Raven uttered a curse that would have earned him a caning had a schoolmaster caught wind of it.
Peregrine crept over to the raised lectern used by the teachers and checked inside its cubbyholes. He shook his head to indicate that he had found nothing.
“The beatings are bad enough, but all the boys live in fear of being sentenced to the Lockbox,” he continued, once he had rejoined Raven.
“What’s that?”
“A windowless stone chamber hidden somewhere in Lupton’s Tower.” Peregrine came to the corner of the room and led the way into a storage alcove. “It’s said to be cold and black as Hades.” Peregrine repressed a shiver. “Rumor has it that several years ago one of Upper School boys went mad after being confined in there for a week.”
“I wager that we would find a way to beat them at their own game,” muttered Raven.
“I would prefer not to put that statement to the test.” Turning back to the task at hand, Peregrine squeezed between two stacks of wooden crates and felt his way along the wall until he came to a narrow, iron-banded oak door recessed into the bricks.
“Last year, I traded my gold pocket watch to one of the King’s Scholars in return for him showing me the ways he and his friends had discovered for exploring the school buildings without getting caught.”
“Where does this door lead?”
“It gives access to a hidden passageway through an unused part of the cellar and gives us access to the section of the school adjoining the Ante-Chapel. That has to be where Mr. Valencourt has his secret lair,” answered Peregrine. “It’s the only place I never had a chance to explore, because the lock was too complicated for me to open. But now that Wrex has taught you how to work the levers . . .”
He fiddled with the rusty latch and finally pried it open. “Let us hope we can find what Wrex and m’lady are looking for.”
“If the papers are in the secret chamber,” replied Rave, “we’ll find them.”
* * *
Too on edge to sit quietly, Charlotte stripped off her gown and donned her urchin’s garb despite the earl’s admonition to stay hidden in the rented house. Her fancy silks and satins had felt stifling. The rags made her feel ready for any exigencies.
An illusion, perhaps, she thought as she fetched a sketchbook and pencil from her valise. But it helped steady her spirits.
After heading downstairs, Charlotte entered the parlor. McClellan looked up from her knitting but made no comment on the change of clothing as Charlotte settled into a chair and turned to a fresh page.
She wasn’t quite sure of what she hoped to accomplish by sketching—other than distract herself from the painfully slow passage of time. Still she made herself put pencil to paper.
“Shall I go make some tea for us?” asked McClellan a short while later. She, too, appeared fidgety. Tyler had left earlier in the day to make further inquiries about the bridge engineer Brendan O’Connor, leaving her and Charlotte as the only ones without a specific assignment.
“I would ask for whisky, but I’d rather keep my head clear.” Charlotte continued her aimless doodling of bridges, hoping her imagination would come up with some brilliant insight on its own.
McClellan rose and came to look at the page. That she said nothing was an eloquent enough statement in itself.
“I know, I know, it’s a silly waste of time. I suppose I’m hoping for some sudden spark of inspiration,” Charlotte admitted. “Most crimes have a key to unlocking the motivation, and once one sees it, the whole picture snaps into focus.”
McClellan gave the squiggles another look and arched her brows in skepticism. “If you say so.”
“Milton’s murder is connected to bridges,” muttered Charlotte under her breath. “And bridges allow people and goods to move from here to there faster and more efficiently.”
The maid retreated to her own chair without further comment and resumed her knitting.
Charlotte turned to a fresh page, willing it to speak to her.
It stared back in taunting silence.
Closing her eyes, she exhaled, determined to relax and give her imagination free rein . . . and after a moment, she found herself drawing a gentleman on horseback trotting over a bridge, followed by a pair of farmworkers on foot, carrying sacks of grain.
“What am I missing?”
The coals in the hearth had burned down to ashes, though a sudden flare of firelight showed that a few embers were still burning.
She drew a circle.
