“Then these documents really did come from the White House,” I said. “Maybe Thomas Jefferson did remove the contents of the Bruton Vault and bring them there for safekeeping.”

Josie glanced over at the historians from Jamestown and Williamsburg. “What did we miss?” she said. “There was no vault.”

“Dust bunnies,” Tana said. “The answer is in the dust bunnies.”

QUINN TOOK ME TO dinner at the Goose Creek Inn that evening. By now what had happened at the Red Fox was all over town. Thelma and the Romeos had outdone themselves in getting the news out.

“Faster than a video gone viral on YouTube,” Quinn said as my phone rang all afternoon.

Hassan gave us a table in the green dining room because he figured we’d want privacy. “I’ll let Dominique know you’re here,” he said.

“Don’t tell anyone else,” Quinn said, half-joking. “We’ll be mobbed.”

But after we sat down he turned serious. “However it turns out, I think whatever is in that package was a hell of a find. Now we just have to wait.”

“Do you really want to find out that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare?” I asked.

“Do you?”

“I guess I want to know the truth. But a lot of people went to a lot of trouble to keep a secret. For centuries.”

“The truth will set you free,” he said.

We had finished dinner and were waiting for the bill when my cousin walked into the dining room holding a tray with two balloon glasses. “Madeira,” she said, setting the tray down. “A twenty-year-old Malmsey. On the house. I had the sommelier go down to the cave to get it. It’s a good Christmas wine. I thought you might enjoy it after everything you’ve been through lately.”

“Can you join us?” I asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “Unfortunately not. One of the chefs called in sick, so I’m in the kitchen tonight. Plus I got a call today from Celia Avery. The Miranda Foundation gala is on and they’ve had a flood of people buying tickets. So I’d better get busy.”

After she left I said to Quinn, “You know, my mother’s Christmas decorations were hidden behind a wall. Prescott’s ‘sanctum sanctorum’ was behind a wall and Thelma’s father’s hiding place for his Prohibition booze was, too.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’ve never really examined every single inch of wall in Leland’s wine cellar.”

“Do you think it could be there?”

“It’s worth a second look,” I said.

“I’ll take the word of someone who figured out where Hobson Banks’s package was.”

“Let’s go home.”