The House of Puzzles (25 page)

Gerald gave Sam a nod. Sam picked up the box. ‘Careful, boy,’ Green said. ‘I can’t
have it damaged.’ He pulled a small golden key from his trouser pocket and knelt
by the casket. The key slid into the lock, then Green shot a glance at Gerald. ‘Let’s
hope for the professor’s sake that you have chosen well,’ he said.

Gerald swallowed. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

Green turned the key. The tip of his tongue flickered
across his lips. He took the
lid by the sides and tilted it back.

For a moment, no one said anything. The only sound was the drip from a leaking pipe
somewhere in the cavernous space above them; a slow, mournful drip, drip, drip…

Gerald’s eyes slowly closed.

The box was empty.

Chapter 25

Mason Green stared into the bare gloss interior of the wooden box as if he had been
snap-frozen. Only his steadily reddening face gave any indication that he was still
alive.

No one spoke.

No one moved.

The leaky pipe in the ceiling sounded its sorrowful tone.

drip…

drip…

drip…

Finally, Gerald ventured a thought. ‘I could go get another box and—’

Sir Mason Green erupted in volcanic fury. He grabbed
the box, wound up like an Olympic
hammer thrower and hurled it into the exposed brick of the nearest wall. The casket
shattered into a storm of splinters, spraying needles of ebony everywhere. Then he
snatched up a table lamp, yanked the power cord from the socket and, with a swinging
heft, sent it to the same fate. Coloured glass showered through the air in a kaleidoscope
of destruction. Green turned his rage onto anything not bolted down—chairs, books,
boxes—all the while emitting a guttural ‘
Noooooo
’.

Gerald took a pace back and beckoned Sam, Ruby and Felicity to follow. Quiet as cats,
they retreated into the shadows as Sir Mason Green raged on, unchecked and unstoppable.
A blizzard of broken furnishings filled the air.

Then Gerald saw it: the doorway in the gloom through which Professor McElderry had
disappeared. He grabbed Sam by the shoulders and shoved him through it, then ushered
Felicity and Ruby after him. The four of them clattered into a narrow tunnel-like
corridor, walled with grimy brown bricks. The air was sour with mould and disuse.
The only light came from a line of dim bulbs that were fixed in wire cages at regular
intervals along the ceiling, snaking into the distance.

Sam led the way, running deeper and deeper into the unknown. They dashed around bends
and down stairwells, past alcoves and doorways, all the while the clamour of Sir
Mason Green’s fury becoming softer and
softer behind them.

Sam suddenly stopped.

‘What’s the hold up?’ Ruby asked, catching her breath. ‘Green will run out of stuff
to throw soon enough, and then he’ll notice we’re gone.’

Sam looked back at them, his face flushed. ‘There’s a crossroad,’ he said.

Ruby elbowed past Felicity to get to her brother. ‘What do you mean “crossroad”?’
she said. ‘We’re under a building, not trying to navigate a motorway.’ But then she
saw what Sam was referring to: an identical brown brick passage running across the
corridor, with a line of caged lights tracing into the distance in each direction.

‘Should we call out to the professor?’ Felicity suggested. ‘He can’t be far away.’

‘And tell Green exactly where we are?’ Ruby said. ‘I don’t think that’s such a great
idea given the mood he’s in.’

‘I agree,’ Gerald said. ‘Confronting an enraged psychopath is one thing—an enraged
psychopath with a gun is another thing altogether.’

‘So what do we do?’ Sam asked. ‘Left, right or straight ahead.’

The four of them clustered in the eye of the crossroads, each staring along a different
route. Gerald strained his eyes, as much to wring his brain into finding a solution
as to see into the distance. He was on the verge of popping a blood vessel when the
answer came to him.

‘We need to split up,’ he said.

Ruby, Sam and Felicity turned to look at him as if he had just suggested they all
put their tongues in a light socket.

‘Are you nuts?’ Sam said. ‘Who knows where all these passages lead. If we all head
off in different directions we might never see each other again—or anyone else for
that matter.’

‘I hate to say it, but Sam’s right,’ Ruby said. ‘There’s no telling how long and
twisted these corridors get.’

‘I’m with Ruby,’ Felicity said. ‘We could be wandering around down here forever.’

‘I’m not saying we go four different ways,’ Gerald said. ‘Hear me out. Now, what
are we looking for?’

Felicity shrugged. ‘Professor McElderry, of course.’

