Aunt Dimity and the Duke (17 page)

Nothing. Emma put her head inside the room, then uttered a startled yelp when a loud knock sounded right next to her. It seemed to be coming from her wardrobe. Cautiously, she opened the wardrobe door.

“Derek?” she called softly. “Is that you?”

A mufflied voice came through the wardrobe’s back panel. “Who else would it be? Glad to know I’ve got the right address, at least. Think you could let me in?”

“I don’t know,” said Emma. “You’re in back of a wardrobe that must weigh at least a ton.”

A muted groan came through the wall.

“Hang on,” said Emma. “Let me take a look.” She dumped her clothes unceremoniously out of the wardrobe and onto the floor, then flicked on Crowley’s flashlight and examined the back panel. “I don’t see any hinges, but there’s a row of pegs down the center of the panel. Maybe, if I ...” She climbed into the wardrobe and, crouching, tugged at the top peg. It came away in her hand, and the others followed suit. Stepping back out of the wardrobe, she called, “Try sliding the right side of the panel sideways.”

The panel rattled, creaked, and finally began to shift slowly, one half slipping neatly behind the other. Cool, musty air wafted out of the darkness; then Derek emerged, with a flashlight in one hand, dusty smudges on his face, and cobwebs in his hair.

Emma pulled her robe around her and schooled her face into a neutral expression. Derek took one look at her and began to apologize as though his life depended on it.

“Emma, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am that I didn’t let you know what I was up to. I should’ve come by sooner, and I meant to, but I’ve been rather on the go these past few days, and I simply lost track of the time, and I know it’s a piss-poor excuse, so all I can say is that I hope you’ll forgive me and I promise that it won’t ever happen again.” He paused to take a breath, sneezed three times in a row, wiped his nose on a dusty sleeve, sneezed once more, then peered down at her imploringly and added, “What d’you say?”

Emma was vaguely unsettled by the amount of pleasure Derek’s heartfelt apology gave her. “I guess this means that I don’t get to smack you in the kisser,” she said, half to herself. Then, smiling: “It’s okay, Derek. Now, go in the other room and wait there while I put on some clothes.”

Emma changed quickly into her gray trousers and Nanny Cole’s blue sweater, returned the rest of her clothes to the wardrobe, and joined Derek in the bedroom. He was perched on the arm of one of the overstuffed chairs, peering at a schematic drawing from the old portfolio.

“Told you the place was a honeycomb,” he said. “Meant to take my time exploring it, but, circumstances being what they are, I pushed it a bit.” He handed her the house plan. “An annotated version.”

“Secret passages?” Emma asked, tracing a line of red ink with her finger.

“Most weren’t included on the older set of house plans, none at all on the newer ones. Want to see what I’ve found?”

Emma didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she turned off all the lights in her room, switched on her flashlight, and headed for the wardrobe, where she moved aside to let Derek take the lead. Once she’d closed the wardrobe door behind her, she pushed through the hanging dresses and stepped into the gaping hole, then waited while Derek slid the panel back into place. As the darkness enfolded them, Derek said, in a low, excited voice, “You’re not going to believe this.”

18

The flashlights danced an eerie pas de deux on the smooth stone walls, and the silence was absolute. No moaning wind disturbed the musty air, no lightning pierced the inky darkness. The coming storm might break and shake the rafters, but it would not touch the core of Penford Hall.

The massive building slumbered all around them, and the passage stretched before them endlessly. The floor was dry and level, the ceiling high enough for Emma to walk upright, though Derek crept, half crouching, by her side. They scanned the way ahead, their shoulders touching, the thick stone walls absorbing every sound.

“I imagine the castle had a network of passages just like this one,” Derek told her. “Grayson’s predecessors probably used it to store their loot.”

“But I thought the first duke gave up piracy,” Emma objected.

“And what did he get in return? A title and a scrap of land unsuitable for farming. Old habits die hard, Emma, and food must be put on the table. I’ll wager the old devil gave up piracy for smuggling and perhaps a spot of wrecking now and then.”

In the past, small coastal towns had considered shipwrecks a boon to the local economy. For some, “wrecking” had become a way of life. Emma had read chilling tales of bonfires lit to lure ships to their doom, of sailors left to perish while their vessels were plundered. “The Nether Shoals would make it easy enough,” she agreed, with a shudder.

“I’m all for carrying on family traditions,” Derek commented dryly, “but there’s such a thing as carrying them too far. Ah, here we are.” He played the beam of his flashlight on a narrow opening to his right, where a spiral staircase wound away into the darkness. “Runs from the subcellars to the roof,” he explained. “This passage and several others feed into it, and at least four rooms open off of it.”

“Sounds like a main thoroughfare,” said Emma.

“Hasn’t been used for a long time, though. Took hours to get the hinges on all the doors oiled up and working properly.” He jutted his chin upward. “Our first stop is up there.” Emma started forward, but Derek put an arm out to block her way. “Not so fast. We’ll have to kill the torches first.”

