“So, what kind of information are you looking for?”
The image of Malloy came into my head, and I thought back to our conversation. “Roswell. I’m researching the UFO crash at Roswell and the government’s and disinformation campaign.”
Witt puffed on his pipe, his eyes twinkling. “Interesting subject, but what do you plan on writing about? Everything’s come out already, as far as everyone knows.”
“That’s what everybody’s telling me, but I think there’s more to it. It’s always been an obsession of mine.”
“Well, we have something in common, Mr Murphy.” he gestured grandly around the room. Feel free to look through whatever you can find. In the meantime, I’ve got some correspondence to take care of. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to your own devices.”
It was more than I could have hoped for. “I think I can manage.”
“The books you’re looking for are up there, under the heading Roswell. If you need anything, ring the buzzer over on the desk. My valet will help you with anything you might need. I’ll check in on you a bit later.” Witt tramped out of the library, leaving me alone. The kid was in the candy store.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I had no doubt the Witt had received one of the boxes from Malloy and ensconced it somewhere in his sprawling mansion. My PI instincts could sense it, like a good poker player smells a bluff. But the old recluse wasn’t naive enough to put me in the same room with it, without knowing he could trust me. Which, of course, he couldn’t. And least I got my foot in the door. Now I needed to be quick, careful, and lucky, three adjectives rarely used in the same sentence.
I looked around, trying to find a logical starting place. The library was a boundless, teeming smorgasbord of possibilities. My eyes drifted to the vid-phone, then to the desk under it. I’d always found desks to be personal microcosms, wooden and metal monuments to their owners’ lives, crammed full of correspondence, receipts, and forgotten reminders jotted down on scraps of paper. It was as good a place as any to begin my search.
With almost two decades of hands-on experience, I rifled Witt’s desk with the precision of an assembly line worker. It took no more than fifteen minutes to determine that there was nothing of importance to be found. I wasn’t surprised; anyone with Witt’s mentality would undoubtedly keep anything of value locked away from prying eyes.
I finished with the drawers and turned my attention to the desktop. Bills sat in a pile under an Easter Island paperweight. Checking out Witt’s utility records wouldn’t help me locate the box, but I wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned. I flipped through the envelopes, all of which had been opened. At the bottom was a phone bill. Maybe a look at Witt long-distance calls would turn up some information.
The list of long-distance charges took up two and a half pages. Witt certainly seemed to spend a lot of time on the horn. I ran my finger down the first page. He called all over the world, three to four times a day. The second page contained nothing to attract my attention. On the third page, I noted that the last calls recorded for the billing period had been made three days earlier, about the time he would have received the box from Malloy. That afternoon, there was an extremely short call to San Francisco. Witt had probably tried to contact Malloy as soon as he got the box. Witt had followed the first call with another to a different location, again in San Francisco. This second call was almost fifteen minutes long, implying that he’d gotten whoever he was trying to reach at that number.
After that, there was the first of three calls to the same place in Los Angeles. The first two calls were only seconds long, but the third was forty-eight minutes. Between the first and second calls to Los Angeles, a call had been placed to Tuscon, Arizona, also very brief. I guessed that the short calls had reached answering machines or disconnected service messages. Perhaps receiving the box had set Witt into action, possibly trying to contact others who had ties to Malloy.
I jotted down the phone numbers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Tuscon, then returned the bills to their resting place. Now what? I glanced around the room, hoping the trail to the box would pop out at me. Maybe Witt had installed some kind of hidden entrance to the library. Sure, it was a long shot, but I’d seen it in enough movies to consider it a valid option. I made my way slowly around the perimeter of the library, scrutinising the bookshelves for any spot that might conceal a latch or trigger. At one point, I found a curious-looking knot in the wood. With a sense of excited expectation directly attributable to having read the entire Hardy Boys series, I pressed the knot. Nothing happened.
I continued to make my way around the room. On the wall, between two sections of bookshelves, I found an odd-looking light switch. I couldn’t put my finger on what made it seem strange. Attempting to be thorough, I flipped the switch. As far as I could tell, it had no effect. I tried it again several times without results, then moved on to yet another enormous fireplace, similar to the one I’d seen in the foyer. A careful inspection turned up nothing.
I came full circle without finding a secret entrance. It appeared that the library was a dead end. The idea of venturing out into the rest of the mansion wasn’t particularly appealing. If Witt or his limey lackey saw me, I had no doubt I’d be shown the door in quick fashion. Of course, I could always say I was in desperate need of the facilities. They’d buy that. One just doesn’t say no to a full bladder.
I started to cross the room to the door. My wing tips made a solid clunking sound on the hardwood, then change to a muffled thump as I trod across a handsome oriental rug. Toward the corner of the rug, I came to a dead stop. My last footstep had sounded different. I turned and tried the spot again. There was no question about it. There was a hollow spot in the floor. I began stomping all around the area, like I’d stumbled into a herd of cockroaches. Only the one spot, about four feet square, sounded hollow. Throwing a hasty glance over my shoulder, I hurried to one side of the rug and began to roll it up. A few moments later, the outline of a trapdoor was exposed. Dropping to my hands and knees, I inspected the cracks in the floor. There was no apparent means of lifting the door, and the cracks were so small, I had no way of getting my fingers in to pry it open.
My eyes searched the library anew, looking for something, anything, that I could use as a lever. On the far side of that room, close by the fireplace, I spotted a shop-tipped poker. Seconds later, I jammed the end the poker into one of the cracks and was prying like mad man. After several minutes, but gouge the hell out of the floor and determined that the floor was not going to be forced open. Year it was locked from below or I’d missed some kind of trip device in my search of the room.
My mind immediately went back to the mysterious light switch I’d seen earlier. I’d hurried over and looked at it closely. Suddenly I realised what made it look odd: there were no screws or holes in the face plate. It didn’t appear to have anything attaching it to the wall. I pressed my fingertips under the side of the faceplate and applied some pressure. It was held firmly to the wall. I tried the other side. The faceplate popped open like a tiny door. In the opening behind, I saw a knob. I grabbed hold and twisted. From behind me, I heard a spring-loaded ka-chunk.
I turned to see one side of the trap door jutting up from the plane of the floor.
I grab the exposed end of the trap door and lifted. It came up with almost no effort. Underneath, I saw a set of stairs, beyond which there was no light source. I stepped down and descended into the pitch darkness. The air was cooler than upstairs and smiled slightly musty. The mansion didn’t appear to have been built more than maybe ten years ago, but the cellar felt ancient.