“Professor,” Hailey interrupted. “The bell. Revere’s foundry didn’t cast it—but does that mean he couldn’t have been involved? You said it was recast locally—twice. And that Pass and Stowe added more copper to the mix, trying to solve whatever was wrong with it. Wasn’t Revere the premier copper worker in the country at the time? Wasn’t he the sort of technological expert they might have turned to for help? Couldn’t Revere have been involved, without the history books taking notice? As you said, it wasn’t a remarkable bell until many years later—in fact, the only remarkable thing about it was that it sounded strange.”

Adrian tried to ignore the bitter taste on his tongue. Conjecture, again. But he’d gone this far.

“Revere did make multiple trips to Philadelphia in the time period. The day after the Boston Tea Party, he raced to the city to inspire the Philadelphians to a similar act of defiance. Interestingly enough, it was written at the time that he was “greeted with the ringing of bells.” More famously, a year later he was sent to Philadelphia to deliver the Suffolk Resolves, a treatise protesting the local arm of the British government. The Resolves were written by Joseph Warren, and it was Warren who ordered Revere to Philadelphia—which began the spread of the Revolution—”

“Warren?” Nick said, at least momentarily stepping away from the display case and the antique pistol. “The same Warren from the Bunker Hill Monument?”

“The point is,” Hailey said, ignoring Nick, “it isn’t impossible that Revere had something to do with the bell. It wasn’t a particularly famous bell, it had an odd and disturbing sound, and it was tinkered with multiple times. The clapper that hangs with it might not be the clapper that was designed for it.”

An almost feral intensity spread across her countenance, as she turned to face Adrian and Nick.

“The sound a bell makes isn’t just written in the curves of its design; it’s also the result of an interaction with the striking mechanism. The density—the chemical makeup—of the clapper is as much a part of the resulting tone as the metallurgy of the bell. There might be a reason the Liberty Bell never sounded right, no matter how many times it was recast from its mold. If that mold was designed to work with a specific clapper—”

She whirled around and lifted the artifact out of the gold box.

“This clapper,” she said—and then she shook her head.

“But where does that leave us? I’m guessing the Liberty Bell isn’t something you just walk up to, is it?”