“Ivy, hold the light over here.” Elsa watched as the small amber glow illuminated what she’d found. Sliding her fingers in around all sides, it felt like a box wrapped in India rubber and coated with dirt.
“What is it?” Ivy asked.
“I don’t even want to guess.” Elsa pushed down the hope that flared to life inside her. It could be any number of objects. It could be the book Linus thought was the aviary, which Birdie had replaced with something else. Would Linus have actually buried what he thought was a medieval book inside a dirt wall? What a terrible idea!
Then again, Agnes had mentioned Linus would rather risk destroying a coveted object than allow someone else to have it.
If it wasn’t the book Linus had buried, it had to be—couldbe—the aviary Birdie had swiped from Linus’s den. She might have hid it here, right under his nose, so close to the room he thought she didn’t know about.
Thank goodness the walls had eroded over time, revealing the edge. Elsa never would have thought to look here. She supposed that was the idea.
“Can you get it out?” Ivy asked. “Or will the whole wall come tumbling down?”
“Good question,” Elsa agreed. “Luke would know.”
“Gee, he’s a handy fella to have around.” Ivy’s smile was obvious in her voice. “March on.”
Gladly.
Moments later, Elsa pushed through the small door and back into the den, Ivy right behind her.
“Elsa! Ivy!” Luke pounded on the door as though he’d been trying to raise a response for some time. “I’m going to bust down the door if you don’t answer me.”
“We’re here!” Ivy called. “Just a second!” She scrambled to the door and opened it while Elsa collapsed onto the desk chair.
“Why didn’t you answer us?” Luke burst into the room, Tom following. Barney trotted to her and licked her filthy hands.
Elsa pointed to the door to the tunnel.
“We didn’t go all the way down,” Ivy explained. “We turned around at a three-foot drop-off.”
“Thank goodness.” Luke rubbed a muscle at the back of his neck.
“Are we alone again? Who was it who came?” Elsa figured Luke had chased whoever it was off the property but didn’t want to risk sharing about her discovery if there was any chance someone else was in the house.
“We’re alone again.” Tom shook his head and laughed. “You won’t believe who that was. Crawford!”
“Who’s Crawford?” Ivy sat on top of the desk and crossed her ankles. Mud coated her Oxford heels.
Still recovering her breath, Elsa let Luke and Tom explain that Crawford was one of the Spaldings’ servants who came to pack up the valuables Mrs. Spalding wanted.
“Did he come to search for the aviary, too?”
“He did,” Tom said. “Gave us a sob story about needing it because he was in love with a woman above his station and would only ask her to marry him if he had the means to provide for her the way she had been raised.”
Elsa’s eyebrows raised. “Did he say who his sweetheart is? Is it Jane?”
Luke shook his head. “I didn’t ask. I just reminded him that stealing is still against the law, which is what he had come here with every hope and intention of doing.”
“AndIreminded him,” said Tom, “coming from a background of service myself, that he’d never be able to get another job in service if he had theft on his record. He replied that if he’d found the aviary, he wouldn’t have to worry about working again for a long time. But we pointed out that was only if no one caught him. Which we already had.”
“Well done,” Elsa said, and Tom’s smile unfurled. “And how about you, Barney? Did you have anything to tell Crawford?”
“Oh yes, he did.” Luke chuckled. “Barney told him he was trespassing and ought to shake a leg before we decided to make a citizen’s arrest and drive him to the Tarrytown police.”
“That was magnanimous of you,” Ivy told him. “I might have hauled him off myself.”
“I’m pretty sure he learned his lesson,” Luke said. “Besides, with so many people looking for the aviary, I doubt he would have had better luck.”
