The Billionaire’s Curse (11 page)

G
erald, Sam, and Ruby landed in a knot of arms and legs and bounced onto a thick mat with a chest-flattening “oof.” A rectangle of light from the Reading Room alcove above disappeared as the trapdoor swung back into place. They were left in absolute darkness.

“You all right?” Gerald grunted, shoving what he guessed was Sam’s knee off his face. He elbowed himself into a sitting position and blinked hard. No good. Couldn’t see a thing.

Muffled grumbles on either side of him suggested Sam and Ruby were okay.

“I guess this is how the thief got out of the Reading Room, then,” Ruby’s voice came out of the darkness. “Where are we?”

“Dunno,” Sam said. Gerald could hear him patting about with his hands. “I can’t see a thing.”

Sam’s attempts at discovery continued for a while, then he called out, “Hold on! I think I’ve got something.”

The blackness was broken by a spark and the smell of burning sulfur. A small flame appeared, illuminating Sam’s face.

“Found some matches,” he said. “And a half pack of Dunhills—looks like our thief is a smoker.” The match burned out and they were thrown back into darkness.

Another match ignited. Gerald could make out the vague shape of Sam’s head in the distance.

“Well, hel-loo,” Sam murmured, “what do we have here? Ow!” The match extinguished, and the darkness engulfed them again.

“What is it?” Ruby asked.

Her face was suddenly lit up. She shielded her eyes. “Hey!”

“Ta-dah!” Sam cried. He emerged out of the murk with a flashlight strapped to his head. “Found this on the ground.”

“What is it?” Gerald asked.

“It’s a headlamp,” Sam said.

He moved his head and the flashlight beam shone around the room, like a slow-turning lighthouse. They had landed on a large padded mat, the type used in school gyms. They were in an open space that disappeared in all directions into the darkness. To one side, near the mat, a bank of scaffolding stretched up toward the trapdoor.

“Here,” Sam said to Gerald. “Steady this and I’ll climb up for a look.”

Gerald and Ruby grabbed hold of the lower sections of scaffold as Sam clambered his way toward the top.

“What do you see?” Gerald called up. The light from the flashlight bounced around the dusty ceiling.

Sam’s voice came back to them, “There’s some rope and pulleys and an electric winch. But I can’t see how to open the trapdoor. I don’t think we’re getting out this way.”

He climbed back down and jumped the last section to rejoin Gerald and Ruby. In the light from the flashlight they could see the floor was littered with food wrappers, drink containers, and cigarette packets, as well as a few candle stubs. A pile of discarded teabags lay by a small camp stove.

“Here, give me the matches,” Gerald said to Sam, and he lit a candle, standing it upright in a plastic cup. “I’d say they were down here for a while. Look at all this rubbish.”

“I’ll take a look over there,” Sam said, and headed off into the darkness.

Ruby took the matchbook from Gerald and flipped it over. A single letter on each side—a large
R
in a deep russet red—was the only marking.

“You don’t think the thin man might be lurking down here?” Ruby asked, keeping close behind Gerald as he poked about.

“I doubt it,” Gerald said. “There’s not much at all down—”

A shriek cut through the shadows. The light from Sam’s head flashlight suddenly disappeared, leaving Gerald’s candle emitting a pathetic glow.

“Sam!” Ruby called out. “Are you all right?” She grabbed the candle and moved in the direction of Sam’s cry.

She stumbled a few steps, then a light flickered on and she found herself just inches from an enormous white face. Her mouth opened in a piercing scream.

Gerald caught up and grabbed Ruby by the arm. “What’s the matter? What is it?”

Ruby opened her eyes to find Sam looking sheepish, his headlamp shining on the face of a large statue.

“I think I found the professor’s elephant,” he said.

The elephant rested on a wooden cargo pallet, its proud features looking out of place in the dank surrounds.

“You idiot!” Ruby said.

Gerald snorted. “You two like screaming, don’t you?”

Ruby snatched the flashlight from Sam’s head. “I’ll be in charge of lighting from now on,” she said. She shone the lamp onto the statue and bent down to pick up a small brass plaque. “‘Ganesha—one of the most revered of Hindu gods,’” Ruby read. “‘Few major tasks are undertaken in India without first making an offering to Ganesha.’”

