Since there was so little room there, nobody came along to peer over his shoulder, but it was safe to say everyone in the room was holding their breath to hear the verdict.
He didn't make them wait, straightening after only a moment to say, "It's not a well. Zeke, help me clear a little more space around here, okay?"
"What did you see?" Quentin asked as the burly detective began helping Nate move the heavy floor-standing saddle racks back away from the trap door.
"The shaft goes straight down about fifteen or twenty feet, then it looks like it turns almost horizontal. West, toward the mountains."
"A tunnel?" Stephanie asked in disbelief.
"Maybe. But something just occurred to me. There was a lot of mining in these mountains in the years before The Lodge was built, at least according to one of my high school history teachers. I wouldn't expect to find much of anything underneath us here in the valley, but we're close enough that this could, originally, have been an air shaft."
"And nobody noticed it when they built this barn?"
"You're assuming the trap door was cut in later," Nate said. "And maybe it was. Or maybe it was here all along. Are there any original blueprints for this barn?"
She grimaced. "God knows. Did they even do blueprints for barns? I mean — weren't they just... raised?"
Nate lifted an eyebrow at her. "A barn like this one? I'm betting there were blueprints."
With a sigh, Stephanie said, "Well then, maybe Agent Hayes can find them in the basement."
He said, "I'll certainly look. And it's Quentin." He waited for her nod, then said to Nate, "I don't know enough about mining — modern or historic — to disagree with you; my father is the engineer in the family. But don't air shafts usually angle upward to the surface from major tunnels?"
"Yeah, if it's a planned shaft. But miners also made use of natural shafts and crevices, old wells — whatever was handy. At least according to that teacher I mentioned. It was a hobby of his, exploring old mines and caves, and he went on and on about it, boring most of us senseless."
Stephanie said, "Some of it sunk in, obviously."
"Yeah. Who knew it might come in handy one day?" Nate eyed the cleared space around the trap door, and added, "Zeke, you and Kerri stay topside for now; make sure nobody else comes in here. Quentin, if you're ready, grab a flashlight."
"I'm coming too," Diana heard herself say. She kept her hands jammed in the pockets of her jacket, still so chilled that it required an effort not to shiver visibly.
Nate said, "Shit," but with more resignation than anything else. He looked at Quentin, brows raised.
Quentin was looking at Diana, but even though she refused to meet his eyes, he nodded to the cop. "I think she needs to go down there. Even more, I think we need her to."
Stephanie said to Diana, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. I'm curious as hell, but you couldn't get me down there at the point of a gun." She sat down on the long bench with an air of making herself comfortable. "I'll wait here until you guys get back. And I'm sure I don't have to remind any of you that you go down there at your own risk."
"Noted," Quentin said, accepting another flashlight from Pruitt and preparing to follow Nate down the ladder. He paused only long enough to direct a steady question to Diana. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes." She was sure, but that didn't make her any less frightened. And it didn't do a thing to warm her as she put her cold hands on that cold iron ladder and followed the two men down into the cold ground.
With Angelo at her heels, Madison walked down through the gardens in the general direction of the stables, but turned off that path and made her way to the English Garden.
"They wouldn't let us in the first barn anyway," she told her little dog. "Becca says it'll be closed to guests all day. Maybe even longer. So you won't have to pretend you're not afraid of the horses."
Angelo looked up at her intently as they walked, his ears alert and tail waving. But he looked less happy just a minute or two later, when Madison chose the path that would lead to the little gazebo in the distance.
He whined uneasily.
"Angelo, you're beginning to get on my nerves," she told him. "Becca said to meet her in the gazebo, so that's where we're going. I told you that."
The little dog hesitated, actually pausing for a moment as his mistress continued on, then hurried to catch up with her, ears and tail lowered now.
"I like Becca," she informed him, compelled to defend her preferences. "She's fun. And she knows all about this place. Besides, you know as well as I do that we could get into real trouble if we didn't have Becca to warn us about the bad stuff."
Angelo stuck close, silent but still obviously anxious.
Madison turned her attention ahead of them, and quickened her step when she saw Becca waiting for them in the center of the white-painted gazebo.
"Hey," she called.
Becca waited until Madison and Angelo joined her before responding. "Hey yourself. Did you have breakfast?"
"Sure. Pancakes. They were good."
Becca nodded slowly. She seemed to hesitate, then said, "They've found the door."
"You said they would."
"Yeah. The thing is... I maybe took Diana down there too soon."
CHAPTER 11
When they reached the bottom of the vertical shaft, they discovered that there was indeed a rough tunnel, angling slightly downward for several yards before leveling off and running more or less straight and level toward the west. There was just barely enough headroom for Quentin, the tallest of the three, to stand upright, but the tunnel was narrow, and they had to go single file. Their flashlights lit the space quite well, but threw odd flickers and shadows as they picked up the irregular surfaces of the passageway.
The stone floor underfoot was slippery in some places and virtually dry in others, so that they had to be careful walking. The air was damp and just chilly enough to be uncomfortable. It also held a disquieting scent of old earth and stale water, and the mustiness of a place too long closed up and left dark.
"But the air is reasonably fresh, especially for this far down," Quentin commented, keeping his voice low since the hard surfaces of the passageway, they had quickly discovered, threw sounds back at them.
"Which means that, somewhere, there's another opening to the surface," Nate said.
"Bound to be," Quentin agreed. His fingers tightened around Diana's. He had taken her hand as soon as she'd reached the bottom of the ladder, and though he hadn't said anything, he was worried about how cold it was.
He was worried about her.
"I'm fine," she murmured just then.
She was a half step behind him, but he was able to see her face when he looked quickly back over his shoulder. In the backwash of illumination from the flashlights, her face seemed almost ghostly pale.
And he sensed more than saw that inward-turned attention, the quiet waiting for whatever would come. Consciously or not, she was tuning in to her abilities. Probably, he thought, how she had picked up on his concern for her.
Probably.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she repeated, then added, "Listen."
It took another moment, but then he heard it, the dripping and faint gurgle and splash of water ahead.
"I think it widens — " Nate began, then broke off as the passageway did indeed widen very abruptly. In fact, it opened into a cavern of some kind.
There was immediately a feeling of vast space all around them, and when Nate swept his flashlight in an arc, they were able to see that they stood at the mouth of a cavern that had to be sixty or eighty feet across and a good twenty feet high. They could see the narrow mouths of what appeared to be at least three other passageways leading off from this central chamber.