Book of Souls

They were alone. Lord Cantwell hadn’t surfaced yet.

“This morning I researched Flemish windmills,” she said.

“That was industrious of you.”

“Well, as you were going to sleep half the day, someone had to start in,” she said saucily.

“So where’s the next clue?”

“Haven’t got one.”

“One what?”

“A clue! Your brain’s not up yet, Mr. Piper!”

“I had a rough night.”

“Did you?”

He didn’t want to go there. “Windmills?” he asked.

She had some pages printed off an Internet site. “Did you know that the first windmill was built in Flanders in the thirteenth century? And that at peak, in the eighteenth century there might well have been thousands of them? And that there are currently fewer than two hundred in all of Belgium and only sixty-five in Flanders? And that the last working Flemish windmill ceased operation in 1914?” She looked up and smiled sweetly at him.

“None of that’s helpful,” he said, gulping more coffee.

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed, “but it’s gotten my mind cranking. We need to have a thorough look around for any objet d’art, image, painting, anything whatsoever with a windmill motif. We know there aren’t any books of interest.”

“Good. You’re going full throttle. I’m glad one of us is.”

She was enthused, a young filly straining at her bit for a morning run. “Yesterday was one of the most stimulating days I’ve ever had, Will. It was incredible.”

He looked at her through his bilious haze.

“Mentally stimulating!” she said, exasperated, but then at a whisper, under the washing-up noises of the housekeeper added, “And physically stimulating too.”

“Remember,” he said with as much gravitas as he could muster, “you can’t disclose any of this. They’re some very serious people who will shut you down if you do.”

“Don’t you think the rest of the world should know? Isn’t it a universal right to know?” She curled her mouth into a bright smile, “And, parenthetically, it would launch my academic career in a spectacular way.”

“For your sake and mine, I’m begging you not to go there. If you don’t promise me, I’ll leave this morning and I’ll take the poem with me and this’ll be unfinished.” He wasn’t smiling.

“All right,” she pouted. “What shall I tell Granddad?”

“Tell him the letter was interesting but didn’t shed any light on the book. Make something up. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got a good imagination.”

They began the day with a walk through the house, looking for anything remotely interesting. Will brought along another cup of coffee for the road, which Isabelle thought was very American of him.

The ground floor of Cantwell Hall was fairly complicated. The kitchen wing in the rear of the house had a series of pantries and disused servants’ quarters. The dining room, a well-proportioned front-facing room, was located between the kitchen area and the entrance hall. Will had spent all his time the previous day in the Great Hall and the library and this morning he was shown another large, formal room facing the rear garden, the drawing room, which they also called the French room, holding a starchy collection of eighteenth-century French furniture and decorative pieces, which looked unlived-in and unvisited. Will also discovered that the reason the Great Hall was windowless was because its front-facing wall was no longer the outer wall of the house. A long gallery had been constructed in the seventeenth century, connecting the house and a stables area which had long ago been converted to a banqueting hall.

The gallery originated through an unnoticed entryway in the hall. It was a high-ceilinged, darkly paneled corridor lined with paintings and the odd piece of stone or bronze statuary. At its other end, it emptied into a vast, cold hall that hadn’t hosted a banquet or a ball in a good half century. Will’s heart sank when he entered. It was filled with packing crates and piles of furniture and bric-a-brac covered in sheets. “Granddad calls this his bank account,” Isabelle told him. “These are things he’s decided to part with to pay the bills for the next few years.”

“Could any of this stuff date back to the fifteen hundreds?”

“Possibly.”

Will shook his throbbing head and swore.

The banqueting hall was connected via a short corridor to the chapel, a small stone sanctuary, the Cantwells’ private house of worship, five rows of pews and a small limestone altar. It was simple and quiet, Christ crucified looking down on empty pews splashed by morning sunlight that filtered through stained glass. “Not used much,” Isabelle said, “though Granddad wants the family to do a private mass for him here when his time comes.”

He pointed over his head. “Is this the spire I can see from my bedroom?” Will asked.

“Yes, come and look.”