“Hey, look at this,” Gerald said. A forklift was parked behind the statue.

“That must be how they did the switch,” Ruby said. “Winch, ropes, forklift: They came prepared.”

“What makes you think it was more than one person, genius?” Sam said, still smarting after being called an idiot.

“You heard the professor,” Ruby said. “This statue weighs over a ton. It would take at least two people to maneuver it, even with a forklift. And how about getting the fake elephant up into the museum? How do you think a guy hiding inside a statue is going to operate a forklift or a winch, genius?”

Sam bristled. “Cretin!”

“Imbecile!”

“Hey, I’m two minutes older than you, moron!”

Gerald intervened. “Hold on, you two. Let’s concentrate on how we get out of here first. Then you can argue about how many people it takes to corral a marble elephant.”

Sam said something about stupid sisters and Ruby spat back a “What did you say?” But then they settled down and listened to Gerald.

“Okay. If they got into the museum from down here, there must be a way out from here as well. Light another candle and we’ll have a proper look around. There must be some stairs up to the street.”

Ruby picked up the longest candle stub she could find and lit it from Gerald’s flame.

“Here,” she said to Sam, handing him the candle, “do you think you can look after this without hurting yourself?” Then, under her breath, “Poltroon.”

They made their way deeper into the darkness.

“So what is this place?” Sam said.

“Some sort of cellar, maybe?” Gerald said.

“Must be the world’s biggest cellar—seems to go on for miles.”

“And what’s that smell?”

The air around them was heavy with a metallic tang.

“Dunno,” Ruby said. “But it reminds me of something.”

They padded along in the darkness. On one side they could just make out a gray-tiled wall. The sound of dripping water came from somewhere in the distance. They walked for what seemed an age, following bends and twists in the never-ending blackness.

“Wait up!” Sam said suddenly. “Check this out.”

“What is it?” Gerald asked.

“My candle. Look.”

The flame was flickering.

“See! It’s moving, like something’s blowing it,” he said. “There must be some air getting in. That means a door or window or something.”

“And a way out!” Ruby said. “Maybe you’re not such a numbnut after all.”

Sam ignored her. “Come on, follow me.”

He disappeared around a bend, leaving Ruby and Gerald struggling to keep up.

“Sam!” Ruby called out. “Slow down. We can’t see you.”

Sam’s voice came back: “Come on, you two. The breeze is stronger here. We must be near a—damn!”

Ruby looked at Gerald.

“Sam? What is it?” she called.

“My candle’s blown out. Hurry up. I can’t see any—ouch!”

“Now what?”

“I’ve fallen into a ditch or something,” Sam’s voice echoed back. “And onto some sharp rocks.”

“Just stay where you are, you moron.”

Ruby grabbed Gerald’s hand. “Come on, before the idiot does himself any more damage.”

Then, in the distance, came a screech of metal grinding metal.

Ruby came to a halt. “What was that?”

“Dunno. But it came from over there.” Gerald pointed toward where Sam had disappeared. The metallic shriek tore through the darkness again, this time much closer.

“Come on!” Gerald shouted, hauling Ruby along. The screeching seemed to grow out of the blackness. They rounded a corner and by the light of Ruby’s lamp caught sight of the top of Sam’s head. He was sitting in a trench about three feet deep, dazed and with his hands on his knees. The metallic howl now surrounded them, tearing at their ears. The beam from Ruby’s flashlight was just enough to light Sam’s face—a thin trickle of blood ran down his forehead. He tried to stand, but wobbled and flopped onto his backside.

A spotlight suddenly filled the void, blinding them. Sam was silhouetted, like a rabbit in a searchlight. Gerald looked in disbelief. A train had appeared from around a corner in the darkness and was bearing down on Sam.

The candle tumbled from Gerald’s hand as he dived headlong across the concrete floor, his chest skidding out over the edge of the platform. He lunged down and grabbed Sam by the collar, his fingers gripping whatever cloth they could find. Hauling with all his strength, Gerald screamed at the searing pain in his shoulder. He rolled Sam up and over the edge, wrapping him in his arms a split second before the train hurtled past, inches from their heads. They could make out the faces of commuters in the train’s carriages as they flickered past.

The train shot by them. A pale red light on the last carriage disappeared around a bend, returning them to darkness and quiet.

