Amanderella and the Mystery of the Silent Statue.Chapter 4.

Chapter Four.

 

Inside.

 

 

Amanderella stepped back into the vestibule. The space was small, barely ten feet deep, with just enough room for a visitor to step inside, remove a coat, and hand it to a waiting host. Along the left‑hand wall ran a row of old brass coat hooks, tarnished and slightly crooked, as though they had once borne the weight of many heavy winter overcoats. A single, dusty umbrella stand slumped beneath them, containing nothing but a brittle walking stick and a collapsed parasol whose fabric had long since rotted away.

Sir Cottam blinked at the sight. “Good heavens. I remember those hooks. Werlyn always insisted I hang my coat there. He said it was ‘proper manners’.”

Amanderella ran a fingertip along one of the hooks. Dust came away in a soft grey smear. “No one has used them in years,” she said.

“He did not have visitors,” said Sir Cottam.

Amanderella’s gaze drifted along the row. All of them were thick with dust, all except one: the third hook from the end. That one was clean. Not polished, not gleaming, just used. The brass was worn smooth where countless coats had been lifted on and off.

Sir Cottam noticed her looking. “Oh yes,” he said softly, almost fondly. “That one. Werlyn always insisted I use that hook. Always the same one. He said it was ‘proper order’.”

Amanderella ran a fingertip along the clean arc of metal. “And the others?”

Sir Cottam shook his head. “Never saw anything on them. Not once. No hats, no coats, no umbrellas. Just that one hook. Mine.”

Amanderella stepped back, studying the arrangement with new interest. “So Werlyn kept a vestibule full of hooks, but only one was ever used.”

“Yes,” Sir Cottam said. “Now that I think of it… it was rather odd.”

Her gaze lingered on the single clean hook. “In this house, nothing is accidental. Not even a coat hook. And the fact that only one was ever used must mean something. Not everything in this house is a puzzle, Sir Cottam. It seems Werlyn also understood the value of letting people suspect the wrong things.”

She stood in the vestibule, looking from the coat hooks to the blank right‑hand wall, then toward the corridor mouth. She turned to her companion. “Sir Cottam, when Werlyn showed you into the drawing room, on which side of the corridor was it?”

Sir Cottam blinked. “Side? My dear, I never saw the corridor at all.”

Amanderella nodded. “Yes. But you must have turned either left or right to enter the room. Which was it?”

Sir Cottam frowned, thinking. “Right,” he said at last. “Always to the right. The door was already open. I simply followed him.”

Amanderella’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Good. Now tell me exactly what happened when you entered the house.”

He took a breath, settling into the memory. “Well… I would ring the bell, of course. And Werlyn would open the door himself. He always stood just inside, right there.” He pointed to the spot directly in front of the corridor mouth. “I stepped in, and he closed the door behind me. I never saw how; he must have done it with his foot or elbow while taking my coat. I turned back toward the door so he could slip it off my shoulders. He always insisted on doing that.”

Amanderella nodded, encouraging him.

“He would then hang it on the third hook, mine, and I would turn back toward him. He would already be stepping to the right, saying something like, ‘This way, Cottam, do come in.’ And the drawing room door was open. I never saw it shut. Never saw him open it, either. It was simply… open.” He paused, suddenly aware of how little he had ever actually seen. “And the corridor?”

Amanderella asked quietly. Sir Cottam shook his head. “I obviously knew there was one, but I never really got the chance to look down it.”

Amanderella regarded him for a moment. “You were not meant to. You trusted him, and people who trust do not inspect. Werlyn relied on that.”

Sir Cottam coloured faintly. “Well… I try not to pry,” he said, straightening his tie in a way that suggested he wished it were straighter. “It seems only good manners.”

Amanderella was still studying the blank right‑hand wall when a soft movement behind them made Sir Cottam jump. The front door swung shut with a quiet, decisive click.

Amanderella didn’t flinch. “Weighted hinge,” she said. “Or a spring. Werlyn didn’t like draughts.”

Sir Cottam pressed a hand to his chest. “Good heavens. I’d forgotten it did that. He always closed it while taking my coat. I never saw how.”

