She went past a pair of large statues of Roman emperors, their aging, unhandsome faces incongruously affixed to the elegantly modeled, extremely well-endowed bodies of young Greek athletes, and found her way barred by a massive stone frieze. The flaring candlelight fell on a cluster of mounted warriors locked forever in a scene of bloodshed and savage death. The desperation and ferocity on the faces of the men were echoed in the twisted bodies and slashing hooves of the horses they rode.
She turned away from the frieze and wove a path among a maze of urns and vases decorated with scenes from orgies. Just beyond, a sleeping hermaphrodite reclined languidly. To her left a large centaur pranced in the shadows.
She caught a glimpse of an open door and drew a sharp breath. Tredlow had proudly pointed out his strong room when he had taken her on a tour of his establishment. It was a specially fortified stone chamber that had been part of the original medieval building that once stood on this site.
Tredlow had been thrilled to discover it when he moved into the space, she recalled. He had converted it into a large safe and used it to store his smaller artifacts and those that he considered most precious. Presumably, since it was fitted with a bolt on the inside, it had originally been designed as the entrance to a secret tunnel constructed for the purpose of allowing the homeowner to escape his enemies. But the underground pathway had been sealed shut with stone blocks a long time ago.
Tredlow had installed a heavy iron lock on the outside of the door. He always carried the key on his person.
The strong room should have been locked, she thought. Tredlow would never have left it open. Certainly not willingly.
She started toward the strong room. Her toe collided with one of the three bronze legs that supported an ornately carved Roman brazier.
Swallowing a gasp of pain, she glanced down. The light fell on several dark spots on the floor. The slight glistening of the patches indicated that they were still damp.
Water, she told herself. Or perhaps some tea or ale that Tredlow had spilled recently.
But she knew, even as she stooped to take a closer look, that it was not water or tea or ale that stained the floor. She was staring at half-dried drops of blood.
The small splashes made a ghastly trail that ended abruptly at the edge of a stone sarcophagus. The lid of the coffin was in place, sealing shut the interior and whatever lay inside.
She reached out uneasily to test the spots with the tip of her gloved finger. At that instant she heard the unmistakable squeak of the wooden timbers that formed the ceiling overhead.
Fear as sharp as a shock of electricity singed her senses. She straightened so swiftly and awkwardly that she lost her balance. Frantically, she reached out to brace herself on the closest object, a life-size male figure. The statue held a sword in one hand. In his other fist he grasped a repellent object.
Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa.
For a terrifying instant she was unable to move. It was as if she had been frozen in place by the Gorgon’s gaze. The creature’s unrelenting stare was truly mesmeric in its intensity. The snaky locks that writhed around the creature’s stone face appeared horrifyingly realistic in the wavering light of the candle.
Wood creaked again in the terrible stillness. Footsteps. Directly overhead. Someone was up there, crossing the floor toward the staircase that descended to this level. Not Edmund Tredlow. She was very sure of that.
More squeaks.
The intruder was moving purposefully now. The footsteps came more rapidly. The person upstairs was aware of her presence. He had no doubt heard her call out to Tredlow.
Another sizzling shot of electricity freed her from the stare of the stone Medusa. She had to get out of this place quickly. The intruder would soon be on the stairs. It would take mere seconds for him to reach this room. She could not possibly get through the curtained opening that divided the shop in time to escape through the front door.
That left only the back entrance, the one Tredlow used to receive his stock of artifacts and antiquities. She whirled around, candle held on high, and searched the shadows. Through the forest of looming bronze and stone figures and the canyons of crates and boxes stacked to the ceiling, she caught glimpses of the back wall.
She went along a narrow alley formed by several impressive gravestones. Halfway to her objective, she glanced back over her shoulder and saw the glow of candlelight dancing on the ceiling near the staircase. Despair tore through her. The intruder was already in this room. If she could see his candle flame, he could almost certainly detect hers.
She would never be able to make it to the back entrance in time.
Her only hope was the strong room. If she could get inside and bolt the heavy door behind her, she would be safe.
She rushed toward the small chamber, not bothering to mask the sound of her movements. She halted on the threshold of the stone room, her courage nearly failing her when she realized just how small the space was.
She did not like close, confined places. In point of fact, she hated them.
The sound of booted footsteps coming relentlessly toward her was incentive enough to stiffen her resolve. She glanced back one last time. The figure of her pursuer was concealed by the stacks of statues and crates, but the glow of his candle was all too visible. It bounced and flared off the faces of monsters and gods as he came nearer.
She took a deep breath, stepped inside the cramped strong room, grasped the iron handle of the door, and pulled with all her strength.
It seemed to take forever for the heavy wooden panel to close. For a dreadful moment she thought that it must be stuck and that all was lost.
Then, with a ghostly whine, the door slammed closed. The candle flame jerked wildly one last time, glinting briefly on rows of ancient metal and glass objects, and then winked out of existence.
She was instantly plunged into a darkness as thick and heavy as that of a tomb. With trembling hands she managed to fumble the ancient iron bolt home by sense of touch. It seated itself with an ominous clang.
She shut her eyes and pressed her ear to the thick wooden door panel, straining to listen. The best she could hope for was that the intruder would soon realize that he could not get at her and would elect to leave the premises as quickly as possible. Then she could let herself out of this dreadful little chamber.
She heard the muffled scrape of iron on iron.
It took her a few seconds to understand the full horror of what had just occurred. With a terrible sinking sensation, she comprehended that the intruder had just turned Tredlow’s key in the lock.
He was not even going to try to wrest her from her hiding place, she thought. Instead, he had effectively sealed her into this small, dark space that was not much larger than an ancient Roman sarcophagus.
The two men came toward him out of the fog, long black greatcoats unfastened so that the folds of the heavy garments swept the tops of their gleaming boots. Their faces were obscured by the brims of their hats and the rapidly deepening shadows.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Fitch,” the older one said softly. He moved with a slight catch to his stride, but for some reason the evidence of past injury only made him appear all the more menacing.
The other man did not speak. He stayed a few steps back and to the side, watching events unfold, waiting for instructions. Fitch was reminded of a young leopard taking lessons from a more experienced hunter.