‘That’s one thing,’ Gerald said. ‘But we’re also looking for a way out. If Mason
Green is happy to let the professor wander around down here by himself then it’s
a safe bet that McElderry doesn’t know how to get back to the street. It’s no use
us finding him and not being able to get out of here.’

‘What about the way we came in?’ Sam said. ‘Can’t we get out back there?’

‘There are two problems with that,’ Gerald said. ‘I couldn’t see any ladder or stairs
to get back to the street. And there’s a gun-toting psychopath back there.’

Ruby chewed on her bottom lip. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

Gerald tightened the straps of his backpack. ‘Sam and Felicity go one way. Ruby,
you and I go another. If one of us finds the professor, bring him back here. If one
of us finds a way out, we come back here. Either way, we should meet back at this
spot in thirty minutes.’ Gerald tore a blank page from the notebook in his pack and
rolled it into a loose tube. He lit the end with Alex’s zippo and let it burn for
a moment before stubbing it out on the floor. With the scorched end he marked a large
sooty cross at the intersection of the four corridors.

‘X marks the spot, all right?’ he said. ‘If we’re lucky, when we next see each other
we’ll have both the professor and a way out.’

There was a general murmur of agreement. Then Sam piped up. ‘What about rats?’ He
peered uncertainly down the corridor to the left.

‘That’s why you’re teamed with Felicity,’ Gerald said. ‘She won’t tease you as much
as Ruby would.’

Felicity laughed. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Nowhere near as much.’ She took Sam
by the arm. ‘Come along, my hero. Let’s go kick some tiny furry butt.’

Gerald watched as they wound out of sight, then turned to Ruby. ‘Which way do you
want to go?’

‘As long as we keep track of where we’ve gone,’ Ruby said, ‘either way is as good
as the other.’

A sudden fusillade of swearing echoed through the network of tunnels, seemingly coming
from all directions at once.

‘I think someone has noticed we’re gone,’ Gerald said. He took Ruby’s hand and stepped
into the corridor to the right. ‘We better hurry. I’d like to get out of this labyrinth
as soon as possible.’

Ruby tightened her grip on Gerald’s hand. ‘Lead the way then, Theseus.’

Gerald looked back at her blankly. ‘Who?’

Ruby dropped his hand like it was a day-old haddock. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Let’s
see where this takes us.’

Gerald watched as Ruby strode ahead. He sighed—he would never understand girls.

Another string of blistering abuse sounded through the passageways. Gerald broke
into a trot to catch up with Ruby. They soldiered on in silence until the corridor
branched in two.

‘Which one do you want to take?’ Gerald asked, still smarting from whatever he had
done to annoy Ruby.

‘I think with mazes the trick is to always turn to the right, isn’t it? That’s how
you get to the centre,’ Ruby said.

‘What have mazes got to do with anything?’

‘This is the house of puzzles, right?’ Ruby said. ‘Who’s to say these cellars aren’t
part of some giant puzzle that has to be solved.’

Gerald thought for a moment. After his experience in the rooms up above, there was
every reason to suppose that Ruby was right. ‘But what if you don’t want to get to
the centre?’ he said. ‘What if you want to find the way out?’

Ruby shrugged. ‘You turn to the left, maybe?’ She snatched up Gerald’s hand one more
time. ‘Let’s go, minotaur brain, before Green catches up.’

Gerald was going to ask what a minotaur was but thought better of it.

Another burst of cursing flooded the bricked corridors, this time louder and very
much closer than before.

Ruby and Gerald broke into a run.

The path branched again—they took the left branch. It led them down a short flight
of stairs, which they took at a jump, then into another offshoot to the left.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Gerald panted, chancing a look over his shoulder. ‘Will
we be able to find our way back to Sam and Felicity?’

Then Mason Green hobbled out of a passageway about ten paces ahead of them. He walked
straight across their path and into the corridor opposite. Ruby and Gerald skidded
to a halt and stared down the passage that Green had entered just as the back of
his silver head disappear around a bend.

They paused there a second, staring down the empty corridor, when Green’s face re-emerged
to look back at them. Also looking at them was the business end of Green’s handgun.

The bullet shattered into the brick wall a split second after Ruby had pulled Gerald
clear. This time there was no neat plan of left hand turns. Gerald and Ruby pelted
down any corridor they could find. Left. Right. Up stairs.
Down ramps. Anywhere,
just as long as Mason Green’s gun was as far away as possible.