Sam and Gerald lay on the cold floor.

“You all right?” Gerald asked.

“Yeah,” Sam panted. “Th-that was a bit close. Thanks.”

Ruby appeared out of the darkness and dropped to her knees to hug her brother. She held him for a full minute, not saying a word.

Sam broke the silence. “Why is there a train in a cellar under the British Museum?”

Ruby swung the torch around. The beam picked out a row of bench seats along a wall, and some yellowed posters peeling at the corners.

“It isn’t a cellar,” she said. “It’s a Tube station—it must have once operated under the museum.”

“A ghost station,” Sam said.

“Tube?” Gerald asked.

“London’s underground trains,” Ruby said. “That’s what that smell is—the whole underground reeks of it. Like a mix of grease and metal shavings. There’s a few abandoned Tube stations; I think some of them were used as air-raid shelters during the Blitz and then never opened up again.”

She inspected the cut on Sam’s head.

“You’ll live. Come on. If this is the station platform, there must be an exit somewhere.”

At the end of the platform Ruby saw a dusty exit sign pointing up a set of stairs. A long corridor sloped up to a pair of old wooden doors.

They tumbled into the daylight and fresh air, and found themselves in a narrow cobbled alley lined with tall buildings. Gerald shut the doors. They were covered in years of grime and disuse. There was no sign that they led to a station below.

“It doesn’t look like these get opened every day,” he said.

Ruby peered at the buildings around them. Only a few small windows faced onto the lane where they stood.

“Easy enough to smuggle a statue in here in the middle of the night,” she said. “Even an elephant. There wouldn’t be anyone around.”

Sam dusted the last bits of gravel and muck off his jeans and touched the lump that was forming on his forehead.

“Okay, we’ve found out how they did it,” he said. “Now what? We’re not any closer to figuring out who it was or how it ties in with Gerald’s great-aunt or that thin guy.”

“Well, if the thieves came out here, maybe they didn’t travel very far,” Ruby said.

“Are you kidding?” Sam said. “There would’ve been a car ready to take them straight to the airport. They could be anywhere in the world by now.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ruby said, deflated.

“Come on,” Gerald said. “Let’s find out where we are.”

They wandered up the alley until it opened out onto a smart residential street.

“We can’t be too far from the museum,” Ruby said. “But some of these roads wind around a bit. It’s easy to get lost.”

Sam groaned. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “My feet are killing me and I’m starving. I vote we find something to eat.”

“Okay, let’s get some lunch,” Gerald said. He pointed to the end of a row of terrace houses. “Seems to be a lot of people up that way. Maybe there’s some shops.”

They’d only gone half a block when Sam spoke up. “Gerald, why did you stick your hand into that pigeonhole back in the museum?”

Gerald thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I had this…vision, I guess you’d call it. One of the boxes was glowing like there was a candle in it or something. Turned out to be the right one, I guess.”

They turned into a street, busy with lunchtime crowds and traffic. Just ahead, a cab pulled over and a man in a dark suit got out and brushed by them as he hurried up the footpath. Gerald stopped and grabbed Ruby by the arm. “Do you still have the matches? The ones from under the museum?”

Ruby dug into her pocket and Gerald snatched the matches from her hand. A satisfied grin spread across his face. Just as the cab was pulling back into traffic, Gerald jumped onto the road, slapping his hands on the hood. The driver slammed on the brakes. The squeal of tires echoed a half dozen times as a line of cars behind screeched to a halt. The cab driver stuck his head out the window.

“Oi!” he yelled at Gerald. “What d’you think you’re playing at?”

Gerald rushed around to talk with the driver, who, after a peek at the contents of Gerald’s wallet, calmed down and nodded his head. Gerald called to Sam and Ruby to get into the cab.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked as they bundled into the back. The cab took off up the street. Horns blared from the cars behind them.

“He’s taking us to where he picked up that guy—the one who just got out,” Gerald said, looking pleased with himself.

The twins stared back with matching puzzled looks. “Why?” they asked.

“Because of the tie he was wearing.”

“What’s his tie got to do with anything?” Sam said.

“His tie had this on it.” Gerald held up the matchbook. “The same red
R
. It was covered in them. The cabbie said he picked him up from some club.”