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under the counter in the dressing room.
We emerged in a two-foot-wide dead space behind the bedroom and dressing
room. It was claustrophobic in there. It was dusty and cobwebby, too, and
there was nothing to be seen but studs, lathing, and plaster. The wall at my
back was identical. It was the wall of the suite next to mine.
There were peepholes. Of course. A couple for the dressing room and three for
the bedroom. The thought that I might have been watched left me real
uncomfortable.
Morley said, "Here's how you get out."
At the end of the dead space, against the wall of the hallway, there was a
two-by-two hole in the floor. Wooden rungs were nailed to the studs.
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I sneezed ferociously. The dust and my cold were ganging up.
My head hurt from being banged. My skin burns gave me no respite. I had no
reason to be amused. I chuckled anyway.
"What?"
"No way I'm going to get past you. You have to go first."
"Think so?" He ducked into the passageway from my sitting room. "After you,
my man."
"You're so slick, you'll slide out of your casket." I tested the rungs. They
were solid.
Ever go down a vertical ladder carrying a live fire? Lucky I'm a paragon of
coordination.
The third floor was identical to the fourth except for the cover over the
hole opening on the second. "There's a big open storage loft below here," I
told Morley. And sneezed so hard, I almost killed my lamp. I listened for
movement below. Nothing. I lifted the cover. It swung to the side on hinges.
How would we get down? I'd seen no ladders when I'd explored the storage
area.
Crafty builders. Right under the hatch was the end of a rack. The shelf
supports made neat rungs.
I dropped to the floor. Knowing what to look for, I spotted trapdoors that
would take me to every room in the wing.
"Pretty simple," Morley said. "Think it's set up for spying or for escapes?"
"I think it's probably for whatever's to the advantage of theStantnors . I
wonder how it works in the east wing. That layout is different."
"You've already checked this wing, right?"
"Except for the cellar."
"You didn't find any place your girlfriend could be hiding?"
"No."
"You ask the cook about food shortages?"
"No." I should have. She'd have to eat. I thought of her portrait. I'd better
get the paintings into the house tonight.
"Let's do this systematically. The cellar first, then the other wing. Seems
probable the passages there start in the cellar."
"Yeah." As I recalled the layout, the walls all sat atop one another from the
first floor upward.
We descended to the pantry quietly, listened. Nothing. On to the cellar.
It was your typical earthen floor cellar, deeper than my own, where I have to
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stoop, butvasty , dark and dusty, a wilderness of stone pillars supporting
beams that supported joists. At first it seemed mostly empty and dusty and
dry though dry wasn't a surprise. The house sat atop a hill. The builders
would have arranged good drainage.
As we moved toward the east end we encountered evidence that an earlier
regime had maintained a large wine cellar. Only the racks remained.
"Great place to get rid of bodies," Morley remarked.
"They have their own graveyard for that."
"Somebody sank a couple, three guys in that swamp."
He had a point.
We completed a circuit of the east end finding little but the wine racks,
broken furniture, and, near the foot of the steps, sausages and stores hanging
so mice couldn't reach them. I sneezed almost continuously.
"That's the easy half," Morley said. We started our circuit of the western
end.
That end had less to recommend it or make it interesting, except for the
supports and plumbing beneath the fountain. Those would have been of interest
mainly to a plumber or engineer. There were no entries to hidden passages.
I said, "We just wasted three quarters of an hour." And sneezed.
"Never a waste when you find something out. Even if it's negative."
"That's my line. You're supposed to grumble about wasted time."
He chuckled. "Must be infecting each other. Let's get out before the spiders
gang up."
I grunted, sneezed. Interesting. The cellar was almost vermin-free. Other
than spiders there was very little wildlife. I'd have expected a sizable herd
of mice.
I recalled the cats. "Can you smell anything? I'm deaf in the nose here."
"What am I supposed to smell?"
"Cat shit."
"What?"
"No mice. If there aren't any, the cats must be on the job. The only cats
I've seen are out in the barns. If they're getting in here, there's a way into
the basement from the outside."
"Oh." His eyes got a little bigger. He started watching the edges of the
light more closely. There was still adraug around somewhere.
He said, "We're not going to find anything here. Let's do the west wing." He
was uncomfortable. Usually he's cool as a rock. That creepy house really
worked on you.
I was about halfway up to the first floor when I caught the end of a cry.
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"Oh, damn! What now?"
Don't ever try to run through unfamiliar territory in the dark, even with a
lamp. Between us we nearly killed ourselves a half dozen times each before we
made it to the great hall.
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34
We burst into the light of the hall, where theStantnors spared no expense on
illumination. "What was it?" There was nothing shaking.
"Sounded like it came from here," Morley said. "Looks like we're first to
arrive."
"Oh, damn! Not quite. Damn! Damn! Damn!"
Chain had beaten us there. Thedragonslayer and his victim had masked him from
us at first. He was on the floor, crumpled in a way no man should be. He'd
bounced once, some, and had left a big smear. Blood still leaked out of him.
"Looks like he came from the top balcony," Morley said, with an artisan's
dispassion. "Tried to land on his feet and didn't quite make it." He glanced
up. "He didn't jump. And I'd bet you he didn't trip over the rail. If I was a
betting man."
"Wouldn't touch the bet at a thousand to one." The fall wasn't much more than
thirty feet. For Chain it must have seemed like a thousand.
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