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Harry Harrigan prowled the cavernous cellars of Southwold Hall, examining the medieval stonework on which the ancient building rested. Jeremy Clowes, the local stonemason he had hired to make a preliminary survey, shone his flashlight at the ceiling.
“Now, this here,” he said, “is the bomb shelter.”
Harry had his own flashlight and was shining it on the bulging stone walls. He gave a disbelieving groan. “Bomb shelter? How can this be a bomb shelter? Look at it. Why would anyone think they’d be safe in here.”
“They reinforced the ceiling.”
Harry kicked at a brick pillar. “Did they reinforce this?”
Clowes shrugged his broad shoulders. “The family didn’t want to use the village shelter.”
“Ridiculous,” Harry muttered. “Are you telling me they’d rather die in here on their own than be safe in the village shelter with the peasants?”
“That’s the aristocracy for you,” said Clowes.
Harry continued his survey of the cellars with a growing sense of admiration for the medieval craftsmen who had constructed the foundation of Southwold Hall. Surely they had only the most primitive of tools to work with and nothing but candlelight to illuminate the workspace, but somehow they had filled the space with graceful arches and meticulous stonework. Their work had lasted for five hundred years, but it was showing signs of wear. In fact, if he were honest with himself, he would have to say it was showing signs of total collapse.
“Doesn’t look too good,” Harry said.
Clowes grunted dismissively. “Needs a little work.”
“More than a little,” Harry argued. “It’s a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t think that anyone should even be living here.”
The stonemason ran his hand along one of the pillars. “Look at the work here, sir. You won’t see work like that these days. You won’t see that in America. We value our history, sir. We like to hold on to things.”
“I know, I know. I wasn’t suggesting you abandon the place. I was just suggesting that the family should move out while the work is done.”
A wide grin split the stonemason’s face. “So you’re going to do the work?”
Harry clapped Clowes on the shoulder. “Of course I am.”
He stared up at the ancient brickwork forming an arch above their heads. He had no idea how the arch had even been constructed. He had seen nothing like that in Chicago. A little bubble of excitement rose from some unexpected place in his soul. He had never been a man who valued beauty above practicality, but this old building was speaking to him. Five hundred years of history was crying out to be preserved, and he, Harry Harrigan, could answer the cry. The money he had accumulated through years of hard work and hard dealing in the rough and tumble of Chicago politics would pay to preserve this place for Jack’s child.
He breathed in the cool, damp air perfumed with the dust of ages and a whiff of sea air. This was Celeste’s inheritance, and so it was Jack’s inheritance. He no longer had his son, but Jack had not left them empty-handed. Blanche had a grandchild to love and fuss over, and he, Harry, would have this house. He cared little for the rooms upstairs with their dusty colonial furnishings and cracked windows, not to mention their appalling drains, but down here was true workmanship. Down here was where he would start. Here was where Harry Harrigan would make his mark in history.
He wasn’t able to put his feelings into words, but he suspected that there was no need. The building had already worked its magic on Clowes.
“We can’t replace the brickwork,” Clowes said, “but we could leave it where it is and reinforce it with steel beams, if we can get the steel.”
Harry looked up at the rickety wooden steps and the narrow doorway into the main house. “Let me worry about getting the steel, you worry about how we get the beams down the stairs without pulling down the walls.”
“Easy, sir. You can bring them along the tunnel.”
“Tunnel?”
“Smugglers tunnel,” said Clowes. “Over here, sir.”
Smugglers tunnel! Harry followed Clowes, ducking his head as they passed from the stonework cellar into what appeared to be a natural cave.
“What is this?”
Clowes laughed. “The old lords weren’t as law-abiding as they are today. When Southwold was just a manor house, before all the new additions and fancy rooms, the Earls of Southwold used to turn their hands to a bit of smuggling. They’d offload the goods into small boats and bring them in through the caves.”
Clowes’ flashlight picked up a rounded opening in the wall of the cave, with a greater darkness beyond. “Want me to show you?”
Harry hesitated. “You want me to go through there? Is it safe?”
Clowes consulted his watch. “Should be safe for another hour or so.”
