The House of Puzzles

by Richard Newsome

  Gerald quickly rolled up the documents and stuffed them back into the basket. His eyes darted from workbench to workbench, taking in the gizmos spread around the room. But he could not see anything like the glossy black box that Mason Green wanted him to find. His gaze stopped on a waist-high cabinet, standing to the right of the fireplace. It took him a moment to realise that it was different from the other work surfaces in the room. There were no tools or bent springs, no contraptions or devices. There was only a polished steel casket, about sixty centimetres square and twenty centimetres high. Gerald edged over to get a closer look. On the front of the casket, two small screws held a tiny brass plaque in place.

  Engraved on the plaque was: Cornelius Drebbel 1572–1633.

  Gerald swallowed hard. The Cornelius Drebbel. Advisor to Emperor Rudolph II of Prague, friend of King James VI of Scotland and inventor of the perpetual motion machine.

  Alex had picked up a hand drill and was winding the crank, watching as the bit twisted in the air.

  Gerald turned to the metal box that bore Drebbel’s name. He shuffled around so his back would shield any possible view Alex might have of what he was doing. Carefully, silently, desperately, he opened the top of his backpack. If Drebbel’s perpetual motion machine was inside the metal box, Gerald could have it out and into his pack in seconds. Alex would not have a clue. Then all Gerald had to do was wait until Jasper Mantle let them out in the morning, and Professor McElderry was as good as saved.

  Gerald took in a long, silent breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

  He eased the lid up.

  It swung smoothly from a hinge at the back. The only thing inside was a ball-shaped indentation in the lush silk lining, large enough to hold a good-sized eggplant. Gerald stared into the empty casket. If it was meant to house Drebbel’s machine, it was no longer there.

  Gerald screwed his eyes shut with frustration. First the empty keystone in Scotland and now this. Where was the perpetual motion machine? He was quickly pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a panel sliding open. There was a movement at the front of the cabinet and Gerald stumbled back as a mechanical man dressed like a pint-sized butler rolled onto the floor. The figure was no taller than Gerald’s hips and it moved like a drunken penguin, but there was no mistaking the dapper black jacket and pinstriped trousers of a gentleman’s gentleman. It was as if Mr Fry had been melted down and recast in stainless steel.

  ‘What is that thing?’ Alex peered around the side of the cabinet, his eyes growing wider by the second.

  Gerald stepped clear as the mechanical half-man surged forward on unseen wheels. The robot’s head, which appeared to have been fashioned from an ancient colander, spun in endless circles. Gerald was getting dizzy watching it.

  ‘I think it’s some kind of wind-up servant,’ Gerald said. The robot turned and, with a buzz of clockwork gears, lurched back towards the cabinet.

  ‘Looks like a rubbish bin in a suit,’ Alex said, making sure to keep Gerald between the robot and himself. ‘Do you think it’s dangerous?’

  ‘Only if you really hate being banged in the shins,’ Gerald said. He dodged as the robot whirred past. It stopped, spun in place and rolled to Gerald’s feet. Gerald jumped as the half-dome of the robot’s head flipped back. Underneath was a blue silk pillow, upon which rested an envelope.

  Gerald plucked up the note.

  ‘What’s it say?’ Alex asked, still keeping a safe distance.

  A blob of red wax bearing the initials JK sealed the flap. Gerald turned the envelope over. In copperplate handwriting on the front was: To the interloper.

  He cracked the seal and pulled out a stiff ivory-coloured card. It read,

  You have until the chimes count ten

  To unlock the stairway

  That leads to heaven

  Or, for you there will be sleep.

  Noxious to start,

  but eternally deep.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Alex said. ‘A stairway to heaven?’

  Before Gerald could respond, the robot’s head flipped back into place, and, with a burst of spinning gears, trundled into the cabinet. The moment the wooden panel closed behind the mechanical man, the clock on the mantel chimed—a single hollow toll. The hands, which had rested in place on the twelve, flicked into action; a second hand started tracing around the clockface. The music box stopped playing, and an eerie silence fell over the room.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Alex said.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Gerald looked down at the card in his hand. ‘What happens when the clock reaches ten?’

  The fire in the grate, which had been burning so majestically, suddenly vanished—snuffed out in an instant. Gerald and Alex stared at the empty fireplace. Then Gerald had a sickening thought.

  ‘What’s that hissing sound?’ Alex asked.

  Gerald started towards the grate. He was two metres away when he smelled it.

  ‘Gas,’ he said. He screwed up his face at the odour. ‘Eternal sleep—this place is going to gas us!’

  Alex stared at Gerald in disbelief. ‘Gas us? Who’s trying to gas us?’

  ‘We can worry about who and why later,’ Gerald said. He retreated from the fireplace with his hand over his mouth. ‘We don’t want to be here when that clock strikes ten.’

  Alex’s face registered the seriousness of the situation. He rushed to the panelled wall where they had entered the room and hammered his fists against the wood, desperate to find the hidden doorway. But it was impossible. The panels were unyielding, no matter how much battering Alex unleashed on them.

