Veronica read it aloud: “Miss Lilly, I hope all is going well in my absence. I leave it in your capable hands to pull off the Frick House Folly I’ve arranged for Mr. Danforth. Please make sure he understands how vital the success is to our future union.”
“Frick House Folly.” Joshua repeated, rolling the words around on his tongue. “I wonder if she’s referring to the scavenger hunt.”
“Who was Mr. Danforth?”
“I don’t know for sure, but maybe it’s no coincidence that his last name begins with a D. I have a pile of correspondence here. Do you want to split it up, see if anything jumps out at us?”
“You’d like me to help?” she asked.
“Or would you rather bowl?” he answered with a smirk.
“Hand them over.”
He pulled up one of the chairs from the billiard room, and they sat side by side at the table. Veronica wasn’t certain as to what exactly she was looking for, but after a short while her worrying fell away as she became lost in the work. Marvelous details emerged about life in the house, from the polite notes to Mr. Frick from the organ player, a Mr. Archer Graham, writing to confirm another “pleasant season making music for you and your family,” to a six-page dispatch written in 1914 from a fired cook who had been wrongfully accused of breaking the family’s good china, lamenting that the Fricks’ “orders are so unreasonable that it is impossible for anyone to carry them out.”
Reading through the recently discovered documents brought the silent, empty house above Veronica’s head to life, and almost made up for the fact that the quest for the Magnolia diamond had been a bust. She could almost hear the sound of the cook swearing after breaking another plate, or the droning of the organ while Mr. Frick read his newspapers in the library. If only she’d had the chance to study history at university, maybe she could have gotten a job like Joshua’s, going through old letters and solving puzzles. It would have made her father so proud.
Dinner Party Preparations, October 29th, 1919, Eight o’clock, read one document. It included a six-course menu, followed by a guest list. She let out a soft cry.
“What is it?” asked Joshua, leaning over to see.
“A guest list for a dinner party in late October 1919. Including a Mr. Richard J. Danforth.” She pointed to his name.
“RJD. That has to be him. Well done.”
She flushed with pride. “I wonder why he never found his watch fob?”
“That scavenger hunt was fairly difficult, so maybe he never made it that far.”
They continued back at their work, and this time it was Joshua’s turn to call out. “Here’s something curious.” The page he held still bore the indentations from having been folded in thirds. “It’s a letter from Helen Frick to her brother, Childs, a couple of months later: For all I know, you and Dixie stole our dear Martha right out of his cold hands. How could you? You knew what the brooch meant to me, what it was worth. Your jealousy is an evil thing, brother.”
“That’s ominous,” said Veronica. “Do you think ‘the brooch’ refers to our cameo?” Maybe they had found something valuable after all. Valuable enough to be worthy of a reward.
The lamp gave a final sputter and blew out, plunging the basement into darkness. Veronica reached out and touched Joshua’s sleeve, and in response, he put his hand over hers. “Don’t worry. It’s all right. The lamp oil must be all used up. Hold on to me and I’ll guide you up the stairs.”
Joshua and Veronica took one careful step at a time in the inky darkness, like an ancient couple maneuvering along a cobblestone street. Once they reached the stairs, he guided her hand to the metal railing, and she emerged onto the main floor, surprised to find that it was long past dusk. The day had gone much faster than she’d expected.
“I’ll look around for another lamp,” Joshua said. “Why don’t you wait in the gallery? The skylights will make it less scary.”
She straightened up, mock-defiant. “I’m not scared.”
“Sure. That’s why you had a death grip on me up the stairs.”
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t trip, that’s all.”
The gallery was even more cavernous in the darkness. Instead of waiting for Joshua, she headed right back into the enamels room, Mr. Frick’s former study.
She ran her hand down the edge of the panel door where the cameo was stored. It hadn’t quite shut all the way, and she used her fingernail to carefully pull it open and lift out the brooch, moving closer to the window where the light was slightly better. Down in the basement, Joshua had shown Veronica a black-and-white photograph of Mrs. Frick from the last century, wearing a pearl pendant the size of an eyeball, her dark hair held back by a jeweled barrette. As her daughter, Helen Frick must have owned enough rubies and emeralds to fill a treasure chest, far more expensive than the cameo, yet the way she’d worded her letter to her brother was strange. You knew what it was worth, Miss Helen had written.