The Knight of Slaughtaverty

Chapter 17 - Piano Concerto in D Minor

"There are signal boosters all over this mansion, Aubrey," Liam informs me, popping his head out from under the desk in the study next to my bedroom.

He was kind enough to crawl under the large desk to make sure that all the cables leading from the wall were securely in place, even though the booster stationed on a shelf on a bookcase in the corner of the room had all its little green lights on, some of them flickering annoyingly.

I've set my laptop up on the desktop to charge since the battery was running low, but I cannot connect to the WiFi properly, no matter how many times I try. My phone is doing a little bit better, but the signal bars remain low.

"There's nothing wrong with the booster. For some reason, the signal has always been sketchy in the wings. There are too many things interfering with it. Mirrors, glass, masonry, timber, furniture, things like that. The strength fluctuates. Sometimes, you'll be able to connect from here just fine for hours, and then it will just drop off again. The main body of the house where the offices are is the only area with a consistently strong signal. I'm sorry about that. It's fickle at best up here."

"All these tunnels might have something to do with it too," I suggest, watching him lithely get to his feet, dusting his hands and the knees of his trousers.

"Probably," he shrugs. "I guess when the house and all its extensions were built, the possibility of WiFi in the centuries to come was not taken into account. That was an oversight."

He almost sounds as if he means that!

"Are you sure there are no secret doors in here?" I ask the question I know I've asked him more than once already. When we entered the study, I opened the thick bottle-green and gold curtains covering the wall of windows at the bottom of the long room, flooding the interior with some welcome light. It's not enough to expel all the shadows, especially as three walls have no windows. All the furniture is dark and rather heavy, and thick timber beams support the ceiling. There are many paintings in here and a fireplace, which is a feature present in almost all the rooms I've seen this far.

I try really hard not to think about the possibility of connected chimneys and flues providing even more clandestine routes. The last thing I need to worry about is unwanted visitors coming at me from a fireplace.

Oh! Too late!

"Yes, I'm quite sure," Liam assures me without any sign of irritation. In the hours I've spent with him today, I've come to realise just how kind and patient he is.

I don't see any Turner paintings, but my eyes keep on pulling my attention to the painting of the two Doyle children in the same way your tongue tends to worry a sore spot in your mouth, unable to let it be until the pain is all you can think of.

Each time I look at the innocent faces of the children, I'm reminded of what happened to them, and my heart lurches painfully, a lump forming in my throat. I cannot stand the images trying to crowd my mind to tell their story; an aversion to the horror they'd been through floods my stomach, making me queasy.

"Not even behind them?" I ask, my voice sounding a bit dry and breathless in my ears.

"Yes," Liam assures me, and after giving me a concerned look, he crosses to the painting and lifts an entire section of the heavy frame away from the wall. "See, it's not attached at all."

"Oh..." He is right; the paintings I've dealt with that were hiding doors were not removable from the walls; they formed part of an intricate locking system unseen behind them and were firmly secured in place.

"What's wrong, Aubrey?" he asks, moving to stand beside me when I don't look as happy and relieved about the revelation as he was expecting. "Don't you like the painting?"