Page 119 of Not That Ridiculous

“Right. Let’s gooooo!” He grabbed hold of the raw edge of plywood, and yanked. It cracked. “You might want to stand back a bit. Don’t want you to catch any flying splinters. You’re not wearing goggles.”

“Are you…?” I swallowed. “Are you going to pull it down? By hand?”

He huffed with amusement. “Just the wooden parts.” He yanked again, biceps bulging, and cracked off another piece, tossing it to the sheeting. Plaster dust puffed up. “Can you open the window? The air’s been trapped back here and it smells bad.Reallybad. Probably a mummified rat or something.”

“Oh. Yep. No problem.” I strode over and threw the window open, then returned to his side.

“Wardrobe,” he said, tipping his head at the two-foot wide gap he’d torn. “Look at that. Fancy one, too.”

“Looks like, uh. Marquetry? Is that what I mean?” The wardrobe was a deep, shining chestnut brown with an intricate black-and-white inlay.

He hummed. “Yeah. I think some of it might be tortoiseshell. Good job I didn’t go in swinging my hammer, or I’d have walloped right through it. You might make some money on this.”

Not to be mercenary or anything, but my ears pricked up at the m-word.

I could do with some money.

Money would help me pay Kevin back for the front door. I might even have some left over to pay him to do whatever else he was plotting. I hoped so; if I wasn’t firm about it, he’d do it for free.

“How much are we talking?” I asked.

“Couldn’t even begin to guess, but I know a guy who can do a valuation.”

“Please don’t say Craig.”

“No. Craig would tell you it’s junk, take it home, and sell it on eBay.” Kevin took hold of the edge of the gap again and yanked. More came away in his hands. “Okay, what the fuck is this? Hinges?”

“Wardrobes have hinges.”

“Yeah. These hinges are in the wall, though. Who hinges a fake wall? And then plasters over it?”

I looked at him. He looked at me. “A spy?” I suggested, because he seemed to be waiting.

“Could be. Let’s—oh.”

“What?”

“It’s pretty narrow for a wardrobe. It’s only, what, twenty inches wide.”

“You can get wardrobes that narrow. I’ve seen them on the IKEA website.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I know all about IKEA furniture, Charlie. I’ve put enough of it up. Old pieces like this, especially with all that gorgeous wood, they’re usually a lot wider. Other than that, it looks sort of Art Deco to me.”

“So, about a hundred years old?”

“Yeah. 1920s sort of.”

“Wonder what’s inside?” I said. “This is like those nesting dolls, isn’t it?”

Kevin paused and looked at me. His pupils shrank down to pinpricks. “Dolls?” he said.

“Russian dolls. Matryoshka. The little wooden ones where you open one up and there’s one inside, and you open that one up and there’s another inside, and so on.”

He turned to regard the wardrobe blankly.

“As in…here’s my room, and hidden inside it is a false wall, and hidden inside that is a wardrobe, and hidden inside that is…well. We’ll find out when you pull that last bit off and we open the door.”

Kevin’s happy enthusiasm seemed to have inexplicably dimmed.

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