Sybil blinked. “What practical application would that serve?”
“I would think of one,” Jacob promised.
“There’s someone outside the window,” Gracie exclaimed.
Sybil rushed forward to open the latch. “It’s Graham Wynchester. You’d know these things if you’d arrived at the emergency meeting on time.”
Graham slipped inside the room.
Sybil stuck her head outside to glance at the wall. Brick, on either side. Some solid, some crumbling. None with a lip wider than a quarter of an inch.
Gracie did the same. “How did he…”
Elizabeth sheathed and unsheathed her sword. “I’m bored. Have you found the contraband yet? It’s time for a friendly beheading.”
“Not yet,” Sybil answered.
Elizabeth brightened. “You didn’t say no! My siblings always forbid friendly beheadings.”
“I wasn’t talking about…” But there was no sense correcting her. Time was wasting. Sybil searched through the work room instead.
There were dresses and piles of material everywhere. Cotton, silk, satin. Plain, printed, dyed. Folded in great reams. Cut into patterns. Sewn into various stages of completion.
And not one of them matched Sybil’s list or Marjorie’s illustrations.
Gracie frowned. “These look like…original gowns?”
Sybil echoed her frustration. “Mlle. LaChapelle used Mme. Blanchet’s work as a foot in the door, but she still has dreams of designing her own.”
Florentia made a face. “Soon, dozens of women will be wearing Mlle. LaChapelle originals. Her reputation will be of a pioneer artist. No one would believe her to be the thief then. She’ll be popular on her own merits—as she’s angled for all along.”
“No,” Sybil said firmly. “We’ll find the evidence. Madame Blanchet is counting on us.”
But twenty minutes later, the evidence staring them in the face was not the evidence they’d come hoping to find.
“The stolen dresses aren’t here,” Sybil said bleakly. “We’ve failed Mme. Blanchet.”
Chapter 14
“No.” Graham Wynchester turned his gaze toward Sybil. “It’s only failure when we give up.”
She hated disappointing him. Sybil flung her arms out to indicate the empty-handed bluestockings milling dejectedly around them. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
He pointed his index finger toward the ceiling. “Not everywhere.”
Sybil’s heart quickened. He was right. The ceiling was flat, but the roof was gabled. “An attic!”
“More of a crawl space,” he admitted. “The exterior window was locked, and the interior gable appears too small to stand up in…”
“But there’s plenty of room for dresses,” Sybil finished with a smile. Working together, they had found the solution! “We just have to get up there.”
“I’m looking for an opening. I haven’t found one on this half of the room so far.”
“I’ll inspect this half.”
They set off in opposite directions. Once the others realized what was happening, every member of the reading circle craned their necks to look for a trap door as well.
The ceiling was old, and covered in decorative ceiling squares and lunettes, further complicating the search. It was difficult to distinguish the outline of a door amid all the cracks in the plaster. There were cracks spidering between all the moldings, but none of them were—
