The Secret of the Missing Grave

by David Crossman

  “So,” said Ab, “since this is the one place a secret tunnel couldn’t possibly be—”

  “It must be where it is,” they said in unison.

  “Which means, there’d have to be some kind of lever or switch somewhere,” Ab deduced. They conducted a scrupulous inspection for the next twenty minutes. They pushed everything that could be pushed. Pulled everything that could be pulled. Poked, kicked, and prodded everything in general until they were both exhausted. But nothing budged. Nothing even seemed as though it should budge.

  “Well,” said Ab reluctantly, “it seemed like a good idea.”

  Bean stepped to the window. “I’m hot,” he said as he turned the latch and, tucking his fingertips under the lip, gave a sharp tug. Much to his surprise, the window shot up easily and slammed against the frame, dislodging one of the cracked panes and sending it crashing to the floor. Bean cringed.

  “What’s that?” Ab said with alarm, holding one hand on Bean’s shoulder and the other across his mouth. “Listen.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Bean mumbled through her fingers.

  “That banging.”

  Listening carefully, Bean heard what she was talking about. The heavy, irregular, metallic thud was familiar to him. “Oh, that’s just the weights,” he said.

  “Weights? What weights?”

  Bean explained. “There are iron weights in the window casements, inside here.” He tapped the wood frame to one side of the window. “They’re connected to the window by a rope that goes over a little pulley up here.” He pointed to the top of the window. “They make it easier to put the window up.”

  “Do it again,” Ab commanded.

  “Do what?”

  “Close the window and open it again.”

  As Bean did so, the weights banged and thudded softly inside the casement. “That’s the sound,” Ab announced as she flashed a smile of triumph.

  “What sound?”

  Ab put both hands on his shoulders and squeezed, her eyes wide and dancing. “The sound I heard upstairs,”

  “You heard someone opening a window?” asked Bean, a little bewildered.

  “No. It was much louder, much bigger sounding.”

  “Bigger sounding?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Ab in frustration. “Heavier sounding. But it was the same kind of sound. Like metal weights—great, great big ones—going up and down in the wall, in that closet in the hall.”

  Bean was having a hard time trying to catch up. “There aren’t any windows in that closet,” he recalled soberly.

  “Not windows,” Ab objected. “Put windows out of your mind. The weights are bigger, lifting something much bigger and much heavier ... much, much heavier than windows.” She waited for the realization to dawn in her companion’s eyes.

  When it did, they both yelled together. “The secret tunnel!”

  “And I know where it is,” said Bean.

  “Where?” Ab’s gaze followed his to the floor. He tapped his foot.

  “Right here,” he announced confidently.

  “What do you mean?” It was Ab’s turn to be bewildered.

  Bean ran his fingers lightly over the vertical grooves in the wall. “This whole floor lifts up—goes clear to the ceiling. That’s why there are these scratches in the wall. Chips of plaster and dirt get caught at the edges when the floor goes up and down.”

  Ab gaped at him with wondering eyes.

  “And,” he concluded, “that’s why it needs counterbalances.”

  “Counterbalances ?”

  “Those weights you’ve been hearing in the walls—great big ones—big enough to lift the whole floor.”

  “Then under here,” said Ab, tapping the floor, “is the tunnel.”

  “Not only that,” said Bean. “Someone’s been using it.”

  6

  SOMETHING UNEXPECTED

  “BUT WHO COULD IT BE?” asked Ab. “Not Mr. Proverb.”

  “No? Why not?” asked Bean.

  “Well, you heard him. He said he looked himself,” Ab protested.

  “And what if he found it?”

  “Then why would he let us come down here to poke around?”

  Bean had an answer ready. “Because he didn’t think we’d find anything. After all, nobody else has all these years.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he just take the treasure to the bank, or whatever you do with a treasure?”

  “Because everyone would know.”

  “So? It’s his property.”

  “Is it?” said Bean mysteriously.

  Ab furrowed her brow. “Isn’t it?”

