Frederick shook his head. “The windows were latched from the inside, remember?”
She nodded. “Even so. There may be another way.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “Show me.”
When they reached the top of the stairs, Miss Lane paused to pick up a lamp from a table in the passage. She said, “Inthe days when this was an abbey, room three was part of the abbess’s private chamber.”
“Yes, I heard.” He unlocked the door and opened it, gesturing for her to precede him and hesitating a moment before closing it after them.
She continued, “Lady Fitzhoward and I studied the floor plans in the library. There is what appears to be a small spiral staircase leading to and from this room—one the abbess probably used to go to and from the cloisters below and into the church beyond. After the abbey closed and Mr. Sharington renovated the building into a family home, this room became his wife’s bedchamber. Her lady’s maid slept in a small room adjoining it, with a second door leading to a servants’ stairway, so the maid could come and go without disturbing her mistress or being seen by guests.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Rose told John and me about it a few years back. She and the lady’s maid were friends.”
He looked around the room. “Where would it be?”
“I am not sure.” Rebecca went to the closet and opened it. A coat and discarded cravat hung from hooks on the wall, and a two-tier wooden shelf for shoes or hat boxes sat on the floor. It had been pushed to the right side, Mr. Oliver’s hat atop it, looking abandoned and forlorn.
“That is only a closet,” Frederick observed.
Miss Lane nodded. “I assume the former maid’s room was done away with during hotel renovations, leaving only this.”
She eyed the set of low shelves. “In my room, the shelves are set against the back of the closet.”
“In mine as well.”
She felt along the seam for some sort of hidden latch, searching all the way to the floor. Nothing. She straightened and inmild frustration pushed the rear panel. The panel popped open, and cool, musty air wafted out at them.
He gaped. “Why did Mr. Mayhew not tell us about this?”
“I doubt he knows. Remember, he bought this place after the first investors went bankrupt. Most of the work had already been done. In the floor plans, the stairs appear as a tiny curl within the wall. Easy to miss. Or he may have assumed the stairs had been removed, since they are now completely hidden from view.”
“Surely someone else must know of this. The workmen? The maids?”
She shook her head. “You can ask Mr. Mayhew, but I believe most of the present staff were hired after the renovations were completed.”
“And what about servants from the Sharington days—are any of them still alive and in the area?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“And Rose told you about this?” he asked again.
“Yes, apparently she used to sneak over here to visit her friend, no one any the wiser.”
Some fleeting glimmer of an idea teased the edges of Frederick’s mind and faded away as quickly. What was it? He tried to call it back to no avail.
He peered into the shadowy space, the light from the lamp descending into the shaft, revealing the uppermost stairs—chalky grey stone, almost white—curving sharply away into the darkness below.
Miss Lane extended the lamp farther into the space, into this hidden capsule of medieval architecture.
“I will go first,” Frederick offered. The tightly wound stairs would be best navigated one at a time. His shoulder brushed the wall as he slowly descended.
“Right behind you,” she whispered.
Partway down, a narrow shaft of light pierced the darkness. Studying it, he saw that a little section of masonry had been removed from the vaulting to form a squint. He had to bend to position his eye to it. People in earlier generations had been shorter, and he was above average height for the present age. Through the slit, he could see a small slice of the cloisters.
There, he glimpsed Miss Newport standing in the walkway, talking to someone he could not see. The woman reached out her hand, a look of consolation or resolve on her pretty face. “It will be all right,” she said, and walked away, out of view.
