Dark Places: Long Shadows

Part One

“Trixie! Just the person I wanted to see.” Matthew Wheeler rubbed his hands together as he approached his daughter and her best friend. The two, home from college in New York City for the weekend, had just entered the front door of the Wheeler home and were heading for the stairs.

“Hi, Mr. Wheeler. What can I do for you?” Trixie replied.

Honey’s father ushered the pair into his study, saying, “I’ve got something that needs doing and it’s right up your alley.”

The two young women traded curious glances. Excitement shone in Trixie’s face, while apprehension graced that of her friend. The study door closed behind them with barely a sound. Spread out upon the expansive desk were a number of large-scale plans, apparently of a building.

“My latest acquisition,” Matthew explained, drawing them closer. “Formerly, the Stanfield Hotel in Manhattan. Notorious for its shady past, its secret passages, its – shall we say? – mysterious nature.” Shrewdness showed on his face. “It’s also in an area that is on the cusp of renewal. Within five years, my guess is that it will be at the heart of a fashionable area – if I play my cards right.”

Honey had pulled a photograph from the pile and scrunched up her nose in response. “It looks terribly old and grungy, with all those dirty streaks down the outside and garbage all around the door and broken panes in the windows and graffiti on the walls.”

“I think it will clean up nicely,” her father answered, smiling. “Buildings from the twenties can look very stylish if they’re in good repair. Just look at the lines of that doorway – not even all that mess can disguise that this was once a high-class building.”

“Once,” Honey repeated, still screwing up her nose.

Trixie ignored her friend’s discomfort, her eyes shining and her curls bouncing with excitement. “So, what can I help you with?”

Matthew smiled. “You seemed to enjoy your adventure at my mother’s country house. I thought you might like to explore the hotel. I’ve had the professionals through and they’ve discovered a few secrets and extrapolated on others, but they and I are convinced that there are more to find. But,” he continued quickly, as her exuberance seemed about to overflow into ecstasy, “there will be conditions. You will have escorts. You will not take risks. You will not enter the property without a number of other precautions.”

Her enthusiasm was not damped in any way. “That’s just fine, Mr. Wheeler. I’d love to explore the place and I don’t mind taking whatever precautions you think are necessary. I can’t wait to get started! When can we go there?”

“I’ll need to make a few arrangements for you,” he replied, smiling at her obvious disappointment. “I don’t want anyone to stay there just yet – especially since it seems certain that there’s at least one hidden entrance. Your companions, if they live elsewhere, will need accommodation. Did you have any ideas on who you would like to accompany you?”

“How about the rest of the Bob-Whites?” Trixie suggested.

“I’d prefer someone from the security company to be involved as well. I usually try to give a few days’ notice for any change of plans, so how about if I settle everything for next weekend?”

“Fabulous,” cried Trixie. “I’ll go back to the farm and make the calls right away.”

“Stay and make them here,” her host suggested with a short laugh. “It’s my project, after all. And take these with you – they’re just copies, so you can write on them if you need to. You’ll need to study them before you go, to make the best use of the time you’ll have there.” With a practised hand, he rolled the plans, secured them with a rubber band and slipped them into a cardboard tube.

“Thanks, Mr. Wheeler,” the young woman called on her way out the door. “You’re the best!”

“Now, why did you have to go and do that, Trixie?” Honey demanded, flopping down on her bed a minute or two later. “I’m sure I told you I never wanted to do anything like that ever, ever again! The last thing I want to do is explore a creepy old hotel full of secret passages and horrible secrets and probably horrible people who shouldn’t be there, too.”

“Relax, Hon,” the other girl replied, with a negligent wave of the hand. “It’ll be just fine. You won’t have to go in any secret passages if you don’t want to and we’ll have lots of people with us to scare off any trespassers. I’m sure the 1920s bootleggers, or whatever it was they had there, have all moved out and they’re probably all dead by now, too.”

Honey groaned. “Oh, great! Now, I have images of it being haunted by the ghosts of bootleggers! I don’t think this situation could get any worse. Next you’ll be saying it was a mob hang-out and that the basement is filled with buried skeletons of people who crossed them.”

Her friend’s face fell. “Do you want me to tell your father I can’t do it?” she asked in a small voice. “If you feel that strongly about it…”

“No, don’t do that.” Honey sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I told you I just knew that it was all going to happen all over again, didn’t I? I just didn’t imagine it would be so soon.”

