Chapter 20 #2
“Only sort of.” Elsa scanned the space. “The turret is empty, unless something has been tucked beneath the floor. But I don’t see this as a good hiding place for a fragile manuscript.
The climate in this room would fluctuate wildly between summer and winter, and the extreme temperatures and humidity levels would wreak havoc on the pages. ”
Ivy agreed. “Besides, I thought you said Birdie hid it somewhere close by. This turret is still part of the house, granted, but it wouldn’t be close-at-hand for an aging woman who would have no other reason to come up here.”
“I’m stymied,” Elsa confessed. “It can’t have vanished.”
“Birdie hid it really, really well. We should keep looking. As long as we’re here, and as long as no one else is but us . . .” Ivy angled back toward the window. “Wait a minute. I spoke too soon. Looks like we might have company.”
Elsa gasped. “What kind of auto is it?”
“No idea. All I can see are the beams from the headlamps. They’re coming down the county road and haven’t yet turned into the drive. Who would be coming here at this hour?”
Elsa could name a few people. None of them would be happy to find her already here, even though Mr. Spalding had given her the spare key.
Did this visitor have one, too? If not, would that stop them from breaking and entering?
“They’re slowing down,” Ivy said. “They’re definitely turning into the drive.”
“Time to find Luke and Tom.”
Nearly breathless, Elsa and Ivy found the men in the parlor moments later. “Someone’s coming,” Elsa said.
Luke’s face hardened into granite lines. With his hair cut short, he was even more intimidating. Tom’s knuckles went white around the flashlight he held. He shut off the beam.
A window shattered somewhere. The visitor had found a way in.
Luke nudged Elsa, then gestured toward the library. With pinched fingers, he turned his wrist, which Elsa took to mean she should lock the door once inside. She nodded her understanding.
With Ivy close at her heels, Elsa pushed on the panel beside the fireplace until it creaked open. They entered the secret room and locked the door behind them. “I’m sorry,” Elsa whispered.
“Are you kidding me? This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Who do you think it is? What do you think our men will do to defend the castle?”
“I don’t have either of those answers.”
Ivy took off her sweater and pressed it against the small crack between the floor and the door. “We don’t want our light to give us away.”
“Good thinking.” Elsa lifted the lamp and looked about the room. Mr. Spalding had taken every last book, folder, and paper from this place the day he learned this was where she’d found Linus’s ERO files. It seemed to be the only room Spalding had been truly interested in.
“So this is the hiding place used for the Underground Railroad?” Ivy asked.
“That’s our best guess,” Elsa said quietly. “It even has a tunnel to the river.”
“Are you serious?”
“Help me move this desk, and I’ll show you.” Setting the lamp on the floor, the women each took a side and moved the desk away from the wall. Then Ivy took up the light and held it while Elsa pried open the door. Just as before, damp air seeped into the room.
Ivy held the light closer. “Stairs!” She looked over her shoulder at the door. “What else are we going to do while we wait?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Elsa’s pulse pounded through her veins. “Luke tested the tunnel, but this could be the last chance to explore the path ourselves.”
Ducking, they entered single file, Ivy leading with the light. “Easy does it,” she said. “Take your time.”
Cold humidity licked Elsa’s skin. The steps were steep and the darkness so intense it crowded the air. She wasn’t sure there was room for the dark and for oxygen, too. Still, a small light flickered inside the glass hurricane.
“Doing okay?” Ivy cast over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Elsa breathed. “Just think about how the people must have felt who were running for their lives, trying to get north to freedom. I can’t believe we’re in the same tunnel now.”
“I like how you think,” Ivy said. “Except for the one small detail that this space has changed a lot since then. Natural decay and deterioration must have taken place since the middle of last century.”
That was true. The walls of the tunnel had been braced with wooden scaffolding at regular intervals, but the wood was soft and rotting now.
Elsa guessed that the boards were originally set in place right up against the earth.
Now there were gaps between the wooden supports and the crumbling wall behind it.
Erosion added dirt to the path and caused the ceiling to feel lower. Elsa and Ivy both had to stoop.
The temperature dropped, and the air grew thicker. She felt the strain of stepping carefully in her good leg more than in her weak one.
“Ooph!” Ivy stopped short. “Watch out. The next few steps are so covered in mud it’s like a drop-off of three feet to the next one. Good heavens, a body could break a leg on that if they aren’t watching. Still game to go on?”
Elsa marveled at the length of that speech.
Ivy seemed practically unaffected by the climate, while Elsa had to focus on drawing breath.
It felt like she was sucking through a drinking straw when what she wanted more than anything was great big gulps of air.
“Hang on.” She steadied herself with fingertips against one of the weathered supports.
When she had chased Barney and climbed the escalator at Macy’s, shadows had crowded the edges of her vision, a warning sign that she needed to stop. Would she notice such a sign here when all was darkness already? She doubted it.
This was foolhardy. She shouldn’t be here. And she ought not be too proud to admit it.
“Elsa?” Ivy turned, holding the light so she could see her face. “What do you think?”
She thought it would require more courage to admit her limitations than to pretend she was fine and keep going. Luke’s phrase “unacceptable risk” echoed in her mind. The bravest thing she could do was to be honest about what she could and could not do.