  “That depends,” said Bean. “The tunnel goes from this house to the Winthrop House, so who does it belong to?”

  “Both?” Ab ventured.

  “Maybe,” said Bean.

  The idea inspired another thought in Ab. “Then he’d want to move the treasure over here, to his property, so he could claim it all for himself. You men are so greedy,” she added indignantly.

  Bean was too busy following her train of thought to take offense, which proved, to Ab’s satisfaction, that she was right in her assessment. “That’s why the noises happen in the middle of the night. He’s been going down when he didn’t think anyone would notice, and moving a little bit at a time.”

  “There must be a lot of it,” Ab deduced.

  “But where is it now?” Bean queried aloud. “Where would I put a fortune so no one would find it?”

  “I know,” said Ab. She ran out the door with Bean in her wake and came to a stop at the cistern. Turning on the flashlight, she stood on tiptoe and looked over the retaining wall. “There are two compartments,” she said as Bean’s head appeared beside hers. She pointed the light at the mud floor of the compartment nearest them. “This one’s empty. But that one,” she aimed the weakening beam at the adjacent compartment, “is full of water.”

  The shaft of light struck the surface and, plunging into the blackened depths at a sharp angle, was quickly absorbed by the turbid contents. She shined the flashlight in Bean’s eyes. “You’ve got to find out what’s in there.”

  “Right,” Bean replied facetiously. “And then she woke up.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re not afraid of a little water, are you?” Ab cajoled. “Big Bad Bean doesn’t want to get himself wet.”

  Bean smiled slyly. “Not at all. I’m just being a gentleman. Ladies first.” He gestured grandly at the cistern. “I’ll even give you a hand.” He intertwined his fingers and made a step for her. “After you.”

  “Age before beauty,” Ab retorted quickly.

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Bean teased.

  “Of course not,” said Ab. “I have to hold the flashlight.”

  They both laughed.

  “I know what to do,” Bean decided at last. “I saw something back there.” He scrambled off into the darkness. “Shine the light down here.” Ab complied, revealing a long piece of loose copper pipe in the dirt. Bean picked it up, returned to the cistern, and thrust an end eagerly into the depths. “It’s only four or five feet deep,” he assessed. Ab followed his actions with the light, but the rapidly weakening beam penetrated the inky depths to only about a foot.

  Bean probed the cistern carefully from corner to corner and in a crisscross motion across the bottom.

  “Nothing there,” he said, disappointment evident in his voice. “Too bad. It was a good idea.”

  “Where else could he put it?” Ab asked rhetorically. “There’s gotta be a hundred hiding places down here.” She shone the light into the shadows, but the beam had become too weak to make much headway against the darkness.

  Just then, Bean thought of something.

  “Hey,” he said, dragging her back to the cistern, “shine that in here.” He pointed at the empty compartment.

  “The battery’s almost dead,” Ab remarked as she directed the feeble beam into the cistern.

  “Mmm,” said Bean. “I wonder what that means.”
>
  “What?”

  “The walls are all slimy and wet. See the water line? This compartment’s had water in it recently.”

  “So? Isn’t that what it’s supposed to hold?”

  “Where did all that water go all of a sudden?”

  “Man,” Ab sighed. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause we’re looking for answers, not more questions. But that’s all we’re coming up with.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Proverb as Bean and Ab emerged from the cellar stairs, “are we rich?” He was dressed in paint-spattered khaki coveralls and was coated with soot from the burner of the cast-iron kerosene stove he was fixing. In the light of day, it was hard to imagine anything very sinister about Mr. Proverb. In fact, it was all Ab and Bean could do to keep from laughing at their suspicions.

  “No treasure,” said Ab honestly.

  “You don’t use the old cistern anymore, do you, Mr. P?” Bean asked offhandedly.

  “Shoot, no,” said Mr. Proverb. “Hate to think what’s in that old thing.” He returned to his work. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just curious,” Bean replied. “You don’t see ’em much anymore.”

  “No,” said Mr. Proverb from the bowels of the stove. “S’pose not. Well, maybe one day someone’ll find that loot, and I can retire. Or at least hire someone to fix things for me.”