“I don’t understand. Either it’s safe or it’s not safe. How can it be safe for an hour?”
“It’s low tide now, sir. You could walk right out of here and all the way along the beach to the harbor, if you wanted. High tide’s a different story. When the tide’s up, you can float a boat right into the cave. That’s how we’ll bring in the steel beam, just the way the smugglers did it. They’d bring a boat in at high tide, offload the goods, and be back at sea on the ebb tide before the revenuers could catch them.”
An image flashed into Harry’s mind in black and white, just as he’d seen it at the movie theatre. Errol Flynn, sword in hand, white teeth gleaming in a devil-may-care grin, and a band of swashbuckling pirates rowing their small boats on the rising tide into the shelter of the cave. He had no idea what might be in the barrels and bundles offloaded into the cellars of Southwold, but he could imagine the Lord of the Manor opening the cellar doors, a candle in one hand, a purse of gold in the other. He couldn’t wait to tell Blanche.
“When is the last time anyone brought a boat in here?” he asked.
Clowes stepped back from the entrance and scratched his head. “I don’t rightly know. I haven’t been here since I was a kid. We used to come in from the beach, of course, not from the house. Don’t suppose the Earl even knew we were there. We stayed in the cellar. We never went up into the side tunnels.”
“What side tunnels?”
“Secret passages,” Clowes said. “The house is riddled with secret doors and passages. I’ve heard tell that every bedroom has a hidden door.”
“You suggesting some hanky-panky in the bedrooms?” Harry asked. He’d heard stories about what the aristocracy used to get up to.
Clowes grinned. “There may have been some hanky-panky before the war, when the Earl used to have people coming for house parties, but that’s not why the passages were built. The Blanchards were royalists, and they made the passages as a way to escape or to hide people from Cromwell’s men. We had some hard times here in the civil war.”
Harry dismissed the English Civil War as something he would have to learn about later. All he needed to know now was that the great house itself stood on a shaky foundation of ancient brickwork, manmade tunnels, and natural caves.
He shone his flashlight into the darkness. “I don’t like the idea of seawater running under the foundations; might be safer to seal it up.”
Clowes was shocked. “It’s our history, sir.”
“It’s my money,” Harry responded.
“Harry.” Blanche’s voice floated down to him from far away. “Harry, are you down there?”
Harry turned to Clowes. “We’ll talk about it another time. I’m needed upstairs.”
“You’d have to get planning permission to do anything,” Clowes said. “They won’t like you sealing it up.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Harry replied.
He was already walking away from Clowes and the mysterious darkness of the tunnel. If Blanche was calling him, it meant only one thing, Vera Malloy had arrived, and the question of Celeste’s identity could be settled once and for all.
“Should I stay here and take measurements?” Clowes asked.
“Yes, yes, take some measurements,” Harry agreed. “Work out how many steel beams. We’ll need to start work as soon as we can get the steel.”
Blanche was halfway down the rickety wooden steps with a worried expression on her face.
“Is she here?” Harry asked.
“Oh yes, she’s here.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“No, not yet.”
Harry climbed up the steps to meet her. “Is the solicitor here?”
“No.”
“Damn. He’s supposed to be here. I want this over and done with. Where the hell is he, and what are you looking so worried about?”
“Everything,” Blanche said plaintively.
“It’s going to be okay,” Harry said reassuringly. “It’s all going to work out. It’s just a question of money, Blanche. It’s always a question of money and we have plenty of money, so stop worrying. I’m going to get this place fixed up, and it’ll be like our second home. Wait until you tell the gals in your bridge club that you’ll be spending summers in your English mansion.”
“It’s not ours,” Blanche protested.
“It’s as good as ours. Believe me, if I put the money in, I expect a return.”
He patted Blanche’s arm and shone the flashlight around the cavernous cellar. “Look at that. Look at the workmanship, and there’s even a smugglers’ tunnel. Everything’s going to be fine, and you can get to work decorating the house.”
“No, Harry, I won’t be decorating the house.”
Harry looked back over his shoulder. Clowes was packing up his tools. He would be within earshot in just a few moments.