A brittle smile settled on Trixie’s face. “Maybe this will be the last adventure,” she suggested. “In another couple of months we’ll both graduate and go off to work, and maybe we won’t have time for adventures any more.”

“We’ll always have adventures.” Impulsively, Honey pulled her friend into a hug. “I just wish they wouldn’t be in the dark!” She smiled and gave Trixie a little push. “Make your calls. See how many of the others can make it next weekend.”

The following Friday night, five Bob-Whites gathered in the Wheelers’ New York apartment, ready for a weekend of exploration in the old hotel. Neither Brian nor Jim could afford the time off so soon after their last trip. Mart and Dan, no longer being students, had greeted the invitation with glee. Di, who felt as Honey did about secret passages in abandoned hotels, had decided to come simply to keep Honey company. It had been decided that they would have a walk through the old building, then take a trip to a nearby library to study for their rapidly-approaching finals.

“So, who wants to see the plans?” Trixie asked, as the group gathered around the table for a late dinner. “After we clean up, we can go over them together and look at the best places to search.”

“I’m in,” Mart indicated, before taking a huge mouthful of chicken and vegetable pizza.

Dan gave a shrug. “I’m not so good with plans.” He frowned. “You said it was the Stanfield Hotel? Just down the street from that dive you ran off to and met the diamond smugglers the first time we stayed here? I know it, anyway. Been inside it a few times.”

“I didn’t think it had actually been a hotel for a long time,” Honey mentioned, though with evident uncertainty.

“Didn’t say it was,” Dan muttered.

Mart cast him a questioning look, then promptly changed the subject. “So, what are we supposed to be finding, Trix?”

“Well,” she began, setting down her slice of pepperoni pizza untouched, “Mr. Wheeler hired some people to go through the building and make those plans. They identified a whole lot of ‘empty’ spaces, where there might be hidden rooms, or passages, or maybe just utility spaces like the one we went through in Honey’s grandmother’s place. They found some of the entrances, but not all of them. They didn’t find a secret entrance to the building, but people are still getting in somehow. So, I guess, there’s two main things to find: the entrances to the last few hidden spaces, and the secret entrance or entrances.”

“And the pros can’t find them?” Dan asked, frowning at her.

“Maybe they weren’t looking hard enough,” Trixie explained. “Maybe they didn’t spend long enough on it. Maybe they were looking in the wrong place. Anyway, Mr. Wheeler wants us to try, and I think it’ll be fun.”

He nodded, but continued to frown.

Early the following morning, the group – complete with flashlights, tape measures, plans and a camera – took cabs to the hotel. They were greeted at the door by a security guard who introduced himself as Jack Hennessy and ushered them inside the old Art Deco style building. The front doors, fashioned of time-dulled metal and decorated with simple, elegant curves, gave onto a narrow, dingy corridor, the right side of which was lined with mailboxes. The flooring was an indeterminate grey-brown and the walls a shade lighter. Numerous white patches in the right-hand wall showed where deep gouges had been knocked clear through to the powdery interior of the plasterboard.

“What a dump,” Di muttered, screwing up her nose at the musty, unwholesome smell the place gave off.

“You said it,” Honey agreed. “I hope this place has some redeeming features.”

“Just needs this here wall knocked out,” the guard disagreed, in a strong Brooklyn accent. “My grandfather worked in the place when it was a hotel and the way he tells it, it was quite a place back then.” He took the large ring of keys at his waist and fitted one into the first door on the right. “This, here, was the foyer. See, they made it into an apartment, like all the others, but the desk shoulda been right about there.”

Honey turned in a slow circle, squinting, as she examined their surroundings. “Well, I never would have guessed,” she admitted, a moment later. “It just looks like a horrible, old dump to me.”

Di shook her head. “Did you see the window over the front door with the stylised S etched in the glass?” she asked. “It was boarded over from the outside, but when I looked back, I could see it from inside. Or, how about these ceilings? They’ve been ruined by the wall that’s been put in here, but just imagine how they must have looked!”

“Can we look around now?” Trixie asked impatiently. “How about the secret passages that the contractors found?”

“No way, no how.” Honey shook her head vigorously. “I told you that I’m not setting foot in any secret passages and you’re not making me. Why don’t we take a look around the regular parts and when Di and I have left you can spend as much time in the dark as you like.”

