The professor wasn’t very excited. “If whatever it was, was ever here, it’s gone now,” he stated.
“Maybe not,” replied Harvath as he turned to Moss and asked, “Was there a dumbwaiter in this room that would have allowed for wine to be brought up from the cellar?”
The Poplar Forest director shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“You never saw any holes in the floor in here or anything like that which could have been part of a rope and pulley system; even if they could have been part of a system of counterweights for a clock of some sort?”
“None at all. We replaced the floors throughout the house. If there had been holes like that, we would have seen them.”
Harvath went back to examining the mantel, in particular where it butted up against the wall.
“What are you thinking?” asked Nichols.
“I’m thinking of a baptismal font in a church I know of,” said Harvath as he leaned his shoulder into the mantel and tried to give it a shove.
“What does a church have to do with what we’re looking for?” asked Ozbek.
Harvath borrowed the architectural document from the professor and set it atop the mantel. “Paul Gilbertson at Monticello said he believed this was a cutaway drawing of a mantelpiece, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, what if it was more than that? What if the moveable joinery was actually a type of combination lock?”
“Like the puzzle box,” said Nichols, a note of excitement in his voice.
“What puzzle box?” asked Ozbek.
The professor pantomimed a small box with his hands. “They’re boxes Jefferson was fond of which required pieces to be manipulated in a particular order to get them to open. He kept the wheel cipher in one of them.”
“And the
“What difference does it make, though?” said Ozbek. “The original mantelpiece is gone.”
“But not the fireplace,” replied Harvath as he pointed to the drawing. “Gilbertson said he believed this was an attachment point for a rope and pulley system.”
“There was no dumbwaiter here, though.”
“No holes in the floor either,” added Nichols.
Harvath looked at them. “What if it wasn’t for a dumbwaiter system? What if it was for something else entirely?”
“Like what?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as we move this mantelpiece.”
CHAPTER 82
Moss’ eyes popped out about as far as his Adam’s apple when Harvath explained what he wanted to do.
“I’m sorry,” said the director, “but the Corporation for Poplar Forest would never allow that.”
Nichols pulled his wallet from his pocket. “What if I was willing to pay for putting everything back exactly the way it was afterwards?”
“I’m sorry, professor, but we can’t just allow one of our mantelpieces to be ripped away from the wall.”
“I’d also be willing to make a contribution,” said Nichols.
Moss pursed his lips in thought. Looking at the architectural document the professor was holding in his hand, he asked, “What about that?”
The professor held it up. “What about it?”
“Seeing as how it has such an intimate connection to Poplar Forest, what are the chances of it being donated to our collection?”
“I think I might be able to convince its owner to consider loaning it on a long-term basis.”
“And the other document?” asked the director. “With the Arabic writing?”
“It would depend on your cooperation.”
“Very well,” replied Moss. “It’s imperative that mantelpiece come off as delicately as possible. Do we understand each other?”
“Of course.”
“We’re going to need some tools,” said Harvath.
“We have plenty of those,” replied Moss. “Follow me.”
Half an hour after Moss stopped complaining about the damage Harvath and Ozbek were doing to the mantelpiece as well as the plasterwork around it, they had it separated and leaned up against the adjacent wall.
Nichols and Harvath stood next to each other and examined the brick-work of the fireplace.
“Let me see the diagram again,” said Harvath.
The professor handed it to him as Harvath rubbed his finger over a hole in one of the bricks that had been filled with mortar.
“Why do you suppose this is here?” he asked.
Nichols shrugged. “Maybe it was an anchor point for the mantelpiece.”
“That’s what these are here,” said Harvath as he pointed to similar features on both sides of the firebox.
Walking back to the tools Moss had helped them gather, Harvath removed a cordless drill and inserted a narrow masonry bit.
“We only talked about removing the mantelpiece,” objected Moss. “We never discussed drilling into the bricks.”
Harvath looked at Ozbek, who was standing near Moss. The former Special Forces soldier put his hand on the director’s shoulder and said, “Let’s indulge him a little.”
After securing the bit, Harvath set to work drilling out the mortar.
It took over ten minutes and when the hole was finally clear, two things were readily apparent. Not only was this not an anchor point, but the hole was deep, very deep.
Harvath sent Ozbek and Moss in search of something solid that they could slide down the hole and probe with. They came back five minutes later with an oak dowel rod half an inch in diameter.
Placing the tip just inside the hole, Harvath fed it forward until it wouldn’t go any further. He gripped the thin rod with both hands and tried to force it further down, but nothing happened.
Ozbek walked over to the toolbox, retrieved a hammer, and brought it back to Harvath.
Steadying the rod, Harvath tapped it with the hammer. When nothing happened, he gave it another tap and followed it with another, harder and harder each time, but to no avail.
“What exactly are you trying to-?” began Moss, but Nichols signaled for him to be quiet.
Harvath drew back the hammer once more and swung it with considerable force.
There was a crack as the hammer splintered the rod, but there was also something else-a faint sound of brick grating against brick as the rear portion of the fireplace pivoted open on a central pin, just like the revolving serving door in the dining room at Monticello.
CHAPTER 83
The original mantelpiece must have been attached somehow to a rope system which burned in the fire,” said Nichols.
“Leaving the hole, which not knowing what its true purpose was, someone had plugged up,” replied Harvath as he crouched down and stepped into the fireplace.
The wall was solid brick and it took some force to get it the rest of the way open. Harvath removed his
