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He laughs, laughs wildly, laughs so hard that he forgets the pain in his leg and then he is fumbling for the key, laying the oval flat, pushing it in...

Nothing.

He tries again.

Still nothing.

Once more.

Nothing.

Nothing nothing nothing!

It does not work. It will not open.

Hezekiah removes the disk a final time, presses his finger against the indent, again and again and again and then, his nail catches on a ridge. He stops, leans in closer. It takes him a moment—his vision blurs before it comes into focus—but then he sees it; an image in the relief. A bearded face.

He stares at the gold Bramah key in his hand for one long, unfathomable moment, staring at the smoothness of the disk. There is no face.

There is no face.

A hum. A sigh.

Hezekiah turns around. The pithos looms. Tall, imposing yet beautiful, and in his anguish it seems to him that in the dim light it taunts him. Then with a scream he throws the key to the floor as he realizes that even in death, Elijah and Helen have thwarted him once again.

Chapter Forty-Two

The note from Dora’s housekeeper came at midday when Edward, Cornelius and Dora were taking tea in the parlor. She had greeted Edward awkwardly, still seemed unable to meet his eye, and he was so gratified Dora had decided to acknowledge him that he had been hesitant to ruin the fragile peace between them by revealing the full import of Hezekiah’s transgressions. Indeed, it was painful to watch Dora listen to them in silence, but it was altogether worrying that she did not give even the merest flinch when he divulged the gruesome manner of the Coombe brothers’ deaths, and so it was almost a relief when the note arrived. Come now, it said, he won’t be back until tonight, and so Dora collected together her things—binding her sketchbook with string so the pages would not fly open in the gale that had picked up its ferocious wings the night before—and Edward and Cornelius fetched their coats.

“What are you doing?” she asked as they pushed their arms down into their sleeves.

“Coming with you,” Edward replied, wrapping his scarf around his neck. “After everything I’ve just said do you honestly think we would let you go alone?”

Dora paused, unsure. “Both of you? I’d rather you didn’t.”

“We’re coming,” Cornelius said then, pulling up his collar. “No arguments.”

Edward watched the play of emotions cross Dora’s face, could see how she battled to come up with an excuse. But after a moment she simply nodded, so Cornelius called for the carriage and they find themselves alighting outside Blake’s Emporium within the hour.

Dora’s stocky housekeeper lets them in. Edward notes the cracked lip, the black eye. The bruising, he deduces by the mottled green at the edges, is a few days old. Hezekiah’s handiwork, undoubtedly.

“He’s gone to organize the bidding, that much I know,” the housekeeper says as she takes their coats, Dora’s cape. “He told me not to expect him home until this evening.”

Edward looks at her. “The bidding?”

“He had the smaller items collected this morning.”

“Do you know where they were being delivered?” Edward asks, his hopes lifting. If the housekeeper knows that then they may be able to do something after all, but his hopes are dashed when Lottie shakes her head.

“He’s never told me things like that. But Coombe knows. You should ask him.”

“Coombe is dead.”

Lottie covers her mouth.

Cornelius looks at the woman. “Knew this Coombe well, did you?”

The housekeeper lowers her hands, begins to wring them in her apron.