Trixie gave in with good grace and led the exploration. They found little to show what the place had once been like. For the most part, it was just another dingy, dirty apartment block in a sad and run-down neighbourhood. By the time the tour was complete, Honey and Di were more than ready to leave. The others saw them into a cab, then returned inside to continue the exploration.

“So, Trix, can we look at one of the passageways that’s on the plan?” Mart asked, eagerly. “Where do we have to go?”

She drew the papers out of the protective cardboard sheaf in which she had been carrying them and she and Mart spread them out on the grimy floor. With an index finger, Trixie traced a path to the nearest known entry-point.

“Here,” she suggested, giving it a tap. “There’s one on this floor, just at the end of the corridor here.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Mart demanded, leading the way.

Trixie scrambled after her brother, and Jack, the security guard, followed behind. With a frown, Trixie stopped and stared at Dan, who was standing still where they had left him. “Are you coming, Dan?”

For a long moment, he did not answer. His sullen expression sent shivers up Trixie’s spine, but she held his gaze. Finally, he nodded and stalked after them without a word. A few minutes later, Trixie and Mart had followed the instructions noted in their paperwork and had successfully opened the secret door. Trixie put her head into the gap and saw that it was not completely dark. Concealed vents let in light, as well as air.

Shining a flashlight all around the space, Trixie decided it was safe to enter, and gingerly stepped inside. Her brother followed close behind, with Dan entering soon afterwards. Whether by accident or design it was unclear, but he moved in the opposite direction to the other two, effectively trapping Trixie between the two men. Jack, as instructed by Mr. Wheeler, stayed in the hallway, watching the entrance to the passage and ensuring that the trio were not inadvertently trapped inside.

“Which way?” Trixie asked, in a low voice. “Left, or right?”

“Left first,” Mart suggested, pointing in the direction that would put him in the lead. “The passage is supposed to end not far from here in that direction. Once we’ve been all the way to the end, we can back-track and try the other way.”

It did not take long to reach the dead-end. Along the way, Dan noted that he could peek through the vents into the adjoining rooms. Mart, if he stood on tip-toes could do the same, but it was too high for Trixie to see.

“Well, that’s it. Turn around, Dan, and we’ll go back,” said Mart, shuffling around in the confined space.

“Hold on a second,” Dan asked. “What’s that?” He played his light on a patch of the rough woodwork, which seemed exactly similar to every other patch.

“What’s what?” Mart shrugged and tried to move away, to be blocked by Trixie.

“Is there something there?” she asked, trying to push past her brother. After a short struggle, she managed it and started to prod at the point Dan had indicated. A moment later, a soft grating sound told them she had found something. A panel of the rough wall swung away with a drawn-out squeak, revealing a narrow staircase that descended into the gloom. Immediately, the background noise increased.

“Secret entrance number one?” Mart suggested. “Shall we explore?”

“Yes!” cried Trixie while, at the same instant, Dan snapped, “No!”

Dan’s voice was louder, and somehow more insistent. “Shut the door. We’re supposed to be staying in the building, remember? Not exploring hidden tunnels to the outside world. You don’t know who’s down there, or what they might do to you.”

“It probably just goes down into the basement,” Trixie disagreed, taking a step downwards. “We should check that out before we jump to any conclusions.”

“Trixie,” Dan warned, with an edge of anger in his tone.

“I’ll just go down and make sure,” she told him, puzzled by his attitude and more than a little put out by it. “I’ll count the stairs as I go and when I get to where the basement should be, I’ll stop if I don’t find it, okay? You coming, Mart?”

“Of course,” her brother replied, following close behind. Together, the two counted their steps as they descended, while Dan waited, scowling, above. The eerie noises lulled, then increased once more. “That’s about far enough,” Mart decided, as they stepped out into a wide, flat area littered with broken chunks of wood and other debris. “Can you see a door anywhere?”

Trixie played her light across one wall, where a doorway appeared to have been boarded over. Just behind them, the rough woodwork of the passageway ended, replaced by a smooth, hard surface. “I guess it must have connected to the basement, once,” she mused, tapping around for another way through. “The passage is much wider here, but the stairs keep on going down. Maybe it comes out somewhere else? The basement of the next building, maybe? Or, could there be a sub-basement?”

“You coming back up, yet?” Dan’s voice sounded strange and hollow in the confined space.

“Come on, Trix. There’s no way through here. We’d better get back.”

Reluctantly, she agreed and followed him up the stairs to where Dan waited. “I think we should find out where it goes,” she reasoned when the three met. “It doesn’t seem dangerous down there. It sounds kind of weird, but I think it’s just the noise of the traffic above echoing through a vent somewhere. I don’t really think there’d be anyone else down there.”

