He didn’t believe her. To be fair, neither did she believe him, but she was regarding the brothers with more sympathy than when she had arrived. Especially when she noticed that Lord Baldwin’s cheek was marred by a welt from a whip or thin stick, and that Lord Ernest was limping.
“I take it his lordship was not pleased with your performance,” Lord Cornelius said to his twin in an undertone. Fortunately, Mel’s hearing was excellent. She pretended to be absorbed in looking up at the ceiling, which was painted with a scene of dancing.
“The families of the brides checkmated his wedding plans by wanting to invite the Duchess of Winshire whom he apparently does not wish to offend,” Baldwin explained. “He took it out on us once they were gone. Come on, Allan, Ernest. I have some salve in my room.”
For the remainder of the day, none of the brothers would talk to her about anything beyond the merest commonplaces. Clearly, Lord Kemble had put out an order.
Mel wasn’t in the job to make friends, and was used to working in an indifferent or even hostile atmosphere. The fact she was beginning to like the brothers was entirely beside thepoint. She kept moving around the public areas, studying the walls and what she could see of the floors.
The gallery must have a peephole in the floor that allowed the brothers to see who was in the anteroom, but Mel couldn’t find it with a visual inspection, and anything more detailed would have to wait until she could be certain of privacy.
Perhaps she could check during dinner—another pot of soup was already cooking on the back of the stove that warmed the dining area. Mel took her notebook with her to sit in the dining room, hoping to catch someone in the act of putting a sedative in her bowl or her cup.
“What are you writing?” asked Lord Francis.
“Nothing important,” Mel said, and turned the page so he could see. There was no harm in showing him. She wrote her case notes as if they were notes for a children’s story about a talking cat.
He looked puzzled as he read, and well he might. “‘One mouse gave the squirrel a clue to what happened to her relative. If his story turns out to be true, squirrel cousin might still be alive. The search of the mouse hole continues. The mice that left the hole were scratched by the cat, but they were not badly injured and returned home.’”
While he flicked over a couple of pages, Mel looked around her until a discrepancy caught her attention. The wall. It met the outer wall at right angles, but didn’t all the other rooms have acute angles in their outer corners?
The tower was an octagon, with the dividing walls for each outer room radiating outward. A right angle was impossible unless the room on either side also had a right angle—the two walls, now that she came to look at the other side of the room. Or, unless each wall concealed a hidden space.
“It is you,” said Lord Francis. “You are the squirrel. My brothers and I are the mice. Who is the squirrel cousin?”
She had underestimated the man. “It is just a children’s story,” Mel insisted.
Lord Francis gave her a disbelieving look, but at that moment, two of the other brothers came into the dining space—Lord Donald to stir the stew, and Lord Baldwin to put bowls, mugs, and plates out on the bench beside the stove.
She tried to keep an eye on Lord Baldwin, but Lord Francis was continuing to try to decipher her notes, and Lord Donald had come over to see what Lord Francis was doing, getting in her way so she could not see exactly what Lord Baldwin was up to without making it obvious that she suspected him of doctoring either one of the mugs or one of the bowls.
Sure enough, when the three of them left her to return to their own activities, one bowl was placed apart from the others, and so was one mug. Mel bowed her head back over her notes and waited for her opportunity to swap them with the ones she had slipped into her bag when she was putting away the dishes.
Her chance came when the bell rang to announce the arrival of the evening basket of bread and jug of water. While the brothers were distracted, she walked around the table and out of the dining area, making the exchange on her way. Sure enough, both bowl and cup had some thick liquid at the bottom. Mel put them into the slop bucket and threw a cloth over them.
After that, it was just a matter of stumbling up the stairs after dinner, weaving slightly on her way to her bedchamber. Before long, she heard footsteps passing her door. The brothers who had their chambers up here, she assumed.
She changed while she waited. All in black, from head to foot, so she would be hidden against the dark city streets. If her guess about the dining space was right, they’d head downstairs again when they were ready. They did, about half an hour later. She waited until she was certain all six were downstairs, then slipped out her door and knelt to peek over the balustrade.
All ten of them were there below, and sure enough, Lord Kemble was standing by the sideboard, his hands on the carving down one side. While Mel watched, he stepped back, and pulled the entire sideboard away from the wall.
He stepped into the space it had covered, and then the other brothers followed, one by one. When all of them had disappeared, the sideboard rolled back into place, presumably pulled by the last of the brothers.
Mel hurried downstairs and soon found the catch. The sideboard needed no more than a gentle tug to swing out. She opened the low door behind it to disclose what looked like an empty cupboard, but since the ten brothers were not within—and indeed, could not have fitted—there must be a trapdoor. She soon discovered how to open it, and below was a flight of steps.
She was not more than a minute or two behind them, but she could not see any sign of light below. Still, it was more important to take a moment to find out the internal latch. She had no idea what the circumstances of her return might be, and she did not want to be caught on the wrong side of the door because she had not taken the time now to make sure she could get back in.
Fortunately, it was a simple lever on the side wall. Moments later, she hurried down the steps in the dark as fast as she could without disaster, holding tight to the rail and running her hand down the rock wall beside her.
There! A glimmer of flame down below. They were not far ahead. She continued downward, being even more cautious lest a noise had them turning back.
She need not have worried. They were strolling along the tunnel that led from the foot of the stairs, deep in conversation. It was wide enough that they could walk three and four abreast, and Mel was able to creep close enough to hear while staying in the darkness beyond the reach of the lamps they must have picked up on their way. The floor of the tunnel sloped, so thatthey were moving downhill, and a soft breeze moved across Mel’s cheek, hinting at an opening to the outdoors somewhere ahead.
“So, we shall have to move up our escape,” Baldwin was saying.
“That means you will have to go into hiding, Jerome,” said Kemble. “Just for five months, until your birthday.”
“I think the plan to scatter is best.” That was Frank. “If we run in ten different directions, we shall stretch his resources, and reduce the chance of him finding Jerome. If he can find any of the rest of us, he will try to force us to say where the others are.”
