“That, too, is thanks to our young friend,” the Doctor replied, nodding my way. “But it’s not serious-all part of Stevie’s plan, it seems.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I protested quickly. “I didn’t know she’d actually smack you-”
The Doctor already had a hand up. “It was well worth it-an appropriate punishment for ever doubting your judgment in such matters.” Then his black eyes gave me a more serious look. “I mean it, Stevie. It was a brilliant bit of work.”
As if to punctuate the remark, Mr. Moore gave my head a rub and Miss Howard smiled at me-all of which, of course, was just the sort of attention what’s always made my skin crawl. Fortunately, I quickly thought of a way to change the topic:
“What about Ana?” I asked, looking up at Mr. Moore.
His face suddenly went straight. “Oh, God,” he said, with what sounded like dread. “Yes, Ana.” He looked to the Doctor and Miss Howard, “Can you two make it downstairs?”
Miss Howard began to struggle to her feet. “I think so,” she said, finally standing. “Why, John? What is it?”
Mr. Moore, still looking what you might call inscrutable, just shook his head. “I could tell you,” he said. “But you’d never believe it.”
CHAPTER 57
By the timewe got back down to the first floor of the building the action out on the street seemed to’ve calmed down quite a bit, and from the cheering sounds being made by our sailors, it seemed like they truly had come away from the encounter winners. As we passed by the front door, Marcus came in through it, confirming that the Dusters had fled the scene, a result what he, too, seemed to find very heartening. It was up to me to be the spoilsport, by informing everybody that if in fact the Dusters had disappeared for the moment, they’d likely be back: soon, in greater numbers (they’d probably call in more auxiliaries), and better armed, which meant guns.
“What makes you think that, Stevie?” Mr. Moore said, poking his head outside the door and looking around. “Those navy boys gave them one hell of a black eye-I wouldn’t think they’d be any too anxious to come back for more.”
“They have to,” I answered. “We took them on right in the middle of their own territory. They let this stand, and they’ll lose that territory, to every gang what borders them. It’s a sign of weakness, and they can’t afford it.”
“Stevie’s logic, once again, is sound,” the Doctor said. “Let’s not forget that he knows this world far better than the rest of us. Marcus, I suggest you find Roosevelt. Tell him to forget about arresting Knox or anyone else, and simply detach a group of men to retrieve Libby Hatch’s body from the roof. Then we shall return to the boats.”
Nodding in agreement, Marcus turned to Mr. Moore. “Are you taking them down, John?” Mr. Moore just nodded back, and then Marcus turned to me. “It was the garden that gave me the tip, Stevie. Remember the way it seemed so untended? And how unused you said those tools downstairs looked?”
Puzzled, I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Yeah?”
“Well,” the detective sergeant said, heading back out into the street, “there was a reason.”
Further bewildered by that last comment, the Doctor, Miss Howard, and I followed Mr. Moore to the basement door, then down into the dusty cave below.
The one electrical bulb was lit, showing things pretty well the way I’d left them the night I’d been there: in other words, there was no sign of any secret doorway having been forced open, a fact what surprised not only me, but the Doctor and Miss Howard, too.
“Moore,” the Doctor said, “I thought you intimated-”
Mr. Moore held up a hand. “We closed it again to give you the full effect,” he said, going past the rack of preserves to the collection of old, rusty garden tools. “We did everything we could to try to move this thing manually,” he said, indicating the rack. “And you might actually have moved it, Stevie, if you’d picked something other than that old hoe to try to wedge behind it.”
“What do you mean?” I said, not getting the hint.
Mr. Moore pointed at the two tallest of the tools-a shovel and an iron rake-what stood side by side. “Open,” he said, indicating the shovel, “and close,” at which point he touched the rake.
“Moore, we’ve no time for games,” the Doctor said. “What the devil are you talking about?”
By way of an answer Mr. Moore just held up a finger, then grabbed hold of the shovel’s handle. The tool didn’t come away from its resting spot at his touch; instead, it pivoted at a point on the floor, to which it was, it seemed, anchored. As Mr. Moore lowered the thing on that pivot, lo and behold, the rack of preserves began to move, as if by itself: it swung away from the brick dividing wall by the furnace and revealed a three-foot-square hole leading down through the stone floor and into the ground below the building.
“Oh, my God,” Miss Howard whispered, stepping forward toward the hole. The Doctor and I followed, shocked past speech.
“Just big enough for an average adult to negotiate,” Mr. Moore said, picking up one of the Isaacsons’ portable torches what lay nearby. “As is the entire passageway.”
“Passageway?” the Doctor echoed.
“Come on,” Mr. Moore said, taking a few steps down onto an iron ladder what was fixed to the side of a deep shaftway what led downwards from the hole. “I’ll show you.”
With that he disappeared below ground, while the rest of us looked nervously to each other.
“How come I got no big desire to go down there?” I said quietly.
“You’ve been through an awful lot, Stevie,” Miss Howard answered, putting a hand to my arm. “And what’s down there may not be too pleasant.”
“It would be completely understandable if you wished to wait here,” the Doctor agreed.
I shook my head. “It ain’t that. I want to see it, but…” Trying to shake off my severe jitters, I stepped down onto the ladder. “Aw, hell,” I said, “how much worse can this thing get?”
Moving carefully, I followed Mr. Moore’s torch, which appeared to come to a stop about fifteen feet down. “Wait for one second before you come all the way down, Stevie,” he called to me, “so I can get into the side passage. Each of you will have to do the same.”
“The side passage?” I repeated.
“You’ll see when you get here.”
And I did. At the base of the shaftway, the walls of which were rough concrete, was an opening into a narrow tunnel what ran sideways. The thing was just high enough for a person to crouch in, so’s you could kind of scurry along without actually crawling. Mr. Moore guided me into this space when I got down, then did the same for Miss Howard and the Doctor when they arrived. After that, he turned his torch in what I calculated to be the direction of the backyard, revealing that the passageway-what was also concrete-went on for another forty feet. There was a dank smell to it, but it wasn’t nearly as stifling as it should’ve been.
“Is that a draft?” Miss Howard asked, licking her finger and holding it up.
“It becomes almost a breeze,” Mr. Moore answered, his face lit up like a jack-o’-lantern by the light of the torch, “once you get to the other end.”
“But what produces it?” the Doctor asked.
“All part of the surprise, Laszlo,” Mr. Moore answered, starting down the tunnel toward a small glow of light that filled its far end. He cupped his free hand in front of his mouth. “Lucius! You still there?”
“Yes, John,” came Lucius’s whispering reply. “But keep your voice down, dammit!”
We kept scuffling along, crooked over like coal miners, and as we went, a thought occurred to me: “I don’t hear any baby crying,” I said grimly.