“This is ridiculous,” Tiberius said, emerging from the tiny water closet with decided distaste. “There isn’t a place to hide as much as a pin.”
I crept out from under the bed, straightening my skirts and accepting the hand Stoker proffered. He hauled me to my feet and shook his head. “It pains me—you cannot imagine how deeply—to agree with Tiberius. There is nothing to be found here.” After a thorough search of the wardrobe, Stoker had stood in the fireplace, running his hands over the stones and sifting through the cold ashes until his face and hands were black as a badger’s pelt.
I tipped my head, looking thoughtfully at the wooden paneling on the interior wall of the room. Like the rest of the bedrooms, this one had been built into a tower, with circular stone walls surrounding most of the space. But a partition wall of stout oak had been installed along one side, dividing the bedchamber from the adjoining water closet.
“Tiberius, how large is the water closet?” I inquired.
“Six feet?” he guessed.
“And how long is this wall?” I asked, running my hands over the elaborate linenfold carving. Finding a likely spot, I rapped it with my knuckles. A dull thud echoed back.
“Nine,” Stoker supplied, coming immediately to help. Together we rapped our way down the panels, alternating to listen as the other knocked.
“What are you both doing?” Tiberius demanded. “You look like figures in a fun fair.”
“The Romillys are an old Catholic family,” I replied. “Malcolm said he found the bag in a priest’s hole and Mrs. Trengrouse mentioned the castlehas several. Many recusant households boasted them. Some were doubtless holdovers from the days when good Englishmen feared invasion from abroad and wanted a place to hide, but most were purpose-built in order to conceal a priest or Catholic relics during the reign of Elizabeth.”
“And they went on being used through the Civil War,” Stoker added. “Many is the Royalist who was hid away as the Roundheads searched fruitlessly for those who fought for the Stuarts.”
“Thank you for the history lesson,” Tiberius said dryly.
We rapped at the panel for several more minutes before the telltale hollow echo repaid our efforts.
“Here!” I cried. Stoker moved to my side, inspecting the seams in the panel.
“It cannot be a large space,” he mused. “You couldn’t hide much more than a dog in there.” He traced the panel with his finger. It could not have exceeded three feet by two. The linenfold was bordered by a pattern of lozenges and roses and I pressed them all in turn.
“There must be a mechanism,” I protested. “There is most definitely a space behind this panel. But how to gain access...”
I repeated the process, taking my time as I ran careful fingers over each petal and leaf with disappointing results.
“It appears your efforts are in vain,” Tiberius said, inspecting his fingernails.
“And I was so certain,” I muttered. As I had in the music room, I kicked lightly at the baseboard, a thick panel of stout oak almost a foot high. Suddenly, the panel swung out noiselessly.
“Which of us shall go in?” Stoker asked. I did not bother to reply. The entrance was too tiny to admit a man of his inches comfortably. Besides, the discovery was mine. I would have sooner cut off my own arm than let him precede me.
“Excelsior!” I cried, diving into the dark space headfirst. A strong arm about my waist pulled me back. “Unhand me, Stoker,” I instructed.
“Not until you promise not to hurl yourself into trouble,” he replied. “That panel may have been closed for centuries. Even if it has been opened recently, the air will still be bad. There is no ventilation and no light. Give it a moment to air out and at least take a candle.”
I pulled a face at his precautions but he was entirely correct. In my haste to explore, I had failed to make even elementary preparations, and I was chagrined at my own recklessness. “Very well,” I said meekly.
The minutes ticked by slowly, but after a quarter of an hour, I took the candle that Stoker had obligingly lit for me and folded myself once more into the tiny space. The air was, as he had predicted, thoroughly foul. It was cold and smelt of old stone and something else I could not place, a dankness, a rankness that offended my nostrils. I clapped a hand over my nose and peered into the shadows. The candle gave enough illumination to reveal that I was crouched in a space even smaller than I had imagined. The opening behind me was the entirety of the panel—three feet high by two feet wide, barely large enough to permit me to enter while bent double. The back wall was another paneled affair, some three feet from the front, giving approximately the dimensions of a very small coffin. I shuddered. I knew that priests had often spent weeks in their sad little hiding places. I could not imagine any man lasting more than a few hours in such confinement without going entirely mad.
As I raised the candle, the shadows in the corner revealed a dark bundle. I retrieved it and stepped backwards out of the filthy little hole.
“That was vile,” I said, brushing myself off. It was a futile gesture. The priest’s hole had been free of cobwebs. It was only the atmosphere of the place that clung to me like a spider’s silk. I blew out the candle and handed it to Tiberius.
He stared at the bundle clutched in my arms. We had none of us examined it properly when Malcolm had presented it—an eventuality I could attribute to my own delicacy in asking for the thing and a decision I regretted—but we had the chance now and we took our time. Thefabric was wool, or it had been once. It smelled like something wet that had never properly dried, no doubt the source of the dankness I had detected. I opened it carefully, but the sodden fabric fell to shreds in my hands. Inside the bundle was the traveling bag.
He had been expecting it, but Tiberius still reared back as soon as he saw the case. I traced the initials worked into the wool with a careful fingertip.
“R.I.A.,” I said.
Tiberius managed a nod. “Rosamund Isabelle Aylesworth.”
I flicked a glance towards Tiberius. “We ought to examine it.”
