Maybe it was the top hat.
Trust or not, after a short time I had no idea where we were. The corners, twists, and turns all blended together, and I didn’t have a great sense of direction to begin with.
I was sure of one thing, though: we were heading toward the ocean side of the house. Even down here I could smell the sea. And if we were heading toward the ocean, we were probably pretty close to the kitchen.
Supposedly there existed a metal cellar door that bordered our back lawn near the kitchen and provided the only other access to and from Down Below aside from the mailroom. That two-part door was always chained from the outside, and I had a feeling it was also locked on the inside. I had always heard these rumors of a second way into Fudgy’s basement, and it looked like maybe we were about to find out whether the rumors were true.
The hallways we had now reached were slightly wider, and the rooms we hid in were a bit bigger and cleaner, than the ones nearer to the staircase. I wondered what section of Down Below this was considered to be by the residents; it was certainly nothing like the section I had been in the one other time I had come down, when I had found Fudgy Bail playing cards and smoking a cigar. He was probably still there now.
Besides the ocean, Down Below smelled like old wet metal and mud. Just as I was about to ask Peter where we were going, he whispered, “In here.”
He was standing in front of a plain wooden door, which he opened just enough to peer through. When he was satisfied with what he saw, he motioned us to follow him. When we were all inside the room, he closed the door with a snap.
Pep looked around and said, “Well,” while Lark and I turned silently from side to side to get a better look. Peter’s torch illuminated the room well enough, but there was also a bit of natural light filtering in.
Elation coursed through me; my suspicions were confirmed. This was the room with the cellar door in it.
Chapter Eight
Thin bands of daylight were shining in around the edges and in the cracks of said door. There was also a tiny window I had never noticed before. Then I realized it must be an enchantment, since it was well known that there were no actual windows through which anyone could see into Down Below. If there had been, Cookie probably would have set up a telescope in front of one of them so she could keep tabs on what was going on in her basement.
“This is Jefferson Judge’s room,” said Peter. “He was a judge in real life, isn’t that funny?”
Given that Judge was a le-haunt, I wanted to treat him with care. They were rarer than other kinds of supernaturals, and I was less familiar with their ways than I was with the other types who lived at Haunted Bluff.
Jefferson Judge’s room was filled to the brim with books and papers.
My grandmother thought you could understand someone by the way they kept their rooms. “Obviously, that’s why I never let anyone into mine,” she had once explained.
Jefferson Judge’s room looked as if he had gathered an entire wing of the library and brought it down here. In fact, I thought I recognized some of the books. They had been among a selection we had boxed up to get rid of a long time ago. We thought we’d given them away, but apparently they had just come downstairs.
Stacks upon stacks of papers were interspersed amongst the musty books, many of them in old leather binders. Jefferson Judge had placed several tables and chairs around the room. Only one chair was usable, since every other surface was covered with books and papers. That included the bed, which was a single cot set in a corner. It didn’t look like it had been slept on in months.
What amazed me about the scene was the organization. Usually in a space with this much clutter, you’d see stuff strewn higgledy-piggledy around a room. But here the books appeared to be alphabetized and separated by subject, and the papers and binders were neatly stacked. I would have bet anything that they too were labeled and placed in some kind of rational order. That’s just how the room felt.
What’s more, everything except the cot appeared to be an antique. I was relieved to see that I didn’t recognize any of it. If Jefferson Judge had been stealing Cookie’s furniture, he’d be in more trouble than any of us could possibly imagine.
Then again, you would have to think that she would have noticed by now if any precious tables and chairs had gone missing. It was clear that this supernatural’s possessions had accumulated over a number of years.
“Who is Jefferson Judge?” I asked.
“He kept the peace here Down Below. He was known as the Judge, because of his last name, but it was also his profession. Really, there were a lot of reasons,” Peter rambled.
“So where is he now?” Lark asked.
“That’s what we want you to find out. He’s gone missing. And let me tell you, that’s really bad,” said Peter, his eyes wide.
We started examining the room. There was no sign of a struggle, nor was there any sign that Jefferson Judge had packed quickly and left on purpose.
“Do you think we’d even be able to tell if he just took off?” Pep asked.
That was the next thought I’d had as well. There were so many books and papers, it would be difficult to tell whether any were missing. But we might be able to deduce something from his clothes and random possessions.
“I’m not sure,” I said, looking around in frustration.
It would be easy enough to take some clothes without anyone particularly noticing. People had so much stuff these days that a jacket and a pair pants disappearing would hardly be noteworthy, nor did Judge—”judging” from his room—seem like the sort of man who had only one outfit. His dresser was overstocked with shirts, pants, socks, and underwear, as a glance into a couple of the drawers made clear.
Having found nothing of interest in the dresser, I made the desk my next target. This was where the meat of the information would be, or so I hoped.
“I’ll just go on and explain, shall I?” Peter asked, perhaps a little miffed that no one had asked him outright.