“What are you talking about?” Harry hissed.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
Blanche tugged on his arm, pulling him farther up the steps and speaking in a low voice. “I was looking out of the window, waiting for the car to come. I wanted to see that woman, the one who stole Celeste. I saw the car come up the driveway, and there were two women inside. The car went around to the back, so I ran across the upstairs hall and looked out of that little window outside the bathroom. I saw them getting out of the car.”
“So?”
“One of them was really smartly dressed. Tall, dark hair, looked a lot like Lady Sylvia.”
“Smartly dressed on my money,” Harry muttered.
“And the other one ...” Blanche paused with an agonized expression on her face. “The other one ...”
“What about the other one?”
“When she got out of the car, she looked up for a moment and I saw her clearly. I saw her face. Harry, I recognized her face.”
“I don’t know what you mean. How could you recognize her? You don’t know anyone here.”
Blanche’s response was spoken very quietly. “I know Celeste.”
Harry stared into his wife’s face. He knew what it had cost her to say what she had just said. He knew how much happiness she was about to throw away. It took him a moment to frame an appropriate question, and in the end all he could say was, “Are you sure?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not sure. It was just a glimpse. Something about the eyes or the mouth.”
Harry glanced behind him. Clowes was taking a last look around. “Where is she now?” he asked
“Celeste?”
“No, the woman you saw.”
“I don’t know. I ran down the stairs and tried to find her. Mrs. Pearson was at the front door with the other woman, Vera Malloy, I suppose. There was no one else. But I know what I saw, Harry.”
Harry nudged Blanche up the last few steps, with Clowes following close behind. He set Blanche’s problem aside while he completed his arrangements with the stonemason and wished him a cheerful goodnight.
At last they were alone. He tried to keep the frustration from his voice. “Let me get this clear,” he said. “Vera Malloy arrived with another woman, and you think the other woman is really Celeste’s mother, not Lady Sylvia?”
“I’m not saying that.
“Yes, you are.”
Blanche’s voice seemed to catch in her throat. “There was a strong resemblance, and she had reddish hair.”
“So did Jack.”
“No, Harry, Jack’s hair was gold.”
“Red. Gold. What difference does it make? You’ve been telling me the kid has Jack’s hair.”
“I thought she did.”
“And now you think she doesn’t?”
Blanche took a deep breath. “Don’t bully me, Harry. Don’t you dare get angry with me. I’m just trying to tell you what I saw. Do you think this is easy for me?”
“What about me?” Harry blustered. “I’m about to invest millions into this pile of stones, and now you’re telling me it’s nothing to do with me, that Celeste isn’t Jack’s child.”
Tears trickled down Blanche’s cheeks. “I don’t know,” she hissed. “I’m telling you that I don’t know, but I am beginning to doubt.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?”
“I didn’t know anything. It’s just happened, Harry. I saw that woman getting out of the car, and all I could think of was that she looked like Celeste. You have to admit that Celeste doesn’t look a whole lot like Lady Sylvia.”
“What about the other woman, Vera Malloy?”
“That’s another strange thing. Vera and Lady Sylvia look so alike that they could be sisters.”
“This is pure baloney,” Harry said. “Why the hell have I come all the way to this cockamamie country if this kid isn’t our granddaughter?”
“You had her checked out,” Blanche said in an accusing tone. “You had the detectives checking everything, and Lady Sylvia has the marriage certificate and the birth certificate. What were we supposed to believe? And that nice Mr. Whitby—”
“Where the hell is that nice Mr. Whitby?”
“No one seems to know. Mrs. Pearson says she’s going to call the office in Brighton.”
“And that’s another thing,” Harry said. “Why does this Pearson woman seem to be so involved? What’s her stake in this?”
Harry knew that Blanche could only answer his question with more questions of her own. He also knew that he had no right to be angry with his wife. She didn’t need his anger, she needed his assurance that he would get to the bottom of the situation. She needed him to tell her not to give up yet. He would find the mysterious new arrival. He would take a good look at her face and the color of her hair and make up his own mind.