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“Not much of a risk,” said Billy. “I can chisel out one brick, and look.”

“What’s the fun in that?” asked Ruth. Though it seemed this cavalier attitude was a pretense. She was, in fact, pretty tense.

At a signal from Olivier, Billy began to chip away mortar that his great-great-great-grandfather had put in place one very long night, a hundred and sixty years earlier.

Reine-Marie, at Armand’s quiet request, had brought out her phone and was videoing it.

Once the brick was loose, Billy wiggled it out of the wall and handed it to Fiona, who gave it to Harriet. Who examined it.

“Exactly the same as your brick, Auntie Myrna.”

“May I?” asked Armand, and Billy stepped aside.

He shone the flashlight on his phone through the small opening. By instinct he also sniffed the air. Not that he expected to smell anything. If it had really been sealed up for more than a century and a half, anything organic would have fallen to dust. Anything, or anyone.

As a homicide investigator, his mind naturally went there. Though it seemed unlikely.

He squinted and peered, but his light only illuminated motes of dust hanging in the air. Undisturbed for more than a century. But that was about to change.

As he went to step back, his light caught something. It looked like a face. And then it was gone. It so surprised him, he leaned away with a start.

“What is it?” Myrna’s voice became unnaturally high.

“I think there’s something in there, but I can’t see clearly.” He did not say “someone.”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said Gabri, his eyes wide.

He’d looked up “The Cask of Amontillado.” It was the story of some guy who’d walled up a rival and left him there to die. Not a puppy in sight.

Armand looked at Olivier, who nodded to Billy, who swung his sledgehammer.

CHAPTER 16

The wall came down. Though it took more swings from Billy’s sledgehammer than expected.

“Your ancestor did a good job,” said Olivier, as Billy wiped the sweat from his face.

“Looks like he wanted to make sure whatever was in there stayed in there,” said Ruth.

Armand had gone home briefly, with instructions to those gathered not to go into the room until he returned.

“I think we can promise that,” said Clara.

He returned a few minutes later, holding a worn satchel. His scene-of-crime kit, Reine-Marie knew, though she suspected the others did not. At least, she hoped they didn’t.

“Can you do the rest by hand?” Armand asked when the opening was almost big enough to climb through.

Billy put down the sledgehammer and pulled at the loosened bricks.

They crowded around the opening, craning and jostling for position, trying to see in. But it was still too dark to make anything out.

“I think it might be better if you stepped back.” Armand’s voice was calm, his tone pleasant, as though suggesting they might want to wait for the next bus.

They stepped back.

“This enough?” asked Billy, dragging his sleeve across his forehead again and leaving a streak of dirt.

“Parfait.”