Large, cool hands seized her. Strong arms pressed her against a chest, broad and firm. “We’ve got her,” Alasdair said into her ear, and above her head, loudly, “Bring the medical kit.”
She was trembling, shudders of hot then cold then hot running from crown to toe. Still she managed to look past the crevasses in Alasdair’s face to the corridor, where the darkness was now stitched with the lightning bolts of flashlight beams.
Linklater and Blackhall held Minty between them, stiff as stone. One strand of hair dangled down beside her face, its skin gone so pale it was faintly green. Her eyes stared ahead, not at Jean but past her, as though she watched the foundations of Ferniebank crack and crumble and the sheer sides collapse. Then Delaney, wheezing, holding the knife, stepped forward and intoned, “Araminta Rutherford, I arrest you . . .” And she was gone.
“Only you,” said Alasdair, his breath warm against Jean’s ear, “would use historical metaphors to push someone over the edge.”
“I didn’t,” she croaked, and tried again. “Elizabeth said Mary was lighter of a fair son, but Derek’s just not . . .” Kallinikos wrapped her hand in gauze, his touch gentle, his expression offering no comments. Her hands were red from blood and from the rusty bolt. Caught red-handed.
She wobbled, but Alasdair held her steady. Kallinikos collected her things and put them back in her bag, then considered the shards of sepia glass littering the floor. “Is that the burning-glass?”
“Yes. No. It was,” said Jean. “That’s seven years bad luck, isn’t it?”
“No,” Alasdair stated.
Kallinikos gingerly collected the bits into the cardboard box, tucked it, too, into her bag, then hung the bag over her shoulder. Between them, the men got Jean back down the spiral staircase, whose steps had contracted and lumpified in the last—how long had it been since she ran up them, fear lending not only wings but stabilizers to her feet?
Delaney waited in the Laigh Hall, holding the crumpled sketch and envelope. Logan stood at his side, his obsidian chips of eyes darting right and left, saying, “Minty’s the killer? How . . . Well now, I’m supposing she’s properly a Maitland, not a Rutherford at all.”
Delaney’s stubby fingers shooed Logan away. His thick glasses turned toward Jean and Alasdair. His chest swelled. “Well, now.”
From far above fell a ripple of harp strings, a descending arpeggio, as though the harper was tuning his instrument—or playing a farewell. Jean and Alasdair glanced so sharply up they almost knocked heads. But the notes faded into infinity. And Jean thought, the harp. The harp key.
The only heaviness she felt was that of the bulletproof camisole, the only chill that of the air in the Laigh Hall. Delaney’s voice, rising and falling like one of Logan’s bees, rabbited on about Minty—not exactly a confession, charges, enough to be going on with.
Jean seized her scuttling thought and hung on for dear life. “The harp is the key,” she said, interrupting Delaney. “Harp marks the spot.”
He stopped in mid-phrase, mouth hanging open. Poor little lady, his expression said, we’ve asked too much of her, she needs tea and cold compresses.
Alasdair, though . . . His brows began their roller coaster imitation.
“Get this thing off of me.” Handing Delaney her bag, Jean pulled the sweater over her head and gave it to Alasdair. Kallinikos stepped forward and helped him remove the vest, leaving her standing in a slightly damp T-shirt that should by rights have been chilled but which she suspected was steaming in the cool air. Retrieving her backpack, she fished out a hairbrush and dumped the bag on the floor. “Open the door to the dungeon. Give me that torch.”
Alasdair pulled open the trap. Kallinikos handed over his flashlight. Jean shone the light into the pit. Dust, dirt, stones—nothing had changed. Nothing except her own perceptions, broken into shards like the glass but more easily reassembled. “We thought the harp jewelry was long gone. We thought the piece of the inscription engraved with the harp was long gone. But Wallace noticed that the inscription is in a reddish sandstone, not the local gray whinstone.”
“And so,” said Alasdair, “he got himself into the dungeon with a piece of the inscription for comparison and a magnifying glass, the better to see the contrast.”
“Because of something Gerald said, probably. As an amateur archaeologist, he would never neglect a dungeon.”
Delaney folded his arms and with a beseeching roll of his eyes asked, “What the hell are you on about now?”
“Exhibit P,” Alasdair told him. “The genuine Exhibit P, not what Minty was thinking it was. Likely not what Ciara’s thinking it is. Third time’s the charm.”
“Here. Hold the flashlight.” Jean crammed the hairbrush into her jeans pocket. Turning around, she slipped her feet over the edge, felt for and found the rungs of the ladder, and started down. Cold air prickled through her shirt. Musty, still air. The walls squatted close by, but seemed as stable and steady as Alasdair’s grasp.
She strained upwards to take the flashlight from Kallinikos while Alasdair clambered down the ladder. Freeman’s face appeared in the opening, then his hand helpfully directed a second beam of light into the depths. Somewhere in the background, Delaney grumbled a monolog.
“So where’d Gerald put it then?” Alasdair asked.
“The crazy uncle, archaeologist, poet, jeweler—he had an attic and he had a cellar, too.” Jean crept along the walls, using her hairbrush to sweep away the dust, fine as ash. There, a small irregularly shaped reddish block was wedged between larger, if just as irregular, gray ones. She knelt down and brushed delicately at it.
Alasdair crouched beside her, shoulder to shoulder. “Aye, that’s red sandstone. He must have enlarged a drainhole, or prised out a smaller stone. And what’s this?” The nail of his forefinger scraped at the edge of the rock. “This looks to be plaster of paris, not mortar.”
“Who’s got a penknife?” Jean called toward the opening. A small opening, in a low roof. Just few more moments, she told the panic squirming in her gut.
