own voice. He spoke to himself far too much. “Don’t be such a nincompoop, Jenkins!”
He tottered over to the mantelpiece.
‘Firstly, the Key-Ring, which is hidden under the mantelpiece in the Blue Room’, the letter averred. The question was, where and how was it hidden? It must be secret, for there was no way Great-Grandmother would have hidden some special treasure right where a casual visitor might chance upon it–if only Father had not snatched the letter! His fingertips scouted the edges above the fireplace, hunting for any imperfections or clues, but it was firmly affixed to the stone and in no way mobile. Next he pored over the brickwork surrounding the fireplace, without finding anything unusual there either. He reached up the chimney as far as he could–no luck. Eventually, Kevin stood back and reconsidered the whole endeavour, scratching his chin absently. Perhaps there was another Blue Room? No, he had must have been over the plans a dozen times. This was her private study, a logical place–no, perhaps it was the least logical place for him to be looking. He glared silently at the mantelpiece before going over every inch of it a second time, and the brickwork, and the sooty chimney–but apart from blackened fingers and face, he achieved precisely as much as before, which was to say, nothing at all.
“Where would one hide a key-ring?” Kevin glared at an oil painting of some obscure relative hanging above the fireplace, which actually depicted a rather attractive young woman in Victorian dress seated primly on a straight-backed chair, hands folded in her lap over a leather bound book. She and Aunt Beatrice–Kevin’s favourite Aunt–might have been sisters. He should ask her next time … ah, the picture! Kevin reached up to explore the picture frame. He was woefully short, but this inadequacy hardly mattered, for he happened upon it within seconds–a tiny rough edge, a curling of paper beneath his fingernails. With shaking hands, he extracted and unrolled the slip.
He squinted and read, ‘I wonder what Colette is thinking?’
“Jiminy Cricket!” Was this a joke? Some unsuspected sense of humour on the part of Great-Grandmother, who had always struck him as rather distant, stern, and disapproving of snotty little boys? Colette’s portrait received the full brunt of his displeasure and annoyance. “Now,” he said, peering closer, “what are you hiding, my dear?”
Her portrait was rather plain and lacking in interesting details, although some peculiar force of gravity caused his gaze to dally for some moments on the journey between her smiling face and the book in her lap–in purely aesthetic study, naturally, though the room seemed at once ten degrees warmer in result. That he could discern nothing of what she was thinking was partly due to her simple, happy expression, and partly due to the sudden lapse in concentration on his part. Kevin’s eyes jumped guiltily to the book, cradled protectively between her slim, pale hands. It had miniscule gold lettering on the spine.
“Needs a magnifying-glass,” he said to himself, casting about the room. “Can’t read a darned thing in this dreary moonlight!” A swift search turned up a fine glass in the top desk drawer, whence he returned to Colette and focussed on the book. “Well I say, what perfectly strange book for a young lady to be reading. ‘ Locks Through the Ages: A Complete History? ’ A tad offbeat.” Struck by sudden inspiration, he whirled. “It couldn’t be …!”
Two minutes’ perusal of Great-Grandmother’s bookshelves had that exact volume in his trembling hands–but that was where the inspiration faded, for no further clues offered themselves immediately to Kevin’s questing mind. He already understood that ‘beneath the mantelpiece’ was a purposeful misdirection. Colette appeared from her picture to be gazing at the shelf from which he had carefully removed Locks Through the Ages , which made sense, but he
He tottered over to the mantelpiece.
‘Firstly, the Key-Ring, which is hidden under the mantelpiece in the Blue Room’, the letter averred. The question was, where and how was it hidden? It must be secret, for there was no way Great-Grandmother would have hidden some special treasure right where a casual visitor might chance upon it–if only Father had not snatched the letter! His fingertips scouted the edges above the fireplace, hunting for any imperfections or clues, but it was firmly affixed to the stone and in no way mobile. Next he pored over the brickwork surrounding the fireplace, without finding anything unusual there either. He reached up the chimney as far as he could–no luck. Eventually, Kevin stood back and reconsidered the whole endeavour, scratching his chin absently. Perhaps there was another Blue Room? No, he had must have been over the plans a dozen times. This was her private study, a logical place–no, perhaps it was the least logical place for him to be looking. He glared silently at the mantelpiece before going over every inch of it a second time, and the brickwork, and the sooty chimney–but apart from blackened fingers and face, he achieved precisely as much as before, which was to say, nothing at all.
“Where would one hide a key-ring?” Kevin glared at an oil painting of some obscure relative hanging above the fireplace, which actually depicted a rather attractive young woman in Victorian dress seated primly on a straight-backed chair, hands folded in her lap over a leather bound book. She and Aunt Beatrice–Kevin’s favourite Aunt–might have been sisters. He should ask her next time … ah, the picture! Kevin reached up to explore the picture frame. He was woefully short, but this inadequacy hardly mattered, for he happened upon it within seconds–a tiny rough edge, a curling of paper beneath his fingernails. With shaking hands, he extracted and unrolled the slip.
He squinted and read, ‘I wonder what Colette is thinking?’
“Jiminy Cricket!” Was this a joke? Some unsuspected sense of humour on the part of Great-Grandmother, who had always struck him as rather distant, stern, and disapproving of snotty little boys? Colette’s portrait received the full brunt of his displeasure and annoyance. “Now,” he said, peering closer, “what are you hiding, my dear?”
Her portrait was rather plain and lacking in interesting details, although some peculiar force of gravity caused his gaze to dally for some moments on the journey between her smiling face and the book in her lap–in purely aesthetic study, naturally, though the room seemed at once ten degrees warmer in result. That he could discern nothing of what she was thinking was partly due to her simple, happy expression, and partly due to the sudden lapse in concentration on his part. Kevin’s eyes jumped guiltily to the book, cradled protectively between her slim, pale hands. It had miniscule gold lettering on the spine.
“Needs a magnifying-glass,” he said to himself, casting about the room. “Can’t read a darned thing in this dreary moonlight!” A swift search turned up a fine glass in the top desk drawer, whence he returned to Colette and focussed on the book. “Well I say, what perfectly strange book for a young lady to be reading. ‘ Locks Through the Ages: A Complete History? ’ A tad offbeat.” Struck by sudden inspiration, he whirled. “It couldn’t be …!”
Two minutes’ perusal of Great-Grandmother’s bookshelves had that exact volume in his trembling hands–but that was where the inspiration faded, for no further clues offered themselves immediately to Kevin’s questing mind. He already understood that ‘beneath the mantelpiece’ was a purposeful misdirection. Colette appeared from her picture to be gazing at the shelf from which he had carefully removed Locks Through the Ages , which made sense, but he
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