As an aside, the NY Times article from 1888 is real. This and a photo of a staircase of drawers inspired this story.
He pulled open the first drawer.
Shoes. Dozens of pairs of shoes. There were high heels, pumps, Mary Janes, and sneakers. Every colour of the rainbow, as far as he could tell. The drawer opened a good three or four feet, and jost seemed to roll back farther and farther with with each step he took back. But the shoes were all neatly organised, set side by side in pairs, and it was obvious that great care had been taken in lining them up in this way.
He pulled out a pair of particulary magnificent stiletto heeled shoes in a birlliant magenta. The material appeared to be some sort of silk, although he had to admit to a complete ignorance of most types of fabric. He only knew because she had bought him a silk shirt one year, and this seemed to be the same colour and fabric. Maybe they'd been meant ot be a matched set. Maybe not. It was hard to tell in retrospect, the colours of the shirt long lost to the ravages of his laundry machine.
It took a few minutes to close the drawer again. It was difficult to keep it straight, given the size and the weight of it. He hadn't set the stillettos back into their niche perfectly, and the back of the heel caught on the rail. He tried to shimmy the drawer in anyway, and the fabric gave way before drawer finally slid home, with a soft tear that made him glad she wasn't around to see this affront to her style and taste.
Gingerly, he pulled open the second drawer. It wasn't as deep, but still seemed to go on forever. It was stuffed full of old newspapers. He pulled one out. The NY Times, dated May 19, 1888. The paper had been folded so that an inside page was showing. there were various short notices on the page, but one caught his eye.
GOLD IN A SECRET DRAWER
From the London Truth.
An old lady living at Ryde died recently, and in due course her furniture was advertised for sale. On the date before the sale one of the Executors carefully examined an ancient bureau, and discovered a secret drawer and a false bottom, in which were upward of 1,000 sovereigns, closely packed together.
He blinked. He held the paper in his hands for a very long time, reading and re-reading the article. Was it a coincidence that this had been left on the top of the pile of newspapers? Did this have some significance, some meaning for the previous owner of these drawers? Sure, she collected everything and anything. She whad been a prime candidate for that show where interventions were held to remove the clutter and garbage from homes and lives. But gold? Treasure? Could something of real value be hidden in the storage nooks in this home?
It wasn't as if there weren't enough places to hide anything here. He sat back against the wall, examining the staircase. Every step had a drawer; the side wall was full of cabinets and nooks. He'd even found a hiding place in the living room; under the rug that had sat at the old lady's feet night after night as she rocked in her recliner chair. Maybe this was a hint that something of more value existed in these walls.
Carefully he pulled out every newspaper. He scanned pages for clues, and shook sections to see if anything fell out. He rooted around the back corners, testing knotholes and boards for secret compartments. He pulled the drawer out completely - not an easy feat given the size of this particular tread on the stairs, and how far back it was to tthe wall. He stuck his arm as far back into the opening as he could, looking for anything taped to the top, or hidden in the well behind the stair.
Nothing but cobwebs, and the odd carcass of a long-dead spider. He moved up one more stair, and pulled the drawer out.
Scarves filled this drawer. Cashmere and wool, pink and grey, fancy and utilitarian. He flung them over his shoulder one by one, shaking and searching and feeling for anything unusual amongst all the mufflers.
There was one scarf, a strange shade of faded turquoise, which felt heavier than the rest. It had been clipped together with a cheap looking brooch, the foil flaking in huge chunks from the back of the rhinestones. It was by far one of the ugliest things he had ever seen, and he couldn't belive that a woman as well-dressed and stylish as she had been could ever have worn it. He removed it gently from the scarf, and examined it carefully for any hints that it might have a clue or hint somewhere in its awful, beetley shape. He pocketed it for its oddity, and continued rifling through the drawer.
He moved that way through all the drawers and cubbies in the stairwell. He found gloves and mitts, hats and earmuffs, moth-eaten furs and several well worn men's galoshes. As far as he knew she'd always been a spinster, so the overshoes were puzzling. He studied them carefully, with their identical Kauffman marks and their varied sizes. Obviously the old girl had a dark past, somewhere. Or an unhealthy obsession with rubber. He shuddered at the thought, closing the drawer quickly and moving on to the next drawer at the thought.
The stairs were filled with the detritus of the old lady's life, nothing exceptional except the newspaper and the bug brooch. He pulled them out again, and turned the brooch over in his hands as he tried to find its place in what he knew of her life. She'd always seemed to be a stylish, well-dressed woman in her later years, when he had known her. Nothing in her life was out of place. Her house was immaculate, owing to the tremendous amount of hidden storage in its bones, he now realised. Nothing had ever been said or hinted at that would have prepared him for the sheer inanity of the things she collected.
