confident what I was looking for lay behind one of the three heavy, oak doors, each a masterpiece of seventeenth-century hand carving. The first turned out to be a closet, jam-packed with coats and rubber boots.
The second, which I had to wrench open, hid a winding back staircase, probably one of six or seven in a house this old, intended for the servants. It smelled of mildew and damp plaster as though it hadn’t been used for centuries. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. It was pitch-black, not a hint of light anywhere. I always carry a tiny squeeze light in my pocket—you never know when you’ll need a little pinprick of light to help you get your key in the lock late at night. Or crack a recalcitrant safe. I began a careful ascent. The wall felt chilly and moist beneath my fingers, the silence as absolute as a tomb. Even with the little beam, I couldn’t see more than the next step, but finally, a small band of light from beneath a door illuminated a landing at the second floor. I leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. I was giddy with excitement, and my heart was pounding so hard it was all I could hear. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should have gone into the kitchen and asked where the powder room was, but the thought of seeing Lady Melody’s bedroom drew me like a magnet.
Thanks to fan magazines, I knew everything there was to know about her. She did all her writing in her bed, leaning against dozens of lace-trimmed bolsters and pillows. I’d seen hundreds of pictures of her in newspapers and magazines, and read how every morning of her life, before she went to work, she fixed her hair and her makeup and put on jewelry from her extensive collection. She chooses the jewelry based on the character she’s working on that day. She sits there in bed, fingers and wrists dripping with gems, bed jacket fluffed around her (according to an article in Woman’s Review , she has almost a thousand bed jackets) while she writes long-hand on a lap desk.
All right, Kick, I told myself, if you’re going to do it, do it. My pulse had returned to normal. I took a breath and put my hand on the cold brass doorknob and turned. It made only the quietest, well-oiled click. I pushed the door open an imperceptible fraction and checked my watch—I’d been gone for less than two minutes. There was no noise in the hallway. No sound of cleaning or dusting. I opened the door farther and poked my head out and looked around. Because of an article in the Sunday London Times Magazine , I knew Lady Melody’s bedroom was the one with the open double doors at the top of the stairs. It would be a good-sized room with a rounded wall of windows that opened onto the park. Sunlight streamed out invitingly.
I listened again, more acutely this time, still no sounds. I stepped into the hallway, leaving the door slightly ajar, and dashed across to the inner sanctum.
Her bed, a golden boat with a pink satin canopy, was unmade. It was said to have been Marie Antoinette’s, but if you’d been in the auction business as long as I have, you’d soon discover that if everything that people claimed had been Marie Antoinette’s had been, she would have needed ten palaces the size of Versailles to house it all. The delicate antique coverlet and down puff were tossed aside, half-on and half-off the bed. All those famous pillows? Nowhere to be seen. In the middle of the bed, on top of the morning papers, next to an open laptop computer that appeared to be on-line to CNN-FN, sat a breakfast tray with dried-out scrambled eggs and toast crumbs, which were being consumed by a fat gray cat who scarcely gave me a look before he continued his leisurely breakfast. A dinner tray stuck out from under the bed. The tail of another cat twitched the bed-skirt. The room had an uncomfortable, cat-urine-tinged, peach-air-freshener smell. One of the mullioned windows in that big bowed nook needed opening.
Books and magazines littered the floor. Mail-order
The second, which I had to wrench open, hid a winding back staircase, probably one of six or seven in a house this old, intended for the servants. It smelled of mildew and damp plaster as though it hadn’t been used for centuries. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. It was pitch-black, not a hint of light anywhere. I always carry a tiny squeeze light in my pocket—you never know when you’ll need a little pinprick of light to help you get your key in the lock late at night. Or crack a recalcitrant safe. I began a careful ascent. The wall felt chilly and moist beneath my fingers, the silence as absolute as a tomb. Even with the little beam, I couldn’t see more than the next step, but finally, a small band of light from beneath a door illuminated a landing at the second floor. I leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. I was giddy with excitement, and my heart was pounding so hard it was all I could hear. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should have gone into the kitchen and asked where the powder room was, but the thought of seeing Lady Melody’s bedroom drew me like a magnet.
Thanks to fan magazines, I knew everything there was to know about her. She did all her writing in her bed, leaning against dozens of lace-trimmed bolsters and pillows. I’d seen hundreds of pictures of her in newspapers and magazines, and read how every morning of her life, before she went to work, she fixed her hair and her makeup and put on jewelry from her extensive collection. She chooses the jewelry based on the character she’s working on that day. She sits there in bed, fingers and wrists dripping with gems, bed jacket fluffed around her (according to an article in Woman’s Review , she has almost a thousand bed jackets) while she writes long-hand on a lap desk.
All right, Kick, I told myself, if you’re going to do it, do it. My pulse had returned to normal. I took a breath and put my hand on the cold brass doorknob and turned. It made only the quietest, well-oiled click. I pushed the door open an imperceptible fraction and checked my watch—I’d been gone for less than two minutes. There was no noise in the hallway. No sound of cleaning or dusting. I opened the door farther and poked my head out and looked around. Because of an article in the Sunday London Times Magazine , I knew Lady Melody’s bedroom was the one with the open double doors at the top of the stairs. It would be a good-sized room with a rounded wall of windows that opened onto the park. Sunlight streamed out invitingly.
I listened again, more acutely this time, still no sounds. I stepped into the hallway, leaving the door slightly ajar, and dashed across to the inner sanctum.
Her bed, a golden boat with a pink satin canopy, was unmade. It was said to have been Marie Antoinette’s, but if you’d been in the auction business as long as I have, you’d soon discover that if everything that people claimed had been Marie Antoinette’s had been, she would have needed ten palaces the size of Versailles to house it all. The delicate antique coverlet and down puff were tossed aside, half-on and half-off the bed. All those famous pillows? Nowhere to be seen. In the middle of the bed, on top of the morning papers, next to an open laptop computer that appeared to be on-line to CNN-FN, sat a breakfast tray with dried-out scrambled eggs and toast crumbs, which were being consumed by a fat gray cat who scarcely gave me a look before he continued his leisurely breakfast. A dinner tray stuck out from under the bed. The tail of another cat twitched the bed-skirt. The room had an uncomfortable, cat-urine-tinged, peach-air-freshener smell. One of the mullioned windows in that big bowed nook needed opening.
Books and magazines littered the floor. Mail-order
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