They rushed stealthily toward the office. Wick tried the knob—locked, of course.
“Hair pins,” he said in a low voice.
Plucking a pair from her wig, Bea handed them over, watching in fascination as he inserted the pins, working them adroitly in the lock. A slight click…and the knob turned.
“Is lock picking a required skill in the underworld?”
“No, but it is at Eton.” He scanned the environs with an alert gaze. “Let’s get inside.”
The fire in the hearth bathed the office in a shadowy, orange glow. A large desk and floor-to-ceiling cabinets dominated one end of the room, with a seating area and another door off to the right. They headed to the desk, where Wick again applied his boarding school tricks to unlock the drawers. In the top drawer, they found assorted writing implements, papers, and a ledger with the club’s accounts…but no list of members.
“Keep searching. I’ll check the cabinets,” Wick told her.
She rifled through the remaining compartments, grimacing at the pair of smelly stockings and a toupee that resembled a dead rodent. While Wick systematically opened and closed the doors of the cabinets, she stepped back, looking around the room.
If I wanted to hide something important, where would I put it?
She wandered over to the seating area, where a bookcase stood against the wall. The shelves were crammed with books. Even knowing where to begin the search was daunting, and they probably only had minutes left before the guard returned.
She chose a book at random from the middle shelf, opening it, rifling through, finding nothing.
Staring at the rows of volumes, she tried to think like a member of a secret society. She skimmed the spines. The secretary had an eclectic collection: treatises on property management, a handful of Shakespeare, some history books, and hold up…Dante’sInferno?
A book about the journey through Hell.
With prickling intuition, she reached for the battered volume on the next-to-highest shelf. She had to stand on tiptoe, her gloved fingertips curling around the spine. As she pulled it down, she felt a slight shifting in the weight of the book, as if something had moved…inside? Examining the book, she saw that it wasn’t a book at all: it was a wooden box with a leather cover, the edges carved to resemble pages.
She shook it, heard a faint movement from within. But there was no way to open it.
“Wick,” she whispered excitedly. “I found something.”
He was over in an instant. “Inferno—ah, clever thinking. May I?” Taking the box, he set it on the desk and methodically ran his fingers over the seams. “The leather cover isn’t attached here by the spine. There’s probably a switch…”
Bea heard a faint click, and the cover popped open like a lid.
Inside, nestled in a piece of silk, was a black leather book.
Wick lifted the small volume, flipping through it.
Names. Pages of them. With the date of acceptance and membership status listed.
“The list,” Bea breathed. “We found it—”
She froze as footsteps and voices approached.
Wick moved quickly. Shoving the book into his jacket pocket, he replacedInfernoon the shelf, and pulled her to the door by the seating area. He made short work of the lock: on the other side was a set of stairs leading downward. He pushed her inside, shutting the door behind them just as the other door to the office opened. As they raced down the steps, Bea’s heartbeat thumped in her ears, mimicking the sounds of footsteps.
Had the guard realized that they’d been in the office? Was he giving chase?
The stairs led to a small corridor lined with more doors, all of them unmarked. No indication of which way was out. Wick grabbed the nearest door knob; when it turned, he went in first, his posture braced. Bea followed closely, the door swinging shut behind her.
It was another chamber, smaller than the office they’d vacated. A desk and chair were curiously placed in the center of the room. The walls were made up of large floor-to-ceiling windows…the curtains strangely positioned on the other side of the glass.
Bea’s nape tingled. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Wick said grimly.
He went to the door, tried to open it. “Bloody hell, someone’s locked it from the outside.”
