“What is it?” Derek asked. “Do you remember something else?”
Trudy let out a faint trill and flitted over to the bookshelf, where she grabbed a small white marble sculpture of a bird and clutched it tightly to her bosom. “It’s my missing bookend!”
She closed her eyes and simply breathed for a moment. Then she held it out for us to see. “It’s a quail. I can’t believe it. I haven’t seen this since I was seven years old.”
“It was yours when you were young?” Derek asked.
She laughed. “The set actually belonged to my father, but he gave it to me because I loved carrying it around the house. One of the set disappeared shortly after we moved here, and I was bereft. But here it is.”
“Amazing,” Mom said.
“I still have its mate on my mantel at home. Well, not its mate, exactly. The one I have at home is a kitten, but it’s similar in size and style to this one.” She turned it this way and that. “It’s charming, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful,” I repeated, taking the sculpture when she offered it. As Trudy said, it was a quail, and its head, half of its body, and one outstretched wing were beautifully carved while the rest of its body was still encased in the small block of marble. I handed it to Derek.
“It’s so simple,” he said, “and yet it manages to show so much emotion and strength. The way it’s carved as though it’s poised to fly free from the marble reminds me of Rodin’s style.”
“I think so, too.” Trudy let out a happy sigh. “This was done by nobody in particular and isn’t worth much money, of course. But it has lots of sentimental value.”
I noticed Derek’s eyebrow quirk up. Did he disagree with her? Did he believe the piece might be a more important work than Trudy thought? I’d thought of Rodin, too, when I held the little sculpture. I loved his work and had enjoyed touring his museum in Paris, but I couldn’t remember whether he’d ever sculpted small animals like that. Unbidden, an old news story sprang to my mind, about the Musée Rodin in Paris discovering a number of fake sculptures in other exhibitions around the world. The article mentioned a way to tell if a Rodin sculpture was an original. Knowing Derek, I suspected he already knew how to tell.
“All these fantastic paintings,” Mom said as she scanned the artwork leaning against the walls. “I can’t believe they’ve been hiding in here all these years.”
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep them hidden,” I said.
“But why?” she asked. “Everything is so beautiful. Why not share it with the world?”
“Perhaps there was an earthquake,” Trudy said. “I can’t imagine my father or my uncles purposely barricading this space, but an earthquake might’ve made it inaccessible.”
“Quite possibly,” Derek said, although I knew he was only saying it to placate her. We had already decided that an earthquake would’ve destroyed most of the valuables hidden in these chambers. There would’ve been rubble and stones and earth blocking the way, not smooth cement walls.
But I played along. “Yes, anything could’ve happened.” I didn’t want Trudy to worry that her family members might’ve done something devious. But how else could this be explained?
I glanced at Mom, who took the hint. “It’s getting late. If you don’t mind, I’d better go home and start dinner.”
“Oh goodness,” Trudy said, checking her wristwatch. “Amelia is going to scold me for being gone so long without calling.”
Amelia would scold her? Sadly, I believed it and wondered if Trudy couldn’t find a more pleasant companion than that sourpuss.
I led the way out of the chamber, through the storage cave, and out to the pathway that led to the parking lot.
In the car, Trudy held her quail sculpture in her lap, and we chitchatted about the awesome discovery all the way back to her house.
Derek left the motor running while he walked Trudy to her door. Once she was safe inside, Derek returned, and we took off for our side of town. I leaned forward from the backseat and touched Mom’s shoulder. “Did you know any of that stuff about Guru Bob?”
“You mean that he was French? I had no idea!”
“No, I mean did you know that his family already owned this property long before we moved up here to join the Fellowship?”
She frowned. “I suppose he did. Your father and I always thought he came here and bought the property on his own.”
“So Dad didn’t know, either?”
Mom’s shoulders dropped fractionally. “Neither of us had any idea that Robson’s family owned this property.” But Dad had been known to keep secrets from Mom in the past. For her own good, he’d said at the time. Her eyes narrowed with purpose. “I’ll find out exactly how much your father knows when I get home.”
“Go, Mom.”
“Not that it should be any big deal,” she argued with herself. “Robson doesn’t have to tell us every detail of his life.”