Amanderella nodded. “He didn’t want you looking behind him. She turned back toward the corridor. “Stand there, Sir Cottam. Exactly where Werlyn stood when you arrived.”

Sir Cottam moved into place, a little self‑consciously. “Here. He always greeted me here.”

Amanderella circled him, studying the angles. “And the drawing room was on your right?”

“Yes, just there.” He pointed to the right‑hand wall. “The door was always open.”

Amanderella nodded. “And then?”

Sir Cottam turned back toward her. “Werlyn would step to his left, my right, and say, ‘This way, after you, Cottam.’ I would walk into the room and he followed me in.”

Amanderella’s eyes narrowed.

Sir Cottam gave a small, strained laugh. “You’ve thought of something, haven’t you? I can always tell. It’s never restful.”

“Which means the door must be—” She moved to the right‑hand wall and laid her palm against it. “This is the only place it can be. Here, just ahead of where Werlyn stood. Of course. He hid it in the mouldings.”

Sir Cottam blinked. “The what?”

“The dado rail,” Amanderella said. “This wooden strip here. It’s meant to protect the wall, but Werlyn used it to hide things. The woodwork here is far more elaborate than it needs to be. There’s the dado rail, a picture rail above it, and these mouldings dividing the wall into neat, shallow panels. It looks decorative…” She tapped one of the panels lightly. “But it isn’t. It’s a disguise.”

She traced the line of the dado rail with her fingertips, then followed it up to where it met a vertical moulding. “Look here. Where the horizontal rail crosses the upright. Werlyn had the joiner continue every moulding across the door—the dado, the skirting, the picture rail, all uninterrupted. But this junction…” She stepped back a pace. “It forms a perfect capital T.”

Sir Cottam leaned in, baffled. “A T?”

She pressed lightly on the crossbar of the T. A soft click answered her. A hairline crack appeared in the shadow between two mouldings.

Sir Cottam stared at it, his mouth slightly open. “My dear girl, I have been visiting this house for twenty years. How did I never see any of this?”

“You weren’t meant to,” Amanderella said. “Werlyn hid the door with architecture, not illusion. And he hid the corridor with his body.”

She placed her hand on the disguised panel. “This is the drawing‑room door.” Amanderella pressed gently, and the disguised door swung inward with a soft, reluctant sigh, as though the house were admitting them under protest.

Amanderella crossed to the window at once and unlatched the shutters. Light spilled into the room, chasing the shadows from the corners.

The drawing room was exactly as Sir Cottam had described, and exactly as Amanderella had expected. A chaos of objects, masks, vases, spears, fans, stuffed animals, unidentifiable lumps of pottery, and several things that might once have been musical instruments crowded every surface. The shelves sagged under the weight of curiosities. A pair of crocodiles, badly stuffed and permanently surprised, lounged across a chaise longue like guests who had overstayed their welcome.

Sir Cottam winced. “Yes… yes, that’s it. All of it. Every time I visited, Werlyn insisted we sit in here. He said it was ‘the only room with any character’, though I confess I never saw the appeal.”

Amanderella stepped carefully between a brass tray and something that might have been a ceremonial headdress or a very confused hat. “What did you do in here?” she asked.

“Oh, we sat,” Sir Cottam said. “And talked. And drank sherry. Very fine sherry, actually. He kept the bottle on that table there.”

Amanderella followed his gesture. A small side table stood near the fireplace, and on it sat a decanter of amber liquid and two delicate glasses. The glasses gleamed faintly in the dim light. Clean. Perfectly clean.

Amanderella narrowed her eyes. “Sir Cottam, how often did you visit?”

“Oh, once every few months. Sometimes more often if he was in one of his sociable moods.”

“And Werlyn always poured the sherry?”

“Yes, always. He was very particular about it.”

Amanderella touched one of the glasses lightly with her fingertip. No dust. No residue. No fingerprints. “These glasses have been washed,” she said.

Sir Cottam blinked. “Well… yes. I suppose they must have been.”

“Recently,” Amanderella added. “Very recently. Within days, perhaps.”

Sir Cottam stared at the gleaming glassware, then at the rest of the room, where dust lay thick enough to write one’s name in. “But… Werlyn lived alone. And he dismissed the housekeeper years ago.”

