Chapter 36 - The Ironworks Crypt
Julian Richter’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. He looked from Evelyn to Arthur, whose hands were now visibly trembling.
"Arthur," Richter said, his tone dropping several octaves into a lethal stillness. "Did you present our syndicate with invalid title deeds?"
"She's lying! She's hysterical!" Arthur shouted, backing away toward the conservatory exit. "The Thorne trust was dissolved in the nineties! The money is down there! Forty-two million in physical bearer bonds in the Civil War foundry beneath the cellar floor! The iron key opens the drainage sluice where the safes are sealed!"
Ivy didn't hesitate. While Richter and his men were distracted by the sudden confrontation, she reached into her pocket, felt the cold weight of the iron key she had recovered, and made a break for the side corridor leading down to the cellar.
"Stop her!" Arthur screamed.
One of the armed men moved to intercept, but Clara—moving with the sudden, ferocious speed of a woman defending her home—flung a heavy brass candelabra straight into the operative's face. The man stumbled backward, his weapon clattering across the floor.
"Run, Ivy!" Clara yelled.
Ivy bolted down the stone stairs into the dark underbelly of the estate. The air grew rapidly colder, smelling of subterranean dampness, old copper, and ancient clay. Her running footsteps echoed against the curved brick ceilings of the passages constructed during the 1850s.
Behind her, heavy boots pounded down the wooden staircase.
Arthur’s frantic voice echoed through the vaulted tunnels: "Ivy! Give me the key! You don't know what they will do to me! If I don't deliver those bonds tonight, they won't just kill me—they'll erase everything! Give me the key!"
Ivy reached the deepest chamber—the circular foundry room where the estate’s early furnaces had once smelted iron for the Virginia railroads. In the center of the room stood an immense, circular iron hatch set directly into the natural granite floor, secured by a complex mechanical wheel and three keyholes.
In the center keyhole, a slot was shaped exactly like the ancient iron key in her pocket.
She turned around, her back pressed against the iron wheel.
Arthur burst into the chamber, lantern in hand, looking like a manic phantom. His coat was torn, his hair wild, his eyes bloodshot with desperation. Behind him, Richter walked at a measured, unhurried pace, flanked by his remaining two operatives, their pistols drawn.
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"Nowhere left to run, Ivy," Arthur gasped, extending his hand. "The key. Now."
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