“There’s something about Eisler’s house that has been bothering me for days now.”
She sat up, her dark hair tumbling about her bare shoulders as she hugged the quilt to her against the cold. “What about the house?”
He pushed to his feet. “Something in the proportions of the rooms is off. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I want to take another look at it.” He glanced back at her. “Care to come?”
“Do you think Perlman will agree to let us search the house again?”
Sebastian smiled. “I don’t intend to ask him.”
The door to the crumbling old Tudor house in Fountain Lane was opened by a sour-faced woman in black bombazine and a yellowing cap. She was as stout as her husband was lean and a good fifteen to twenty years younger, with thick, bushy gray brows, a bulbous nose, and small dark eyes half-hidden by fat, puffy lids.
“Good morning,” Sebastian said cheerfully. “I’m—”
“I know who you are.” She sniffed. “Campbell’s off to market this morning—thanks be to God. Ever since you come here the other day, he’s done nothing but crow about how he ‘helped’ the great Lord Devlin with one of his ‘investigations.’ Humph.”
Sebastian and Hero exchanged glances.
Hero said, “We’re here to look at the house again,” and brushed past the housekeeper without giving her a chance to object. Just inside the entrance, Hero drew up in undisguised astonishment. “Good heavens.”
“Sure, then, the place ain’t as clean and tidy as it could be,” bleated Mrs. Campbell, her manner changing instantly from challenging to wheedling. “But then, Mr. Eisler was ever so particular about his things, preferring to see them disappear beneath dust and cobwebs rather than have me lay a hand on them.”
“And did he take the same attitude toward the floor?” asked Hero, her gaze focused on the ancient flagstones half-buried beneath decades’ accumulation of dried leaves, dirt, and debris.
“It’s only me now, you know. And I’m not as young as—”
Sebastian said, “Thank you, Mrs. Campbell. That will be all for now.”
The housekeeper sniffed and disappeared toward the kitchen, muttering beneath her breath.
Hero turned in a slow circle, her eyes widening as she took in the jumble of exquisite, dust-shrouded furniture, the row after row of grand old masters, their heavy gilded frames mildewed and flyspecked.
“The entire house looks like this,” said Sebastian.
“And you think the proportions of the rooms are off? How can you even see the proportions through this mess?”
Sebastian led the way through the stone-cased archway to the corridor. “First, look at the size of the chamber Eisler used as his office.”
She peered through the door at the chaos wrought by Samuel Perlman’s determined search for his uncle’s account books.
Sebastian said, “Now come back through here”—he strode to the long parlor and pushed aside the curtain that covered the second door—“and look at where this room ends.”
Frowning, she went back and forth between the two rooms several times, then came to stare thoughtfully at the parlor’s back wall. “I see what you mean. It’s as if there should be another small room between the two chambers. Part of the space is obviously occupied by the chimney for this massive old fireplace. But it’s offcenter, and there isn’t a hearth on the other side, as you would expect.” She glanced over at him. “What are you suggesting?”
Sebastian moved to the fancifully carved mantelpiece and began methodically pushing, pulling, and twisting the various intricately depicted beasts and fruit-laden garlands. “My brother Richard noticed something similar in our house in Cornwall. We eventually realized there was an old priest’s hole everyone had long ago forgotten.”
Hero came to help, focusing her attention on the muntins, styles, and rails of the paneled wall to the left of the hearth. But after a moment, she paused and sniffed.
“What is it?” he asked, watching her.
“Don’t you smell it?”
He shook his head. “Mold? Dry rot? Dead men’s bones? What?”
“And here I thought all your senses were unnaturally acute.”
“Not my sense of smell. It’s actually rather poor.”
She turned to look at him. “Really? I can think of any number of situations in which that would be a definite advantage.”
“This obviously isn’t one of them. What do you smell?”
“Urine. It’s very strong—and the smell is coming from behind this section here.” She tapped on it experimentally. “Does that sound hollow to you?”
“Yes.” He stood back, his gaze assessing the joints of the age-darkened paneling. Now that he knew where to look, the subtle outline of one section was vaguely discernable. He reached for the dagger in his boot.