Amanderella nodded. “Which means that somewhere in this house, there is a kitchen where he could wash the glasses after you left.” She lifted the decanter and held it to the light. The liquid glowed a deep, honest amber. “Perhaps. Or perhaps Werlyn simply knew quality when he tasted it.”

Sir Cottam looked doubtful. “He once bought a stuffed armadillo wearing a fez.”

“Yes,” Amanderella said, “but he didn’t drink the armadillo. Sir Cottam, when you visited, did Werlyn ever leave this room while you were here?”

“Never,” he said firmly. “He always stayed with me. We sat, we talked, we drank sherry. He never excused himself, not even for a moment.”

Amanderella didn’t answer. She was already moving deeper into the room, her eyes scanning the clutter, the shelves, the floorboards, the shadows. “The drawing room was the only place he ever brought you. Which means it was the only place he wanted you to see.” She paused beside a towering cabinet filled with masks from half a dozen continents. “And that means the rest of the house is where the real secrets are. I don’t think he was a particularly tidy person. He seems to have only cleaned the things he used; everything else he ignored. This thin layer of dust on the table is new. It settled after he died.”

Sir Cottam nodded. “I never really looked around the room. He did not show off his collection; he just stuffed it in the house and that was it.”

Amanderella gave him a small, understanding smile. “No. He didn’t want you to look. He kept you in the same chair, poured the same sherry, and talked just enough to keep your eyes where he wanted them.”

Sir Cottam coloured faintly. “I suppose I was… rather focused on the conversation.”

“And the sherry,” Amanderella added gently.

“Well,” he admitted, “it was very fine sherry.”

She brushed a fingertip across the arm of the nearest chair. A faint line appeared in the dust. “Werlyn dusted this. And the table. And the glasses. Everything else he left alone. You saw only what he prepared for you.”

Sir Cottam looked around the room with new unease, as though seeing it properly for the first time. “Good heavens. I never realised how much he controlled the visit.”

“He controlled everything,” Amanderella said softly. “Including what you didn’t see.” She stepped back from the clutter, brushing dust from her fingertips. “There’s nothing here. This room is a mask. He cleaned only what you would see, Sir Cottam. He never lived in here. He never worked in here. He never hid anything in here.”

Sir Cottam blinked. “So, we’re not searching it?”

“No,” Amanderella said. “Werlyn wanted you to look at this room. Which means the answers are everywhere else.”

Amanderella stepped back into the corridor, letting her eyes travel down its long, narrow length. Sir Cottam followed her gaze and shivered. “It always felt… endless,” he murmured. “As though it went on far longer than the house could possibly allow.”

Amanderella nodded. “That’s because it doesn’t.”

Sir Cottam blinked. “Doesn’t what?”

“Doesn’t go on,” she said. “Not as far as it looks.”

She walked a few paces forward, then stopped abruptly. “Stand here,” she said. “Exactly where Werlyn would have stood when you arrived.”

Sir Cottam obeyed, a little nervously.

Amanderella moved to the far end of the corridor, or rather, to where the far end appeared to be. She reached out and touched the wall. Her fingertips met paint. Not plaster. Paint. A perfectly smooth surface, cool and flat, with no join, no seam, no shadow.

“This,” she said, “isn’t distance. It’s a painting.”

Sir Cottam stared. “A… painting?”

“A trompe‑l’œil,” Amanderella said. “A trick of the eye. Werlyn had an artist paint a false continuation of the corridor. The perspective is perfect from the doorway, but only from the doorway.”

She stepped aside so Sir Cottam could see. From where he stood, the corridor looked long, straight, and utterly convincing. But when he took two hesitant steps forward, the illusion collapsed. The painted lines skewed. The shadows flattened. The “far end” of the corridor was suddenly only a few feet away.

Sir Cottam let out a small, strangled sound. “Good heavens. I feel quite deceived.”

“You were meant to,” Amanderella said. “Werlyn didn’t want you wandering. He wanted you to believe the house was larger, stranger, and more confusing than it really is.”

She tapped the painted wall lightly. “And behind this,” she said, “is the real passage.”

Sir Cottam let out a thin, incredulous breath. “I say… I really have been wandering about in a fog, haven’t I.”