Simon was the only one at the table whose eyes hadn’t jumped from their sockets when Alex produced the little key. He had been watching Calvin, whom he now saw struggling with something. He decided to ask a very practical question.

“Does anyone know what it opens?”

“The most precious jewel in the family.” Calvin’s answer was fervent. “But we don’t know what that is.” He looked at Alex for a second before returning to the key in Lucy’s grasp. “You know it’s supposed to be unlucky, if the key doesn’t pass from mother to daughter?”

“I didn’t.” Alex’s voice was no-nonsense. Charms and curses weren’t any part of his vocabulary. “Will was given it, and whatever my mother may have told him, it’s a secret between them now.” He looked at his cousin with a flicker of amusement. “You seem to know much more than we do.”

“My mother told me that it must pass from mother to daughter—or we think perhaps a niece if there is no daughter. Otherwise, something bad could happen. It’s supposed to break the chain in some way.”

Lucy’s expression was a mute challenge to Calvin, but she articulated nothing.

“Well, it hardly seems to matter if we can’t find the desk, or the door, or the box, that it unlocks.” Siân felt the need to diffuse whatever was going on here. She resolutely wanted the key to stay in Alex’s care. Will had lost far too much sleep over it in the months since Diana’s death, and she associated it sadly with his deep well of pain at her loss, and even perhaps their own breakup as he’d become so obsessed with it. Let it remain with Alex: he wouldn’t let it haunt him, as it had Will.

Lunch arrived and broke the tension, and Calvin found that, despite his best efforts, there was no opening to return to the subject of key or curse. But he had little appetite for his food, and was glad when they could rearrange themselves for the walk to the church.

Strolling down the street, he couldn’t quite let it go, and he turned directly to Alex. “There should be some kind of document that goes with the key. It was still intact in my grandmother’s recollection of it. It tells something about the location of whatever the key unlocks, I think.”

“I’m not aware of anything, but I’ll check among Will’s papers. Some of his effects are still with the coroner.” Alex affected a lack of interest, and for the first time, hid something of what he knew.

As he opened the heavy door of St. Mary’s, Alex asked, “What of Dr. Dee, then? What should we remember him for?”