He wandered into the kitchen, thinking a cup of tea would be a good idea right now. The power was still on in the house. The furnace rumbled quietly in the background, as it always did. Somehow he felt chilled today, cold and unable to warm himself. Rifling through her things was bad enough; thinking that there might be something of real intrinsic value to find felt horrible, like he was betraying a confidence she had given him.
He filled the kettle, lit the burner, and stodd over the sink staring out the window. So many times he had been here, making her tea, eating her cookies (he checked the cupboard - none were left), and talking about her past. Small things, like the way she never could figure out how to darn socks that needed mending. Big things, like the man she almost married who died in the war. But in the end, after she'd gone, he realised he knew nothing about her, or her life, or who she really and truly was. There were so many secrets hidden in her past, stuffed into metaphorical closets and drawers and shoeboxes, out of sight and never to be discussed with outsiders. Like him. He felt the chill again as the kettle whistled cheerfully behind him.
Cup of tea in hand, he turned and leaned against the counter. He took a sip, and eyed all the cupboards in this room. There were quite a few. He started opening doors, juggling his finds in one hand while continuing to drink tea with the other.
It seemed like this kitchen was the same as any other little old lady's home he knew. Tins that used to hold cookies, but now held receipts and buttons. Stacks of china. Empty chocolate boxes. Knives ground down to toothpicks over decades of long use. Nothing of tremendous import here.He set his cup in the sink, and moved into the dining room.
There didn't seem to be any real storage in this room, but some of the wallpanels had been cleverly hidden in other rooms. He started knocking on walls, lifting the corners of the rug, crawling under the mahogany table that dominated the room. Nothing. This was likely the only room in the house that was exactly what it appeared to be going in. He laughed softly, a restrained and sad laughter that released some of the frustration he was feeling inside. This was not a time to be let down by the ordinary. He needed to keep moving.
He walked through the living room again, pausing to consider if anything he'd seen in here previously was worth a second look. There were stacks of old Christmas cards, and more than a few love letters. The TV was an ancient console, a piece of solid furniture as was commonly made in the 50s. The recliner sat in front of it, slightly askew now that he'd moved it to check the floor storage. He shook his head, and wandered up the hall and climber the stairs.
This was an area of the house he'd never been in. She wasn't the type to allow strangers, or even family, into the top floor of the house. It was where her bedroom would be, and he was sure that she would be scandalised to know that he was climbing up to check out what was here.
He opened a door at the top of the stairs, and walked into the master bathroom. There was a smaller one downstairs he'd been in dozens of times. A tiny powder room, with just a toilet and sick, and towels with crocheted edges hanging from a plastic towel ring. The upstairs batroom was huge in comparison. A claw foot bacthtub took up most of the floor space. A small and graceful pedestal sink sat next to it, its scalloped edges holding soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush carefully in their grasp. The floor was black and white tile, which contrasted sharply with the pink and gold chintz wallpaper and matching towels. A fancy wooden medicine cabinet hung above, fronted by an ancient mirror of solid glass.
Hesitating only momentarily, he opened the cabinet. Bottles of pills lined the shelves, along with brown and blue glass bottles of various sizes. He reached in and grabbed a brilliant blue bottle witht he word "Noxema" emblazined on the front in old fashioned letters. It looked like she had never thrown away anything that might have a hint of a use left to it. He opened the lid, and stared down into a small puddle of brown goo. It smelled vaguely of Noxema, or what he remembered Noxema had smelled like. It had probably outlived its usefulness sixty years ago. He set it back on the shelf, repulsed.
The bathroom held one hidden compartment. The towel ring next to the sink turned out to have a second function as a door pull for a linen closet. Rows of towels and washcloths appeared, each lined carefully with an edge of crochetted cotton. Some of the towels were old and faded, holes the size of grapes where moths or use had worn through the material. Others were brand new, tags still hanging off the corners, balls of yarn stacked neatly on top for the new edges they would now never see.
Rifling through the towels revealed small bars of scented soap. Lavendar seemed to be the overwhelmingly favourite scent, and he coughed as a new wave of floral scent hit him. The air was sickly sweet after only a few minutes, and he hastily closed the door and stepped back into the hall, still coughing.
There were still two doors left in the hall. One was likely a guest room; the other her bedroom. He stood and contemplated his options. He'd spent a fair bit of time already looking through the rooms, and had found nothing. For all he knew the newspaper being open to that page was a coincidence, and nothing more. She'd never given any indication that there was anything of tremendous value in the house.
On the other hand, if there was anything important, it would make sense that she would hide it in her room. It's what he would do, had done in fact. He thought of his father's gold watch in his sock drawer, and the wedding rings in his bedside table.
He hesitated. This could be the moment he found wealth and happiness. Or it could be that he'd sully her memory just to learn that she wasn't as wonderful a lady as he'd known most of his life.
He turned and walked back down the stairs. There was still time before everything needed to be cleaned out of the house. There was still time to leave his memories intact.
Walking out into the blinding sunshine, he carefully locked the door behind him.
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