The House of Puzzles (28 page)

‘How could you possibly—’ he began.

Felicity raised her head and glared at the man. ‘You foul human being,’ she said,
then lunged at the switch beneath the angel. She jerked the handle to the right.

The floor along the length of the corridor juddered violently, as if shaken by an
earthquake. Bodies were thrown from their feet like struck tenpins. Gerald tumbled
onto his back, his hands flailing as he tried to find something stable to cling to.
Another shot exploded from Mason Green’s gun. Then, with a violent lurch and a wrenching
roar, the floor fell away. It split across the middle and dropped as if hinged at
each end, forming two steep slides that plunged into a black abyss. Gerald’s stomach
lurched and he closed his eyes as he slid straight over the edge.

All was darkness.

Gerald heard his name being called—it might have been Ruby or Felicity, he couldn’t
tell. He was overwhelmed by a sense of weightlessness, as if he was floating amongst
the clouds in some ethereal play land. He was falling; he was flying.

And then he stopped. A brutal tug on his shoulder yanked him and his eyes popped
wide open. Gerald jerked his head about in dazed confusion. His breath
caught in
his throat. He looked down to see his feet thrashing and a bottomless black pit yawning
beneath him. He twisted his head up to find the sloping floor of the corridor metres
above him. A searing pain in his armpits told him his backpack had caught on something.
He craned his neck and saw it: a rusted iron rod jutting out from the side of the
pit. He was dangling in space.

‘Gerald!’

It was Ruby.

Gerald strained around to see Ruby flat on her stomach, clinging to cracks in the
steeply sloping floor and scrambling to stop from sliding into the black hole. Further
along the corridor, Sam and Felicity held each other in a desperate embrace, pressing
the soles of their feet onto opposite walls and forming a human bridge across the
passage.

Professor McElderry and Mason Green were both sprawled on the floor, further up each
end of the corridor. They both looked too panic-stricken to move.

‘Gerald!’ Ruby cried again. ‘Are you all right?’

Gerald struggled to lift his head. A sharp pain ripped into his sides. The iron rod
that held his backpack could give way at any movement. He looked up as high as he
could. The sculptures of the devil and the angel looked down at him in seeming bemusement.

‘Ruby,’ Gerald called back. ‘You need to turn the handle under the devil. And you
need to do it quickly.’

Gerald lurched to the side. One of the shoulder
straps slipped in its buckle, sending
him into a teetering swing across the chasm. ‘Really quickly!’ he shouted.

Ruby twisted her head to stare into Gerald’s eyes. ‘I’ll try. But if I slip you better
catch me.’

Gerald managed a weak smile. ‘Always,’ he said.

Ruby sucked in a breath and wedged one foot against the far wall, bracing herself.

‘You can do it,’ Gerald urged. The shoulder strap slipped another centimetre, shunting
him sideways. ‘Remember your gymnastics.’

Ruby pushed with her hands and launched herself upwards. She pressed her other foot
against the near wall and straddled the corridor in an arched split. Slowly, she
leaned forward, her outstretched fingertips crawling spider-like across the bricks
towards the devil carving. Then, with a heave, she wrapped her fingers around the
brass handle. ‘I’ve got it!’ she cried.

‘Turn it!’ Gerald yelled back, just as the shoulder strap pulled free. His right
side fell away and he dropped hard, swinging wildly from the left strap. ‘Hurry!’

‘But Green still has the gun,’ Ruby called back.

‘Turn the handle!’ Gerald screamed.

Then Mason Green’s voice joined the clamour. ‘Stop, Miss Valentine, or I will shoot
you.’

‘Turn it!’

Ruby twisted the handle.

The corridor juddered even more violently than before. Sam and Felicity cried out
as the floor fell away
beneath them.

Gerald’s head slumped. ‘Crud,’ he muttered.

A thunderous rumble rolled along the corridor. Hidden sluices at either end of the
passage opened and unleashed a torrent of water. Twin tidal waves swept into the
enormous funnel formed by the sloping floor. The barrel of one wave swept Mason Green
clean away, sending him spinning straight under the human bridge of Sam and Felicity
and into the maw of the chasm. Gerald caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared into
the velvet blackness, his screams receding and lost to the roar of the water that
poured down the giant spout.

Gerald clung to his backpack, buffeted by the waterfall that broke over his head.
He caught the sound of Ruby crying out. The only word he could understand was ‘professor’.

