“Did you strike your head?” he asked.
“Did you see anything unusual before you fell?” Catherine watched him cautiously.
“I saw an old wall.” “Perhaps the pain confused your thoughts.” “Pain did not invent my sister’s name,” she answered.
The doctor paused with a strip of linen in his hand.
Elijah saw him glance at Richard before he tied the bandage.
Richard ordered Elijah to carry water to the kitchen and remain available.
Elijah nodded and stepped backward through the door, refusing the temptation to run.
In the hallway he met Mrs.
Fenwick, who had served the family longer than Catherine had been married.
The housekeeper’s lips were pressed tight.
“Don’t go near the west wing tonight,” she whispered.
“Why?” Elijah asked.
“Because the colonel has sent for men who don’t work here.” She turned away before he could ask more.
Downstairs, Elijah found Naomi beside the stove helping prepare supper.
She read his face before he said a word.
“What happened?” He told her only that Catherine had fallen, Richard had drawn a pistol, and the cellar was no longer safe to approach.
Naomi set down the spoon she was holding.
“Ruth heard something last night,” she said.
“A carriage stopped by the old lane after midnight.
She heard a child crying.” Elijah felt the room shrink.
“Was it one of the families from the quarters?” Naomi shook her head.
“She didn’t recognize the voice.”
The cellar had been unused in the household accounts for years.
Yet Elijah had heard a wagon above it and seen fresh straw near the door.
He had assumed Richard stored contraband tobacco, which was dangerous enough.
A child crying beneath that house suggested something far worse.
Before he could speak, the bell above the kitchen door rang.
Mrs.
Fenwick appeared and asked for Elijah by name.
“The colonel says you must repair a lock before dark.” Her expression warned him that refusing would not be allowed.
“Bring your tools,” she added.
“And tell no one where you’re going.”
Chapter 4: The Door With No Outside Handle
Richard waited outside the west wing with an overseer named Silas Crowe.
Crowe was broad, bearded, and careful never to raise his voice when a quiet threat would suffice.
On the ground between them lay a new iron hasp and a wooden panel roughly the width of a man’s shoulders.
Richard pointed to the cellar door.
“Remove the interior handle and install this plate.” Elijah looked at the hardware.
“Then a person inside couldn’t open it.” “That’s the intention,” Richard replied.