But she didn’t have the wind to explain all that. Instead, she said, “I should go back.”
“Good plan. You go in front of me so I can keep an eye on you. Here, you can carry the lamp—unless you’d rather I do it.”
“Just hold it out to the side,” Elsa suggested.
Ivy obeyed, and since she stayed right behind her, the light was enough for each step.
Still, Elsa ran her hands lightly along the walls on either side of her.
The splintered boards made for lousy railings, and she could feel mud collecting beneath her fingernails.
But if she became dizzy, at least she’d be able to catch herself before crashing into Ivy and tumbling down the stairs.
There was no light coming from inside the den to beckon them upward, but the closer they got, the easier it was for Elsa to breathe again.
The damp air didn’t sit so heavily in her lungs, and the smell was not as rank.
Besides, she’d been counting the steps on the way down. There were ten left to go up.
When the cobwebs cleared from her mind, she thought not only of the fugitives who had passed through here but also of Tom and all those men in the Great War who had had to live in darkness and tunnels, waiting to see if they would survive the next shelling or if they’d be sent over the top.
No wonder Tom wanted nothing to do with this tunnel after that.
With seven steps left, the wooden supports ended, and her fingers grazed uninterrupted expanses of earth.
Until she touched something sticking out of the wall. Something that had corners.
“Ivy, hold the light over here.” Elsa watched as the small amber glow illuminated what she’d found. Sliding her fingers in around all sides, it felt like a box wrapped in India rubber and coated with dirt.
“What is it?” Ivy asked.
“I don’t even want to guess.” Elsa pushed down the hope that flared to life inside her.
It could be any number of objects. It could be the book Linus thought was the aviary, which Birdie had replaced with something else.
Would Linus have actually buried what he thought was a medieval book inside a dirt wall? What a terrible idea!
Then again, Agnes had mentioned Linus would rather risk destroying a coveted object than allow someone else to have it.
If it wasn’t the book Linus had buried, it had to be—could be—the aviary Birdie had swiped from Linus’s den. She might have hid it here, right under his nose, so close to the room he thought she didn’t know about.
Thank goodness the walls had eroded over time, revealing the edge. Elsa never would have thought to look here. She supposed that was the idea.
“Can you get it out?” Ivy asked. “Or will the whole wall come tumbling down?”
“Good question,” Elsa agreed. “Luke would know.”
“Gee, he’s a handy fella to have around.” Ivy’s smile was obvious in her voice. “March on.”
Gladly.
Moments later, Elsa pushed through the small door and back into the den, Ivy right behind her.
“Elsa! Ivy!” Luke pounded on the door as though he’d been trying to raise a response for some time. “I’m going to bust down the door if you don’t answer me.”
“We’re here!” Ivy called. “Just a second!” She scrambled to the door and opened it while Elsa collapsed onto the desk chair.
“Why didn’t you answer us?” Luke burst into the room, Tom following. Barney trotted to her and licked her filthy hands.
Elsa pointed to the door to the tunnel.
“We didn’t go all the way down,” Ivy explained. “We turned around at a three-foot drop-off.”
“Thank goodness.” Luke rubbed a muscle at the back of his neck.
“Are we alone again? Who was it who came?” Elsa figured Luke had chased whoever it was off the property but didn’t want to risk sharing about her discovery if there was any chance someone else was in the house.
“We’re alone again.” Tom shook his head and laughed. “You won’t believe who that was. Crawford!”
“Who’s Crawford?” Ivy sat on top of the desk and crossed her ankles. Mud coated her Oxford heels.
Still recovering her breath, Elsa let Luke and Tom explain that Crawford was one of the Spaldings’ servants who came to pack up the valuables Mrs. Spalding wanted.
“Did he come to search for the aviary, too?”
“He did,” Tom said. “Gave us a sob story about needing it because he was in love with a woman above his station and would only ask her to marry him if he had the means to provide for her the way she had been raised.”
Elsa’s eyebrows raised. “Did he say who his sweetheart is? Is it Jane?”
Luke shook his head. “I didn’t ask. I just reminded him that stealing is still against the law, which is what he had come here with every hope and intention of doing.”
“And I reminded him,” said Tom, “coming from a background of service myself, that he’d never be able to get another job in service if he had theft on his record.
He replied that if he’d found the aviary, he wouldn’t have to worry about working again for a long time.
But we pointed out that was only if no one caught him. Which we already had.”
“Well done,” Elsa said, and Tom’s smile unfurled. “And how about you, Barney? Did you have anything to tell Crawford?”
“Oh yes, he did.” Luke chuckled. “Barney told him he was trespassing and ought to shake a leg before we decided to make a citizen’s arrest and drive him to the Tarrytown police.”
“That was magnanimous of you,” Ivy told him. “I might have hauled him off myself.”
“I’m pretty sure he learned his lesson,” Luke said. “Besides, with so many people looking for the aviary, I doubt he would have had better luck.”
Elsa cut a glance to Ivy before saying, “I don’t want to jinx anything, but our luck may have turned.” Oh, how she hoped it had.