A moment later there was a flurry of movement above him. Gerald tilted his head to
see Professor McElderry dangling over the edge of the sloped floor, his legs swinging
into the emptiness.

Then Gerald saw a way to save them both. He threw out his right hand and, as his
body swung across, latched onto the professor’s waistband.

‘Hold on, Professor,’ Gerald called out, water gushing into his mouth. ‘I’ve got
you.’ He shook his head to clear the spray from his face. ‘We can save each other.’

McElderry turned his head and looked straight into Gerald’s eyes. ‘Gerald,’ he said,
‘you’re as stupid as your
friend.’

Gerald’s mouth dropped open but the professor cut him off before he could speak.
‘Did you ever once ask if I wanted to be saved?’ McElderry said. He lashed out a
shoe and knocked Gerald’s hand away from his belt. Then he raised his arms from the
floor and let the torrent sweep him over the edge and into oblivion.

Chapter 29

Gerald watched helplessly as the professor dropped past him. There was no screaming
or wails for help. Professor McElderry went to his fate as calmly as a baby drifting
to sleep.

But his kick had sent Gerald into a whirling spin. At any moment he expected to be
joining McElderry in a plunge into nothingness.

Then, as if a tap had been turned off, the river stopped. Gerald looked up as the
last drips spilled over the edge. With a grinding of gears, the floor began to rise
back into place. Gerald waited until the stone surface had reformed beneath his feet,
and he let the section carry him back up to the corridor, unhooking his tattered
backpack from the iron rod as he went past.

Ruby, Sam and Felicity swooped onto him in a rolling embrace, wrapping him in their
arms. After everyone was assured that everyone else was all right, Gerald took a
step back and his hands dropped to his knees. He was drenched and shivering. And
his heart ached at Professor McElderry’s fate.

Why did he give up like that? Let himself be swept away?

Gerald’s head fell between his shoulders, and his gaze landed on the small door under
the angel and the devil: it had popped open a centimetre.

They all stared at the gap.

‘What do you think?’ Felicity said.

There was a long silence. Then Gerald turned towards the end of the corridor. ‘Mason
Green was right,’ he said. ‘Enough puzzles for one day.’

Ruby quickly found their way back to the exit. She tapped in the TOWEL combination
and pushed open the entrance to the tunnel out of the cellars.

‘Is that it for Mason Green?’ Sam asked as he followed his sister along the narrow
passage. ‘Could you even see where all that water was going?’

Gerald trailed his friends along the dimly lit path, following the sign towards Central
Park. ‘It was a black hole,’ he said. ‘They were swallowed up.’ Gerald shook his
head in disbelief. The professor had actually wanted to be washed away. ‘What was
he thinking?’ Gerald said to no one in particular. A shiver rolled down his spine.
‘We could have helped each other.’

Ruby waited for Gerald to catch up. She took his hand and held it tight. ‘You were
lucky he didn’t take you down with him,’ she said.

‘He must have been under the influence of one of those potions,’ Felicity said. ‘It’s
the only explanation.’

‘But that’s the thing,’ Gerald said. ‘I don’t think he was affected by whatever drugs
Green had been feeding him. He remembered my name. He remembered Sam. And there were
his eyes.’

‘What about his eyes?’ Ruby asked.

‘When he stared at me, just before he let himself be washed away, his eyes were completely
fine. I’m sure he was back to normal.’

‘Except for throwing himself off the top of a waterfall,’ Sam said. ‘Normal apart
from that.’

Ruby gave Sam an annoyed look, then turned back to Gerald. ‘We’ll call the police.
They might be able to find them.’

Gerald shook his head. ‘I couldn’t care if Mason Green was flushed into the bowels
of the earth.’

They walked in silence to the end of the passage. There was a metal grille not much
bigger than a cat flap at the bottom of the end wall. Sam unscrewed the four wing
nuts at the corners and worked the grille free. He dropped to his hands and knees
and crawled in. Felicity was halfway through the opening when Sam’s cries filtered
back to them.

‘Ow! Ouch!
Getoffit
!’

Ruby squeezed in behind Felicity, as if packing into a rugby scrum. ‘What is it?’
Ruby called. ‘What’s the matter?’ Then she paused, a suspicious expression forming
on her face. ‘Is this to do with rats?’ she asked.

