been locked,” Masterton said, “but…” He shrugged. “Perhaps Kemp occasionally sends the maids through to dust.”
Masterton stepped through the doorway and held the door as Godfrey followed.
A quick glance around suggested that no maid had been past the door, to dust or do anything else, for a very long time. A thick layer of dust coated the bare, no-longer-polished boards, and cobwebs draped every corner.
Given they were hoping to discover old paintings, the sight of the webs was heartening. Spiders rarely congregated in damp places; their presence suggested the roof of the old wing was sound.
Masterton shut the door and started walking along the corridor. “If I remember correctly, the stairs to the attic are near the center.”
Following in Masterton’s wake, Godfrey breathed in, testing the air. While it was musty and stale, he detected no hint of mold or mildew. He looked around. “Do you know why the family closed this off?”
“As I understand it, it was purely to reduce the size of the place—the number of rooms they needed to keep up.”
That certainly seemed to be the case; Godfrey detected no sign of structural damage or deficiencies in door frames, walls, architraves, or ceiling.
As he’d walked along, Masterton had been scrutinizing the left-hand wall. Abruptly, he stopped and splayed his fingers over the faded paper, then lightly pushed, and a concealed door popped open. “Here they are.” He threw Godfrey a glance as he drew the door wide. “The stairs are rather rough.”
Thus warned, when he followed Masterton into the relative gloom of the stairwell and halted on a narrow landing, Godfrey wasn’t surprised to find bare, unfinished timbers and a railing that looked likely to harbor splinters. He moved forward, and the door to the corridor swung shut behind him, leaving the stairs lit only by faint light filtering down from a skylight far above.
Already climbing the steep upward flight toward the next landing, Masterton said, “Luckily, the steps seem sound enough.”
Masterton was heavier than Godfrey; seeing the other man reach the landing and turn and continue up the next flight, Godfrey followed without further hesitation.
Four longish flights took them to the level of the attic. Godfrey reached the end of the fourth flight to find Masterton waiting to one side of the upper landing. As Godfrey joined him, Masterton reached for the latch that secured the attic door. “Right—let’s see.”
He opened the door, and Godfrey, standing directly in front of it, found himself looking into a large, reasonably well-lit space. He stepped over the threshold, then went farther, allowing Masterton to enter behind him. Godfrey looked up and down the long room, which ran uninterrupted from gable to gable. “It seems they never partitioned this.”
“At least that gives us light enough to see.”
Dormer windows set into the roof allowed daylight to stream in, revealing old trunks, ancient bandboxes, and pieces of long-outdated furniture scattered haphazardly across the floor.
Masterton looked around, then huffed and, in a rather odd tone, said, “Lucky.” He paused, then pointed at the far end of the room. “Over there.”
Godfrey looked and spotted several medium-size picture frames leaning against the wall beneath the farthest dormer window. He headed that way, sidestepping the clumps of household detritus in his path.
Masterton followed.
The closer Godfrey got to the stacked paintings, the harder it got to breathe.
He halted directly before them, with two yards of empty space between, and stared, barely able to believe his eyes.
Three of the canvases had been turned to the wall; only the nearest faced the room.
With his every faculty and all his senses locked on the dark and murky painting, his eyes tracing the lines beneath the dust and accumulated grime, he felt literally giddy. He crouched—to get a different angle and also to ensure he didn’t sway in shock.
He was dimly aware that Masterton had halted beside and a little behind him.
In a tone that held something of Godfrey’s stunned awe, Masterton murmured, “Lord above. There really are old paintings here.”
It took several seconds for the oddness of the words to penetrate the haze filling Godfrey’s mind. He frowned. “What?”
He started to rise, to turn and face Masterton.
The back of his skull exploded with pain.
He fell, and blackness swallowed him.
Consciousness dripped into Godfrey’s brain, not steadily but in fits and starts.
His head pounded, but instinct held him still. He kept his eyes closed and, as the fog shrouding his senses thinned, tried to get his bearings—tried to recall where he was and what had happened.
Then he remembered. Everything.
He sent his senses