99 bent over and peered into the hole. “I see it!” she said. “You’re right, Max, it’s too far down to reach. I wonder what- Max! That’s the basement!”
“I hardly think so, 99,” Max said. “Remember where we are? We’re in a saloon. If anything, that’s a wine cellar down there.”
“All right, Max. A basement, a wine cellar, what’s the difference?”
“99, a wine cellar is a place where wine is kept. A cellar is a place that floods in spring. You’d know the difference, all right, if you kept your wine in the basement and it got water in it.” He put the floor board back in place. “All we have to do now,” he said, “is find the basement door.”
“The basement door, Max?”
“How else do you think you get to the wine cellar, 99? You go down through the basement doorway.” He walked to the rear of the saloon and entered the back room. When 99 and the mule joined him, he said, “Doesn’t this remind you of the old song, 99?”
“ ‘Dead In the Baggage Coach Ahead,’ Max?” 99 replied. “I don’t see the connection.”
“I meant the old song, ‘See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have,’ ” Max explained. He looked puzzled. “There’s no basement door in here,” he said. “And I didn’t see one out in the other room, either. Where do you suppose the entrance to the basement is?”
“Wine cellar, you mean, Max.”
“Basement, wine cellar-what’s the difference.” Max left the back room and returned to the main room, followed by 99 and the mule. He stopped and looked around again. “Maybe I’m looking for the wrong kind of door,” he said. “Maybe you get to the wine cellar through a trapdoor. That makes sense. If the saloon-keeper had a lot of expensive wine stored in his wine cellar, he wouldn’t have the door where anybody could see it. He’d hide it. He’d have. . Let me see. . Of course! He’d have a trapdoor behind the bar.”
With 99 and Madame DuBarry tagging along, Max hurried to the bar, then went behind it. “A secret trapdoor,” he decided.
“What makes you think that, Max?”
“Do you see the trapdoor, 99?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t either. So it must be a secret trapdoor. A little logic, 99, can be very helpful in answering those unanswerable questions.” He began stomping noisily on the floor. “I’ll know when I find it because I’ll hear a hollow sound,” he explained. “A little logic, that’s all it takes.”
“I don’t hear a hollow sound, Max.”
“99, I’m only halfway to the end of the bar.”
A short while later, Max reached the end.
“I didn’t hear any hollow sound, Max.”
“Hee-haw!”
“You can keep your comments to yourself, if you don’t mind,” Max said crankily to the mule.
“What did he say, Max?”
“He said, ‘Hee-haw!’ He was giving me the old mule laugh,” Max replied. Once more, he looked around the saloon. “Well, if the wine cellar isn’t reached by trapdoor, then you must get to it by secret panel,” he said. “Logically, that’s the only sensible answer.” He walked out from behind the bar and went to a wall and began pressing the panels. “If I can just locate the right spot, the panel will swing open, revealing the entrance to the wine cellar. All these old castles have secret panels. I think-”
“Max, this isn’t an old castle,” 99 pointed out. “It’s an old saloon.”
“Old castle, old saloon-what’s the difference. As long as-”
“Hee-haw!”
“What?” Max asked. “I didn’t get that.”
“Max!” 99 cried. “He disappeared again!”
Reluctantly, Max took his attention from the wall. He looked for the mule. “You’re right, 99! He found it!” he said.
“Found what, Max?”
“The secret panel! You don’t seem to know any more about horror movies than you do about westerns, 99. In all the horror movies, there’s always a beautiful girl, and she’s always alone in this mysterious room-a library most of the time-and then there’s always a scream and she disappears through a secret panel. That’s exactly what’s happened here!”
“Max, that mule isn’t exactly a beautiful girl!”
“99, he probably thinks he is. Why else would he name himself Madame DuBarry?”
“But this isn’t a mysterious room.”
“Isn’t a mysterious room? 99, a mule who thinks he’s a beautiful girl has just disappeared through a secret panel, and you don’t think that’s mysterious? What does it take?”
“All right, Max,” 99 said. “A beautiful girl just screamed and then disappeared through a secret panel. But, where is it?”
“I don’t know, 99,” Max replied. “But now that we know for sure that it’s here, we shouldn’t have any trouble finding it. Where was the mule standing when he disappeared?”
“Right here beside me in the middle of the saloon, Max.”
Max walked to the spot that 99 had pointed out and looked down at the floor. “Fantastic!” he said. “I could have wasted the whole day examining the walls in here, and all the time the secret panel would be here in the floor. The man who thought this up was a genius. Either that or he’d never seen any horror movies and didn’t know where secret panels belong.”
“He certainly did a great job of hiding it, though,” 99 said. “That looks exactly like bare floor to me, Max.”
“To me, too.”
“Max, isn’t it possible that the mule just disappeared-the way he did before.”
“That would be too much of a coincidence, 99,” Max replied. He began stomping on the floor. “Hear that! Does that sound hollow to you, 99?”
“No. Max.”
“Mmmmmm. . it doesn’t sound hollow to me, either. It sounds more like-”
“It sounds like a noisy neighbor!” a voice said.
Max and 99 turned toward the sound of the voice. They found Arbuthnot and the other assassins standing in the entrance doorway. Arbuthnot had a pistol pointed at them.
“A noisy neighbor?” Max asked.
“Yes!” Arbuthnot replied, furious. “How do you expect us to hold a meeting over in the bank with you doing all that stomping over here in the saloon! You’ve made a mess of the whole morning, Smart! I was right in the middle of my lecture on ‘Safe-Cracking-A Moral Confrontation with the Establishment,’ when suddenly I was interrupted by a terrible racket that sounded like stomping. I sent one of my men out to see what was causing it. But just as he was leaving the bank, the noise stopped.”
“I’d failed to find the trapdoor,” Max explained.
“Then, next, right in the middle of my lecture on ‘Getting a Good Night’s Sleep and Having a Nourishing Breakfast Before an Assassination,’ the stomping started again.”
“I was looking for the secret panel in the floor,” Max told him.
“Well, you ruined my whole morning!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Arbuthnot looked at him narrowly. “You were looking for a secret panel on the floor? And a trapdoor? Why?”
“Oh. Well, I, uh. . That’s my hobby. Some people play with electric trains and some people save stamps and some people look for secret panels and trapdoors.”
Arbuthnot looked down at the floor. He moved further into the saloon, then stomped. “It’s solid,” he said. “What’s supposed to be under there?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you’re hooked on looking for trapdoors and secret panels, you don’t care where they lead,” Max said. “The kick is in finding them. As a matter of fact, if you find one that leads somewhere, you’re usually disappointed. Because you have to follow it and find out where it leads to, and that gives you less time to go look for another trapdoor or secret panel.”
“Smart, I don’t believe you,” Arbuthnot said. He moved to another stop-a place near the tables-and stomped again. “Aha!” he said. “It’s hollow underneath.”
“You’re probably over the wine cellar,” Max said.
“Oh. . yes. .” Arbuthnot replied, looking disappointed. He shrugged. “All right, Smart, don’t tell me why you were doing all that stomping,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference. I’m going to lock you up again. And, this time, I’m sure you won’t get free. I won’t make the mistake of sending food to you again. I’ve learned my lesson. Kindness doesn’t pay.”