Anyway, I let my mind follow the flows of energy from earthand sky and water and fire, leaking past the shields that surrounded us. Izeroed in on fire. Something disturbed the memory of fire in the wall behindthat monster fireplace. Something square, cold, like a solid lump of theshielding that filtered energy in this space.
I touched the wood panel of the wall, searching for a spot ofwarmth in the moldings. That would be the latch.
“Wall safe, set into one side of the chimney masonry. That’sone of the ones my uncle showed me. The Major kept his records there. Stillsome of his journals in it. Also his cavalry pistols — loaded. Touchy oldbastard.”
I nodded. Something else disturbed the flow on the other sideof the room. I followed it, my mind’s eye tracing another rectangle, not asdense, didn’t give the same sense of being totally opaque like the coldgrounded iron of the safe. I felt for a catch in the wood trim, pressed it,felt the wood panel pivot under my fingers. I looked inside.
Bottles. Whiskey, brandy, port and sherry by the labels. Allof them old and dusty. I glanced over at my client. He nodded. He’d known aboutthis one, too.
“We don’t change things in here, just keep it dusted andready. Family tradition. If the Old Man left a bottle half-finished, half-finishedit will stay. It’s sort of a shrine. I think the next generation or two wasscared that the old son of a bitch was still hanging around, on guard.”
So he’d brought me into this room first as a test, to see if Icould do what I claimed I could. Fair enough. I checked the rest of the room,finding nothing more.
And we moved on, room by room, thirty rooms I think it was,give or take a few, bedrooms and baths and attic garrets for the servants andkitchens and pantries and a grand ballroom. I found five other hideaways, oneshe hadn’t known about. Four of them were empty. The fifth wasn’t.
A windowsill, deep, windows set in thick walls, the silllifted out once you released the catch. Underneath, I found a dusty hollow thesize of an old ledger, and a short-barreled pistol — nickel-plated top-breakrevolver, a few spots of rust showing, looked like a .32 from maybe 1900, 1920,a lady’s handbag gun. I didn’t touch it.
He looked at the pistol and also made no move to take it out. “Sothat’s where she hid it.” He shook his head.
“Great-aunt of mine, maybe great-great, it’s an old story inthe family. Supposed to have shot her husband three times in the chest, killedhim, blamed it on a burglar. They never found the gun, and she got away withit. Partly, folks thought she had cause. And she earned bonus points becauseshe’d let the upstairs maid dress and leave before she shot him. Niceancestors, eh?”
About average, probably. Most family trees, you don’t want toshake the trunk too hard. All kinds of fruits and nuts fall out if you aren’tcareful.
Anyway, down in the cellar, we found a bonus, a door hiddenbehind a set of shelves, a wine vault that hadn’t been opened since maybe 1940,judging by the dates on the cases. Must have been a hundred cases of booze — single-maltScotch, brandy, Cuban rum, wines, champagne. Probably half the stuff wasn’tdrinkable anymore, vinegar and corked and such, but the rest . . .
He gave me a case of old Jack Daniels as a bonus and said heknew a wine merchant to call on the rest. Probably paid my fee ten times over.
We climbed back up to that baronial hall. He paused andgestured at a portrait hanging there, murky with age and smoke. “The old tyranthimself. In uniform, although you couldn’t tell that without a searchlight.Just curiosity — can you wizards learn anything about a man from his picture?”
I remember lifting an eyebrow. Something about my client’svoice, his stance — this wasn’t just curiosity. I had a sense that the whole “hiddentreasure” game had been an audition for his real reason. I guess I’d passed.
“Not about the subject. I could tell things about the painter— he’s the one who touched the canvas and oils, poured his soul into the work,if he was any good. You want a reading on your Major Ridge, the sabers would bea better choice. If he really did carry them, fought for his life with them,sweated and bled on them, he’d have left his trace behind. The sabers, thejournals, things he’d spent a lot of time handling.”
He nodded, as if he’d gotten the answer he was looking for.And he shook my hand again, before I drove away, and thanked me for coming out.
I was thinking about that, wondering what Mr. Malcolm Ridgehad really wanted, while I drove theLincoln along that narrow winding driveway through the trees. So I wasn’tpaying as much attention as I might. And, late afternoon, the light wasn’t allthat good. Excuses.
I came to the bottom of a hill, last one if I rememberedright, and headed up, and something gleamed in the road ahead. A truck waitedat the crest, aimed in. It took me a minute to figure it out, funny shape — Ifinally ID’d it as a bulk propane tanker, coming in to fill up the tank at thehouse. It seemed to be waiting at one of those turnouts. The driver flashed hislights at me, signal that he saw me and I should keep coming, so I did.
And I got about halfway up the slope and saw a heavy shapestep down from the cab, fiddle with something at the side, and step away. Andthe truck started rolling forward.
Okay, what I did next wasn’t very smart. Not in the cold lightof day. I cussed, stopped, threw the
