Maggie smiled faintly.
That was Walter.
Nothing wasted.
Nothing replaced if it could still be repaired.
She opened the first drawer.
It slid smoothly.
Inside were old files, chisels, and small pieces of hardware.
The second drawer contained calipers, grease pencils, and measuring tools.
The third held rusted bolts, washers, and miscellaneous parts that had accumulated over the years.
Every drawer opened with the familiar soft scrape of wood against runners polished by decades of use.
Every drawer except the bottom one.
Maggie pulled the handle.
Nothing.
She tried again.
The drawer moved perhaps half an inch before stopping abruptly.
She frowned.
It was an old chest. A stuck drawer was hardly surprising.
She fetched a can of penetrating oil and applied it carefully along the runners.
Then she waited.
Nearly an hour later, she tried again.
The drawer moved the same half inch.
Then stopped.
Maggie knelt in front of the chest and examined the opening.
The resistance did not feel like swollen wood.
It did not feel like rust.
It felt as though something solid behind the drawer was preventing it from moving.
She found a wooden mallet and tapped gently along the frame.
Still nothing.
She tried pulling the drawer while lifting slightly on the handle.
The same result.
Half an inch.
A hard stop.
She sat back on her heels.
Her father had spent a lifetime building and repairing things. He understood how wood moved, how joints worked, and how drawers should fit inside a cabinet.
It was difficult to believe he had simply allowed one drawer to remain badly jammed.
Maggie picked up a flashlight.
She shone the beam through the narrow opening and studied the interior.
At first, she saw only darkness and dust.
Then she noticed something unusual.
The back panel was thicker than it should have been.
She moved the flashlight.
The wood behind the drawer appeared to sit farther forward than the back of the chest itself.
Maggie leaned closer.
There was a second layer.
She slowly lowered the flashlight.
Her father had not built the chest incorrectly.
He had modified it.
And whatever he had done, he had done deliberately.
Maggie looked toward the workshop door.
Outside, darkness had settled over the farm.
It was approaching midnight.
She had bought the chest because it belonged to her father.
But now she was beginning to wonder whether he had left something inside it that nobody was supposed to find.
The next morning, she returned to the workshop before breakfast.
She had barely slept.
The image of the unusually thick back panel kept returning to her thoughts.
Walter had been a practical man. He did not waste materials or build complicated mechanisms without a reason. If he had created a false compartment, then something inside it had mattered enough for him to spend time concealing it.
Maggie considered forcing the drawer open.
She had a pry bar.