Chapter 5 - The Midnight Descent
The penthouse was dark when Julian and I let ourselves in with my master key.
The sprawling rooms, usually filled with the gentle hum of classical music and the scent of expensive pipe tobacco, felt vast, empty, and haunted. The marble floors echoed softly beneath our footsteps as we walked past the silent grand piano toward the master study at the far end of the hallway.
There it stood: the towering mahogany grandfather clock, its brass pendulum frozen in perpetual stillness.
I walked up to the heavy glass door of the clock face, slipped the brass key into the small keyhole hidden beneath the Roman numeral six, and turned it.
Click.
The glass door swung open. I reached inside, bypassing the decorative weights, and felt along the inner wooden panel for a small, concealed magnetic latch Arthur had described to me during our long chess games under the oak tree.
My fingernail caught the edge of a hidden wooden flap. I pulled down.
A secret compartment at the base of the clock sprang open with a soft, pneumatic hiss.
Inside sat a heavy, leather-bound ledger and a sealed microcassette recorder labeled 'For Clara — Play After My Departure'.
"We found it," Julian whispered, shining his penlight into the dark cavity.
I reached out and picked up the microcassette recorder, my thumb resting against the play button. But before I could click it, the front security monitor near the study door flashed amber.
The private elevator chime echoed softly down the private foyer corridor.
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Someone was using a master override code to enter the penthouse.
Julian’s head whipped toward the hallway, his face draining of color. "They're back."
