Chapter 11: The Locked Drawer

"I need the ring of keys for the west corridor," I told Bertram on the stairs.

"I did not hear you ask, Your Grace."

"Then you won't have heard me take them."

"I will be in the cellar for the next hour counting turnips."

He put the ring in Greta's apron pocket without turning his head.

"Slowly," he added.

The Duke was out in the garden with the lady-in-waiting, showing her the roses and watching her hands.

He had been doing it for nine days.

She had been very patient.

I thought that was the most worrying thing about her.

The west corridor was silent.

Greta stood at the top of the stairs with a loaf of bread, which was how she kept watch.

She believed a person with food in her hands looked innocent.

The green door opened to the third key.

The wrapped gifts glittered in the afternoon light.

I went straight to the oak cabinet and knelt in front of the little brass lock.

"Have you done this before?" Greta whispered from the door.

"In my last life, I opened a filing cabinet with a bent hairpin on a bet."

"A what cabinet?"

"A box of papers. I won forty coins."

The first hairpin snapped.

The second bent in the wrong direction and stuck.

I breathed through my nose and counted to ten.

The lock was a plain brass thing, made to keep out a housemaid.

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