Police and the FBI are investigating a local anarchist group in the death of Albert Ellingham and FBI agent George Marsh.

“We believe this may have been retaliation for the death of Anton Vorachek,” said Agent Patrick O’Hallahan of the FBI. “We are looking into multiple leads. We will not stop until the culprit or culprits are caught, mark my words.”

Vorachek, the man convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Iris Ellingham, and the disappearance of Alice Ellingham, was murdered by a gunman outside the courtroom after his sentencing. The gunman was never found.

Albert Ellingham had been the subject of many threats. Indeed, he met Detective George Marsh of the New York Police Department after Marsh discovered and foiled a bomb plot against him. In appreciation, Albert Ellingham hired Marsh as person security. When Marsh joined the FBI, Ellingham asked Director J. Edgar Hoover to station him in the area of Vermont around the Ellingham home and school. Despite this precaution, Iris and Alice Ellingham were taken . . .

Leonard Holmes Nair pushed the newspaper aside, but there was another underneath.

ALBERT ELLINGHAM BURIED AT MOUNTAIN RETREAT

Boston Herald

A private ceremony was held today for Albert Ellingham at his mountain retreat outside Burlington, Vt. Mr. Ellingham was killed on October 30 after a bomb exploded on his sailboat. An FBI agent, George Marsh, died with him. It is believed the two men were victims of an anarchist bomb plot. The funeral . . .

Leo got up and took his coffee to the window of the breakfast room and looked out at the kaleidoscope of color outside.

The funeral was a lie.

Parts had been found, enough to match fingerprints; the condition of the hands and the fingers the prints belonged to told authorities that the persons involved were no longer alive.

“There wasn’t much,” the one investigator told Leo. “We found three hands, a leg, a foot, some skin . . .”

The police could determine little about what had transpired, aside from the fact that they believed that the explosives were probably toward the back of the boat. Albert and George went out and never came back. They were most certainly dead, but there, the facts ended.

Iris had family, but Albert did not—not any he acknowledged. And while he had many employees and endless acquaintances, the only people who really counted as friends were Leo and Flora, and Robert Mackenzie, who was both secretary and confidant. The remains were still in a police mortuary, so these three were at the Ellingham Great House, going through a macabre pretense that there was some kind of remembrance ceremony going on.

So much of what was left was paperwork and packing. Like Iris before him, Albert was now being sorted into piles and boxes. Such a great life reduced to this. Leo thought about getting up and working on the family portrait some more. It was the one thing he was meant to be doing. It was only right to finish it. It sat under a sheet in the morning room. He had opened the door to the room a few times and seen it sitting there, like a ghost, frozen in a sunbeam in the center of the room. He couldn’t face it, or the warm light, or the echoes of the house. The Ellingham Great House was built for parties, for families, for friends—a house made as a centerpiece to a school that sat vacant around them. This terrible quiet was hard to take, so Leo decided to spend the morning in Albert Ellingham’s study, one of the few places truly set up to be quiet and soundproof. Even though the room was two stories high, with a balcony of books and shelving running around above, it managed to be snug with its rugs and leather chairs, the fire. With the curtains drawn, the room was muted. On the mantel above the fire was the green marble clock that Albert had purchased in Switzerland when they were there for Alice’s birth. It had belonged to Marie Antoinette, so the story went. It was a survivor of a revolution. The reality was probably much more mundane.

“Good morning,” Robert Mackenzie said, coming in. Mackenzie was a polite, serious, and deeply efficient young man, but Leo didn’t hold that against him.

“There’s quite a lot to be sorted,” Mackenzie said. “I am going to pack the desk and have the contents taken upstairs. I hope it won’t bother you if I work in here.”

Leo was quite used to watching other people work as he sat and did nothing. He nodded graciously. Mackenzie set about going through Albert’s desk, sifting through printed stationery, pots of ink, pens, notes. It was lulling to watch.

“Excuse me a moment,” Mackenzie said, holding up a small box marked WEBSTER-CHICAGO RECORDING WIRE. “I want to see what’s on this. It looks like Mr. Ellingham was listening to it that morning and I need to know what’s on it to file it.”

“Of course,” Leo said.

Mackenzie went over to a machine against the wall. He removed the heavy cover and set the wire on a spool. A moment later, Albert Ellingham’s voice boomed out from the corner of the room, causing Leo’s stomach to lurch.

“Dolores, sit there.”

The thin, high voice of a young girl responded. She had a pronounced New York accent.

“Sit here?”

“Just there. And lean into the microphone a bit. Good. Now all you have to do is speak normally. I want to ask you about your experiences at Ellingham. I’m making some recordings—”

Mackenzie snapped the machine off and the voices fell silent. There was a whir as he rewound the wire and put it back into the box.

“Dolores,” he said. “He must have been listening to this recording of her voice. He felt so bad about that girl. Apparently she was exceptional.”

Leo had no reply, so the room fell silent but for the ticking of the marble clock on the mantel. Mackenzie cleared his throat and took the package with the wire recording and packed it into the box.

“It seems he was looking at the book she was reading as well,” Mackenzie added. He laid a finger on a copy of The Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes, which sat on the desk. “This was with her when she died. I suppose I should put it back in the library. That’s what he would want. Books in their proper places . . .”

He let the thought trail and remained as he was, one finger on the cover of the book, staring at nothing in particular. Again, the ticking clock took over the conversation. Leo began to shift in his chair uncomfortably. Perhaps it was time to seek out a cup of tea.

“Something has been bothering me,” Mackenzie said. “I need to speak to someone about it. But I need your confidence. This can go no further than this room.”

Leo lowered himself back into the seat and looked around as an automatic gesture, but of course, they were alone.

“Something was off that morning before he went on the boat,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t know what it was. He wrote a riddle, which seemed like a good thing. Then he made me promise to enjoy myself. He was saying things like—”

Mackenzie cut himself off.

“Like?” Leo prompted.

“Like he knew he wouldn’t be coming back,” Mackenzie answered, as if this thought was occurring to him for the first time. And then, there was the codicil.”

He shuffled around in the desk for a moment and produced a long piece of legal paper. This he walked over and handed to Leo.

“Just read the top bit,” he said.

“‘In addition to all other bequests,’” Leo read aloud, “‘the amount of ten million dollars shall be held in trust for my daughter, Alice Madeline Ellingham. Should my daughter no longer be among the living, any person, persons, or organization that locates her earthly remains—provided it is established that they were in no way connected to her disappearance—shall receive this sum. If she is not located by her ninetieth birthday, these funds shall be released to be used for the Ellingham Academy in any way the board sees fit.’”

“His mind was sound,” Mackenzie said, “but his heart was broken—that’s what made him do this. I have no idea where Alice is, but if she is out there . . .”

“This won’t help,” Leo said, finishing the sentiment. He set the paper down, crossed over to the window, and pulled back the curtain, revealing the pit in the ground behind the house where the lake had been. It was swampy and raw, the dome looking like an exposed sore.

He could tell Mackenzie now—tell him that Alice was there, buried in the tunnel. This terrible secret could be over. But what good would it do? She would be exhumed. There would be a frenzy. Her body would be photographed and poked and prodded. She had gone through enough. Leo had never known himself to have a single paternal instinct, but he felt one now. Alice was home.

“I can’t destroy it,” Mackenzie went on, “as much as I would like to. It’s a legal document. But I can’t let it get into the world either. It would be chaos. It would make it harder to find Alice, not easier. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Here,” Leo said, turning from the window and reaching out his hand.

“I can’t let you destroy it either.”