Sam’s voice came back to them again, this time a high-pitched squeak. ‘Rats? What
rats?’

‘No, you dunderhead. There aren’t any rats. What are you squealing about?’

There was a lengthy pause. ‘Uh—there’s a bunch of flying bugs in here,’ Sam said
with more than a touch of wounded pride. ‘Some of them got in my hair.’

Ruby blew a long burst of air between her lips, a little like an overheating steam
engine just before it explodes. ‘My brother, the thrillseeker,’ she said. ‘Let’s
go, Flicka. Hercules in there might need some help with his hair.’

Moments later they were standing in what seemed to be an enormous hot house, full
of exotic tropical plants and thousands upon thousands of —

‘Butterflies!’ Felicity said as one landed on the top of her head. She glanced at
Sam. ‘This is what you were scared of?’ she asked.

Sam’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Some of them can give you a nasty scratch,’ he mumbled.

Gerald turned a slow circle to gaze at the soaring palm trees and the flights of
gossamer above them. ‘Does this remind you of somewhere, Felicity?’ he asked.

‘I was just thinking that,’ she said as they started along a winding path. ‘Mr Mantle’s
butterfly house, but a lot smaller of course. Where are we, do you think?’

‘I’d guess it’s the Central Park Zoo,’ Ruby said. ‘We’re almost back to civilisation.’

‘I hope that civilisation comes with breakfast,’ Sam said. ‘I’m starving.’

They reached a large glass door. On the other side were posters promoting upcoming
winter events and how to get the most from your day at the zoo. Sam pulled on the
door, but it was locked.

‘Looks like we’re here till opening time,’ Felicity said. She found a plastic chair
by the entrance and sat down. ‘Might as well make ourselves comfy.’

‘Why would you lock the door to the butterfly house?’ Sam said, dragging a chair
next to Felicity. ‘It’s not like all the bugs are going to stage a breakout.’

‘I suppose it’s to keep people out,’ Ruby said.

The first rays of morning sun cut through the glass walls, casting a golden hue throughout
the enclosure.

‘What type of idiot would break into a butterfly house?’ Sam asked.

‘Apart from us, you mean?’ Ruby said.

‘Butterfly collectors, maybe,’ Gerald said. He pulled up a squat stool, tossed his
backpack on the floor and nestled in beside Ruby. He started to shiver. Sam wrapped
his jacket over his friend’s shoulders to keep him warm. ‘People like Jasper Mantle
travel the world trying to
complete their collections.’ Gerald continued. ‘Except
he’s only one short of getting the lot and he’s not likely to find that one in a
public zoo.’

Felicity yawned. It had been a long night. ‘What was its name again?’ she asked.

Gerald leaned back to rest against Ruby’s legs. ‘It’s the Xerxes Blue,’ he said.
‘I haven’t had the chance to tell you, but there’s a massive butterfly collection
up in the Billionaires’ Club. It must have belonged to Diamond Jim. But he didn’t
have any more luck than Jasper Mantle with the Xerxes Blue. There was an empty frame
on the wall, just waiting until he found it—a bit like the empty box for Drebbel’s
perpetual motion machine. I guess collectors like to plan ahead.’

Gerald stopped.

He sat upright, as if he had just swallowed a particularly hot peppermint.

‘What is it?’ Ruby asked.

Gerald grabbed up his backpack. It was sodden from the drenching back in the cellars.
He tipped out his notebook. The covers were wet but the pages inside were mostly
dry.

‘The message from Jeremy Davey,’ Gerald said, searching inside the bag for his pencil.
‘The keyword.’

Felicity moved from her chair and knelt next to Gerald. ‘I’d forgotten all about
that.’

‘Mason Green hadn’t forgotten about it,’ Gerald said. ‘He was talking about it on
the phone, remember?
The professor was going to work on deciphering the code. On
finding the keyword. But it has been staring us in the face all along.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ruby asked, moving to the other side of Gerald.

Gerald pointed with the end of his pencil at a page in his notebook. ‘See? The very
first letters in the coded message are XERS BLU. Jeremy Davey was telling us the
keyword and we were too stupid to figure it out. Felicity, what was the boat that
Davey was going on?’

‘The
Beagle
. What about it?’

‘Where was it sailing to?’

Felicity thought for a moment. ‘Um, around the bottom of South America and across
to Australia,’ she said.