notion of two down, two to go, reverberated in his mind. He was two clues away from finishing the job and heading home. The isolation of this drafty old house, this beautiful girl, this free-flowing whiskey, all of them were demonizing him, sapping his strength and resolve. This isn’t my fault, he thought numbly, it’s not. They were by the fire in the Great Hall again. He forced himself to ask, “Prophets, what about prophets?”
“Do you really have the energy to tackle the next one?” she answered. “I’m so tired.” She was slurring her speech too. She reached over and touched his knee. They were heading for a repeat performance.
“Name me some prophets.”
She scrunched her face. “Oh gosh. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Muhammad. I don’t know.”
“Any connections to the house?”
“None that come to mind, but I’m knackered, Will. Let’s get a fresh start in the morning.”
“I’ve got to get home soon.”
“We’ll start early. I promise.”
He didn’t invite her into his room-he had the willpower not to do that.
Instead, he sat on a lumpy bedside chair and clumsily texted Nancy: Clue #2 was behind a windmill tile. Another revelation. The plot thickens. On to clue #3. Know any prophets??? Wish U were here.
Twenty minutes later, as he was falling asleep, he didn’t have the willpower to prevent Isabelle from slinking in. As she slid under the sheets he grumbled, “Look, I’m sorry. My wife.”
She moaned and asked him like a child, “Can I just sleep here?”
“Sure. I’ll try anything once.”
She fell asleep spooning him, and when the morning came, she hadn’t moved an inch.
It was pleasantly and unseasonably warm that morning. After breakfast, Will and Isabelle planned to take advantage of the fine, sunny day to walk in the fresh air and formulate their plan of attack.
As Will was fetching his sweater, Nancy called him on his mobile.
“Hey you,” he answered. “Up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was rereading your poem.”
“That’s good. How come?”
“You asked for my help, remember? I want you home, so I’m motivated. The second clue was important?”
“In an historical way. I’m going to have lots to tell you. A prophet’s name. What do you think old Willie was referring to? You’re a Shakespeare nut.”
“That’s what I was thinking about. Shakespeare would have known about all the Biblical prophets-Elijah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and also about Muhammad, of course.”
“She thought of those.”
“Who?”
He hesitated a moment. “Isabelle, Lord Cantwell’s granddaughter.”
“Will…” she said sternly.
He responded quickly, “She’s just a student.” Then, “Nothing about any of those guys rang any bells.”
“What about Nostradamus?” she asked.
“Isabelle didn’t mention him.”
“I don’t think Shakespeare ever referred to Nostradamus in any of his plays, but he would have been popular throughout Europe in Shakespeare’s day. His Prophecies were best sellers. I looked them up in the wee hours.”
“Worth a thought,” Will said. “What did Nostradamus look like?”
“Bearded guy in a robe.”
“Lots of those around here.” Will sighed.
The garden at the back of the house was wild and unruly, the grasses, high and unsown and beginning their autumn wilt. It had once been a fine garden, a prizewinner spanning five acres with wide, open views over native hedges to fields and woodlands. At its peak, Isabelle’s grandfather had employed a full-time gardener and an assistant, and he had taken an active hand himself. No aspect of Cantwell Hall had suffered more than the garden from the old lord’s advancing age and shrinking bank account. A local boy cut the grass from time to time and pulled weeds, but the elaborate plantings and immaculate beds had literally gone to seed.
Near the house there was a disused kitchen garden, and just beyond that, two generous triangular beds on either side of a central, gravel axis leading to an orchard. The beds were edged with low evergreens, and in their day had brimmed with tall ornamental grasses and sweeping schemes of perennials. Now they looked more like sad jungle thickets. Past the orchard was a large, overgrown and weedy wild-flower meadow that Isabelle used to adore as a freewheeling young girl, especially in the summertime, when the meadow dazzled with a spectacular show of white oxeye daisies.
“Two for joy,” she suddenly said, pointing.
Will looked up confused and squinted at the blue sky.
“There, on the chapel roof, two magpies. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy.”
The grass was wet and soon soaked their shoes. They trudged through an overgrown verge toward the chapel, its spire beckoning them in the sunlight.
Isabelle was well used to the oddity of the stone building, but Will was as taken aback as the first time he had seen it. The closer they got, the more jarring the perspective. “It really looks like someone’s idea of a joke,” he said. It had the identical iconic look of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the Gothic exterior and flying buttresses, the two broad towers topped with open arches, the nave and transept crowned with a filigreed spike of a tower. But it was a miniature version, almost a child’s toy. The great cathedral could comfortably accommodate six thousand worshippers, but the garden chapel held twenty at most. The spire in Paris soared 225 feet into the air, whereas the Cantwell spire was a scant 40 feet.
“I’m not very good at maths,” Isabelle said, “but it’s some precise fractional size of the real thing. Edgar Cantwell was apparently obsessed with it.”
“This is the Edgar Cantwell in the Calvin letter?”
“The same. He returned to England after studying in Paris, and sometime later commissioned the chapel to honor his father. It’s a unique piece of architecture. We sometimes get tourists wandering by from the walking path down the bottom, but we don’t publicize it in the least. It’s strictly word of mouth.”
He held up his hand to block the sun. “Is that a bell in the tower closest to us?”
“I should ring it for you. It’s a bronze miniature of the one that Quasimodo rang in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. ”
“You’re better-looking than him.”
“The flattery of the man!”
They began walking onward toward the meadow. Isabelle was about to say something when she noticed he had stopped and was staring skyward at the bell tower.
“What?”
“Notre Dame,” he said. Then he raised his voice, “Notre Dame. That’s pretty damned close to Nostradamus. Do you think…?”
“Nostradamus!” she shouted. “Our prophet! Soars o’er the prophet’s name! Nostradamus’s name was Michel de Nostredame! Will, you’re a genius.”
“Or married to one,” he muttered.
She grabbed him by the hand and almost pulled him up the path to the chapel.
“Can we get up there?” he asked.
“Yes! I spent a lot of my childhood in that tower.”
There was a heavy wooden door at the base of the tower facade, which Isabelle pushed open with a shoulder shove, the swollen wood harshly scraping the stone threshold. She dashed toward the pulpit and pointed at the small Alice-in-Wonderland door off to the corner. “Up here!”
She squeezed through almost as easily as she had done as a child. It was more of a labor for Will. His large shoulders got hung up, and he had to throw off his jacket so it wouldn’t be ripped. He followed her up a claustrophobic wooden staircase that was little more than a glorified ladder up to the bell landing, a wooden scaffolding that surrounded the weathered hanging bell.
“Are you scared of bats?” she said, too late.
