Adrian shook his head again, jammed the picture back into the manila envelope, and the envelope into his backpack. He slung the pack over his shoulder, then turned his focus on the church. Even if Charles hadn’t just died on the floor of his office, this was a mystery Adrian would have felt obligated to pursue. There was meaning, a secret, behind that engraving, and Adrian was one of the very few people with the knowledge to figure it out. It was that that had led him here, to King’s Chapel. That knowledge and that date: 1814.

One last mutter to himself—this time, something approaching a curse—and Adrian joined the stream of tourists heading toward the church’s front door.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Adrian found himself transported backward two hundred and fifty years the moment he stepped through the doorway of King’s Chapel. He quickly worked his way by the enclosed pews—wooden booths containing red-cushioned benches and walls, separated from the aisle by hinged doors—heading toward the front of the prayer hall, which was well-lit by arched windows and a magnificent central chandelier. The tourists around Adrian seemed most excited by the pews; in the Revolutionary era, wealthy families would purchase the enclosed real estate, passing the velvety cubicles down from generation to generation. But Adrian’s focus remained elsewhere. Not on the raised minister’s perch, or the massive C. B. Fisk organ that took up the back balcony—King’s Chapel’s sixth, installed in the mid-sixties. Adrian hadn’t come to the church for religion or music; he was there searching for answers.

It took him more time than he would have liked to navigate past the tourists and families milling in the aisles, but eventually he arrived at his destination, the roped-off entrance to the stone stairwell leading up to the church’s bell room. The man standing on the other side of the velvet rope acknowledged Adrian with little more than a nod. The man’s first name was Bevil, and that was one of two important things Adrian knew about him, other than that he was one of the half dozen caretakers of the church’s grounds. They’d met twice before on previous visits; it was during the second of these, when Adrian had wanted a private tour of the vast catacombs beneath the church, that he had discovered the second fact: Bevil was paid by the hour and wasn’t paid much. Fifty dollars was enough to get him to do most anything you wanted.

Today, Adrian wasn’t interested in digging through catacombs. Once he showed Bevil the fifty he had stashed in the front pocket of his cycling pants, the groundskeeper unclasped the velvet rope and ushered him into the stairwell.

“Hurry up, Professor. There’s a guided bell tour in twenty minutes, so we’ve got to be quick.”