Fell gave a quick affirmative and left the room quickly after Will. Adamat passed them in the hall, Fell with her hand on Will’s shoulder and Will’s collar soaked with sweat. Adamat followed the rest of the group down to the cellar. Lanterns were handed out quickly, and voices talked in hushed tones. Adamat held his lantern high and gripped his cane tightly. A tingle went down his spine as he descended into the damp stone basement.
The four union workers looked to him when they reached the bottom, and he realized that Fell had not yet come down. He was seized by sudden suspicion. If even one of them was in on this bomb plot, they might make a go at him. He found himself sizing each of them up, planning the best way to defend himself.
A few moments passed before he realized they were still watching him.
“Well, get to it.”
“Uh, sir,” Draily said. “Look.”
Adamat shook the fear from his head and stepped forward. They stood in a long, arched hallway with walls of stone, and off the hallway to the right were a dozen niches that extended out beneath the hotel. At the far end of the hall was a low, heavy door.
Draily was pointing into the first niche. Adamat held his lantern inside and squinted. “Nothing but wine,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Is it?”
“Oh.” Realization set in. Of course. Any of these wine bottles could be the bomb or bombs he was looking for. It would be the best place to hide something like that – in plain sight. Adamat tapped his fingers on his stomach, then said, “Search everything else. I’ll check the wine.”
The rest of the group moved on to the other niches, and Adamat began to inspect the wine. At first glance he estimated upward of two thousand bottles here, and Adamat wondered if this was the other part of Ricard’s wine collection or whether the hotel was just this well stocked.
Adamat removed his jacket and hung it from a peg on the wall, rolling his sleeves up. He began examining each wine bottle, starting at the top row. They came in every variety; some were slender, dark-brown bottles, while others were fat green bottles with long necks.
He looked for consistency; the thickness of the dust, how the labels were positioned, as well as the size and shape of the bottle itself. He felt a growing despair as he went – if the blasting oil had been hidden inside a wine bottle, it might be impossible to find. A hotel such as this went through wine at an alarming rate. Some of the bottles had been here for months or years, and those were easy to tell from the layer of dust, but there were still at least eighty bottles that had been handled recently.
“You think our bomber is that devious?” Fell’s voice said from the hallway.
Adamat didn’t look up from his examination. “They’d have to be an idiot not to see the opportunity,” Adamat said. “I don’t know how to go about this without opening four dozen bottles to check their contents.”
“A last resort, I think,” Fell said. “You know how Ricard is about his wine.”
“Would he rather drink a glass of blasting oil?”
“I’ll have to point that out to him.” She paused, then, “You’re certain it’s here?”
“Ricard was certain,” Adamat said. “That’s all I have to go on.”
“He may be wrong.”
“A possibility, sure,” Adamat said. “But if he’s right…”
“Not worth the risk. That man you pointed out, Will?”
“Anything?” Adamat stopped his search long enough to look hopefully toward Fell. If they’d just happened upon a conspirator, they might get a lucky break. Investigative science practically depended on lucky breaks.
“Just nervous,” Fell said. “His father worked for a powder company and was killed in a blast two years ago. Will’s terrified of explosions. I should have remembered it earlier. Poor man pissed himself when I wouldn’t let him leave the building.”
Adamat returned his attention to the wine bottles. “A pity.”
He heard a jingle of keys, and Fell said, “Mark where you are and come with me. I’ll set a man to make sure the wine isn’t disturbed. We need to search the Underhill Room.”
“Oh?” Adamat made a mental note of the wine cellar and followed Fell down the hallway to the thick door at the end of the basement. She unlocked it and pulled it open, the strain of her shoulders testifying to the weight.
Inside, Adamat was surprised to find another long corridor. He held his lantern high and glanced back at Fell.
“Go on.”
He crept down the hall slowly, still clutching his cane, and he wondered briefly how much he trusted Fell. Her loyalty was supposed to be to Ricard for the duration of her contract. But what if that was all a lie? Could she have planned the bombing? She could kill him down here without a problem, then hide the body and tell Ricard he had left. Adamat’s mind whirred through a dozen possible motives and all the reasons why he was wrong. By the time he reached the end of the hall, he was no less wary, and all the more certain that he wouldn’t stand even the faintest chance against Fell in a fight.
His lantern created eerie shadows in the large, square room at the end of the hall. Fell squeezed past him to light candelabras along all four walls until the entire room had been illuminated. It looked like any of the hundreds of gentleman’s clubs in Adopest – the walls were covered in velvet and the candelabras were polished brass. There was seating for at least a dozen people in the form of divans and couches, and the center of the room held a velvet-lined card table with room for six.
There was a dumbwaiter in one corner, likely leading up to the kitchen, and a smaller, private stock of wine as well as an untapped keg. A fireplace sat at either end of the room, though upon closer examination they appeared to be wood-burning stoves with stone façades.
“So this is the Underhill Society?”
Fell finished lighting the candelabras and blew out her lantern. “Yes.”
“Has it been here the whole time?” Adamat remembered hearing about the Underhill Society for the first time over thirteen years ago and knew it was much older than that. Ricard had owned the hotel for only six.
“Only since Ricard bought the hotel. He hasn’t told me where they met before that.”
Adamat pointed back down the hallway. “Are they…”
“They can come search the room. It shouldn’t take long. Just don’t mention the… well, you know.”
Fell’s searchers finished their assigned niches and then moved into the larger room, checked every nook and cranny thoroughly and without comment as to the room’s purpose. Adamat returned to the wine cellar, resuming his examination of the bottles.
Frustration continued to mount. Every bit of instinct told him that the blasting oil should be hidden among the wine. It was too good a spot for any henchman with half a wit, and if the perpetrator had a whole wit, the oil would have been bottled carefully and put in among the less-used wines. Adamat cursed under his breath and tried to recall the latest fashionable wines among Ricard’s friends and associates – those would be the easiest to rule out.
The searchers moved up to the next floor, and Adamat only barely noted their passing.
It must have been almost an hour later when he heard someone on the basement stairs. He noted Fell’s soft footfalls.
“Any progress upstairs?” he asked.
Fell set her lantern on a wine barrel in one corner. “None. It’s a large hotel and with only four men it’s a slow business. Progress here?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to a possibility of three dozen bottles,” Adamat said.
“Are you sure you’re putting your energy in the right place? After all, I’d think it would be obvious if any of the wine here had been uncorked.”
“Certainly. But they could have done it off-site and brought the wine here.” Adamat sighed and returned a bottle to its place. “I should have asked Ricard if any of his guests have brought him new wine recently.”
“Everyone does,” Fell said.
Adamat eyed the shelves where he’d sorted the most probable bottles. “Have him make a list for me. The only way to know for certain is to open every bottle. Or, more safely, to take the whole lot out of the city and throw it off a high cliff.”