“Yes, miss,” he said calmly. “I know everything about the narrow rooms.”
My heart was still racing as he led me up a stone staircase as narrow as my shoulders and back down another one I had to stoop to pass through.
“Hensley, slow down!” I clambered over some ancient brick ductwork. He tossed a grin over his shoulder but didn’t slow. I caught up to him at last, and he pointed to a metal grate that was dusty with soot except for a single clean patch. It must have been recently used. I fumbled with the grate until I found a small panel that slid open. Flames roared on the other side. I jumped back in shock.
Hensley snickered. “It’s the fireplace in the library.”
I peered through again, and realized the grate looked out from the rear of the fireplace into the stately library, empty now, with a few open books resting on the green velvet couches. He pointed to the passageway’s floor, which I could make out in the firelight. There were footprints slightly larger than mine in the dust.
“Are those Valentina’s?” I asked.
He nodded and then tugged on my dress. “This way.”
He darted down another turn in the maze of passages, and I gave up on trying to memorize the map. I followed him, letting my fingers trail on the walls, hoping not to get snagged by one of those rusty metal spikes. Even with the traps, I had to marvel at the wonderful strangeness of it all. Lucy and I would have adored playing hide-and-seek in passageways like this, when we were his age.
We ran by another door with a light glowing behind it and I paused. “Which room is this?”
“Your friend in the chains. He used to say your name in his sleep. Now he calls for Miss Lucy. She visits him late at night even though he’s sick and never knows she’s there. She stole the key from Valentina.”
I started. Had Hensley been spying on all of us? But then I disregarded my worry. He was only a child, and surely it was just innocent fun. I followed him down a passageway so narrow I had to twist to pass, then up a set of stairs, and at last he pointed to another metal grate. I slid the viewing panel back, peeking within, and found a plain wooden room with a metal bed and dresser. A servant’s room, one of the bigger ones with windows on two sides. Clothing was strewn about haphazardly. One long white glove rested on the floor.
“This is Valentina’s room?” I asked.
He nodded.
I pushed on the latch until it opened. The hinges had to be ancient but didn’t groan as I opened them—they’d been freshly oiled. Valentina must have been more familiar with the passageways than she let on.
I crawled through the small fireplace and came out into her bedroom. Hensley followed me in, dusting off his little hands. There was a half-open trunk in the corner filled with belongings. I took a step toward it. At the same time, the bedroom doorknob jiggled from the other side, and I jumped.
“Juliet?” Montgomery’s voice came from the far side of the door. “Did you make it inside?”
“Yes,” I called back, and tried the door. “I’m with Hensley. I can’t unlock the door from this side either without a key.”
“Carlyle’s here. We’re going to remove the hinges. Do you see any sign of what happened to her?”
I glanced back at the trunk, taking another step closer. Hensley wandered to the side table and opened a box that let out the rich tobacco smell of her Woodbine cigarettes.
“When did you last see her, Hensley?” I asked as I knelt next to the trunk.
“After dinner night before last. She was angry, and I was worried she’d hurt my rat so I hid from her. She was writing in a book. And crying. And saying words Mother says we mustn’t say.”
The trunk held all manner of strange belongings a maid shouldn’t have, even one with as high a position as Valentina. A holster for a pistol—though the firearm itself was missing. Dozens of leather coin sacks, also now empty of money.
At the door, hinges groaned as Montgomery and Carlyle tried to remove them with a screwdriver.
“There,” Hensley said, pointing into the trunk. “That’s the book she was always writing in.”
I took out a small leather-bound book. A journal, though a handful of pages had been ripped out. The few that remained were dated months ago, and chronicled Valentina’s progress at educating the younger girls and some of her plans for improving the efficiency of various projects. And then the rest of the pages were torn out in an abrupt fury. I checked the date of the last entry: the day before I arrived at Ballentyne.
“Hensley,” I called, feeling uneasy, “check the fireplace, will you? See if you can tell if any papers have been burned.”