Page 112 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘He started to get angry and insisted I was being unreasonable, because she wasn’t doing any harm. It was all very difficult,’ he said heavily, running a hand through his red-gold hair. ‘In the end I said if she handed back her key, then I was prepared to allow her to go in on Fridays when the cleaners were there.’
‘That seems reasonable to me, though I doubt if she’ll see it like that.’
‘Until we do get her key back, I’d feel happier if you did any treasurehunting in daylight, Angel. I’m not saying she’s dangerous, but she does seem unbalanced and might make herself unpleasant again.’
‘OK. I’ve come to the conclusion it needs a methodical search in daylight anyway,’ I agreed. ‘And I’m pretty sure now that the clues refer to Lady Anne’s bedchamber, because the carved bosses look more like the Tudor roses in the window than the ones in the muniment room.’
‘Perhaps we should both take a few hours off later in the week and I’ll help you to look?’ he suggested. ‘Then we can decide if you’re on a wild-goose chase or not.’
Even if he wouldn’t admit it, I could see a touch of Treasure Fever was sneaking up on him, too!
I’d really been tinkering with the Brisbane cartoon for the last couple of days, reluctant to let it go until it was perfect.
When Ivan arrived the following morning, I asked him what he thought. ‘I’m not sure about that bit at the top, where the first bit of white foam is turning into a bird,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should just—’
‘No, lass, you leave it alone,’ he interrupted me. ‘It’s finished.’
I sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. Come on, let’s take it down. I’ve got a big cardboard cylinder ready to pack it in, with a letter and some notes, though I’ll have to leave that till later, because I’ve got to go back up to the house first.’
‘I’ll pack it up for you,’ he offered.
‘That would be great, if you don’t mind – and then could you work on another of the roundels till it’s time to leave? I know you’re going home at lunchtime today.’
‘That’s right, it’s the Senior Citizens’ trip to Blackpool and I’ll not be back in till Monday, but I’ll have plenty of time to sort the cartoon and start the roundel before I go.’
‘I’ll leave you to it, then. And if I’m not back by the time you leave, just lock up when you go, because I’ll be down later and I’ll see to the alarm then. And have a lovely break in Blackpool!’
‘I’ll bring you a stick of rock,’ he promised.
Carey had set off early that morning for an auction on the outskirts of Liverpool, where a couple of nice pieces of Arts and Crafts furniture were coming up, so I’d offered to be there when the workmen came to service and update the lift.
In fact, the two men from Elevated Ideas arrived at the house just as I did and I took them through to the tower, where the electrician was already at work. He has a key, now he’s practically part of the family.
I left them at the bottom of the lift shaft, deep in a discussion involving words like ‘motherboard’ and ‘fail-safe’, while I went to the kitchen to make tea. Fang was shut in there, just in case he took a dislike to the new workmen, though he rarely blotted his copybook these days.
When I’d taken the tray through, I went back and had a cup of coffee, wandering into the studio with it and standing in front of the Lady Anne cartoon.
Those flat, stylized Tudor roses were, I was sure, much more like those in the bedchamber …
It was broad daylight and there were several workmen around, so the fear of being shut up in the old wing with Ella seemed suddenly slightly absurd. On impulse, I decided I’d pop through the upper tower and check those bosses out then and there.
The bright day didn’t appear to have made it as far as the old wing, because even with the blinds up and the curtains drawn back, the haunted bedchamber was still gloomy and, as always, struck chill.
I realized too late that I should have brought a torch. There was a tiny one on my keychain but the battery was dying, so the bulb had about as much power as an anaemic glow-worm.
Still, I could see enough to tell that the bosses on the horizontal boards above the linenfold panellingwereexactly the same as in the window, so presumably I needed only to find the correct sequence of three linenfold panels and a boss …
That wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded, but the sequence had to start from some point, so I followed the panelling round the room with my glimmering light and noted that the run was broken by the fireplace, the two doors and the substantial headboard of the bed,which seemed to be fixed to the wall. That narrowed the search down a bit.
Despite what Carey had said about us searching together, it was too irresistible not to have a littletryand I’d just decided to go back to the kitchen for my big torch when the dying flicker of the one I was holding caught the knobbly carving of figures and a tree on the central panel of that huge wooden bedhead.
Hadn’t Carey told me it looked like a man and a woman in a garden, when he first showed me round the house? How could I have forgotten that? Of course, it must be Adam and Eve! And now I was nearer, I could make out the sneaky serpent, too … and that the female figure – Eve – was holding out an apple to her spouse, which she seemed to have taken out of a very domestic-looking rush basket.
Apples, basketwork … it was the missing sequence!
The almost useless torch gave up entirely at this moment, but in rising excitement I kneeled on the bed and, putting my right hand on the apple and my left on the basket, tried twiddling, turning and pressing both until finally, with a creak of long disuse, a panel slid open in front of me and I was facing impenetrable darkness.
I sensed there was a large cavity there, but in frustration realized I’d have to go back for the big torch before I could see anything.
