Percy’s eyes rested thoughtfully upon Bains, the bandy-legged stable hand, who was spreading fresh straw in the stall being used for Sidney’s horse. And he thought about Mawgan, the head gardener, with whom he had been having a few words earlier before he spotted Lady Barclay. Bains had had a raw deal. He had been left behind when he had volunteered to go to the Peninsula and had had his legs and his spirit broken. He was still a mere hand in the stables. Mawgan, by contrast, had gone off to war as Barclay’s batman, had returned with the slight, though perhaps unjustified, taint of coward about him, and had been rewarded with what appeared to be a sinecure. He was head gardener, but, according to Knorr, it was another man who actually performed that function, since the other gardeners turned to him for instructions. Knorr had so far been unable to ascertain what exactly Mawgan did to earn his salary, though it was still only February and not high gardening season.
Perhaps he should just leave well enough alone, Percy thought. Perhaps the man had earned some recognition for his service to Barclay but was not suited to any particular task on the estate. He had grown up in the lower village, the son of a fisherman, now deceased. He had apparently had no aptitude for fishing either.
The girls had had enough of the kittens for now and were cooing over Hector, whom they were declaring to be so ugly, poor thing, but so-o-o sweet. He should take them down onto the beach, Percy thought. But there was something that had been nagging at him.
It was something to do with leaving well enough alone, letting sleeping dogs lie. He seemed to be thinking those phrases rather often, perhaps for a good reason. Why stick one’s neck out and perhaps stir up a hornet’s nest. And what a ghastly mix-up of images.
“You ought to go down onto the beach,” he suggested. “It is a beautiful day for the time of year. Cyril is down there with Welby and Marwood. Take Beth with you.”
“No, indeed,” they cried in unison.
“If Beth comes,” Eva explained—he had always been able to tell the twins apart, sometimes to their chagrin—“then she will surely wilt from climbing down that steep path and simply have to lean upon Viscount Marwood’s arm or Mr. Welby’s, and either Alma or I will be stuck walking with Cyril.”
“To be fair,” he said, grinning, “that would probably be as much of a trial for your brother as it would for you.”
They both pulled identical faces at him and hurried off in the direction of the cliff path before he could try insisting that they include their sister in the party.
Percy made his way back to the house. He found Crutchley appropriately enough in the butler’s pantry, wearing a large apron and cleaning an ornate pair of silver candlesticks that usually lived on the mantelpiece in the dining room.
“I am going to take a look around the cellar,” Percy told him, and received rather a sharp look in return. “It is the only part of the house I have not seen.”
“There is nothing much down there, my lord,” the butler said, “apart from cobwebs and wine.”
“Perhaps,” Percy said, “either you or Mrs. Attlee could give the order to remove the webs sometime, Crutchley, and the spiders that go with them. In the meanwhile, I shall descend to the bowels of the earth anyway, since I am not afraid of spiders—or wine. You may accompany me if you wish, though it is not necessary to abandon your important task here. I shall take a candle with me and hope it does not shiver out and leave me stranded in the sort of darkness I experienced in my room the night after you had those heavy curtains erected across my window.”
Crutchley came with him.
There was actually considerably more down there than just wine—all the usual paraphernalia one expects to discover either in the cellar or in the attic of any house, in fact. And, interestingly enough, not a single cobweb as far as Percy could see. A door at one side, shut and locked, opened into the wine cellar, which was adequately though not overabundantly stocked. A door on the other side, also shut and locked, opened into . . .
Well, actually it did not open at all. Crutchley searched his ring of keys, grunted, and remembered that that particular key had been missing for a while and he did not know what had happened to it. It did not really matter, though. Nothing was ever kept in there.
“Ah,” Percy said. “I daresay that is why there is a door, then, with a lock. One can never be too careful about empty spaces. The emptiness might escape and do untold damage.”
The butler squinted at him and looked uncomprehending.
“If the door—and the lock—serve no purpose,” Percy continued, “then we will just have the door chopped down and open up more space for storage. There is some considerable space in there, I would guess. The cellar extends beneath the whole house?”
“I believe so, my lord,” the butler said. “I have never thought about it. I do not remember that room as being very large, though. And it is damp. That was why the old earl had it walled up and the door added—to keep the damp out.”
Percy looked back at the door into the wine cellar. It was out of the range of the light from his candle, however, and he was forced to walk back. And yes, he could see now that this door and the wall in which it was set were considerably more ancient than those that led into the empty, damp room.
“I daresay, then,” he said, “it would be as well to leave the door in place and forget about the lost key.”