Estelle stared at him, a growing fury pounding through her veins in time with her pulse. “Let me show you something.” She turned on her heel and strode toward her bedroom, not waiting for Jerome.

Once in the bedroom, she similarly went to the windows to ensure that the curtains were closed in this room as well. Only then did she turn on the lamp.

Jerome had appeared in the doorway.

“Come in,” she demanded. “And tell me what you see.”

Jerome gave her a long look but did as she asked. He circled the room, sticking his head into the dressing room before stopping in front of the wardrobe. “A woman with more clothes than she would ever need in her life.”

“True,” she agreed, and that admission seemed to take him aback.

He turned slowly, reexamining his surroundings. “What is it that you want me to see in here, Allard?” Now he sounded impatient.

Estelle crossed her arms, still seething. “Nothing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly that. Nothing.”

Jerome threw up his hands.

“Let me tell you what you don’t see. At the rear of that dressing room, hidden by a false wall, is a space that currently houses the entirety of Rachel’s family’s art collection,” Estelle told him in clipped tones. “An easy alteration, and conveniently hidden by more clothes than I will ever need in my lifetime.”

Jerome frowned.

“Rachel’s father, Serge Wyler, has been an avid Impressionist and Expressionist collector for most of his life. He feared that he would lose his collection to the thieving Nazis, so he asked me to hide it. He helped me build the false wall,” she added.

“I don’t—”

“I’m not done,” she snapped.

Jerome fell silent.

“Serge also helped me build this.” Estelle moved to the wardrobe and pulled the doors wide. She leaned in, released a hidden catch in the top corner, and pushed open the back of the wardrobe. “When I was a child, this small room was the room used by whatever au pair or governess lived with me at the time. We simply modified and moved this wardrobe to conceal it.”

Jerome was staring at the space beyond, the bedroom light casting shadows onto the narrow bed and table inside. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he murmured.

“There was an American widow who used to live at the Ritz in the Imperial Suite before the Luftwaffe moved in and Göring appropriated the suite for himself. Her name was Laura Mae, and when the Germans came, she had an extensive collection of furs that she feared would be similarly appropriated. So she hid them in one of the Ritz’s built-in cupboards and moved a massive antique armoire in front of it to hide the door. It’s where I got the idea.”

“How do you know this?” Jerome asked, his head deep inside the wardrobe. “What she did?”