John, who had been watching with increasing pride at having had some part in the affair, spoke eagerly. “The shelf was fastened to the wall, sir. Not recent neither. Old iron straps, handmade pins.”
Darcy glanced at him sharply. “Fastened deliberately?”
“Aye, sir. Took some doing to loosen it.”
“And the trap door was directly beneath?”
“Just so.”
Miss Elizabeth nodded. “The flooding must have disturbed whatever lay beneath the boards. I believe there are more.”
Darcy turned back to her slowly.
“More?”
She looked slightly uncertain beneath the full force of his attention, though she did not retreat from it. “More coins. I sawseveral edges in the mud. I did not have time to look properly before Susie made me come back up.”
“I did not make you,” Susie protested. “I prevented you from attempting to bury yourself alive in a Roman cellar.”
Darcy scarcely heard the exchange.
More coins.
A hidden lower chamber.
Gracechurch Street, near the old heart of Roman Londinium.
A gold solidus of Honorius.
He looked again at the coin in his palm, then at the trap door. The implications struck one after another with dizzying speed. If there were more—if this were not a single lost coin but a hoard—then they might be standing above something extraordinary. Not merely valuable. Historically invaluable.
“Do you understand what you may have found?” he asked.
Miss Elizabeth hesitated. “Something old.”
“Something priceless,” Darcy said, then caught himself and corrected the excess of feeling with effort. “Not only in money. In history. This may be connected to the very end of Roman Britain. Honorius ruled when imperial authority here was collapsing. If this was hidden beneath the old city, and if there are more coins below, then it may have lain undisturbed for fourteen centuries.”
Mr. Philips drew a sharp breath.
Miss Elizabeth looked from Darcy to her uncle, and the excitement in her face dimmed beneath a more practical concern. “Then what do we do? Is it ours to keep?”
Mr. Philips answered before Darcy could. “No. Not if Mr. Darcy is correct.”
Her brow furrowed. “So not ours, then?”
“Gold or silver hidden in the ground, when no owner can be known, belongs to the Crown under treasure trove. At least, that is my understanding.” Mr. Philips rubbed a hand over hisface, suddenly looking older and more tired than he had in the warehouse. “Though what officer must be informed, and in what manner, I confess I do not immediately know.”
Susie looked toward the open trap door with evident alarm. “Then perhaps it had better go back where it was until we know.”
Mr. Philips’s mouth tightened. “There is another question. If this belongs to the Crown, and if discovery brings officials, scholars, workmen, and God knows who else into the house, it may delay the sale. Perhaps make a sale impossible for a time. I do not relish saying it, but the simplest course might be to leave it buried and allow the next owner to discover his own complications.”
Darcy straightened.
“No.”
The word came more sharply than he intended, but he did not withdraw it.
All eyes turned toward him.
