The Book of Hours (28 page)

He inserted the screwdriver between the boards, pushed, and the board slipped up into his hands. He stopped and looked up at Cecilia, whose eyes were so comically round that he had to grin and ask, “Don't you need to be getting to work?”

She gripped the flashlight with both hands and cried, “I'm going to have a seriously afflicted patient on my hands right here if you don't get a move on!”

He turned back and pulled up another board. The next ones came with hard tugs of his hands, and soon the opening was large enough for him to take the flashlight from Cecilia, peer down, and exclaim, “There's a ladder!”

“You go first and check for creepy-crawlies,” Cecilia instructed, crowding in behind him.

Gingerly he tested the ladder, which was good, because the first step cracked and gave before he had placed half his weight on it. “The wood is rotten.”

“How deep is it?”

Brian pulled himself out. “Hold my legs.” He slipped his head and shoulders through the opening and shone the flashlight downward.

Below was a shallow hold floored with grimy close-cut stone. “It's only about eight feet down.”

Brian gripped the boards as tightly as he could, and with Cecilia offering extra support to his upper arms, he started sliding downward. When he was at full stretch, he released his hold and dropped to the floor. The stones were so slippery that he instantly lost his footing and fell with a clatter.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” But his head was thumping from the fall. He pushed himself erect, set his feet as best he could, then reached up and said, “Okay, easy does it.”

Cecilia first handed him the flashlight and waited until he had set it on the floor before sliding through the opening, legs first. He helped her down, waited until she was certain of her footing, then picked up the flashlight. As soon as he had glanced about, he knew.

“This is it,” Cecilia said, her voice trembling. “Isn't it?”

Brian found himself unable to do more than nod.

Thirty-one

“H
ERE
.” C
ECILIA HANDED DOWN A SMALL SHOVEL AND THE
screwdriver. “Help me down again.”

Brian found pleasure in letting her slip through his hands. He steadied her on the slippery flooring, then found himself unable to release her. “What took you so long?”

Her smile had a way of recasting her features into younger lines, as though the little girl she had once been remained there just below the surface, eager to be set free. “I had to call the office. I told them I was coming down with a case of the never-get-overs. Which isn't all that far off. I'm so excited I think I might be sick.”

“Grab that screwdriver and come help me.”

“What are we looking for?”

“I don't have any idea.” He kept his hands outstretched as he half walked, half slid across the mossy floor. It was more like gliding on ice than walking. The walls were even more overgrown than the floors. He scraped the shovel across the wall, and the dank goo rolled back like ice cream in a scoop. “Anything that might suggest an—”

He was halted by the shovel clanking over some protrusion. Cecilia gingerly made her way over to stand beside him. She took the flashlight so he could use both hands on the shovel. First an iron ring was revealed, then a wooden cover about three feet square. So excited his breath sounded like bellows in his own ears, Brian chipped away at the moss and grime around the cover's edges. He watched as Cecilia slipped the screwdriver through the ring. His voice sounded hoarse as he said, “Brace your foot where the floor meets the wall. Okay. Ready? On three. One, two, pull!”

The cover groaned, shifted, then popped out like a cork from a bottle. They released the screwdriver and let it fall with a resounding clap to the stone floor. Brian shone the flashlight down a long, stone-lined tunnel, and suggested, “Maybe I should go down there alone.”

“Not on your life.” She pushed him eagerly. “Hurry!”

The tunnel was as fetid and grubby as the cellar. With every crawl forward, his hands and knees sank in a boggy mire inches thick. The one advantage to the cold was that it lessened the smell. Or so he tried to convince himself. Brian tried to keep from thinking what might have grown in the centuries of icy grime. But Cecilia did not complain as she followed behind, so he pushed on in silence.

Twenty feet forward, however, he halted with a groan. Cecilia demanded, “What's the matter?”

“Dead end.” He felt the edges, pushed hard, could only moan in defeat, “A stone wall.”

“I thought we were headed toward the property's border,” she said. “We must be below the estate's outer wall.”

