Adrian ignored him, speaking to Hailey, who at least showed an appreciable level of understanding.

“At first, I thought it was the bell in King’s Chapel. An easy mistake to make. Popular knowledge would have it that the King’s Chapel bell, delivered two years before Revere’s death—was his last. But I should have known better. Popular knowledge is an oxymoron. People, on the whole, are usually wrong about most things.”

Nick and Hailey looked at Adrian with a shared expression he’d seen before on the faces of many of his colleagues and students, but he couldn’t have cared less. Because, now having seen the last page of Revere’s Book of Bells, he knew he was right. The textbooks, the tourist pamphlets, the popular conception were all wrong.

“In the later years of Revere’s life,” Adrian continued, now in full lecture mode, “he’d become obsessed with making bells. Over the course of a decade, he cast over three hundred of them. Now we know why.”

Adrian noticed that Nick had reached past him into the display case and had deftly palmed the necklace with the gold-looking bell. But Hailey slapped his hand, then took it from him, as if planning to return it to the case. No doubt, she was the brains of the pair.

“Alchemy,” Adrian repeated. “Sorcery, magic, whatever you want to call it, he was chasing a fantasy—”

“And the key to it was a precise tone emitted by a perfectly crafted bell,” Hailey said.

“My colleague found evidence to suggest that Revere believed he had succeeded,” Adrian said. “He’d followed the blueprint that he’d hidden in the wing of the eagle and crafted the solution—his very last bell.”

Adrian handed the eagle back to Hailey, then opened The Book of Bells to the last page.

“After the King’s Chapel bell, he made one more. It was actually a replacement. In 1798, Revere had made a two-hundred-and-forty-two-pound bell for the greatest warship of the fledgling republic. But it had been shot off the boat’s deck during a naval battle, at the height of the War of 1812. While the ship was being refitted in Boston, a few years later, in the calm of night, Revere delivered a second bell. His last, crafted right before his death.”

Hailey digested his words, her eyes growing wider.

“You’re talking about the USS Constitution. The tall ship parked in Charlestown. Old Ironsides.”

“It was called that because of Paul Revere. It was Revere’s factories that plated the sides and bottom of the boat with sheets of copper. When the boat was struck by cannon fire during the war and survived, it was nicknamed Old Ironsides.”

“So this last bell is on the Constitution?” Nick said. “Why would Revere put it there?”

Adrian chose his most dismissive tone.