“God.” Lia leaned forward and put her hands on her knees like she had just run a marathon. “I’ve spent every waking moment of these last weeks full of shame and guilt and revulsion because I believed the worst about her.” Her head dropped. “What does that say about me?”

“That you are human?”

“Why are you still being so kind? I’m a wretched granddaughter. I really believed my grandmother helped the Nazis for her own gain.”

“That’s what she wanted anyone who walked in here to think. And if you were such a wretched granddaughter, I can’t imagine she would have entrusted these secrets to you to unravel.”

Lia lifted her head. “Then perhaps the art isn’t stolen.”

“I would suggest that the pieces hidden behind the dressing room may, in fact, belong to your grandmother. Alternatively, it’s entirely possible she might have hidden them on someone’s behalf.” Gabriel’s gaze fell on the books stacked on the table. “May I take a look at these?”

Lia nodded and straightened.

He reached for the volume on top, picking it up and turning it carefully in his hands. It was an English copy of The Murder at the Vicarage, well read, judging from the cracked spine and dog-eared pages. He set it aside and picked up the second volume, this one a copy of Mystery Mile. The third novel was a French publication, La Voie Royale, but the fourth was written in what looked like Polish.

“I think she might have been hiding Allied soldiers or airmen,” Gabriel mused. “That might explain the books. And the shaving kit.”

“But it doesn’t explain these.” Lia had picked up the sketchbook and was flipping through it.

Gabriel peered over her shoulder to find a collection of child-like drawings, most of them of dogs of some sort. At the rear of the thick pad, someone had drawn lines across the page and written the alphabet in neat letters. In the pages that followed, simple French words had been printed with the same neat efficiency, traced by a less steady hand. Aviva had been written many times across the last page.

“Doesn’t explain these either.” Gabriel set the novels aside and sorted through the books that had been stacked beneath. There was a copy of The Sword in the Stone, its tattered cover making the print barely legible, along with a collection of French picture books, brightly illustrated with animals and objects.

“There was a child here at some point,” Lia said.

“Agreed.” Gabriel picked up the last of the books. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. And judging by the worn condition, just as well loved as the novels.

“Are there any names in the books?” Lia asked.

Gabriel went through each carefully but came up empty. “No. But perhaps the name Aviva written in the sketchbook was someone important? Perhaps the child herself?”

“Or a sister? Or mother? Or aunt?”