The Art of Inheriting Secrets(81)

The knowledge sank in. “All of them. All of the paintings from the house. She stashed them. But where?” My head was starting to hurt with figuring it out, and I was getting very hungry. “It’s too late for the supper I’d planned to cook, but we both need to eat.”

He hopped up and flung his arms around me from behind. “I’m so sorry, Olivia. You’ve been looking forward to cooking, and I ruined it.”

I laughed, pointing toward the dry-erase board, where I’d drawn his portrait. “You helped me with another goal, so it’s all right.” I leaned backward into him. “We do need to eat, and we need to figure out what to do with the paintings. I don’t want to leave them.”

“You live right next to a fish-and-chips shop. One of the better ones around, actually, which is why there is a line of cars to the motorway every Friday night.”

“Well, then, let’s have fish-and-chips and figure this out.”





Chapter Nineteen

In the end, we hashed out a midway solution—we borrowed Pavi’s van, loaded the paintings up, and drove them to Marswick Hall. It was after dark when we arrived, and I assumed we might not see the earl, but he met us by the servant’s entrance, using only his cane. “Hello, hello!” He wore a crisp striped shirt and slacks and his usual orthopedic shoes. His color was good.

“Lord Barber, this is Samir Malakar. He’s been helping me with just about everything in the house. Samir, Lord Barber, the Earl of Marswick.”

“Good to meet you, lad. Olivia has spoken highly of you.”

I had? I didn’t remember that.

“Let’s see this haul, shall we?”

Four young men from the estate carried the paintings inside to a room I’d never visited. It was long and dark, with lamps offering feeble light against the shadows. The walls were hung cheek by jowl with paintings of all eras and sizes.

“They’ll be safe here until you get them appraised,” George said, gesturing to the carriers to line them up at waist height along a massive sideboard. Most of them fit on the ledge. The others were lined up below, against the footers. “Gerald, see to more light, will you, please?” he said to one of the young men.

As I looked at them side by side like this again, something bothered me. I narrowed my eyes. What was I missing?

When the lights came on, the paintings were more dazzling than they’d seemed in my small rooms. George made an approving noise, limping forward to look at each one closely. “The frames are gone, but these paintings hung in the library and study of Rosemere.” With his cane, he pointed to the clouds I had thought were Constable and confirmed it. “Constable, and the Monet. This is an early effort by Wootton. And this is a portrait of your uncle Roger.” He shook his head, staring at a light-infused portrait of a very handsome young man, maybe twenty, with piercing eyes and a dissolute mouth. “The women loved him, they did. Fools. Something happened to the lad in India—that’s always been my theory.” He turned. “Anyway. They’re safe here for now.”

“Thank you, George.”

“Of course. Will you be to luncheon on Wednesday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I stepped up to give him a kiss on the cheek, as I always did, but he caught my elbow.

“Will you spare a moment for an old man?”

“Of course.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Samir looking around slowly. Taking it in. I realized that I knew he was cataloguing the paintings, the details of the room—click, click, click—as every writer did in an unfamiliar world.

An image rose in my mind: that stack of pages on his desk, revealed by the bright moon.

“Samir, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll wait outside.”

“That isn’t necessary,” George said. “It will only be a moment.”

I followed his shuffling steps into the study, where he took an envelope out of the desk. “Your mother said if you found the paintings, you were to have this.”

My throat tightened. “If I found the paintings?”

He nodded.

The envelope was brown paper, and I could feel something hard inside. Ripping it open, hoping for a letter or note, I found only a plain brass key. It might have gone to anything and had no identifying marks. “This is it? Nothing else?”

“No.” He sat down in his chair, hands piled one atop the other on the handle of his cane.

“She came to England,” I said, staring at the key.

“Yes. She came to see me last summer.”

“So she knew she was dying.”

“Yes.”

“Did she say what she was dying of?”

“No. Cancer, one gathers.”

Of course. She would never have told me she had a terminal disease, and pneumonia often carried off a cancer patient. I nodded, staring at the key. “I don’t suppose she told you why she set up this long, crazy treasure hunt rather than just telling me about all of it?”

His smile was bittersweet. “I’m sorry, my dear; she did not. I reckon you’ll find out soon enough.”

I sighed, suddenly extremely tired. “All right. Thank you.” I bent and kissed his cheek. “See you on Wednesday.”

As I straightened, he said, “Isn’t your young man the one who wrote a novel, from Saint Ives Cross?”