Holding my candle close to the dusty floor, I could make out footprints—two sets. The first pair were the prints of tiny high-heeled shoes, with one print trailing into the next, like the person had been shuffling—the Duchess! Beside these was a set of larger, solid prints of a man’s shoe. Those must belong to Mr. Gatewood, I thought.

They must have escaped the ballroom through the throne trapdoor—there weren’t any other exits they could have slipped through without being seen. With the elevator at the top, it would have been easy to climb down onto it. Mr. Gatewood must have been holding up the Duchess’s enormous cloak as they walked down the tunnel, or else it would have dragged on the floor. But where were they going? And why had they left? I’d have to ask.

The passageway turned left, then right, always descending. I had to be much deeper than the mansion’s foundations now. Finally the passage ended at a narrow staircase leading up to a door with another candle burning in the wall above it.

Mr. Gatewood stood at the top of the stairs, in front of the door, wheezing, hands on his hips, his face red as a tomato.

“Where does that passage lead?” I called up from the bottom of the stairs.

When he caught his breath, Mr. Gatewood pointed a forbidding white-gloved finger in my direction. “Miss! If you try to climb those stairs, I will be forced to stop you.”

“Mr. Gatewood, are you threatening me?” I asked, shocked. The secretary had been prickly and pretentious all evening, but I’d never imagined he was hostile enough to cause anyone bodily harm.

“Not exactly,” he said, wincing. He rubbed his hands together apologetically. “It’s just that when the Duchess is working, she must not be disturbed for any reason.”

“Working? Did she forget about her plan to give away her art collection? Upstairs, her party is in chaos. No one knows what’s going on, and they had to cut Sven down from a chandelier,” I said, stepping onto the bottom stair.

“Don’t come any closer!” Mr. Gatewood tried to arrange his face into a threatening expression, but he just looked worried. He sighed. “People never appreciate the true value of the Duchess’s work. I’m just glad she finally saw reason.”

“What do you mean? Is the Duchess taking back her offer?” I climbed to the second step. Mr. Gatewood waggled his finger at me.

“Stay back!”

“Did you take the Diana statue from the Slay Gallery? Were you trying to frighten the Duchess into canceling her party?”

“I told her not to go through with her plan, but the Duchess is her own woman. When she ignored my advice, I simply took the liberty of bringing the Shammas paintings into the studio for the evening. She’s always worrying over them. But I never touched that amateurish statue. It’s not even really the Duchess’s, you know. It’s Mona Pearl’s.” Gatewood sniffled.

“Why didn’t you want anyone to see the Shammases, Mr. Gatewood?”