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walls were two feet thick and built of stone quarried from nearby limestone deposits. It rose seventy feet above the ground, with an inside sunken shaft of equal distance. An iron-grilled gate sagged on rusty hinges and did little to guard the entrance to the interior. Janet tugged at the gate until it finally opened wide enough for her to squeeze through. The earthen floor permeated the interior with a dank, musty odor. The sunken shaft that extended belowground had a well-like opening in the middle of the floor. Looking more like an afterthought than any real safety measure, the hole had been crisscrossed with plywood. Janet nudged the decaying wood with her shoe and the curled edges of the laminated sheets easily split apart. She hoped that some poor unfortunate soul never had to depend on the barrier to halt his headlong tumble into the shaft. Perhaps she should mention to her grandmother that Duffy ought to have someone come out and close the opening off in a more permanent way.
    Narrow wooden stairs wound around the inside walls all the way to the top. From the middle of the room, Janet looked up at the platform high overhead. Cut away from the center of the platform—directly above the hole to the underground shaft—was an opening perhaps three feet square that could be fitted with metal sieves. From there the lead, which had to be carried up the steps and melted over the open fireplace, was poured through the mesh screens to produce small droplets. The meshes would vary in size, depending upon the caliber of shot desired. Once the liquid metal was poured from above, it cooled on its way down the long fall-way called a drop and formed into spherical shapes before finally landing in a large kettle of water at the base of the underground shaft, where the shot hardened. The ammunition was then collected and carried through a tunnel that led from the shaft to the edge of the water some distance away; from there it was loaded onto transport vessels and taken to distribution points.
    Janet touched the wobbly handrail at the foot of the stairs and remembered the day she had climbed to the top, crawled through a window onto a lookout ledge, and scanned the horizon—looking for no-account scalawags. Her grandfather found her there and even the most earnest entreaty from her grandmother had not lessened the punishment for the eight-year-old. The building had been unsafe then and had only deteriorated into a further state of disrepair in the ensuing years. Looking at the decaying steps, she was grateful that she no longer possessed a child’s curiosity.
    She turned away, stepping again into the sunlight, and shoved the gate over the entrance. Trudging back toward the house, the lack of sleep from the previous night caught up with her and suddenly she was beyond weary. She ducked under an archway of withered vines and reentered the courtyard. Moving to the right side of the house, she rounded the corner on the carriage-house side. Duffy was busy rubbing away a cloudy film of wax from the vintage Rolls Royce.
    He looked up.
    “Miss Janet,” he said, “Lettie tells me Madam had a bad night. Hope she’s feeling better this morning.”
    “Thank you, Duffy. She’s asleep right now, and I’m trying to get a breath of fresh air and clear away the brain grunge.”
    “Fresh air’ll do you good,” he agreed. “And when Madam wakes tell her I was asking after her.” He shook his head. “Fine lady she is, real fine lady.”
    Janet smiled. “I’ll be sure and do that,” she said as she walked off toward the porch.
    Lettie was coming down the stairs as she entered the front door. Janet looked at her, a frown gathering between her eyes.
    “She’s still asleep,” Lettie said in a whisper. “But her breathing’s much more reliable.”
    Janet smiled at the good news. “I think I’ll look in for a second and then maybe catch a quick nap. Lettie, you’ll call me when she wakes?”
    “Yes, Miss. I’ll come