“You think?” Dan was unconvinced. “Come on. Shut the door and let’s go back the other way. You don’t want to go down there. You don’t know what you’d be getting yourself into – and I can just about guarantee it wouldn’t be pleasant.”

Trixie was just about to argue when her light caught the expression on Dan’s face. A chill ran up her spine and she slowly did as she was bid. She followed the other two back to their entry point and they continued past it into the depths of the building. The passage turned to the left a little way after they passed the entrance and they came, once more, to a blind end.

“What’s that, there?” Dan asked, shining his light on another spot which seemed exactly like any other. Without waiting for comment, he reached out and did something to the place, opening another door. This time, the narrow staircase revealed led upwards. Dan stepped through and started climbing.

“What happened to not exploring?” Trixie demanded, from the rear. “When we found the other door, you said we couldn’t use it. You didn’t even want me to see if it connected to the basement.”

“This goes further inside, not outside,” Dan explained, his voice becoming fainter as he climbed. “It’s completely different.”

Shaking her head in disbelief at what she considered a blatant double standard, Trixie followed behind. At the top of the flight another concealed door opened into a passage just like the one they had encountered below. This, also, wound through the hollow walls of the old hotel, while vents allowed a view into the empty rooms and hallways.

Dan found another concealed door and the trio ascended to the next floor. Shortly afterward, he opened a door into the hallway, but closed it again to continue through the secret passageway. The pattern repeated until they emerged into a hallway at the very top of the building. Trixie, by now, was eyeing her friend with suspicion – especially since the hidden catches were not always in the same place, but he had gone straight to each one. Once out in the light, Dan kept his back turned to her, if at all possible, and avoided her gaze.

“You seem to have a knack for finding those doors,” Trixie noted, with a certain sharpness to her tone. “Almost as if you knew where to look and what to look for.”

Wordlessly, Dan shrugged and set out for the regular stairs. Brother and sister followed him, both filled with curiosity.

“I think an explanation is in order,” Mart added, catching his friend by the arm. “You said you’d been here before. Did that include the secret passages?”

Dan ignored the question and walked faster. Instead of continuing down the stairs, he stalked along one of the corridors until he came to a door. Banging it with his fist, he explained, “We lived here after my Dad died.” His face twisted with bitterness. “Beyond that, don’t ask.”

A few minutes later in the foyer, Trixie’s spirits lifted slightly at the look of surprise on Jack’s face. “You must have found a way upstairs, then,” he muttered. “So, where next?”

“Can you open one of these doors, please?” Trixie asked, before anyone else could speak. “I need to make some notes of what we found and it would be easier if I had somewhere to lean – say, a kitchen counter?”

“This, here, was the super’s apartment, I think,” their guide explained, fitting a key into the lock and throwing open the door. “Try this one.”

Trixie thanked him and found a place to lay her plans. With quick pencil marks, she added the extra features Dan had shown them. As she worked, Dan stared over her shoulder at the plans.

“Are we here?” he asked suddenly, jabbing a spot on the diagram.

“That’s right,” Trixie answered, eyeing him with surprise. There was a subtle change in his attitude which she did not understand.

“And that’s another secret passage?” His large index finger tapped at a marking on the plan, not far from the place they stood. “I want to see that one.”

The previous procedure was repeated, this time with Dan storming ahead. He made short work of the hidden doors, so similar to those they had previously encountered, only pausing occasionally to check they were still headed the right way. Unlike the other passage, which was quite simple, this one branched, seemingly in all directions. In minutes, Trixie calculated that they were on the floor where Dan had once lived. He stopped, perhaps to get his bearings, then slowly and carefully explored the passage. At each vent, he stopped and stared through the gap. Finally, he came to a complete halt. Uncomfortably crouching, he examined something at his feet, then took in the view through the accompanying vent.

“I just knew it!” he cried, his voice loud in the enclosed space. “The creep!” His fist pounded the wall, sending a shower of dust over the three.

Trixie pushed her brother aside to go to him, almost tripping over something on the floor which stretched more than half the width of the passage. “What’s this?” she wondered aloud, exploring the hard, square-edged object with her foot and shining her light straight downwards. “A block of wood?” Playing her light up the wall, she noted some strange marks between the vent and the block of wood. She stepped onto it and found she could see through the slits into the room beyond. The reason for Dan’s anger leapt to her mind. “Your old apartment?”