“We'll have to back out,” he said. “I don't have room to turn around.”

The return trip seemed ages longer. The frigid goo worked its way up his trouser legs with each backward shuffle. Brian had long since lost feeling in the tips of his fingers. With vast relief his feet finally slipped over the edge of the opening. Brian eased himself upright and banged on the floor with one foot, then the other, to work the crud out from around his shins. His socks and shoes were filled with sludge. He turned the flashlight back to the cellar and observed, “You look like you've crossed the Everglades on your hands and knees.”

“Never mind that.” Shovel in hand, Cecilia was already sliding her way across to the opposite wall. “Shine that light over here.”

“What are you looking for?”

She paused long enough to give him a look reserved for extremely dumb questions, then began scraping long swaths down the mire-encrusted wall. Brian hefted the screwdriver and went over to help.

On her sixth sweep, something clanked beneath Cecilia's shovel. Eagerly they attacked the wall. This time, the aperture was larger, beginning at the floor and rising almost four feet high.

Brian found himself too breathless to speak as he slipped the screwdriver through the ring and waited as Cecilia gripped the other end and wedged her foot against the wall. She nodded, and together they pulled. The door did not budge. They took a firmer grip, nodded again, and heaved.

The portal creaked and groaned and fell with a resounding boom. Brian sent the light cascading down the tunnel, then turned back to her grime-streaked face. “This is incredible.”

“Go on, go on,” she cried, pushing and prodding him impatiently through the door. Cecilia stepped in behind him, keeping one hand on his back and walking so close he could hear her excited breathing.

The tunnel was tight and fetid, but rose to a stone-lined peak so that Brian could angle his shoulders and walk upright. On and on it went, making two narrow turnings, and finally ending before another door. This one took several hard punches from both their shoulders before finally groaning open. When it gave, it spilled Brian onto the dusty floor. The flashlight clattered from his hand and rolled across the stones. His head began thundering from the rough treatment, and he was slow rising to his feet. By the time he was upright, Cecilia had picked up the light and walked to the chamber's far end.

“What is it?” She did not look up. All he could see through the gloom was the top of her head and the grime in her hair. “Cecilia?”

When she raised her gaze, it was to reveal wonder-filled eyes. She breathed, “Come over here.”

Thirty-two

S
TILL IN HIS PAJAMAS AND HOUSE SLIPPERS
, A
RTHUR OPENED
his front door, took in their grimy forms, and immediately realized, “You've found it!”

Gladys's voice echoed from the kitchen, “Found what, dear?”

“Call Trevor,” Brian said.

“Put on your oldest clothes,” Cecilia added.

“And we need a ladder,” Brian said.

Gladys appeared in her robe, gaped at them, and demanded, “Whose pigsty have you been rolling around in?”

“Never mind that,” Arthur barked and headed back down the hallway to the phone. He picked up the receiver and began stabbing at the phone. “Whose bright idea was it to make the numbers so small only a child can dial?”

“Let me do that, dear.” Gladys hurried back to join her husband. As she dialed, she cast another doubtful glance to where they waited in the doorway. “I'm afraid I can't invite you in.”

“No problem,” Brian assured her. “But I'd love a cup of tea.”

“Trevor? Hello, it's Gladys. I'm sorry to bother you so early, but Brian and Cecilia are standing in my doorway dripping the most horrid green slime all over—”

“Here, give me that.” Arthur took the receiver and shouted, “We've got an emergency on our hands! Get over here fast!”

Then he slammed the receiver down.

Gladys protested, “No need to be rude, dear.”

“Nonsense.” He gave one and all a fierce grin. “I merely gave him a neat summing up. Now, where are my galoshes?”

“In the cupboard, where they always are.” To Brian and Cecilia she inquired, “Are you hungry?”

“Starved.”

“I'll put on the kettle and make some toast.” She hurried away. “Don't you dare come any farther.”

Arthur's head popped out of the back room. “Percy and his assistant stayed over last night at the Red Lion Inn so they could continue with the cataloging this morning. Should we give them a call?”

