Robyn handed me a key ring and I started my inspection on the small hallway on the right side of the vestibule that held the offices and several storage rooms. No intruders in Robyn’s office, and her windows were all properly locked. Ditto for my small office, although I couldn’t actually get anywhere near the window. As far as I could tell from across the room, it was latched; and if it wasn’t, any burglar foolish enough to attempt entry would probably impale himself on the upturned legs of the half dozen battered chairs stored just under the window. Riddick’s lair looked like a filing clerk’s bad dream, untidy stacks of paper covering every horizontal surface, but it was secure and intruder-free. A couple of locked storage rooms finished off the short hallway. I unlocked the doors and peered in, seeing nothing amiss.

I returned to the vestibule, gave Robyn a thumbs-up, and crossed to the other side, where a longer hallway led to several classrooms and eventually the parish hall. I checked them all, methodically—even the bathrooms—and then headed down to the basement. Or should I work on calling it the undercroft, to please Mother and Robyn? A couple more classrooms on the downhill side, which had natural light, and on the side that nestled into the hillside was the furnace room, which also doubled as a huge storeroom.

The classrooms were a little cramped, thanks to the rows and rows of Shiffley Moving Company boxes stacked in the corners.

I had a brief anxious moment when I peered into the furnace room and thought I saw a human figure crouched against the wall at the far end. But when I turned on the light I saw that it was a coat tree covered against the dust with an old sheet that fluttered slightly in the draft from one of the air vents. There were a lot of hulking shapes in the furnace room, with and without dust covers. Like the greater part of my temporary office, it was filled with boxes, interspersed with heavy vintage furniture. Mrs. Thornefield’s legacy, no doubt.

“She had some very nice things,” I remembered Mother saying, when news came out that Mrs. Thornefield had left her entire estate to Trinity. “I shall look forward to the estate sale.”

Presumably the nice things were in the boxes. Unless Mother’s taste had changed dramatically, I couldn’t imagine her coveting any of the furniture I was seeing. No antiques, nothing light or graceful or elegant. Just a lot of big, heavy, dark, battered furniture with faded, threadbare upholstery and cheap, corroded metal fittings.