Page 128

“Dora,” he tries, but she is already pulling away from him, is standing, leading him by the hand across the street, into the shop.

“I need to know, Edward.”

Inside she releases him. She turns away, walks with purpose down the shop floor and Edward follows her, past the upturned floorboards, up to the basement doors.

“Be careful,” he warns.

“It’s safe,” Dora replies, stepping onto the first step. “You said so yourself.”

Edward cannot argue with that but he keeps close behind her all the same, holds his hand out in case she takes a fall, but the stairs hold them, and at the bottom they look around.

The basement walls are completely blackened. The desk is ash and the Bramah safe—Edward shudders at the sight of it—is covered with patches of soot. But somehow the candles still burn in their sconces, and the pithos...

It is unmarked.

Just as Edward knew it would be.

Dora stares at it but she makes no comment, seems also to have accepted that the pithos has an uncanny ability to remain indestructible.

She turns away.

“Here, Edward,” she says, beckoning him to the ruined wall where a pickaxe lies charred against the rubble.

“Hezekiah was trying to break through. Why?”

Edward eyes the wall warily. “Because, I suppose, there was something beyond it he wanted.”

Dora nods. “He said he overheard my parents speak of a fortune, but that they did not say where it was. What if they hid it right under his nose?”

Edward feels the thrill of it spindle up his spine. “A hidden room.”

“A hidden room,” she echoes. “But he couldn’t get in.”

“Why not?”

“Why not, indeed. Come on, help me.”

“Help you?”

But she is running her hands over the wall—the parts still intact at least—and suddenly he understands.

“My mother would not have made this so difficult. Hezekiah tried to break through because he did not have the means to open it the proper way.”

Edward joins her at the wall. “So I’m looking for a lock?”

“Hmm. A lock, yes, but a standard one would have been too obvious. No, it’s something else...”

Edward runs his fingers along the pitted wall—still warm—leaving trails in the soot. He stops. Then he begins to sweep his hand over it, tries to clear as much soot as he can and Dora watches him, her breath hitching in excitement.

“Yes,” she whispers, “keep going,” and he does, but after a few minutes he begins to lose momentum. Surely all he is doing is moving the soot around?

But then...

“Edward!”

Dora is looking at a section of wall that comes level with his knees. Together they bend. Together, they see what appears to be a small oval recess in the stone.

“What is it?”