Excerpt from A Peculiar Combination by Ashley Weaver, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Our own china, aside from a few everyday pieces, had been packed away with most of the other fragile items we owned in the coal cellar for safekeeping.

Glancing again at the sideboard, I noticed a pair of candlesticks I was certain were silver, but that was not what we had come for.

Never get distracted by less than your target, Uncle Mick had always told me. So I didn't give the silver a second thought as I followed him silently through the room and into the foyer, where we began to make our way up the staircase.

Uncle Mick had talked to a woman who had once worked in the house and had gotten a fairly good idea of what the layout was. He was good at that sort of thing, finding sources and gathering information in an offhanded way that didn't arouse suspicion.

At the top of the stairs, we moved unerringly toward a room at the end of the hall.

The light from our torches played over the walls as we went, casting strange shadows against several paintings, none of them noteworthy, hung upon the dark green silk paper.

We reached the end of the hall, and Uncle Mick opened the door to our right and entered the office. This room was decorated in the same style as the rest of the house, good-but-not-exceptional-quality furniture, mediocre art. There was a large desk and one wall was lined with bookshelves.

Uncle Mick scanned the wall behind the desk with his torch. There was a large painting hung there in an expensive gilt frame. It was just the sort of piece that might hide a safe. Cheap wall safes were somewhat typical in people of this class, people with property valuable enough to be locked away but not so grand as to be stored in a bank box.

We had it on good authority that there was jewelry in that safe. We were rather counting on it, in fact. I tried not to get my hopes up, reminding myself that, if we didn't come across what we were after, there was always the dining room silver.

Uncle Mick turned to look at me. "Come see what you think."

Holding my torch up with one hand, I reached out and touched the frame, testing it for any hint of movement. At first I felt nothing, but as I ran my fingers around the edge, I felt a little projection, almost like a knob of some sort. I pressed it, heard a slight click, and the painting swung back from the wall on hinges.

"That's my girl," Uncle Mick said.

I flashed my torchlight over the face of the safe that was set into the wall behind the painting.

I frowned. This wasn't an inexpensive wall safe. It was a Milner, rather more heavy-duty and more of a challenge than the cheaper model I had been expecting.

Uncle Mick was apparently thinking the same thing, for he gave a low whistle. "Looks like they take their valuables seriously."

This was said in a cheery tone. This more difficult lock might take him a bit longer, but Uncle Mick had always relished a challenge.

Excerpted from A Peculiar Combination by Ashley Weaver. Copyright © 2021 by Ashley Weaver. Excerpted by permission of Minotaur Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.