  ‘That’s no use,’ Gerald called to him. ‘There has to be another way.’ He gagged at the smell that rolled from the fireplace. The clock on the mantel ticked on—two chimes rang out.

  ‘Minutes!’ Gerald said. ‘The clock is chiming minutes!’ Gerald looked at the card again. Unlock the stairway that leads to heaven. What did that even mean? Death? He looked to the banks of bookcases above them on the mezzanine and then to the wood-panelled ceiling high above. He scanned the room—the workbenches, the cabinets, the portrait of Diamond Jim Kincaid leering down at them as if enjoying their torment.

  Alex ran to Gerald, panic in his eyes. ‘I know,’ he said, fumbling in a pocket. ‘I know what to do.’ Baranov pulled out a cigarette lighter: a chunky silver zippo. ‘I can burn the gas away,’ he said.

  He flipped the top of the lighter open and raised his thumb over the flint wheel.

  Gerald’s eyes popped. He may not have been the best science student at St Cuthbert’s, but he knew that one spark near that fireplace meant that being gassed would be the least of their problems. Gerald lashed out with his right hand and smacked the lighter from Alex’s grasp. The steel block arched into the air with the top still folded back. If it landed the wrong way, he and Alex would be toast—and probably toasted.

  He dived full stretch with his hand out, his eyes glued to the falling lighter, and landed on the floor with an oomph. The zippo fell safely into his palm. Gerald took in a long breath of gas-tainted air, closed the top of the lighter and shoved it into his pocket.

  The clock chimed three times.

  Alex stare
d down at Gerald, fury in his eyes. ‘What did you do that for?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll explain in seven minutes,’ Gerald said. ‘Until then, no flames. Okay?’

  Gerald righted himself and he looked desperately for any sign of an escape route. His eyes fell on the collection of keys on the far wall. ‘Unlock the stairway…’ he whispered to himself. He didn’t wait to explain to Alex and dashed across the room.

  The box frame housing the keys was about a metre across and almost two metres high. Gerald dragged a stool from a nearby workbench and climbed onto it. He reached up and grabbed the frame with both hands. It was heavier than he expected and as he shoved it up, trying to free it from the hook, it slipped. The box fell through his fingers and the base smashed onto the floor. Glass exploded across the boards. The frame buckled and toppled forward like a felled oak, landing face down with a crash.

  Gerald cringed at the sound, and then he looked up at the wall where the keys had been hanging. A grid of fifty keyholes stared back at him.

  Fifty keys for fifty keyholes.

  Gerald jumped from the stool and dragged the remains of the box frame out of the way.

  ‘Come and help,’ he called to Alex. Gerald looked down to the pattern of keys scattered on the floor, then up at the keyholes. ‘I just hope they haven’t got out of order.’ He pointed at the furthest key. ‘Hand me one at a time,’ Gerald said to Alex. ‘Don’t touch anything else.’ Gerald climbed back onto the stool and took the first key from Alex. Stretching as high as he could, he inserted it into the top right keyhole. It went in smoothly, and turned.

  ‘Hand them up in order,’ he said to Alex. ‘Quick.’ The clock on the mantle chimed four times.

  Gerald and Alex looked at each other. ‘Really quick,’ Gerald said.

  One after the other, Gerald pushed the keys into place, turning and unlocking the grid of keyholes. Gerald had no idea what it would achieve—it might only start the barrel organ again—but it was the only option they had.

  The stench of the gas was nauseating. Alex looked like he was about to vomit. ‘Hurry,’ he gasped at Gerald.

  The clock chimed five times.

  Gerald shoved in another key and turned. Only two keyholes left. He looked to Alex. The expression on the boy’s face told Gerald that something was not right. Alex looked distraught—he held up three keys.

  ‘Three?’ Gerald said. He didn’t have time to think about the consequences. He fumbled the first—a heavy iron piece that seemed hundreds of years old. It slid into place. But it wouldn’t turn. Gerald grunted as he tried to force the head around, but it refused to budge.

  ‘Try another one,’ Alex said.

  Gerald pulled the key out and shoved it in the next hole. This time it turned smoothly.

  Two keys.

  One hole.

  The one in his right hand looked like it might be the one. He slid it in place and hefted the shank around. It moved smoothly through ninety degrees and stopped.

  Gerald stared up at the grid of fifty keys in fifty holes. He slipped the spare one into the pocket of his jeans.

  The hiss of the gas was all they could hear. He looked around, hoping that somewhere a panel had popped open and they could escape.

  There was nothing.

  The gas still poured through the fireplace.

  Then, from high above, came the sound of splintering timber.

  Gerald threw his head back to see a section of panelling fall free from the ceiling. Sheets of wood veneer slipped from their mountings and tumbled like autumn leaves. Alex leaped clear. The boards crashed to the floor, taking out a workbench and scattering its contents across the room.