Another shot rang out—it was impossible to tell from where—when Gerald and Ruby stormed
into a long passage. This time there were no intersecting tunnels, just smooth walls
and a floor that seemed to slope ever so gently upwards.

‘This must take us somewhere,’ Gerald said.

‘It better,’ Ruby panted. ‘Because if this is a blind alley I don’t fancy retracing
our steps.’

They rounded a bend just as another shot echoed along the brick walls. Then came
a shout—from not as far away as Gerald would have liked. ‘I know where you went,
Mr Wilkins.’ Mason Green’s voice was full of purpose. ‘And I’m coming after you.’

Ruby squeezed hard on Gerald’s hand. ‘Hurry!’

The corridor curved, then ended abruptly in a blank wall of bricks. Gerald and Ruby
skidded to a stop.

‘A blind alley,’ Ruby said. She looked to Gerald. ‘We’re trapped.’

Gerald turned to run back the way they had come but he halted at the sound of boots,
advancing steadily up the corridor towards them.

Chapter 26

The blind passage seemed to close in on Gerald. He pressed his hands flat to the
end wall, as if pushing on a solid brick barrier would somehow produce a path to
freedom.

‘What are we going to do?’ Ruby whispered. ‘The only way out is straight back to
Mason Green.’

‘And his gun,’ Gerald said. He balled his right hand into a fist and pounded the
wall in frustration. All that did was shoot pain up Gerald’s arm and into his skull.
He nursed the offending fist with his other hand, spun around and slid his back down
the wall until he was sitting on the cold stone floor, cursing his luck.

Ruby dropped next to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. She went to
speak, but the
advancing footsteps made anything she had to say pretty much redundant.

‘It will all be okay,’ Ruby said softly. ‘I’m sure of it.’

Gerald’s head slumped. He was not sure of it at all.

Then he saw the writing. The letters were pressed into a brick at the base of the
blank end to the passage. Gerald rolled onto his stomach and squinted to make out
the words. ‘
What gets wet the more it dries?
’ He blinked up at Ruby. ‘It’s a riddle.’

His eyes darted to the adjoining brick. The alphabet was laid out in a neat grid
of two rows: A to M and N to Z, each letter pressed into a carved square. Gerald
sucked in a sharp breath.

‘What is it?’ Ruby asked.

‘It’s like a keyboard,’ Gerald said. He pushed gently on the ‘A’; it depressed a
millimetre. He sat upright and took Ruby by the shoulders, his eyes wild. ‘I bet
if we type in the answer to the riddle, something will happen.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. A door will open, another clue will appear—that’s how the house works.’

The footsteps echoed closer up the passage. Ruby grabbed Gerald’s jacket sleeve tight.
‘What gets wet the more it dries?’ she asked. ‘Um—a cat washing itself.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Gerald said.

‘At least I’m trying.’

Gerald concentrated. How could anything get wet as it dries? ‘Uh—sand on the beach?
Sweat on a hot day.
A fish’s bum?’

Ruby looked at Gerald blankly. ‘A fish’s bum? Really?’

‘Shut up,’ Gerald shot back. ‘I’m thinking out loud.’ Then it hit him. ‘A towel!’

‘Brilliant,’ Ruby said. ‘Type it in.’

The voice of Mason Green came around the bend behind them. ‘You may as well come
out, Gerald. There is no exit down here. And, as you may have guessed, I have a gun.’

Gerald frowned and put the answer into the tiny clay keypad. Each letter clicked
as he pressed it.

T O W E

When Gerald pressed the
L
a hollow
clunk
sounded behind the wall. Then a jagged opening
appeared along the mortar between the bricks, as if a giant jigsaw piece had worked
itself loose. The section swung in, revealing a continuation of the passage.

Ruby plunged through the opening as Gerald clambered to his knees. He was halfway
through behind her when he paused. He had left his pack on the stone floor in the
corridor. Gerald turned to reach for it but Ruby took him by the jacket and dragged
him through to the other side. A second later the brick section swung back into place,
and clicked secure as if it hadn’t moved for centuries.

Gerald slumped on the floor, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Ruby
grabbed him and hauled
him to his feet. Before he could protest she had a finger
to his lips, shaking her head to warn him not to speak. Then Gerald noticed a spot
of light shining from the brick wall onto Ruby’s cheek. She pulled him across until
Gerald saw a small peephole in the mortar. He peered through and stifled a gasp.
On the other side of the wall stood Sir Mason Green.