Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

And then five children came scampering down the street, laughing and chasing each other. They lingered beneath the tree in front of 15 Vine, swinging from its branches.

“What bad luck,” she whispered.

“Happens all the time,” Nicholas said. “Turn here.”

Exactly ten houses down from their target, they turned right and came up a dirt alley to what Nicholas counted out as the back door of 15 Vine Street. The chickens in the coop behind it greeted them with nervous clucks, their feathers lifted by the increasing wind.

Poppy waited nervously, her hair flying about her face, as he knocked on the back door.

No one was home.

Nicholas worked the door with a small tool and managed to twist the knob. But the door stayed shut.

“Bolted,” he whispered, strong gusts moving snatches of his hair as well.

He looked above them. And then behind them. There was no way in from the roof, Poppy could see. And behind them all she saw was the coop with a small shed inside. A sound came from it, a slight creaking.

“What’s that noise?” she asked.

“Let’s go see.”

She entered the coop with Nicholas, and he peered inside the shed, chickens scattering at his feet. “There’s a false wall in here,” he said. “Keep the chickens back, please.”

Oh, God. How did one keep chickens back?

She did her best, pushing chickens away from the shed with her feet and even her hands while Nicholas examined the wall. But the birds were making so much noise.

Too much noise, but what could she do?

When Nicholas was finally done moving something about—she had no idea what—he left the coop and tossed his canvas roll and the logs behind some empty barrels. “Hide your bucket there,” he said. “And wait by the back door. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Poppy was aghast when he entered the coop again and disappeared into the small shed. She hid her bucket behind the barrels, and was much relieved when she saw him appear a few minutes later at the back door.

He slid the bolt back and drew her in.

She fell into his arms. “It was a tunnel?”

“Yes. Behind the false wall. There’s a ladder propped in it. That noise you heard was the wind catching at a lantern swinging from one of its rungs. Someone needs to repair the shed walls to make it airtight.”

The sounds of the children out front had faded away. Nicholas took her hand and they walked into a pristine room with an oak table, two mismatched chairs, a smoothly made bed, and a fireplace with a large black pot swinging from it.

“Come quickly,” he said. “We’ve only a few minutes.”

He led her behind a hung blanket, where they discovered a serviceable desk with neatly arranged stacks of paper on it, a small signet ring, a quill and inkpot, a set of keys, a scarf, and on the floor, several crates of papers. A colorful braided rug was the only adornment to the space.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “We can’t look through all that in a few minutes.”

Nicholas was already on the floor. “He’ll have a system.” He was scanning the tops of the files in one of the crates.

For a moment, he sat back on his haunches, apparently surprised by something.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No time. I’ll tell you later.”

“Nicholas.”

“I promise.” He was sifting through the files again. “They’re not alphabetized or organized by year.”

She looked over his shoulder at the contents of the crate. “What a strange way to file things. A number in the top right-hand corner. They’re in sequential order but with big gaps in between them. And a few have identical numbers. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.”

“That’s because he doesn’t want anyone to understand his filing system.” Nicholas paused for a moment, then sifted quickly through the files and pulled one out. He put it back, thought some more, and pulled out another file. Opening it, he lingered a few seconds on the first page.

His eyes glowed with satisfaction. “I’ve got it,” he said. “What year was your mother born, what month, and what day?”

Poppy told him.

He sat quietly for a moment. “Look for the number thirty in the second crate while I look here,” he said, then went to work sifting through the first box.

“Nothing in the second crate,” she told him a minute later.

“Nor in mine.”

They were both at work on the third box when they heard a few men talking loudly and occasionally guffawing out front.

“They’re coming home from the pub after a hard day’s work,” Nicholas said. “They won’t notice anything amiss.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, actually,” he said. “You’re never sure in this business.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“It’s part of the fun.” He chuckled.

“You call this fun?” Her fingers stumbled from file to file.

“It makes for a good story later.” He pulled out a file and scanned it. “Damn. I thought I had it. But it’s the wrong number thirty.”

They searched another fifteen seconds.

“Another thirty.” Poppy yanked a file out and thrust it at him.

He threw it open. “Is your mother’s name Marianna?”

“Yes,” she cried, her voice cracking. But then her heart nearly stopped—she heard shouts outside.

“Mr. Harlow. How are you this evening?”

“Harlow, you need to get out more.”

Several other male voices in the street echoed the raucous greeting.

From the front of the house, a Yorkshire accent called back, “Off with ye, lads. Go piss on someone else’s tree. I’ll nowt have ye drinkin’ o’er here.”

From behind the house, the chickens started cackling. Poppy grabbed Nicholas’s arm. She couldn’t speak. Calmly, he scooped up the papers and handed them to her.

“Hide these as best you can,” he whispered.

She did as she was told, shoving the papers into her bodice. Her heart was hammering, and her breath caught in her throat.

The man who lived here was coming down the front walk. She heard his shoes crunching the gritty pavement.

Nicholas moved like silk, silently and smoothly, putting the file back in the crate and returning everything to its place. Without another word, he moved the small braided rug and pulled up a ring on the floor.

“Down,” he ordered her.

Poppy stuck her leg down the dark hole, fumbling for a ladder with her foot, and finally found one.

“Keep going,” he hissed.

When she heard the front doorknob rattle and then the front door swing open on squeaky hinges, she had to suppress a little cry. She stumbled through the dark and hit the bottom of the tunnel. Behind her, she felt a whoosh of air as the trapdoor shut silently above her head.

She sensed Nicholas’s presence rather than saw him.

Yes. They were going to be all right.

She threw her hand out and felt nothing but air to her left, so she blindly moved that way. The tunnel smelled of damp earth and decay, like a tomb.

One step at a time, she told herself. She moved forward and was astounded to