  “What kind of treasure do you think it is, Mr. Proverb?” Ab asked.

  Mr. Proverb’s laugh echoed inside the stove. “Probably Confederate greenbacks, with my luck. There’s piles of that stuff turning up now and then.”

  “What was that little room off the cellar used for?” asked Bean. “The one with the plaster walls?”

  Mr. Proverb stood up and scratched his brow with a sooty finger. “You know, I can’t say. Seems strange there’d be a finished room way out there. I asked Eb Clark about it when we were looking at the place—he’s the real estate broker who handled it. He had no idea, but he said he remembered hearing about a hallway that led to it once, right along the outside wall through my workshop. I keep meaning to look for signs of it, but it seems the only time I go down there anymore is to fix something. Oh, well. Another mystery. Hand me that wire brush, would you, Bean?”

  Bean pulled the wire brush from the toolbox on the floor and passed it to Mr. Proverb. “What kind of signs?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, really,” said Mr. Proverb, returning to his work. “Usually there’s some kind of evidence when a wall’s been moved or a structure’s been changed. You just have to look for it.”

  “May we?” asked Ab ardently.

  There was a muffled laugh from somewhere inside the stove. “Sure,” came Mr. Proverb’s distant-sounding voice. “Have at it. Just take care you don’t break anything.”

  “Well,” said Bean a little sheepishly, “we kinda did already.”

  Mr. Proverb was about to say something, but Ab jumped in with both feet. “A little window in that room. I forgot about it in all the excitement. We’ll pay for it.”

  “I’m sure we can work it out,” said Mr. Proverb. “Be extra careful from now on, all right?”

  The kids agreed.

  “You don’t happen to have flashlight batteries, do you? These have just about had it,” said Bean, shaking the flashlight.

  “Nope. But there’s another old flashlight in the third drawer on the left there.” Mr. Proverb pointed blindly to his right at a narrow closet door. Bean opened it and saw a stack of deep drawers. He opened the third one from the top and found it full of odds and ends: mittens without mates, rolls of tape that didn’t seem to have any beginning or end, keys for locks that probably no longer existed, and bits of rope too short to be useful but too long to throwaway. Nestled among them was a battered old metal flashlight that didn’t look as though it had much light left in it. Bean pointed it at his eyes and flicked the switch. Much to his surprise it came on. Much to his discomfort, it nearly blinded him for a few seconds. “It works,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  “I still don’t get what he meant by ‘signs,’” Ab confessed as the beam of light played over the ceiling and walls of the workshop. “When you take out a wall, it’s gone. Isn’t it?”

  “Maybe not,” Bean replied unsurely. “If there was a hall along here, leading to that little room, it had to go through this wall.” He indicated the wall behind Mr. Proverb’s workbench; it was covered with large sheets of pegboard where tools hung in perfect array, each outlined with a marking pen. “But there’s no way to get at it.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Ab. “Come on.” She grabbed Bean’s hand and pulled him through the low opening between the sections and down the narrow passage between the granite wall and the cistern to the little white-walled room. “Here.” She dragged him across the threshold and, slamming the door shut, slapped the wall against which the door had opened. “This is the other side of the wall. We just assumedit was an extension of the granite wall and we didn’t notice anything special about it, ’cause it’s plastered and painted white, just like all the other walls. But if a hallway ran through there once—”

  “There’s no granite,” said Bean, jumping aboard the train of thought. “Just lath and plaster .... I’ll be right back.”

  Ab waited in the dark for what seemed like hours but was only two to three minutes. When Bean returned, he was carrying a hammer and a nine-inch spike. “I found these in the workshop,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” said Ab worriedly.

  “I’m going to try driving the spike through the wall. If it works, we’ve proved our theory. If it doesn’t ... ” In one swift motion, he dropped to his knees, placed the spike at a right angle to the base of the wall, and drew back the hammer.

