I reached into my coat pocket.

My fingers brushed against the cold, heavy brass key I had found in my mother’s vanity drawer.

I pulled it out and set it on the polished mahogany table.

The brass was dull, tarnished with age, and its bow was shaped like a three-leaf clover.

“The key you found, Claire,” Thomas said, pointing a finger at the diagram. “It does not open a simple chest.”

“What does it open?” I asked.

“The iron gate at the back of the north cellar wall,” Thomas said.

He traced a line on the paper with a thick silver pen.

“The cellar is damp and empty,” Mark said. His voice was too thin. “It has been empty for forty years.”

“The cellar is not empty,” Thomas replied.

He adjusted his glasses, looking at Mark over the silver rims.

“The vault behind the brickwork contains a fireproof safe,” Thomas said.

“And what is in the safe?” Juliette asked.

She had stepped away from Mark, her red silk dress rustling against the corner of the piano.

“The physical ledger books,” Thomas said. “And the backup hard drives for the Clara Hartwell Foundation.”