Brian felt the dried mud on his face crack as he smiled. “Absolutely.”

Gladys objected, “Shouldn't we find out what all the fuss is about before we go waking up the entire world?”

“Nonsense!” Arthur was busy crashing drawers and doors in his bedroom. “One look at their faces tells you everything you need to know!”

Gladys seated them in the foyer and fed them bacon sandwiches and mugs of steaming tea until Percy and Gerald and Trevor and Molly clattered down the drive. It was only when Brian rose back to his feet that he realized just how weary he was and how much his head hurt.

“My dear boy,” Arthur observed, “You've gone all green.”

“It was that bacon,” Gladys fretted. “The butcher assured me it was fresh.”

“I'm fine,” Brian said. “Just tired.”

“Then we'd best be off,” Arthur declared, marshaling his troops. “Here,Trevor, give me a hand with this ladder.”

Together they marched down the drive. At the turning to Rose Cottage, however, Cecilia halted Brian with a touch on his arm and the words, “Look who's by the gates.”

Standing just outside the entrance to his property, Hardy Seade fumed alongside a butter-yellow Bentley. Brian called out, “Get out of here, or I'll call the police.”

Hardy Seade stiffened as though slapped. “This road is public property!”

“Then I'll have you arrested for loitering,” Brian shouted, his pulse punching hard knots of pain through his forehead.

The man's face went purple as he shouted through the gates, “What utter nonsense are you talking about now?”

“Come on, you lot,” Arthur pressed. “He's a nuisance and nothing more.”

“I heard that!” The man was almost dancing in place. “Tomorrow morning you'll see how much of a nuisance I can be! Mark my words, this time tomorrow you'll all be on the street where you belong!”

As they trooped through the front door of Rose Cottage, Brian caught sight of Hardy giving the Bentley's fender a savage kick.

The kitchen seemed overly cramped with all of them inside. Brian and Arthur manhandled the ladder into place, then with Gerald holding the top, they made their way down into the stone-lined cellar. Five flashlights flickered and scattered light about the grime and gloom. Gerald was the last down, and he instantly pulled a camera from his pocket and began flashing pictures.

When Percy walked over to the smaller opening and peered inside, Brian warned, “You're going to ruin that nice suit of yours.”

“It's all I brought with me from London.” The words bounced and echoed about the stone cubicle. “Never mind. Where to?”

“This way.” Brian led them down the taller tunnel, feeling the thrill tighten his chest all over again. They entered the chamber, and Brian turned back to watch their expressions as they passed through the ancient portal. To his immense satisfaction, Percy and Gerald looked utterly stunned.

Percy walked straight up to the front altar and said, “Do you have any idea what you've uncovered?”

“Suppose you tell us.”

“A secret medieval chapel,” Gerald breathed, pointing his own flashlight at the peaked stone roof. “I've read about them, but never seen one before.”

“That's because so few of them survived,” Percy said. To the others, he explained, “Some very early monasteries built hidden chapels that the brothers could retreat to in times of turmoil. Armies, battles, and brigands passed with tragic regularity. The monks would bring in their texts, their chalices, and the sacramental pieces, and wait out the troubles.”

Gerald thunked his hand upon a narrow portal behind the altar. “My guess is this would lead on to the crypt.”

“It does,” Brian affirmed. “Shelves filled with bones and rags.”

“Only three of these underground chapels are known to exist throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles,” Percy breathed. “And none of them are as intact as this. It's our good fortune that no one has been down here for centuries.” He glanced back to where Brian and Cecilia stood holding hands by the entrance. “I suppose the chapel was empty?”

“Not entirely,” Brian said, glad he had held the best for last. He asked Cecilia, “Do you want to do the honors?”

“It's your discovery,” Cecilia replied.

“But it's under your cottage.”

Her eyes widened, and as the power of Brian's words hit home, she bit a trembling lip and whispered, “My cottage.”

“That's right.”

Percival exclaimed, “Will you please make up your collective minds before I burst from the strain?”