“You want me to turn off my flashlight?” Emma peered uncertainly into the gloom.

“I’m afraid so. It’s the only way we’ll be able to see if light’s leaking around the doors. If it is, we’ll have to assume that someone’s on the other side and pass them by.”

“But what if someone’s asleep inside one of those rooms?”

Derek shook his head. “No bedrooms lie off of this staircase. I’ve checked.”

Emma watched unhappily as Derek turned off his flashlight and hooked it on his belt. She understood the need for caution, but she wasn’t thrilled by the idea of groping her way up an unfamiliar staircase in utter darkness.

Derek seemed to read her mind. When she hesitated, he reached for her hand. “We’ll take it slowly,” he promised. “One step at a time.” He tightened his grip. “I won’t let you fall.”

Smiling weakly, Emma thumbed the switch on her flashlight. Derek vanished, the walls seemed to close in around her, and she was acutely conscious of the great weight of stone hanging just above her head. Please, God, she prayed, as her heart began to race, please don’t let my palms perspire.

Derek’s disembodied voice was reassuring. “Remarkable, isn’t it? Like being in a mine. I’m just glad there aren’t any rats.”

Emma’s hands turned to ice. “You’re sure about that?” she asked faintly.

“Quite sure.” He tugged her gently forward. “Come on, now, slide your foot straight ahead....”

Climbing the stairs wasn’t so bad, once Emma got the hang of it, although it would have been easier if she hadn’t been straining to hear the rustle of rodent feet. Her imagination populated the darkness with tiny glowing eyes and razor-sharp teeth, and though she tried to ignore the morbid fantasy, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of being watched.

Derek stopped and Emma squinted as his flashlight flared, illuminating a narrow landing and a sturdy wooden door. A heavy iron ring was bolted to the door, and Derek reached for it.

“We’ll have to keep our voices down once I open the door,” he warned, passing his flashlight to Emma. “This room’s buried in the servants’ wing.” Gripping the iron ring with both hands, Derek planted his foot on the wall, and heaved. As the door swung silently toward them, Emma nearly screamed.

“
Rats
,” she hissed. Her heart began to thud and her knees turned to water and Derek’s strong arms were all that kept her from fleeing headlong down the stairs.

“No, no, no,” he whispered urgently, his breath warm on her face.
“Computers.”

“Wh-what?” Emma slowly turned her head to peer again into the room. Raising a hand to straighten her glasses, she saw that the red and orange pinpricks punctuating the darkness weren’t beady rodent eyes, but the telltale lights of a bank of electronic equipment. Beyond the thunder of her pounding heart, she heard the steady hum of computers at work, a sound she’d heard every day for the past twenty years. Limp with relief, she laid her cheek on Derek’s chest and murmured, “Sorry.”

“No need for that,” Derek soothed, his hand floating lightly through her hair. “Be still a moment, get your bearings.”

A strange, halting note in Derek’s voice made Emma tremble. Raising her face to his, she saw him wince, and it was only then that she realized she’d jammed both his flashlight and hers directly into his rib cage.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Derek,” she said, but though she tried to pull away, he only drew her nearer, and the kiss, when it came, was so sweet and so surprising that she forgot about the flashlights altogether.

Derek remembered, fortunately, and when at last they paused to take a breath, he caught both flashlights neatly before they clattered down the stairs. As Emma’s senses swam back into focus, she murmured muzzily, “We shouldn’t, Derek, we really shouldn’t.”

“Quite right,” he breathed, burying his face in her hair. “Not here, at any rate. You’ll break both our necks. What do you wash your hair in, Emma? Incense?” When Emma made no answer, he wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes. “I know,” he whispered. “Not the right time or place. May never be, for us. I never expected to find you, and I know you weren’t looking for me.”

“It could never work,” said Emma.

Derek took a deep breath, then blew it out in a long sigh of resignation. He straightened, and looked down at Emma. “I know,” he said softly. “It’s just a dream.”

“Just a dream,” Emma murmured. She pulled away, touched a finger to her glasses, then turned unsteadily toward the colored lights. “Let’s take a look.”

The room they entered was unlike any Emma had seen in Penford Hall. Not a single painting hung on the stark white walls, no carpet covered the tiled floor, and although the furnishings were expensive and extremely well made, they weren’t priceless antiques. As her flashlight glided over computers, printers, fax machines, photocopiers, and telephones, Emma felt as though she’d stepped into the nerve center of a modem office building.

“Oh my,” she breathed, as the beam of her flashlight came to rest on a sleek black computer at the center of the room. She approached it slowly and rested one hand on the monitor, watching in awe as numbers, graphs, and complicated charts scrolled rapidly across the divided screen.

“What is it?” Derek whispered.

“A Series Ten,” Emma replied. “I’ve read about it, but I’ve never gotten my hands on one before.”

“Latest thing?” They stood a little ways apart, and carefully avoided each other’s eyes. Emma’s voice was too businesslike, Derek’s too chipper, and they both spoke much too quickly.

