Samuel looked at her.
"We don't know what they did."
Clara took the letter.
She read it again.
Then she whispered, "He always told me he lost everything because the bank cheated him."
Samuel said nothing.
She looked around the chamber.
"Maybe he lost everything because of what happened here."
A sound came from the tunnel.
Both turned.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Careful.
Approaching from the direction of the woodshed.
Samuel immediately extinguished the table lamp.
The chamber fell into darkness except for the lantern in Clara's hand.
He covered its glass with his palm.
The footsteps stopped.
Someone coughed.
An older man's cough.
Then a voice drifted through the tunnel.
"I know you're in there."
Clara gripped Samuel's arm.
He moved in front of her.
The voice came again.
"No use hiding."
Samuel recognized it.
His shoulders stiffened.
Clara whispered, "Who is that?"
He looked toward the doorway.
"Edgar Vale."
The third name in the ledger.
The only surviving man connected to the original mine.
He was nearly seventy now.
A respected landowner.
A church elder.
And one of the men who had attended Clara's wedding.
Samuel had known him all his life.
He had never liked him.
Now he understood why.
The footsteps approached.
A lantern appeared in the passage.
Then an elderly man stepped through the doorway.
He wore a thick black coat, tall leather boots, and a gray wool scarf.
His hair had gone almost entirely white.
But his eyes remained sharp.
He stopped when he saw Samuel.
For several seconds, the two men simply stared at each other.
Then the older man sighed.
"Well."
His gaze moved toward the open chest.
"I suppose you've found it."
Samuel's voice was low.
"What is this place?"
The old man looked at Clara.
"You shouldn't have brought your wife."
Samuel moved slightly closer to her.
"Answer me."
The old man looked back at him.
"You know, your father always said you were too stubborn for your own good."
Samuel took one step forward.
"My father is dead."
"Yes."
"And you're standing in a tunnel beneath my house."
The old man smiled faintly.
"Technically, Samuel, the tunnel was here before the house."
Clara looked at him.
"Why were you watching us?"
The smile vanished.
Edgar Vale studied her.
Then he looked at Samuel.
"Your wife asks better questions than you do."
Samuel's voice hardened.
"Answer her."
The old man sighed.
"Because I needed something."
"What?"
"A key."
Samuel frowned.
"A key to what?"
Edgar looked toward the chest.
"Something your father left behind."
The old man explained that the mine had once contained a remarkably rich copper seam.
Far richer than anyone in Blackwood had realized.
Samuel's father, Clara's father, and Edgar Vale had discovered it while working as contractors for an eastern mining company.
The land, however, did not belong to them.