub brawl, a pair of fretting babies, and an asthma patient who needed an increased dose of summer medication. Yet all the while, a portion of her mind remained occupied by what was to come that evening. The closer the hour drew, the less she could believe that she had ever agreed to stand up in front of a crowd of people, no matter what the reason.

As she locked the clinic door behind her, Cecilia was suddenly struck by a welcome memory. She found herself recalling the terror of her medical exams and the way she had prepared. Her walk back through the market square became rapid, her focus tight. A voice called to her, but she did not even bother to respond. She knew now what she had to do.

The day had turned surprisingly warm. Cecilia passed a trio of girls skipping in and out of the pillars of sunlight without noting them. She did not even hear one of the girls greet Cecilia with the news that her mother was feeling much better, nor the giggles that followed her as she exited the lane and passed through the manor's entrance.

She let herself into the cottage, put on the kettle, and piled the vicar's books and pamphlets on her kitchen table. She pulled out a pad and a trio of multicolored pens, made a cup of coffee, and seated herself. Until now she had been attempting to treat this upcoming talk as if it were a normal part of her everyday life. But there was nothing normal about it. She had accepted the task, and no matter how much she might dread the prospect, she had to prepare. She would make herself ready, just as she had for all those despised exams.

She was not a good speaker, and she tended to come across stiff and jerky. She knew this. The last time she had spoken in public was for her medical license's oral exams. Her answer for the panic she had felt then had been to prepare so well that her knowledge showed through, despite her poor presentation. It was the only answer here as well. Cecilia opened the first book and got to work.

The hours passed in a flurry of concentrated effort. The outside world dimmed to where not even the roar of machinery in the manor's front yard disturbed her. The clanking of metal, the shouts of voices, the calls of people, the driving back and forth through the front gates—none of it reached her. She sat and she read and she wrote. She practiced phrases, she spoke passages aloud to hear how they sounded. And as she had hoped, the grind kept her fear mostly at bay.

At the sound of heavy equipment rumbling along the manor drive, Brian raced down the stairs and out the front entrance. A huge man in his sixties stepped down from the tow truck and demanded, “Mr. Blackstone?”

“That's right. You must be Bill Wilke.”

“The one and only.” He was an odd-looking man, not much shorter than Brian but double his weight, big and muscled and fit despite his years. He was dressed in coveralls of denim blue and had bright red cheeks and a graying walrus mustache. He swallowed Brian's hand in a grip like a greasy catcher's mitt. “Vicar tells me you've got yourself a right mess.” He looked behind Brian and nodded. “Hello, Arthur.”

“You're looking well, Bill.”

“Can't complain. Well, I could, but my wife stopped paying me any mind years ago.” He started kicking around the grass by the drive and muttered, “Now where is that ruddy thing.”

Brian pointed toward the south wall. “The stairs are over here.”