When nobody stopped him, he launched. “Jefferson Judge arrived here about five years ago. He didn’t like the disorder in cemeteries and how everybody could do whatever they felt like. He wanted there to be law, even if it was the outlaws making the rules. He quickly gained the reputation of being always honorable and fair. Whenever there’s a dispute, they ask for the Judge. He never steers them wrong, mostly because he doesn’t get involved in any of the criminal activity that allegedly goes on down here. He doesn’t want to know. We all thought we could trust him.”
“And can’t you?” I asked.
“We thought so,” Peter hung his head.
“You just said that. What happened to shake your confidence?” Lark said. She was losing patience with this skeleton, and I couldn’t really blame her.
“The crown jewels went missing,” he said.
“The what what?” I asked.
You heard about crown jewels this and crown jewels that often enough, so which one was he talking about? And why would Down Below have some?
“Fudgy inherited what we call the crown jewels from his grandfather. They’ve been in his family for generations. They’re a set of jewels that actually form a crown, which I’m pretty sure his father stole a long time ago,” Peter explained.
“And now it’s gone missing?” I asked.
“I don’t suppose it was insured?” said Pep dryly.
Peter was taking all this too seriously to notice that Pep was joking. He shook his head sadly.
“The central piece is a really rare pink stone that the Fudge kept in his bedroom. The only trouble was, he was rarely in his bedroom. He noticed that it was missing late last night. Earlier that evening we had discovered that the Judge was gone, so it was already chaos around here. The Judge never disappears. We always know where he is. This is his library and his bedroom and this is where he spends his time. He never left Down Below, so the fact that no one could find him was ominous. We searched everywhere to see if foul play was involved, like maybe a
decision he’d handed down went sideways on him. When we didn’t find him, the truth became clear,” said Peter.
“And what is the truth?” I asked.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Jefferson Judge isn’t so trustworthy after all. All these years he’s been biding his time, and now he’s taken a chance. The crown has gone missing because he stole them,” said Peter.
“You think he stole the crown and ran?” I asked. “How did he get out of here?”
“Maybe he used these doors here.” Peter pointed to the locked and bolted doors that led to Haunted Bluff Mansion’s back yard. “See? The lock is gone.”
I was just about to walk over and see what he was talking about when I noticed something about the desk. Every inch of the desktop was covered, just as every inch of almost every surface in the room was covered.
Except: there was one spot right in the middle of the desk where there was an open space.
Once I saw it, it stood out as if it was screaming to be noticed. There was dust around it, as if something had been picked up recently that had sat there for a long time. I took a step closer to the desk to get a clear image of what the dust shape was and decided that it looked like a book. Then, not wanting to linger, I went up the little staircase to the storm door where Peter was already showing my cousins the broken lock.
“Someone clearly went out this way,” said Pep. “If it was Jefferson Judge, why would he break his own lock?”
Peter did not appear to have thought of that objection to his theory. He looked at Pep in wonder. “I wish I had said that to the Fudge when he thought Jefferson Judge took his crown!”
“So now you think Jefferson Judge is innocent?” I asked. “It’s that easy?”
Peter nodded his head emphatically. “Oh, yes. He’s definitely innocent. There isn’t a dishonest bone in his body.”
“When we go upstairs, I’ll check outside to see if there’s any evidence of someone coming or going that way. By the look of the lock, there will be,” I said. “But before we leave, can you look at this?”
The four of us crowded around the desk, and Peter leaned down and examined the bare spot I pointed out.
“Fancy,” said Peter.
“Something was there and now it isn’t. You can see dust around the edge,” I said.
“I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks,” he said in wonder. He leaned forward and looked at the desk again. Then he sniffed. “I have no idea what it would be, though.”
I sighed. I had been afraid of that answer. It wasn’t going to be easy to figure out what the Judge had taken with him when he left. Smudges on the desk weren’t going to cut it.
“Is there any possibility that he’s a prisoner?” Pep asked.
“You mean someone took him?” Peter repeated. “Seems like a strange thing to do, but I suppose it’s possible. We Down Below folks live by a code. We don’t usually kidnap. If anyone is caught kidnapping, the Fudge kicks them out.”
“That’s comforting. Why do you chase witches with pitchforks then?” Lark asked.
“Time-honored tradition. Also, they don’t like Cookie,” said Peter.
The three of us exchanged glances. We could understand that.
“Let’s see if we can get out this way,” I said. I was suddenly struck with the inspiration that we might not have to go back through the tunnels and corridors if the storm doors were open.
A sharp knock on the door stopped me in my tracks.
“Peter? Are you in there? Enough with this detective business. You don’t know what you’re doing,” a harsh woman’s voice yelled.
Peter froze. I made a motion at him that he had to say something. He shook his head fearfully. I motioned again.
“That’s why I went and found a real, live detective,” he whispered to me. Then he blinked rapidly and opened his mouth, “Hi, Sharon. I just wanted to look around one more time. I’ll be right out.”
“Don’t take all day. You have a lot to do,” Sharon yelled back.
Peter motioned for us to go. I didn’t know who this Sharon character was, but it didn’t seem like she was going anywhere fast, so the decision about which way we should leave had apparently been made for us.