“Yeah,” he replied, shortly. He thumped the wall once more, dislodging more dust. “I guess that explains how he knew so much about us, too. He was probably in here, listening to us talk.”

“That is creepy,” Trixie murmured. “So, you didn’t know this was here when you lived here?”

“I kind of wondered,” Dan admitted. Begrudgingly, he added, “I knew about the other passageway – the one we were in before. I guessed there might be one that went past our room, I searched for it, too, but never found it. I guess that creep of a super must have made sure the only door was in his apartment.”

There was a silence, finally broken by Mart. “What now?”

“We continue up to the top of the building,” Dan muttered, “check out any other entrances and exits, then head back to the place we came in. This should cover all the unaccounted-for space, shouldn’t it?”

Trixie shook her head. “There’s still two more gaps, plus the thing with the basement. I’ll show you on the plan once we get back.”

Half an hour later, they emerged at their starting point, having been unable to find any other way out of the passageway. Dan’s suggestion had been borne out by evidence that several other entrances had been nailed up. Trixie was raring to get going once more, but her companions had other ideas.

“Let’s break for lunch,” Mart suggested, with a hint of a whine. “I’m hot and dusty and I’ve had enough secret passages for the morning.”

“I could do with a break, too,” Dan agreed, as she seemed ready to argue. “Look over your plans while we eat, Trix. It’ll save time when we go back.”

“I guess we could,” she admitted. “Who’s going to call?”

“I will,” Mart replied, snatching the phone from her and jabbing at the buttons. In moments, he was in conversation with Honey, and making arrangements to meet her and Diana for their meal.

After vigorously shaking the dust from her hair, Trixie pulled out a packet of pre-moistened wipes, which she, Mart and Dan used to clean all of their exposed skin. In a few minutes, the three were as presentable as they could make themselves. Bidding their protector good-bye, they headed outside to await the cab that Mart had ordered, and eventually arrived at a small, but clean, café in a slightly better neighbourhood nearby.

“I am so glad that I decided not to go with you,” Di remarked, when the two groups met inside. “You all look filthy and tired and peeved!”

“All that,” Dan agreed, softly. He sank into a chair right in the corner of the room and began to brood.

Their orders placed, Trixie spread the plans out once more and began to talk her friends through their findings. “So, we’ve just got a few more things to find,” she concluded. “There’s a small space unaccounted for on the first floor – here,” her pencil tapped the place. “The people who made the plans thought it must connect to the first secret passage we were in this morning, but they couldn’t find an opening. Then they thought it might have been part of an old elevator shaft and that on the upper floors it had been demolished, but they found the old service elevator shaft somewhere else.”

“That building sure could use an elevator,” Di commented, with a shudder. “I’d hate to live on the sixth floor and have to cart all my groceries up those stairs every week!”

Honey took a sip of her drink, which had just arrived. “It used have one, but the previous owners refused to spend the money to maintain it so it can’t be used any more. Look – it’s marked here on the plans, and I think I remember seeing the place it was, all boarded over.”

“And what about this?” Mart asked, pointing to a shaded area on the plan.

“I was getting to that,” Trixie chastised. “That’s one of the other things we need to take a look at. That’s the plan of the basement, and it doesn’t seem to match the shape of the rest of the building, so there just might be a room or two hidden down there. The last thing to look at isn’t a potential passage or room – it’s this little space, which the contractor apparently suggested might be a concealed safe.”

“Well, I vote for the basement first,” Mart decided, giving its plan a little tap. “That bricked-up doorway we found must have led somewhere and, by my calculations, it’s a long way from the end wall that’s marked here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” his sister agreed.

Within an hour, the three explorers were back inside the old hotel, going over the furthest extent of the basement for clues. At one end was a laundry room, damp and dusty from years of neglect. Adjacent to it was a stretch of corridor used by the management as a dumping ground. The walls there were difficult to get near and the trio soon gave up and moved along.

The next area was almost as hopeless, as it contained the base of the stairwell, the boarded-over elevator and a locked access point to the elevator’s workings. The rest of the boundary wall lay along one side of another dingy corridor, with rows of apartment doors opposite. Its surface of rendered masonry offered no clues, even though they went over it twice. The dark, dirty conditions were discouraging, and their lack of success soon sapped their energy. After a long and fruitless search, Mart called a halt.

