origin or cause. This is a single, large room. There are no doors other than the secret back entrance, and another directly in front of him, which must lead up a staircase to The World’s End.
I can’t go up there
. The walls are made of stone: they are basement structures, thick and certainly forming the foundation of the building. The cough comes a third time. It is as if there is someone … or something …
inside
the wall!
Sherlock takes a chance and lights his candle, gambling that the sound of the igniting Lucifer won’t be heard through the wall. He examines the shelves in front of him. They are filled with books. He scans them, noting the titles on the spines. The boy isn’t impressed. There are no Dickens novels, no Eliot, no Collins, no Virgil, no Greek myths or Shakespeare. Instead, they are about magic, or thin biographies and gossip about current stars of the stage, the circus, and sporting endeavors. But one title stops him.
The Existence of Dragons
. It is the thickest of all the volumes. He plucks it out, sets the candle down on the floor and turns to the first page. It is blank. He flips through the book.
That’s strange. Why is every page blank?
He stands up and replaces the book. The cough comes again, right in front of him … most definitely on the other side of the wall. He pulls the dragon book out again, holds the candle up and looks at the surface behind the shelf. There is an indentation there, a large, round indentation, and there is something not quite right about the wall surrounding it. He touches it.
It doesn’t feel like stone
. It is made of some sort of imitation material. He presses on the indentation. Nothing happens. He braceshimself against the bookcase and presses with all his might. He hears something, a sort of rumbling … a few strides to his left. He steps that way and sees a foot-and-a-half of space between the shelves.
The wall behind it is moving!
Sherlock darts into the space and through the opening. It slams shut behind him. He turns and searches along the imitation stone, but it’s sealed up again. Immediately, heavy breathing drifts through the dank air, and then the cough. It’s directly behind him. Clutching the blade inside his coat, he swings around and flashes the light toward it.
There!
A figure in a dark coat is blowing out a small candle on a table, rising from a chair and beginning to run away. It isn’t the keeper. Sherlock pursues it.
“You! … Scotland Yard!”
The boy is quickly aware that he is in a surprisingly large room, even bigger than the main part of the basement he has just come from. Here, unlike in the other space, the shelves are crammed full with tools of the magic trade — top hats, wands, shiny clothes, wigs, cages, cartons of cards, and caskets for body-severing tricks. They are piled high along all the walls. Sherlock recognizes many of the things that Nottingham used in his act.
The figure keeps fleeing. It seems to know where it is going. Holding up his candle, Sherlock can see a huge opening in the wall in the direction they are running, and what appear to be stairs descending from there.
Descending? To where? Another, deeper chamber?
The man stops suddenly. He hesitates. Then he turns to face Sherlock.
“So sorry,” he says in a German accent, “I should not be rushing off, but you startled me. Vhat do you vant? Vhy are you here?” He coughs again. It sounds a little forced. “Excuse me, I always cough in enclosed spaces.”
Before the boy stands a man in a long black greatcoat, so long it almost reaches the ground. He wears a black felt hat, pulled down almost to his brow, below which two dark eyes look out from a face full of whiskers. His black hair falls almost to his shoulders. Other than those eyes and a big, unusually hooked nose, his face is mostly hair.
About sixty years old, hiding something
.
“Who are you?” gulps Sherlock.
“It only seems right zat you should answer ze question first,
I can’t go up there
. The walls are made of stone: they are basement structures, thick and certainly forming the foundation of the building. The cough comes a third time. It is as if there is someone … or something …
inside
the wall!
Sherlock takes a chance and lights his candle, gambling that the sound of the igniting Lucifer won’t be heard through the wall. He examines the shelves in front of him. They are filled with books. He scans them, noting the titles on the spines. The boy isn’t impressed. There are no Dickens novels, no Eliot, no Collins, no Virgil, no Greek myths or Shakespeare. Instead, they are about magic, or thin biographies and gossip about current stars of the stage, the circus, and sporting endeavors. But one title stops him.
The Existence of Dragons
. It is the thickest of all the volumes. He plucks it out, sets the candle down on the floor and turns to the first page. It is blank. He flips through the book.
That’s strange. Why is every page blank?
He stands up and replaces the book. The cough comes again, right in front of him … most definitely on the other side of the wall. He pulls the dragon book out again, holds the candle up and looks at the surface behind the shelf. There is an indentation there, a large, round indentation, and there is something not quite right about the wall surrounding it. He touches it.
It doesn’t feel like stone
. It is made of some sort of imitation material. He presses on the indentation. Nothing happens. He braceshimself against the bookcase and presses with all his might. He hears something, a sort of rumbling … a few strides to his left. He steps that way and sees a foot-and-a-half of space between the shelves.
The wall behind it is moving!
Sherlock darts into the space and through the opening. It slams shut behind him. He turns and searches along the imitation stone, but it’s sealed up again. Immediately, heavy breathing drifts through the dank air, and then the cough. It’s directly behind him. Clutching the blade inside his coat, he swings around and flashes the light toward it.
There!
A figure in a dark coat is blowing out a small candle on a table, rising from a chair and beginning to run away. It isn’t the keeper. Sherlock pursues it.
“You! … Scotland Yard!”
The boy is quickly aware that he is in a surprisingly large room, even bigger than the main part of the basement he has just come from. Here, unlike in the other space, the shelves are crammed full with tools of the magic trade — top hats, wands, shiny clothes, wigs, cages, cartons of cards, and caskets for body-severing tricks. They are piled high along all the walls. Sherlock recognizes many of the things that Nottingham used in his act.
The figure keeps fleeing. It seems to know where it is going. Holding up his candle, Sherlock can see a huge opening in the wall in the direction they are running, and what appear to be stairs descending from there.
Descending? To where? Another, deeper chamber?
The man stops suddenly. He hesitates. Then he turns to face Sherlock.
“So sorry,” he says in a German accent, “I should not be rushing off, but you startled me. Vhat do you vant? Vhy are you here?” He coughs again. It sounds a little forced. “Excuse me, I always cough in enclosed spaces.”
Before the boy stands a man in a long black greatcoat, so long it almost reaches the ground. He wears a black felt hat, pulled down almost to his brow, below which two dark eyes look out from a face full of whiskers. His black hair falls almost to his shoulders. Other than those eyes and a big, unusually hooked nose, his face is mostly hair.
About sixty years old, hiding something
.
“Who are you?” gulps Sherlock.
“It only seems right zat you should answer ze question first,
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