Emma nodded. “It’s based on a new, high-performance chip. Five times the speed, more capacity than you can imagine.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Monitoring ongoing transactions.” Emma studied the screens. “Looks financial to me. Money transfers. Deutsche marks, pounds, Swiss francs, yen.” She frowned. “Wait a minute. There should be ...” Shining her light around the room, Emma spotted a wall-mounted rack covered with wires. “I thought so. High-speed data lines. He’d need them to keep current with international markets.” She bit her lip, perplexed, then gestured for Derek to return to the spiral staircase. When the door was safely shut, she asked, “Why would Grayson need that kind of setup? It’s powerful enough to run a fair-sized corporation.”

“Why don’t you ask the machine?”

Emma shook her head. “Too risky. It’ll report any interruptions in its automatic functions. And I think it’s safe to assume that Grayson’s done what he could to protect his data. We’d need a password, maybe even a series of passwords, to do anything at all.”

Derek nodded thoughtfully. “Does this prove that Grayson could’ve fiddled Lex’s accounts?”

“All it
proves
is that he knows a lot about computers. What it
suggests
is that, if Lex’s accounts were kept electronically, Grayson could’ve made them dance. Oh, damn.” Emma rattled her flashlight, which was beginning to fade. “Don’t suppose you have an extra set of batteries?”

“Sorry.” Derek switched off her flashlight and hung it on his belt. “Take mine. It’s not much better, but it’ll last long enough to get us where we’re going. No need to turn it off. The next stop on our tour is a bedroom, but it is definitely unoccupied.”

A dozen steps took them to another long, low corridor that led away from the silent heart of the hall to a second door, identical to the first. Again Derek braced himself to tug on the iron ring, and when the door swung open this time, Emma recoiled from the howl of the wind. It seemed deafening after the stillness of the staircase.

“Good Lord,” said Derek. “Hope the Tregallis boys’ boat is safely into port. Not a night to be out fishing.”

“I hope Bantry’s harvested the runner beans,” said Emma. “That wind will strip the arbor bare.” She peered into the room, but her view was blocked by some kind of heavy fabric. “A tapestry?” she asked. She lifted the edge of the cloth, then ducked under it. Closing the wooden door behind him, Derek ducked under the tapestry after her.

There was nothing stark or modern about this room. It was sumptuous, crammed with furniture that looked as though it had been there for a very long time. The canopied bed was hung with richly embroidered black satin curtains, and a pair of caryatids held up the marble mantelpiece. The painting on the ceiling featured a dozen languid, buxom beauties whose thin gowns left little to the imagination. They reclined on facing couches, waited on by plump cupids who flitted through a pristine blue sky.

A pair of gold brocade chairs faced the hearth, and four dainty green velvet chairs were grouped around a gaming table. A green velvet divan sat before the draped windows between a pair of ornately carved end tables, and there was a low, cushioned bench at the foot of the bed.

A dizzying array of objects crowded every table and shelf: vases, candlesticks, paperweights, porcelain figurines, lacquered boxes, photographs in silver frames. Paintings large and small covered the walls, each featuring a different garden scene. Emma turned eagerly to Derek, then lowered her eyes and tried to sound casual. “Is this Grandmother’s room?”

Derek nodded. He crossed to open the drapes, then stood with his back toward Emma, as though mesmerized by the intermittent flashes of lightning. “I’ve exceeded my brief by coming here,” he admitted. “Grayson asked me expressly to leave her room alone.”

“Isn’t it the most logical place to look for the lantern?” Emma asked.

“Grayson assures me that they’ve searched it thoroughly. It’s clean, as far as the lantern is concerned.” He glanced over his shoulder with an unexpected twinkle in his eye.

Emma was unable to suppress her excitement. “Come on, Derek, show me.”

“Don’t suppose I should take such pleasure in this,” he said, crossing from the windows to stand before a lute-strumming marble angel perched upon a marble pedestal, “but it’s really quite wonderful. Watch.” He grasped the angel’s head and tilted it forward, and the wall behind the pedestal swung away into darkness.

Emma was astonished. “How did you even know to try that?”

“I didn’t. I was just poking around and bumped into it. Thought I’d broken the blasted thing. Want to take a look inside?”

Emma edged past the decapitated angel into a round room with seamless marble walls rising to a domed ceiling. The curving walls were inset with a series of arched niches, and each niche held a stringed musical instrument. An antique mandolin was nearest to her, its neck intricately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Beside it was a lute, and next to that ...

Emma stared, dumbfounded, as the beam of Derek’s flashlight picked out a shiny black electric guitar inlaid with a silver lightning bolt, the trademark of Lex Rex.

“I don’t believe it,” she breathed, turning to face Derek, who had followed her into the room.

“Didn’t think you would,” said Derek proudly. “Doesn’t really prove that Grayson murdered Lex, though.”

An eerie peal of laughter cut through the moaning wind, and Emma gasped as a flash of lightning from the bedroom window limned a familiar figure in the doorway. Derek stiffened, then swung around as a voice sounded behind him.