“Probably one of Madge’s stupid tricks,” Teddy suggested.

Evan cupped his hand around the back of Sir Rudyard’s head. He started to ease his sock monkey out of the case, but Teddy stopped him.

“Take the case, too,” he told his brother. “Maybe there’s a clue inside.”

“Good thinking.” Evan slammed the lid. “That’s three down, one to go.”

“Let’s come back later.” Teddy rubbed the palms of his gloves together. “I’m freezing.”

“Hold on . . .” Annaliese sneezed. “Look, there’s one more.” She waved her hanky at a small case leaning against the back wall.

Throckmorton hoped that they’d find the pear-shaped case empty. He couldn’t bear to see another sock monkey in such a deplorable state.

Evan peeked under the arched lid. He grinned.

“Is it Miss Beatrice?” Annaliese asked.

Evan gave Teddy and Annaliese a thumbs-up. “Four for four! We’re in the money,” he declared. “Let’s go!”

“I can’t wait to tell Father,” Annaliese said.

“No,” Evan said angrily. “Not until I say it’s okay.”

“Why?” she asked.

“There’s something fishy going on.” He swept his arm over the musical graveyard. “None of this makes any sense.”

“That’s for sure.” Teddy nodded.

Evan backed out of the hidden room with the two instrument cases in hand. Teddy and Annaliese followed.

“Listen, we need to get our stories straight,” said Evan darkly, “until our investigation is complete.”

He raised his index finger. “One, we found the sock monkeys in a closet.” He lifted his middle finger. “Two, there’s no hidden room.”

“And, three . . .” He flashed three fingers. “No abandoned instrument cases.”

Annaliese slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to get in any trouble . . .”

“You won’t,” Evan told her. “Trust me.”

While Evan and Teddy pressed the panel door back into place, Annaliese poked her head into a dark recess behind the harp.

Something caught her attention, but Throckmorton couldn’t see what.

“Come on, Annaliese,” Teddy called out. “We’re ready to lock up.”

Teddy retrieved Captain Eugene on their way out of the attic. “We found your cousins!” he told his sock monkey.

Sadly, Throckmorton imagined how Captain Eugene’s heart would break when he laid his eyes on Sir Rudyard.

Evan locked the attic door at the bottom of the narrow staircase.

“I’ll go down the back way,” Evan said. “Let’s meet in my room in ten minutes.”

Annaliese opened her hand. “Mrs. Wiggins will want her keys back.”

Evan tossed her the ring. “If she asks, tell her that we’re still looking. Remember, mum’s the word.”

Evan and Teddy walked off in different directions, but Annaliese lingered. She set Throckmorton in a side chair and then bent over, unbuckling and buckling her Mary Jane shoes.

From where he sat, Throckmorton spied Madge down the hall, near the ballroom’s double doors. Her back was to them.

Madge, who was pushing a carpet sweeper, stopped to open the door of a massive curio cabinet filled with a rare collection of tiny, intricately carved ivory animals. She stuck her hand in, grabbed one of the priceless miniatures, and dropped it into her apron pocket.

Annaliese looked up, but too late to see the maid’s petty theft.

“That Madge,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “She’s always lurking somewhere.”

To this day, Throckmorton could still smell Madge’s foul breath and fishy-smelling hands at the moment she’d tossed him into the net.

He’d always despised the lazy maid, but he’d never dreamed that she was a thief to boot.

Once Madge disappeared, Annaliese unlocked the attic door and dashed back up to the fourth floor. She sprinted toward the door to the hidden room, squeezed past the harp, and scrambled into the alcove.

Now Throckmorton could see what had earlier captured Annaliese’s attention: a steamer trunk, a row of suitcases, and a stack of hat and dress boxes.

Without hesitation, she grabbed a medium-sized piece of luggage. Throckmorton recognized the suitcase right away: It was golden and made of crocodile leather.

He thought back to that sorrowful afternoon five years earlier, when Teddy had opened the very same suitcase. Teddy’s innocent question replayed in Throckmorton’s mind: Do you think that any of this stuff belongs to our mother?

Throckmorton had never forgotten the answer.

And now he knew that Annaliese hadn’t either.