I could hardly see my hands in front of me. No phone meant no flashlight.

Maybe this tunnel leads to a secret art vault where the Duchess keeps her most valuable pieces, the ones she doesn’t want to give away. Pieces like the two Shammas paintings?

Maybe …

Maybe it leads to the Duchess’s wine cellar.

Maybe it leads out of the mansion completely—a secret passage that allows the Duchess to have groceries delivered without anyone knowing.

Maybe the Duke had a secret entrance so he could go from his home to work without having to face down angry bill collectors or unsatisfied customers. …

After what seemed like an eternity, I saw a small glow ahead—another candle flickering above a second open stone archway. I reached up and nudged the candle from its sconce. Then, holding the flickering candle flame out ahead of me, I pressed forward. I started to notice large rectangular shapes piling up against the walls on either side of me. Holding my candle closer, I saw that the shapes were stacks and stacks of canvases, unframed paintings, and stiff scrolls of parchment. I rummaged through a few of the stacks and noticed that most of the paintings were unfinished. The pictures were all different styles, but the unfinished ones were all unfinished in the same way.

The artist had started painting at the upper right corner of the canvas and worked his or her way down and over. But in all the unfinished paintings, the artist had left a bare patch of canvas in the lower left. The size of the empty spot told me how quickly the artist had gotten bored or dissatisfied with a painting and moved on to another idea, another canvas. I guessed the artist was left-handed, since they worked from right to left. That way, they wouldn’t accident-ally smudge the paint. Rufus Le Crous had said D. Shammas was left-handed too. Someone told me left-handed people were more creative, and right-handed people were better at solving problems. Was that really true? Maybe when I got back aboveground, I’d ask George to help me research how many other famous artists were lefties.

As I continued farther down the tunnel, the canvases multiplied, piled ten deep against the walls, making the space even narrower. I turned sideways to make my way past, and my skirt brushed against a stack, knocking away cobwebs, and maybe even setting a couple of spiders scurrying. And still, every unfinished painting had that signature bare patch of canvas. It looked like a lifetime’s worth of work, false starts and variations. Some of the pieces were much more accomplished than others. Truthfully, I thought some were downright ugly.

I could tell when the painter had thought so too. The artist (or someone else) had painted slashes across the images in black paint. This detail, especially, convinced me I was looking at something other than a rich old lady’s art hoard. The Duchess might be eccentric, but I had a hard time believing that she would invest her money in so many unfinished paintings. No collector would pay to have an artist deface pieces. There had to be another reason these canvases were here, stashed away like old love letters. …