“We’re not getting anywhere here,” he pointed out, shoving aside a beaten-up old cardboard box and sinking down onto the bottom step of the staircase. “Where are those plans, Trix? I think we need to try something different.”

Trixie handed him the cylinder and he spent a few minutes frowning over the diagrams, flicking from one sheet to another. “Ah!” he breathed, as enlightenment suffused his face. “I think I get it now.”

Without another word, he headed upstairs. Trixie and Dan followed, up to street level, waited while Mart explained to Jack which door he wanted opened, and then entered another dingy apartment. The security guard took the opportunity to take a walk along the hallway. Pulling out the tape measure they had brought, Mart made some measurements and frowned in discouragement at their result. The exact area of wall he sought was hidden behind an upright oven and stove unit.

“I guess this is why they couldn’t get into the empty space here,” he muttered, dejectedly. “I was kind of thinking maybe it was a staircase after all – going down into the basement, but on the other side of the wall we were searching. I don’t suppose we’ll find out, now.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But, then, maybe we can still get in. Help me pull the stove out and we’ll see.”

“You can’t pull that out,” Mart objected. “Isn’t it joined to the wall?”

His sister shrugged. “There should be enough cable to pull it a little way.” She put her hands to the sides of the greasy, old appliance and pulled. “See, it’s moving, but it’s hard to get a grip because it’s so dirty.”

Between the three, they managed to shift the stove until its back edge was level with the front of the adjoining counter. Dan peered over the top to find out which side the cable attached, then they angled the unit to one side. In a flash, Trixie was behind the stove, searching the wall.

“So,” she mused, having been unable to find anything, “do you think Mr. Wheeler would mind if I pulled off some of this panelling? I think it’s covering the door.” She put her fingers under the loose edge of the yellowed laminate and wiggled. The sheet made a sharp crackling noise and a shower of dirt fell down from behind it.

“Nah,” Dan decided. “You’d be doing him a favour.”

Reaching across, his fingers joined hers and soon the ugly sheet was lying on the floor. In a moment, Trixie had found the edges of the hidden door. The three crowded into the small, grimy space to put their combined weight to the task of getting the long-neglected door open. It gave way all of a sudden, opening inward with a rush that sent Trixie down on her knees inside the opening. Beyond her, a narrow staircase wound downwards.

“We’ve found it!” she cried, scrambling to her feet and starting downwards without a thought of the promises she had made. “I bet this goes down to the hidden part of the basement.”

“Hold on,” Dan demanded, surprising a frown onto her face. “Let me get Jack before you do anything rash.”

Trixie shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she impatiently waited. By the time they were ready to enter, she was just about ready to burst. Her temper almost got the better of her when Dan calmly informed her that he was going first.

“But why?” she exploded. “It’s just the basement. Who could possibly be down there?”

“Whoever they are, they wouldn’t want you investigating them,” Dan pointed out. “Humour me, okay?”

Reluctantly, she agreed. They descended slowly, pausing every few steps to listen but catching no clue that they were not alone. Unlike the other passages they had used, the walls here were finished. Yellowed paint peeled from the walls; a wooden hand-rail still showed signs of its original varnish. Underfoot, the wooden stair treads were grey with dust. To all appearances, this tunnel had been unused for many years.

The stairs ended and the trio came to a halt, with Dan standing on the lowest step and the other two crowded close behind him. A soft sound, like the whisper of cloth against cloth, and a half-perceived flash of movement caused them to freeze. Dan shone his light slowly from side to side across the space to reveal a wide room, almost devoid of contents. The thick layer of dust across the floor showed no sign of disturbance.

“No one’s been here for years,” Trixie pointed out in a soft, awed voice. “Just look at the dust.”

Along one side of the room was a bar, its top appearing to have been made of a huge slab of wood. Behind it, an old-fashioned sink still remained, but most of the smaller items had been removed. Over Dan’s shoulder, Trixie shone her light up to the Art Deco chandeliers, which threw glittering spots of light right across the room despite their coating of dust, and across to a raised stage area opposite the bar.

“This must have been a speakeasy!” she deduced with a gasp. She peered around herself, gently pushing past Dan to explore the room. He caught her arm to stop her.

“Don’t,” he said, gently. “Let’s leave it undisturbed for a little longer.”

“At least let me get some shots.” Mart pulled out his camera and a small, folding tripod and asked the other two to step aside.

