“They anticipated the box might be found.” Connor’s eyes lit with intrigue. “Brilliant.”
“It’s a combination lock,” Johanna spoke up. “I’d always thought them to be a modern innovation.”
Connor nodded. “Few existed before this century. Damned shame this is one of them.”
“Ye think I’m going to let some gears and metal slow us down?” Gerard leveled his weapon at the chest. “Stand back.”
Again, Connor scowled. “Did Maw drop ye on yer head when ye were a bairn? We dinnae need to draw attention with that cannon ye’re toting.” He slid his sgian dubh from his boot. “There’s got to be a better way.”
He pried at the first gear, as if he might happen upon the proper arrangement. His mouth dipped, fierce and angry. “Blast the luck.”
Johanna studied the chest. Six latches. Six gears, each bearing a notch in one tooth, likely intended to mark a specific location on the dial. An intricate design, and all but hopeless to deduce given the sheer volume of possible combinations. Testing the device might well take days, if not weeks. Unless…they’d already been provided with the code.
Her brother-in-law’s last missive had contained a series of numbers, seven digits she’d committed to memory. Was the sequence a clue? She stared down at the latches. Was it possible that the numbers corresponded to the gears in some way? Perhaps he’d added an extra digit to throw off anyone who’d intercept the code.
“Wait!” The word burst from Johanna’s tongue. “I think…I think I know how to open it.”
Connor met her eyes. “Ye’re referring to the code in the letter?”
“Yes. I think we’ve been provided with the means to unlock this.”
Gerard looked from one to the other. “Would ye care to enlighten me?”
“I received a letter from Mr. Abbott…Mr. Benedict, as you call him. He included a series of numbers, but gave no firm instruction for their use.”
“Aye.” Gerard rubbed his jaw. “Ye think it’s a combination?”
“Yes. At least, I hope it might be. Perhaps the numbers in the date correspond to a clock dial. If we manipulate the gears, it may work. There’s only one complication.”
“Complication?” Gerard questioned.
“I memorized seven digits. But there are six locks.”
Connor nodded his understanding. “Ye think he included a false digit, to throw us off the scent?”
“That may be the case. Trial and error might well give us the correct sequence. I’ll begin by omitting the last digit.”
She reached to touch the first gear, but Connor caught her hand. “I’ll do it. This could be a trap, a mechanism to deter thieves. Tell me the numbers.”
“Eight.” Johanna pulled in a breath as he turned the first gear. The dial slid into position. Yes! It had worked.
Her heart raced with anticipation as she recited the second number and he manipulated the metal. No reaction. Not even a whisper of a sound. As she continued to recite each number in the series, he lined up the notches as though they were hands on a clock. Nothing.
Johanna touched the first gear. “And now that we are more confident that some fiendish trap has not been put into place, might I have a go at it? My fingers are smaller and better suited to precise tasks.”
“I see no harm in that,” Connor agreed. Shifting to the side, he allowed her full access.
“Let’s see now. Perhaps I need to leave out a different number.” Manipulating the dials, she tested her theory several more times, omitting a different number with each trial.
Still, the latches did not budge. Drat the luck.
“We’re wasting our time. I’ll blast the bluidy thing open,” Gerard said.
“And possibly the stone with it.” Connor eyed his brother beneath hooded lids. “Johanna’s theory has merit. Whoever devised this was clever. Damnably so.”
“Perhaps there’s another way of looking at this sequence…perhaps…” Crouching before the box, she deliberated the puzzle. Blast it, what was she missing? “There must be something else, something we’ve overlooked. Cranston wants the book. Why?”
“If the combination’s hidden in that bluidy tome, we’ve no chance of uncovering it,” Gerard said with a scowl. “Not in time to get to the bairn.”
“Could it be hidden in plain sight? So blatant, it’s overlooked.” Johanna pictured the forged inscription, a clever attempt to reproduce the author’s sentiments and hand. Indeed, before Serena had deduced the volume was a fraud, Johanna had believed the words were the product of Mrs. Shelley’s own pen. An unscrupulous dealer might well employ such a notation to increase interest in the eyes of a duped collector.
But in Johanna’s eyes, something about the notation had seemed peculiar from the start. The year etched in ink did not correspond with the initial publication of the novel’s first edition. She’d dismissed her doubts in the beginning. Now, that idiosyncrasy might prove significant.
Had the words served a more nefarious purpose? Were they as much a code as the symbols Serena had uncovered in the text?
“In the book, there is a handwritten note,” she went on.