Mrs. Pike stood up and brushed off her apron. She did not look at Clara. "Goes straight through to his old study. Funny, the things you remember." And she walked back to her ovens, humming quietly to herself.
Clara stared after her. Had the cook told her that by accident, or had she meant it? There was no time to wonder, because if it was true, Clara had found her way in.
She waited until after midnight. The house was dark and silent. Clara crept down the narrow servants' stairs in her stocking feet, carrying her shoes in one hand and a small candle in the other. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure the whole house must hear it.
On the second landing hung a huge old tapestry of men on horseback chasing a stag. Clara set down her candle, lifted the heavy edge of the cloth, and felt along the wall behind it: wood, a small door, an old iron handle. She turned it; the door creaked open. Clara picked up her candle and stepped through.
The old Duke's study was exactly as he had left it three years before: white sheets covered the chairs and the sofa like silent ghosts, dust lay thick on the bookshelves, and the heavy curtains were drawn. Above the fireplace hung a large portrait of a gray-haired man with a kind face and laughing eyes. Clara stood beneath it for a long moment.
"You knew my father," she whispered to the painting. "You promised to help him. Please, help me now."
Then she began to search.
There was a tall writing desk by the window covered with a sheet. Clara pulled it away. The desk was made of dark, polished wood with many small drawers and a large locked compartment in the middle. She tried the drawers one by one: old letters, bills from tailors, a pair of reading spectacles, a pipe—nothing.
Then, in the bottom drawer, she found a small leather book: an appointment diary. Clara's fingers were trembling as she turned the pages, looking for the date she would never forget: the spring her father was arrested.
And there it was, in the old Duke's sloping handwriting:
*Met T. Hartley at the bank. Witnessed M. sign the agreement. £40,000. Hartley fears trouble. Have taken the papers into my keeping. They are safe.*
Clara pressed her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. It was real. After all these years, it was real. Her father had not imagined it: the old Duke had taken the papers, and he had written it down plain as day.
But where were they?
She turned to the large locked compartment in the middle of the desk. She pulled at it; it did not move. She searched the drawers again for a key, running her fingers along every corner—nothing.
She was on her knees, feeling underneath the desk for a hidden latch, when a quiet voice spoke behind her: "What are you looking for?"
Clara froze. Slowly, she turned around.