  “Hold it,” cried Ab, catching her breath. “You can’t do that. Mr. Proverb said—”

  “I already asked him,” interrupted Bean, giving the spike a mighty whack that created a tiny explosion of sparks. “He said okay, as long as we clean up any mess I make.” With a big smile, he delivered another blow, then another. Each concussion generated a shower of plaster. The larger pieces settled to the floor, but the dust floated in the air, making the room seem murky in the weak light that slanted through the window.

  But the wall didn’t give.

  “It must be granite,” said Ab dejectedly.

  “No,” said Bean, who had worked up a sweat with the fever of excitement and the strain of his effort. “It’s gotta be here,” he said with another blow. “It’s gotta be.” Another blow.

  Ab was afraid he was getting out of control and might hurt himself. “Bean, it’s all right. We were just wrong, that’s all.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Settle down.”

  Bean wasn’t listening. One after another he delivered harder and harder blows on the spike. Twice he missed and hit the wall. Once he hit his hand and yelled in pain, but it only seemed to make him that much more determined. Finally, with all the strength he had left, he delivered a resounding smash dead on the head of the spike. An explosion of sharp red chips and dust issued into the white-walled room. He stopped suddenly.

  “What’s that?” said Ab, bending to pick up one of the pieces, which she inspected closely. “It’s brick,” she said, answering her own question.

  Bean drew his sleeve across his brow and let the hammer fall to the floor. “Brick?”

  Their eyes lit up simultaneously. “It’s been filled in. There was a hallway here.”

  7

  TRAPPED

  “WELL, YOU TWO ARE TURNING INTO QUITE THE DETECTIVES,” said Mrs. Carver when they had told her what they’d been up to and what they’d discovered. “Imagine, the whole floor coming up. No wonder we’ve missed it all these years. Who’d’ve thought ... ”

  “Now all we have to do is figure out a way to open it,” said Ab.

  “There’s got to be some kind of switch or something,” Mrs. Carver theorized. “Somewhere. But wherever it is, I bet i
t’s well hidden.”

  “Well it’s not in the room,” said Bean. “There’s not much there, and we’ve tried everything.”

  “Nevertheless,” replied his mom, “if your theory is correct, there has to be a switch of some kind that sets the mechanism in motion.”

  “It’s been a long time,” said Ab. “What if it’s not there anymore? Maybe that’s how they sealed the tunnel—old Moses Webster and Isaiah Winthrop. They just took out the switches.”

  Bean and his mom nodded. “Could be,” said Mrs. Carver. “That would be great.”

  “Great?” cried Ab. She didn’t think so. “Why?”

  Mrs. Carver uncovered a steaming pan of buttered carrots and pushed them across the table to Bean. “I saw you put those carrots back. Now, take twice as many out and eat everyone of them.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Bean protested. “I hate cooked carrots.”

  “I know you do,” Mrs. Carver replied with a smile. “That’s why I make you eat them. It builds character.”

  “Or ‘carrot-er,’ ” Ab interjected with a giggle.

  “‘Carrot-er,’ ” Mrs. Carver repeated. “I like that.”

  “Hilarious,” mumbled Bean. “Two of them. Just what I need.”

  “You know you love us,” said his mom, giving him a hug.

  Bean turned bright red. Not because of the hug, but because there was something in the remark that made him uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure what or why.

  “Anyway,” said Mrs. Carver, ladling a heap of carrots onto Bean’s plate, “it’s great because if they removed just the switches, the guts are probably still in place.”

  “The guts?” said Ab tentatively.

  “The insides,” Mrs. Carver explained. “Let me give you an example. If you tore that light switch off the wall and plastered over the hole and papered over the plaster, all you’ve done is hide the wires. They’re still behind the wall, just waiting for someone to put in a new switch. As long as the wires are getting power from somewhere, they’ll work.”

  “I see,” said Ab. “So the guts that make the thing work must still be there somewhere.”

  “Must be. That’s why you’ve been hearing the weights. The mechanism still works, and somebody’s using it,” Mrs. Carver concluded. “Anyway, it’s a thought.”