The Address(70)

She offered it to Renzo.

His eyes grew wide. “Wait here. Holy shit. Put it down really carefully and don’t touch it and I’ll be right back.”

She placed it on the top of the trunk and leaned down to get a better look. She was tempted to scratch away the yucky crust and see what was beneath, but Renzo was back a moment later, holding a newspaper.

“I saw this a couple of days ago. Look at this.”

An old black-and-white photo showed a knife with a carved metal handle partially pulled out of a sheath.

The sheath that was right in front of them.

“What is this?” She began reading as Renzo explained.

“Some construction workers found the knife a week ago in Central Park, when they were excavating for Strawberry Fields. It’s really old, from Tibet, and disappeared from the collection of a wealthy family named Rutherford in the 1880s.”

“And it was only just discovered?”

“Yes. They’re trying to figure out how it got there. Right now it’s at the Met, being examined, as there are no descendants of the Rutherford family left to claim it. It says here that the sheath hasn’t been recovered.”

She stared at the object. “It was in Theodore Camden’s trunk, who was stabbed to death in November 1885. The same month as on the drawings.”

“What about this?” Renzo reached over and picked up the stick that had fallen out of the same tube. “Some kind of drawing tool?”

It reminded her of a rook piece from a chess set, one that had been worn smooth over time. “That’s not a pencil.” Bailey turned to Renzo in horror. “You’re holding Theodore Camden’s missing finger.”

“What?” Renzo croaked.

“The bone from his finger! It was cut off during his murder and never found. They thought it might have been taken as some kind of grisly souvenir.”

To his credit, he didn’t drop the bone to the floor. Instead, he waited until Bailey had grabbed two tissues from his office and laid the bone on one and the sheath on the other, before carefully folding them up, like a pair of newborns being swaddled.

“The sheath must be worth a ton of money,” said Bailey. “The Met is going to flip out when they see that we’ve found this.”

“The paper says the knife is worth around half a million dollars. It’s from the sixteenth century.”

“To think the knife and sheath have been not three hundred yards from each other all this time.”

“I wonder how they got separated.”

A draft ran over the back of her neck and she shivered. “I wonder how his finger ended up down here.”

Together, they went back through all the trunks, but more carefully. Bailey checked inside the pockets of the dresses, in the very corners of each trunk, looking for clues. In Minnie Camden’s trunk she took out a small red silk purse edged with metallic gold lace.

Inside was a piece of paper, as delicate as the crust of a crème br?lée.

My dear Christopher,

I have been promised that you will receive this letter on your twenty-first birthday. I know it may be a shock, but I am proud to call you my son, even if you may be ashamed to see me as your mother. Indeed, I am, and everything I have done, I have done for you. To give you a better life. When you were a boy, I loved you and held you and perhaps the fragile memories of that time still remain. No child should be denied what is true. Your father is Theodore Camden. I hope now you are twenty-one you are able to understand the circumstances that prevented you from knowing the truth. And to forgive.

The name below was illegible, but Bailey was certain it began with an S.

She showed Renzo the letter, shaking with exhilaration. “The plot thickens.”

“Christopher wasn’t a random ward.” He studied it closely. “You were right. He was Theodore Camden’s son.”

“And Sara’s.” Her cheeks burned with pleasure at the acknowledgment. She was a Camden, as was her father and her grandfather. This proved it. “I knew it. Doesn’t this look like the letter S?”

He squinted. “Not sure of that. But maybe. Where did you find it?”

“In Minnie Camden’s purse. Or at least the purse was in Minnie Camden’s trunk.”

“Then maybe he was Minnie’s child.”

“Why would she keep that a secret, though? Makes no sense. In any event, that’s definitely not the word Minnie at the bottom.” The more she thought about the implications of the letter, the faster her heart beat. Excitement sizzled through her body.

She handed him the sheath and the bone. “Take these and put them in a safe place. First thing tomorrow, I’ll go back to the library and find out more about Sara Smythe and the murder.”

“Shouldn’t we contact the Met, tell them what you’ve discovered?”

“We will, just not yet. You know what this means, don’t you?”

Renzo eyed her warily.

“It means that I am a descendant of Theodore Camden. I’m sure of it.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. The touch was electric. She hadn’t meant it that way, just as a friendly, celebratory gesture, but he felt it, too, and pulled back.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to do that.” Her face got hot.