  Gerald pressed his back against the wall. Plaster dust added to the foulness of the gas that ate into Gerald’s nose and eyes. He hacked up a cough that threatened to pop a lung.

  Alex lifted himself off the floor, his sleeve to his mouth. The two of them gazed up at the ragged section of ceiling. For a moment neither of them recognised what they were looking at, but then it hit Gerald like a slap to the face.

  A door.

  There was an ordinary wooden door set flat into the ceiling.

  The clock chimed six times.

  Gerald jumped from the stool and raced to Alex. ‘That has to be the way out of here,’ he said, gagging.

  ‘How are we supposed to get up there?’ Alex asked.

  Gerald grabbed the edge of a workbench. ‘Help drag this to the wall. We should be able to get to the balcony.’

  They hefted the bench underneath the mezzanine walkway. Gerald and Alex scrambled on top but the balcony was still too high. Gerald looked around and saw the stool that he used to reach the keyholes. He jumped back to the floor and raced to fetch it. It was like jumping into a swimming pool brimming with slime. The smell was horrendous. He held his breath, grabbed the stool and handed it to Alex, who climbed on top and, at full stretch, was able to reach the bottom of the iron balustrade. He pulled himself up and hooked a foot between the railings. Seconds later he was over the handrail and onto the balcony.

  Gerald leaped onto the stool and stretched high, straining up onto his toes. His fingertips brushed the underside of the metalwork. ‘I…can’t…reach…’

  The gas swirled higher. Gerald’s head was spinning. If he fell now, there was no waking up tomorrow. His eyes were losing traction in their sockets, sliding backwards. His knees buckled. He could feel himself drifting away.

  Then, a strong hand snapped around his left wrist just as his head fell back, his eyes lolling about like dumplings in soup. Gerald gazed drunkenly up to see Alex leaning over the balustrade. He strained, a grunt wrenched from his chest, and he hauled Gerald onto the mezzanine. They landed heavily, collapsing against a bookshelf. Three leather-bound volumes fell loose, thumping one after the other onto Gerald’s head.

  The blows were enough for him to regain some sense. He wiped a hand over his face. ‘Thanks,’ he said to Alex with halting breath. ‘At least the air is better up here.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Alex said. ‘Three minutes to go. And that door is still a long way up.’

  Gerald propped himself on his elbows and looked up. The door was set flat into the ceiling, about three metres out from the wall, the closest side roughly in line with the outer edge of the balcony.

  ‘We need a ladder,’ Alex said.

  ‘What would we lean it up against?’ Gerald said. He struggled to his feet. ‘There must be another way.’

  Alex was swaying, his head bobbing. ‘I don’t feel so good,’ he mumbled.

  Gerald moved too late to grab him. Alex staggered against a bookcase. He flashed out a hand to steady himself and latched onto a brass light fitting. The length of metal pipe came away from the wall and he crashed into the shelves, sending books cascading to the floor. He crumpled on top of them, like a scarecrow knocked from its perch.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Gerald was by Alex’s side. He took the length of piping from his hand.

  Alex blinked hard. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said. ‘Thanks for asking.’

  ‘I was more worried that the flame
from the lamp was going to light the gas,’ Gerald said. He held up the brass pipe—then stalled in thought. His eyes darted around the mezzanine. There were at least twenty identical fittings set into the walls. None of them was alight.

  Gerald pulled the lampshade from the fitting in his hand. There was nothing on the end. No wick, no bulb. The fitting was an S-shaped length of solid brass—with sharp corners, not rounded at the bends.

  The clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight times.

  Gerald rushed to the wall bracket where Alex had torn off the light. It was a brass plate about ten centimetres across, with a looping, clockwise-pointing arrow engraved on the front in fine filigree. Gerald slid the light fitting back into place.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Alex’s breathing was tight, laboured.

  Gerald grabbed the free end of the brass rod with both hands. ‘These things aren’t lights,’ he said. ‘There’s no gas line, no wiring. So what are they for? Decoration?’

  Alex bowed his head between his knees. ‘Does it really matter?’

  ‘Kincaid liked his wind-up toys,’ Gerald said. ‘Let’s see what this does.’ He leaned on the brass rod. It moved smoothly around, turning clockwise, in the direction of the arrow. Gerald cranked the handle like he was trying to start a vintage car. The far end of the next bookcase along started to swing out, arching back towards Gerald through ninety degrees before it juddered to a halt, perpendicular to the wall. He kept cranking and the shelves started to cantilever, sliding back one by one to form a flight of seven stairs up the side of the wall.

  ‘It’s too short,’ Alex said. ‘We can’t reach the door from the top of that.’

  Gerald ran to the next light fitting and reefed off the glass lamp cover. He cranked the handle. The far end of the neighbouring bookcase lurched outwards, swinging across the balcony to be parallel to the first set of shelves. Then the bookcase moved straight up, gliding on tracks hidden in the pattern of the wallpaper. When the bottom shelf was level with the top of the first bookcase, it too cantilevered back, extending the staircase to fourteen steps.