The room’s original state recorded to the best of Mart’s ability, they began to explore. In minutes, trails of footprints crossed and re-crossed the dusty floor. Very little remained in the secret room and soon the three had seen all they could, from the space behind the bar to the two tiny dressing rooms beside the stage.

“I guess it must have been built this way, as part of the original building,” Trixie decided, giving the bar a tap. “They mustn’t have been able to get these last few things out when Prohibition ended – though, there must have been some reason why they didn’t convert it into something else… a regular bar, a restaurant…”

“Then they bricked up the escape route and forgot about it.” Mart pointed to the other side of the doorway they had seen earlier. “When the hotel was converted to apartments, the entrance inside was blocked off, too.”

“There’s another bricked-up doorway over there,” Trixie noted, pointing to the wall next to the bar. “I bet they had a couple of ways out, but there aren’t any now.”

Dan stood in the middle of the dusty stage, a meditative look on his face. “There’s a story about this place, you know,” he told them. “A ghost story.”

Trixie had been heading for the stairs, but she stopped and stared at him. “You mean about this room?”

He nodded. “I never really believed it was here. I thought it was just something to explain the weird sounds – the cries you sometimes hear, and sounds inside the walls – and the creepy feeling some people get, but maybe there’s something to it after all.” He dropped his voice until it was barely above a whisper. “Story goes, during Prohibition, the hotel was owned by a man who ran a secret club down in the basement, with dancing girls and the whole deal. One night after closing, he asked one of the dancers to stay behind and she was never seen again. No one saw her leave, but no one could find her body inside, either. A lot of people thought the owner had killed her and hidden the body in a secret room, but there never was any evidence.”

“And she’s haunted the place ever since?” Trixie asked.

“So they say,” Dan replied with a shrug. “Back then, she was supposed to just move things and cry out in the night.”

Mart shook his head in disbelief, but Trixie jumped onto a certain turn of phrase Dan had used. “Back then? You mean, it’s supposed to be different now?”

“There’s more to the story,” he told them. “About twenty years later, he tried the same thing with another girl who looked just like the first one, but as soon as he touched her arm he got this look of horror on his face and he dropped dead on the spot – the exact same place where the first girl had died. Ever since he died, they say that late at night sometimes you can hear her cries for help, following by the scraping sound he made shutting a secret panel.”

“That’s probably just rats,” Mart objected, in an attempt to break the spell. “And the moaning is echoes carried through all these secret passageways.”

Dan remained serious. “I didn’t say moans, I said cries. And what would you know about it? You never lived here. Sounds don’t carry through the secret passages that much – the doors deaden all the sound from everywhere except your own floor.” He paused a moment. “Some people say it’s not the cries and the scraping noise she causes, but that late at night you can hear her singing something sad and slow. I heard her once, in the passageway you two went down earlier, that I told you not to. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life.”

Trixie shivered. “I’m sure Mr. Wheeler would like to hear the story.” She sighed in satisfaction and turned towards the stairs. “Well, let’s go and see if we can find the safe, or whatever it is. I don’t think there’s anything more to do here.”

Her foot was on the second step when she heard a soft thud, closely followed by a grating sound, like two hard surfaces meeting with a little grit in between. Trixie stopped short and turned on her brother. “Enough with the ghost noises,” she snapped.

He held up his hands in innocence. “It wasn’t me; I swear. Dan?”

The other man shook his head and started up the stairs. “This building’s like that. Weird noises everywhere you go.”

Returning to the slightly-wrecked kitchen, they made their way through the building to the last mystery identified by the professionals. Repeating the procedure they had previously used, they soon found the correct place, this time obscured by fake wood panelling.

“You going to do a little more demolition?” Dan asked, with a smile.

“I don’t see why not.” Trixie grinned in return.

She found a loose edge and pulled. The panelling had been adhered over a layer of old wallpaper and soon parted company with the wall. Muttering to herself, Trixie located the hiding place and scored around its edges with a fragment of the panelling, but no amount of manipulation would open it.

“You must be doing something wrong,” Mart accused, trying to push her out of the way. “Here, let me have a go.”

“It must have been glued shut with the wallpaper,” Dan argued. He gave the wall a couple of violent shoves, which had no effect.

While the two men pushed, shoved and thumped on the panel, Trixie stepped back and gave the matter some thought. “Excuse me,” she asked, a little later. Frowning, the other two stepped aside. Feeling along underneath, Trixie found what she was looking for and slid the whole panel upwards, just as she had years ago in a very different setting.

