Миранда Джеймс - Fixing To Die

But where?

She glanced around the room. There was no closet in the room, only the wardrobe and the clothes press for storage of clothing. The room had a large window on each outside wall, one facing west and the other north. One could open the window and step out onto the gallery that ran around three sides of the second floor. Had someone come in through the window from the gallery to move her clothes?

An’gel checked each window in turn, and both were locked on the inside. The click she had heard wasn’t the sound of a window latch, then. She would have to examine the room further, but now she had better meet Dickce downstairs and look over the first floor of the house. She wanted to question Mary Turner about the possibilities of a hidden passage or secret rooms in the house. She had never heard of the existence of either at Cliffwood, but that didn’t mean the house had none.

Downstairs she found Dickce looking a bit irritated.

“What took you so long?” Dickce asked. “I was about to come back up and get you.”

“I was on my way but realized I hadn’t brought my phone,” An’gel said. “I wanted it in case we needed to take pictures.” She paused to glance around. They appeared to be alone. She stepped close to her sister and lowered her voice. “There was another incident.”

Dickce’s eyes grew wide. “What happened?”

An’gel told her about the click she’d heard and the moving of the nightgown.

“This is getting creepier by the minute,” Dickce said. “Why on earth is someone doing this? Are they trying to drive Mary Turner and Henry Howard out of the house?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” An’gel said. “But I can’t see Mary Turner ever selling this house and leaving her family heritage behind, can you?”

Dickce shook her head. “No, this house is her legacy from her father, and I don’t believe she would ever willingly leave it.”

“There may be something else going on that we don’t know about,” An’gel said. “I have the distinct feeling that Mary Turner and Henry Howard haven’t told us the whole story yet.”

“You’re probably right,” Dickce said. “Why would they invite us here to help figure out what’s going on, though, and not tell us everything?”

“I don’t know,” An’gel said, “and that worries me. Back to the nightgown incident again for a moment. This time I thought to check the windows because that click I heard could have been the closing of a window.”

“You mean someone getting into the room from the gallery?” Dickce grimaced. “I certainly don’t like the idea of that.”

“Both windows were locked. Be sure to check yours next time you’re there,” An’gel said. “While we go through the house, keep an eye out for any kind of spatial oddity.”

“What kind of spatial oddity?”

“Think of it like a blueprint,” An’gel replied. “Look for places where there could be a false wall, for example, with a crawl space between rooms. Where the inside of a room doesn’t seem to match with the outside.”

“I think I see what you mean. You’re looking for a secret passage, aren’t you?” Dickce’s eyes sparkled. “Just like in my favorite Nancy Drew book, The Hidden Staircase . Oh, how I loved that book as a girl.”

An’gel smiled briefly. “I did, too, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. There could be a secret room or two, small spaces, I’d say.”

“Maybe there’s a secret tunnel from the house to one of the outbuildings,” Dickce said in what An’gel considered a hopeful tone.

“Possibly,” An’gel said. “But I’m not planning to go through any secret tunnels, especially one that could be one hundred and fifty years old or more.”

“Chicken.” Dickce grinned. “But I know what you mean. At our age, the last thing we need to do is go exploring underground passageways.”

“If there ever was one,” An’gel said. “Let’s start with the front parlor.”

“Okay.” Dickce followed her sister to the room in question.

“Have you seen anyone since you’ve been downstairs?” An’gel asked as she opened the parlor door.

“Not a soul,” Dickce said. “Oh, this is such a lovely room. It reminds me of home.”

“It should,” An’gel said tartly. “It’s furnished with the same period of furniture, and the carpet is nearly like ours, too.” She regarded the Aubusson with a critical eye. She spotted a few nearly threadbare sections. “This one needs some restoration work, however. Remind me to give Mary Turner the name of the company that did ours.”

“They might not be able to afford to have it done,” Dickce said. “You need to keep that in mind.”

“True,” An’gel said. “I’ll have to think of a way to mention it tactfully.”

“You do that,” Dickce said. “I don’t see any spatial oddities in here, do you?”

“No, can’t say as I do,” An’gel replied.

The spacious front parlor at Cliffwood formed a large rectangle. The longest walls were the north and south ones, with the east and west walls perhaps three or four feet shorter. The west and north walls each had two windows that opened onto the porch.

An’gel thought, This is a room where you could comfortably entertain twenty to thirty people, although you’d have to bring in extra chairs .

“Weren’t this room and the one next door all one room at some point?” Dickce said. “I seem to recall that there was a large great room where they could hold balls and dancing parties.”

“Yes, don’t you remember that Mary Turner’s father had that wall put in to divide the rooms? He also had that fireplace installed in the center of the new wall.” An’gel gestured toward the ornately carved oak mantel and the stone hearth.

“This room and the next are under our bedrooms,” Dickce said. “If there’s a secret room with stairs up to the second floor, perhaps it’s near the fireplace.”

“Excellent point,” An’gel said. “Let’s have a closer look.”

They approached the fireplace. An’gel estimated the mantel was about eight feet wide and perhaps seven feet high. She wouldn’t have to stoop much to get inside the fireplace, she reckoned. At the moment, however, she wasn’t about to, because the detritus of a fire covered the bottom.

“If there’s a secret room here, and the fireplace is connected to it,” An’gel said, “there has to be a mechanism of some kind to open the entrance.”

“Maybe it’s somewhere in all this carving,” Dickce said. “It’s really elaborate. Trees on the sides, with various creatures hiding in the leaves and branches. And that’s some kind of vine across the front over the fireplace.”

“Something just occurred to me,” An’gel said, annoyed with herself for not having thought of it sooner. “Remember that Mary Turner’s father had all this work done. Why would he have a secret room with a staircase to the second floor put in? There wouldn’t have been one already here, since it was one large room. Does that seem reasonable?”

Dickce frowned. “When you put it like that, no, it doesn’t. Should we bother to look any further here?”

“I’m inclined to think not,” An’gel said. “Marshal Turner Junior was a good man, but not a particularly imaginative one. I simply can’t see him wanting a secret passage.”

“You’re right,” Dickce said. “I guess we’ll have to look elsewhere in the house, then.” She traced the pattern of the upper part of the tree on the left side of the mantel. She pushed on various carved figures and several leaves but without result. “Nothing,” she said.

“Before we abandon the fireplace altogether,” An’gel said, “let’s try an experiment.” She headed toward the door, and Dickce followed after a moment.