Page 42 of Pandora

“Mr. Lawrence?” He seems agitated, is looking around the room with something akin—if she is not mistaken—to dread. “Are you quite well?”

He hesitates, seems to shake himself. “It is very dark.”

“Oh, I have learned to make my way around well enough. It’s fifteen steps to—”

“Can we not light a candle?”

Dora stares at him in the murk. “I daren’t risk lighting candles yet, not until we’re below.”

“Right.” His voice is pinched.

“Here, take my hand. I’ll guide you.”

His hand is in hers almost instantly.

He is afraid of the dark, she thinks, as she guides him across the shop floor. But no, that is foolish, she decides, for a grown man to be fearful of such a thing. Perhaps he simply feels apprehensive. They are, after all, risking an awful lot. Hezekiah or Lottie could catch them at any moment.

She releases his hand, passes him her sketchbook, then extracts the custom key from her sleeve. Very carefully she unlocks the padlock, gathers the chain quietly in her hands, places both chain and padlock on the floor. She rises, gestures to the cabinet behind him.

“Would you?”

He looks, takes the candelabrum she indicated from its top. Then Dora steps back, raises her arm. “Hermes,” she calls softly. “Éla edó.” Then, “Come here.”

For a long moment the magpie does not respond. He cocks his head, bobs on his perch. It seems as if he will disobey but then he flies to Dora, settles down onto her shoulder, talons picking at her dress.

Very slowly, Dora opens the basement doors. A flush of cold, stagnant air.

“Be careful,” she murmurs as Mr. Lawrence hands the sketchbook back. “There are eight steps. Hold tight to the banister. I’d not forgive myself if I were the cause of a broken neck. And if my uncle hears us, then we’ll be thwarted before we can even begin.”

But beside her Mr. Lawrence is hesitating, staring into the dark.

“Mr. Lawrence?” Dora prompts. “Would you like me to go first?”

“I think I can manage,” he finally says, and takes his first step down.

Yes. He is afraid of the dark.

Once he begins his descent, she pulls the doors closed behind her. Dora hears when he reaches the bottom—the scuff of heel to stone—and her hand tightens on the balustrade, the rough wood splintering her palm.

“To your right there is a tinderbox. Atop a crate. Do you—”

“I have it.”

There is a scrape, a spark, and Dora sees the ember-glow between Mr. Lawrence’s fingers. He lights the first candle just as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. Dora peers into his face, and in the lowlight she fancies he looks very pale.

“Here.” She lets him light the second and takes the first candle from him. “I’ll light the rest.”

Dora busies herself with the sconces, gently deposits Hermes on the back of the chair. The bird ruffles his feathers, patters up and down the wood as if it were a tightrope. When she turns she finds Mr. Lawrence bent—hands on knees—studying the vase. He looks up as she approaches and her heart begins to thud dangerously in the cavern of her chest.

“Well?”

Mr. Lawrence straightens. “Well.” He unwinds the scarf from his neck and turns the wool in his hands, again and again, in nervousness or excitement Dora cannot tell. “It certainly looks genuine. I’ll probably need an analysis of the material to be sure. I can’t accurately age it otherwise, and I’ll have to look underneath.”

“Why?” Dora asks.

Mr. Lawrence smiles a little. The color has returned to his cheeks.

“Forgers often mark the bottom of pottery. Your Oriental wares,” he says with a nod to the floor above, “all have signature stamps on them that are invariably incorrect, but forgers insist on doing it because they believe it dupes buyers into thinking the item is the genuine article. Grecian pottery however is rarely marked. A relatively small number of Athenian vases bear the signature of the artist or the potter. The thing is, potter and painter were not always one and the same, but they could be.”

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