“I should have thought of that,” Mart muttered, smacking himself on the head.

Dan, on the other hand, was too engrossed by the revealed cavity to comment on its mode of discovery. Contrary to expectation, the panel did not conceal a safe. Perhaps it had, once, for there was ample room for one of reasonable size. If so, it had been removed at some point and the space filled with shelves. Reclining on the uppermost one was the stylised figure of a woman, worked in some cool, smooth, white substance and marred with layers of dust. Below, untidy piles of papers and books showed the signs of the years that had passed since they were last touched.

“Why would anyone want to hide stuff like this?” Mart asked, with furrowed brow. He selected a thin book – its cover marred by insects and the edges of its pages stained yellow and brown – and opened it at random. He was faced with column after column of hand-written figures, the ink faded with time. “Why is this here? Who hides the accounts in a secret hiding place?”

Trixie looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “Maybe he was cooking the books and these ones told him where the money really was. If he was doing illegal trade, there must have been some money-laundering happening to cover up.” She took the book from her brother’s hand and replaced it on the shelf. “Well, maybe Mr. Wheeler will be interested in those, but I doubt it, somehow.”

She pulled down the panel and glanced at her watch. “I just have one more thing I want to look at before I go. I won’t be a minute. You two can wait near the door for me.”

Without waiting for an answer, she was off up the stairs. Glancing quickly over her shoulder to make sure they had not followed, Trixie opened a doorway into one of the secret passages and pulled it closed behind herself. Almost immediately, an eerie noise surrounded her, like a long, mournful moan. It sent a shiver up her spine, but she did not have time to waste on fear. Her steps were quick and light as she made her way back downstairs, along the twisting corridor to the hidden stairway they had originally found. She was half-way to the boarded-over doorway when she heard the sound of pursuit. Quickening her steps, she passed the place where she and Mart had turned back and continued downwards.

“Trixie?” she heard Dan call, while his heavy footsteps kept approaching. “You stop now, okay?”

“Rats!” she whispered to herself, redoubling her efforts. She could see the end of the stairway just ahead, and a heavy metal door about half as wide as the broad passage through which she ran.

“Trixie?” Dan called once more. “I mean it.”

She stopped on the bottom step, tried the door and was surprised to find that it opened, revealing a blackness beyond which suggested a large space. Where am I? she wondered. This can’t be the basement of the next building; it feels too big. She swung the light around wildly to get her bearings as the door closed with a reverberant clang. She was standing at the end of a long corridor, edged on the right by balustrade and with a set of stairs stretching downwards to her right. Barely hesitating, she chose to take the stairs and ducked around a corner at the bottom to find herself in a dead-end. A newer-looking metal staircase in front of her was completely encased in metal cages and offered no way out. In its shadow, a funny little niche was recessed in the wall, holding a piece of broken equipment. Seeing no other hiding-place, Trixie switched off her flashlight and stepped into the gap.

Dan must have paused in his pursuit, for it was only after she had chosen this course of action that the door reopened, squeaking softly. She heard him mutter something under his breath, the actual words lost in the distance, but the exasperation quite plain. Slowly, carefully, he played the light around the room. Smooth tiles covered the walls, while the floor was perhaps concrete. Most of the ceiling was invisible in the gloom, but in places vast girders came into view. To one side, the floor abruptly ended, seeming to drop to a lower level only to reappear a short distance away. In several places further passageways were visible, leading away into the darkness. With a jolt, Trixie knew where she was. A subway tunnel? I didn’t know there was one so close.

“Trixie,” Dan called. “You’d better come back up here right now. If I let go of this door, it will lock behind me and we’ll both have to find another way out.”

Reluctantly, she had to admit that did not sound attractive. Stepping out from her hiding-place, she walked forward until she could see him. The light shining in her face prevented her from seeing anything of Dan’s expression, but she could feel some strong emotion radiating from him.

“I just want to take a little look around,” she told him. “I won’t be long.”

“No. It’s too dangerous. You’re coming with me.”

Temper flaring once more, Trixie stamped her foot in anger. “I won’t be long,” she repeated.

The light dipped downwards, allowing Trixie to see a matching flash of temper cross Dan’s face and disappear into the blackness as he switched off his flashlight. While still fumbling for the switch of hers, Trixie heard the metal door slam with another resounding clang. She managed to get her light on, but Dan was nowhere to be seen. Returning to the door, she rattled the handle and found to her horror that he was right: the door was locked.