‘Damn it,’ she murmured, moving to the next one.
Minutes stretched on, as they tried box after box, tripping over their own fingers as frustration mounted.
‘I swear to God,’ Oliver muttered, ‘if this turns out to be some elaborate wild goose chase?—’
Click.
Clemmie froze and her breath caught in her throat as the lock mechanism released with a soft metallic snap.
‘Oliver,’ she whispered, her fingers trembling as the lid of the box swung open.
Inside, neatly stacked beneath a layer of velvet, were loose-leaf pages, the edges curled and yellowed with time.
Oliver exhaled. ‘We’ve got it.’
For a second, neither of them moved.
Clemmie looked up at Oliver, her heart hammering with the adrenaline. ‘Now what?’
‘Now we run,’ ordered Oliver.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Clemmie’s heart was still racing as they hurried along the bay.
Oliver kept glancing over at her. ‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Clemmie, ‘I mean, I reallycan’tbelieve the code opened the box.’
‘I think it’s Betty’s choice what she does with these documents. What do you think?’
Clemmie nodded. ‘I agree.’
As they approached The Café on the Coast, they saw that Betty was flipping the ‘OPEN’ sign to ‘CLOSED’.
‘Granny!’ Clemmie called out.
Betty turned, raising an eyebrow as she took in the pair of them, flushed from exertion, eyes alight with urgency.
‘What’s got you two in a flap?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’ve just run from a ghost.’ She opened the door wide and they walked into the café.
‘Get that door locked,’ said Clemmie.
Betty closed the door behind them, her eyes flicking from one to the other.
‘What’s going on? Has something happened?’
Clemmie took a steadying breath. ‘We met with Bunny at the hotel,’ she started. ‘Granny, she cracked the 1705 code.’
Betty’s eyes widened. ‘What?’
Clemmie nodded rapidly. ‘She figured it out because of the photograph, the one of the royal recipe cabinets. Chef Étienne is a distant cousin of Bunny’s and his birthday was May seventeenth.Seventeen-zero-five.’
Betty looked astonished.
‘This,’ Oliver said, gesturing to the stack of aged papers, ‘is what we found inside the box that the code unlocked.’
Betty stared at the documents as if they might combust at any moment. Then, with a deep breath, she shook her head, walked over to the kettle and flicked it on.