As quietly as we could, the three of us ascended the stairs. Now that there was a supernatural standing between us and the basement tunnels, I really hoped there wasn’t a lock on the other side of the door.
When we got to the top of the stairs, I pushed against the storm door. To my utter shock and amazement it swung open easily.
Suddenly blinded by the late fall light, I closed my eyes and continued to push the door upward. The wind tried to take it and slam it out of my hand, but I held on. If I let it go and it slammed, it would alert Sharon to our presence instantly. Or at least to the fact that Peter was up to something fishy.
Blinking furiously, I opened my eyes on our back lawn. Pep and Lark weren’t far behind, and once they were safely out of the basement I looked back into the darkness and waved to Peter. He waved back and hurried toward the door where Sharon was waiting. I could hear her voice on the other side. She wasn’t going to wait any longer for Peter to open Judge’s door.
I closed the storm door as quickly and quietly as I could, hoping I’d gotten it back into place before Sharon saw what was going on.
“That was so close,” said Pep sliding to the grass.
“Do either of you know who Sharon is?” I asked.
“I don’t know anyone from Down Below,” said Lark. “Grandma Cookie might know. If Sharon worked at the haunted house before going Below, Cookie might have met her.”
“You know the problem with that, right? If we ask her about it, we have to explain it to her,” I said.
“I can’t believe the lock is missing from both sides of the door,” said Lark, shaking her head in confusion.
“It isn’t.” I pointed to the lock on the storm door. A heavy silver chain was wrapped through two metal rings and locked firmly in place. To look at it, you wouldn’t think you could get through without a pair of pliers and some other well-chosen metal-working tools.
“It’s an enchantment,” Pep gasped.
“That it is. Somebody also greased the hinges over here,” I said. It had taken me too long to figure out that the lock on the old storm door was a trick. Despite the fact that it was decades-old and should have creaked, it hadn’t made a sound when I opened it.
“Looks like Jefferson Judge had it set up so he could get out from Down Below whenever he wanted,” said Pep in fascination.
“Exactly,” I said. “Is it at all possible that someone else set him up?”
“It’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. It’s hard to believe someone could sneak into his room to use the storm door. It’s more likely that he wanted that room in the first place for its access to the outside. Peter suggested as much.”
“So we have a judge with access to the outside gone missing. I have to say, this makes him look more guilty than innocent,” said Lark.
She was right about that.
The three of us stared grimly at the fake lock on the door that opened silently.
We were startled out of our ponderings when a woman’s voice spoke sharply behind us. “Just what do you three think you’re doing?”
We turned and looked guiltily into the accusing brown eyes of Evangeline Scott, who was known as the dressmaker around the Haunted Bluff estate. She made all the witchwear we needed, whenever it was called for.
Meg grumbled that her prices were exorbitant, then always paid them. As Evangeline knew perfectly well, Meg paid the money because Evangeline was the best. She was around Cookie’s age or thereabouts; it was hard to tell. She had stopped celebrating birthdays a long time ago and started lying about her age long before that. In terms of lies, she and Cookie had a lot of similarities.
Evangeline had rented the largest cottage on our property for years. She ran her personal dress business out of it. For a long time she had been bes
t friends with Cookie. That’s how she’d ended up at Haunted Bluff in the first place.
Some time ago, however, she and Cookie had had a falling out. If I remembered correctly, it had to do with Evangeline’s son Evan, who’d had a thing for my mom and Meg at the same time. Cookie wouldn’t tolerate them both being courted by the same man and said as much to Evangeline. Mrs. Scott had made the mistake of saying that her son would never court Meg or my mother, let alone both of them simultaneously.
That had been the end of it. Cookie’s sons had seen fit to marry these women, and Cookie wouldn’t have anyone outside the family disparaging them.
Friendship dissolved.
Mrs. Scott so rarely came onto the main part of the grounds that I couldn’t hide my surprise at seeing her there now. She was a tall and willowy woman with a commanding presence, who clearly took pride in her appearance. At the moment, even right here on an ordinary day at home, she was wearing conspicuously expensive jewelry.
But she was more straightforward than my grandmother, so whatever her faults, I at least never felt like I was being lied to when we talked. I just felt like I was in trouble all the time when that steely gaze was directed at me.
Like now.
“Leave the girls alone,” said Jacob, another of our tenants.
Jacob was a very old vampire who insisted that he was far too old to deal with all the young hooligans of today. We rarely saw him, because he only came out at night, when we were either working frantically at the haunted house or sleeping.
Jacob too had a rare and refined sense of taste. He always looked perfectly turned out, although to be honest that was a hallmark of vampires generally.
“Hi, Jacob,” said Pep.
If Mr. Blacksmith had seen that Jacob was gracing us with his presence, he would have died of excitement.
“How is that shop of yours doing?” Jacob asked Pep in a gravelly voice.
Pep blushed and smiled. “It’s actually going very well. We’ve had a banner year. I think that might have been partly because of the Brewer wedding.”
Spooky Spider Page 5