Kallinikos climbed partway down the ladder to hand Jean a penknife. She opened it—the tiny blade was a miniature of Minty’s, a silver fang in the narrow light—and handed it to Alasdair.
His touch meticulous, he scraped away the bits of plaster, wedged the blade into the resulting crevice, and pried. The rock moved. Jean’s small fingers grasped a corner. She pulled. And the piece of stone came loose, adding rosy dust to the shades and textures of red already on her hands.
She turned the stone over and wiped it against her shirt. The hidden side was engraved with a harp. The Ferniebank Clarsach. Silently she held the piece up for Freeman and Kallinikos and, she saw, Delaney, his round face hovering behind theirs like a stray moon.
Alasdair was now using the penknife to probe inside the hole. “There we are,” he said, and extracted a box about the same size as the cardboard one holding the remnants of the glass. But this box was metal and oblong, a diminutive lead-lined coffin.
Jean peered into the hole, but it was empty. The chill of the deep earth oozed up her arms, pressed against her breasts. She shrank back.
Alasdair handed up the box, the knife, the flashlight, the bit of stone. Darkness welled from the corners, the walls undulated . . . He took her arm, pulled her to her feet, thrust her onto the ladder and went back for her hairbrush. One rung, two—her back hurt. Her shoulders hurt. Her legs hurt.
Freeman and Kallinikos grasped her shoulders, then her arms, and she was reborn out of the trap door onto the flagged floor of the Laigh Hall. Why had she ever thought the room was stuffy and dark? Compared to the dungeon, it was bright and airy as the hall of mirrors in a stately home.
She regained her feet just as Alasdair emerged from the pit. If his smile wasn’t smug, it was at least serene. Taking the box from Delaney’s hand, he passed it over to Jean. “Open it.”
For a moment she thought it was sealed, but no, the lid was merely a snug fit. She traced around it with her fingernails and eased it off. Inside lay a roll of rich crimson velvet, soft against her fingertips. Gently she unfolded it.
Light blazed. Gold. Amid a chorus of gasps and reverent profanity, Jean held up a gold cross embedded with diamonds and rubies. At the crossing of the two arms was embedded a crystal about the size of a watch face, holding a tiny speck of wood, cloth, bone—something sacred. The back of the cross, she noted with dazzled eyes, was engraved with the ornate M monogram of Mary, Queen of Scots.
“Is this Mary’s relic, the bread-and-butter gift for William’s hospitality?” she asked, her voice loud in the hush.
“Or is it a thank-you to Isabel for services rendered?” asked Alasdair.
“Either or both, it’s the cross Isabel’s holding in her portrait.”
“Say what?” Delaney demanded
Jean skipped the lecture on Scottish history. “There’s paper, too. Old rag paper.” She placed the cross into Alasdair’s palm, unfurled the rolled paper, and turned it toward the light. “Another letter, like the one in the museum. I think you’re right. This is the thank-you note for Isabel’s secret messenger work, maybe to her family after her death . . . Whoa.”
“Eh?” asked Delaney.
“There’s a strip torn off the edge,” Alasdair said. “The scrap found inside the harp?”
“If so, then there’s a drawing on the back. Yep, there it is.” She eyed the latticework, a misshapen cup, a star, a series of diamond shapes. “Although what that’s all about is anyone’s guess. And probably will be.”
“This is all part and parcel of Ciara’s fancies,” said Delaney, with the satisfied air of a game-show contestant finally getting one right.
“There’s more to it than that.” Jean rolled the paper and tucked it back inside the small casket, then held the cloth so Alasdair could settle the cross into its embrace. She folded the velvet and replaced the lid. “There might be something in Gerald’s papers explaining why he took all of these, er, family heirlooms and played his games with them. Or there might not. Whatever, it took Wallace a long time to figure it out. Although, if not for him, we’d never have figured it out.”
Kallinikos held up the bit of carved stone. “Did Gerald chip the harp off the gravestone?”
“The edges look weathered to me,” Jean replied, taking it from his hand. “Maybe he just picked it up while he was messing around with the grave. Maybe he hid the cross in the foundations of the castle as, well, a charm of sorts, a blessing on future generations. On Ferniebank.”
“Wasted his time, then.” said Delaney. “Come along, we’ve got Minty to deal with. I’ll take that.” He reached for the box.
Jean stepped back and almost fell over her bag again. Swiftly she scooped it up and tucked the box inside. “This might be treasure trove, Inspector. I’ll notify the proper authorities.”
“And the chipping belongs to Ciara,” Alasdair said quietly. “Ferniebank belongs to Ciara.”
Muttering something beneath his breath that was probably not “thanks for your help,” Delaney clomped to the door and away.
“I’m not so sure the old man wasted his time,” said Kallinikos. He collected Blackhall’s armor and followed. With a salute, Freeman brought up the rear.
Voices echoed through the entrance. Engines roared. Then, at last, peace settled over Ferniebank. Jean and Alasdair stepped out of the castle into the clear air and a deserted courtyard. Sunset flared across the sky, gilding the edges of a few high clouds, pink, rose, gold, changeable and yet ageless.
Alasdair looked at Jean. She looked at him, noting the glitter in his eye, feeling sure her own eyes resembled kaleidoscopes. “You’re looking a wee bit peelie-wallie,” he said.
“That cheese and pickle sandwich must not have agreed with me.”
“There’re more sandwiches in the fridge. And a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard.”
“And lots of hot water in the shower. I’d ask you to join me, but . . .”
Alasdair offered her his arm and escorted her to the door of the flat. “We’ve got enough to be going on with.”