Perhaps he should forget the whole thing. It was taking up far too much of his time and if he hadn’t found anything by now, chances were he never would. Just how important was it anyway? Important to him but not necessarily to Jamie. Since their talk in the car on the way back from the hospital, she had not mentioned the attempt on her life. It was clear that she was making an heroic effort to put it behind her—trying to behave normally. And now, right on top of it, Dot’s death. It was remarkable how well Jamie was holding up.
Right after the accident, Kingston had suggested that she get away for a while, even go back to the States and perhaps stay there until such time that credible explanations were found for the deaths and bizarre happenings that had taken place at Wickersham. He could keep things going in her absence; hire a new full-time housekeeper, keep working on the gardens and maintain the house.
But she would hear none of it. As much as she tried to behave as if nothing had happened, the stress was clearly getting the better of her. The laughter was gone between them and the smiles were fewer.
He had purposely avoided bringing up the matter of hiring a contractor to go through the chapel, as she had recently suggested. He saw no point in it right now but knew if this last search of his were abortive, that would be the next step. He would insist on it.
With the thoughts of Jamie swirling in his mind, Kingston had forgotten all about what he was supposed to be doing. He stood for a moment to stretch his legs. The pew was hard and unforgiving. He felt sorry for the devout worshippers, required to sit interminably through droning sermons in those bygone years.
Why was he looking so hard at the pew on the other side of the aisle? It was identical to the others but … somehow different. It took him several seconds before he realized why. He crossed the aisle and looked closely at the wood surface, then cast his eyes down the row. He turned around and looked at the row behind, then the one behind that. He went back to where he’d been sitting and studied the surface of the wood again.
With his knowledge of the cellular origins of graining, he knew that the wood was tangential cut: a longitudinal section cut parallel to the long axis of the trunk. In this respect, all the pews were the same. But the wood of the pew where he was sitting was slightly, very slightly lighter in colour than the others in the chapel. Perhaps it was the angle of the floodlights? Was that creating the illusion? He went over to the heavy tripod that Jack had rigged up and dragged it closer to the front row of pews. He rotated it ninety degrees, then back a few degrees until the two lights shone equally on both sides of the aisle. There was no question, his pew was fractionally lighter in colour.
He took out the flashlight, bent down and shone it on the base of the pew where it met the flagstones. He saw what looked like a tiny crevice. How was the pew joined to the flagstones, he wondered? He leaned his hip up against the pew and shoved. Nothing moved. It was rock solid. Pulling out the can of air spray, he whiffed it along the crevice. The jet of air propelled a puff of dust and dirt in front of it as he moved along the pew. He stopped to examine the result. Between the base of the pew and the stone floor was a gap, little more than one eighth of an inch. It continued along both sides.
He stood, gripped the front rail of the pew with both hands and shook it hard. Again, nothing budged. He tried lifting it—same result. Whatever method had been used to affix the pew to the floor was both rigid and cleverly concealed. He scratched his head and stood looking down the length of the bench. How was the damned pew anchored to the ground?
He couldn’t come up with the answer. Instead he came up with an intriguing hypothesis. The footprint of the pew was roughly three feet wide by about six or seven feet long, at the most. If the pew were removed, it would leave an opening in the floor sufficiently wide and long enough for a person to comfortably pass through. In his mind’s eye he visualized the primitive mechanics: the pew being hinged by a transverse rod at one end, and when lifted from the opposite end, tilting it to vertical, revealing a flight of steps down into the underground chambers. The more he thought about the idea the more it made sense. Problem was—how to raise the pew? How would the monks of those medieval times have designed and constructed it?
Logically, he figured that there had to be a concealed release mechanism somewhere not too far from the pew. He started with the presupposition that the device would be primitive. More likely a cord or cable of some kind attached to a spring that released and activated a locking device, the same principle as a conventional door latch. The obvious hiding place was the pulpit. Only a few feet from the front pew, it would have been relatively easy for the monks, or those who had conceived the system, to fabricate. Problem was that the pulpit was so simply constructed. It was no more than a panelled box with turned balusters on the corners, topped with a slanted panel to hold the scriptures or sermons. There was nowhere, inside or out, to hide a secret panel, lever or toggle. He’d already gone over it before, top to bottom.