beyond. The rows of heavy paintings on the walls and stacks of fine furniture loomed out of heavy shadows. The smell of mold and rot hung thick in the air.
Moving quietly, he opened the first door to his right and found himself staring at a dining room that looked as if it hadn’t been used for its intended purpose in decades. The velvet curtains at the windows hung in tatters; a long Jacobean table and a dozen chairs with barley-turned legs, so darkened by centuries of smoke and old wax as to be nearly black, stood in the center of the room. All were so buried beneath piles of furniture and stacks of paintings and objets d’art that it would take a man a week to search the room, clearing a path for himself as he went.
Closing the door, Sebastian turned to the opposite side of the corridor, only to draw up short at the sight of a pair of green eyes gleaming at him from out of the darkness.
“How the devil did you get in here?” he whispered to the cat. Then a waft of wind scented by wet pavement and sodden earth caused the heavy door from the terrace to shift with a loud creak, and he realized that, without the bolt, it had swung open again.
He used his boot to nudge the cat out of his way. “Just be quiet, will you?”
The next door opened to reveal a chamber only slightly less cluttered than the dining room, although this space was obviously used for more than storage, for there was a clear path from the door to a beautiful ebony desk inlaid with ivory and piled high with papers. From the looks of things, someone had been going through them—no doubt Eisler’s heirs or their solicitors. Beyond the desk stood a massive safe, its heavy iron door hanging open, its shelves empty. Whatever gems, stacks of currency, and other secrets it might once have contained were now gone.
He moved on.
As he had suspected, the next door proved to be a second entrance to the long parlor where Eisler had been shot. This, obviously, was how the murderer had managed to flee the house without being seen by Yates . . . if Yates was telling the truth about what had happened that night.
It bothered Sebastian that he was not as convinced of that as he would like to have been.
There remained only one more door on this floor, not far from where the set of narrow steps led down to the basement kitchen. Crossing back across the corridor, he pressed down on the door latch.
It was locked.
At his feet, the black cat settled on its haunches and let out a soft mew.
“Yes, it is puzzling, isn’t it?” Sebastian said to the cat. “But I wish you would—”
He broke off as a muffled thump sounded from below.
Sebastian drew back from the top of the stairs, his spine pressed against the wall, the dagger from his boot in his hand. A faint glow, as if from a lantern, illuminated the stairwell leading up from the basement and threw the long shadows of two men across the far wall. A heavy footstep sounded on the stairs, then another.
“Meow,” went the cat.
The footsteps stopped.
“Meow.” Stretching to its feet, the cat arched its back and went to stand at the top of the stairs, its enormous fluffy tail lashing back and forth, green eyes glinting in the darkness.
“What in the name of all that’s ’oly is that?” demanded one of the men in a frightened whisper.
The second man answered, his voice older, harsher. “It’s a cat, you damn fool.” Sebastian heard a whacking sound, as if the older man had walloped his companion with his hat.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“Jist shut up and keep goin’.”
The footsteps resumed their cautious ascent.
Sebastian eased sideways deeper into the shadows cast by the open stair door and a massive bureau piled high with everything from a marble bust and Grecian urn to a jumble of elegant walking sticks. But there was no place to hide, and he couldn’t cross in front of the stairs or even slide back toward the dining room without moving into the men’s line of vision.
“Where do we look first?” whispered the younger man, his voice cracking with nerves.
“The parlor, I should think,” answered his companion.
“And if we don’t find it there?”
“Then we go through every bleedin’ room in the house till we do find it. What do ye think? Ye want