The Billionaire’s Curse Read online

  “Do you think that could be where the peak is?” he asked.

  “Maybe, but by the sound of it the major has searched all over this area,” Ruby said. “And the rest of these hills seem pretty small—hardly what you’d call a peak.”

  Gerald swung his torch around the room. The walls were hung with oils of gloomy landscapes and the occasional racehorse. The armchairs and couches all showed signs of age. The large Oriental rug that covered most of the floor was threadbare in several places. There was an oil heater in one corner and a grandfather clock stood by the door, its hands on midnight. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

  “Doesn’t look like the cleaners have been through lately,” Gerald said, directing his light onto the wall behind the desk.

  A mantelpiece over a large fireplace was dotted with curios and keepsakes, souvenirs of a lifetime in the military. Gerald picked up a small wooden box with an elaborate inlaid pattern.

  Ruby shivered. “Is it just me, or is it particularly cold in here?”

  Gerald shone his flashlight into the fireplace. The grate contained an arrangement of dried flowers, which, like everything else in the room, was covered in dust.

  “That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” Ruby said.

  “Those flowers have been there forever. That fireplace hasn’t been used for ages.”

  “It’s summer. People don’t light fires.”

  “But we saw smoke coming from a couple of chimneys when we were on top of the hill. And there’s an oil heater over there in the corner.” Gerald crouched down and ran his finger over the bottom of the grate. “No ash at all. This fireplace is the cleanest thing in the room.”

  “What are you saying?” Ruby asked.

  “Well, maybe this fireplace is used for something other than fires. Maybe it’s hiding something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. But it could be a good place to stash a stolen diamond.”

  Ruby looked at Gerald. “You want to look for a hidden passage behind a fireplace in a rundown gothic mansion in the middle of the English countryside?”

  “Uh…yes.”

  “Bit of a cliché, don’t you think?”

  “It’s only a cliché if you’ve heard it before,” Gerald said. He shone his flashlight around the inside of the fireplace. “It’s worth having a look.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, there’ll be lashings of hidden passages around here. Then maybe we could go searching for smugglers. How wizard!” She watched scornfully as Sam and Gerald scoured the mantelpiece for any sign of a lever that might open a secret doorway.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Sam asked, as he ran his fingers along the length of the tiled backing behind the mantelpiece.

  “I don’t know—some sort of panel that slides out of the way or a button or something,” Gerald said. “Anything that might—” He stopped. From outside came the squeak of a floorboard.

  “Hide!” said Ruby in an urgent whisper. The flashlights flicked off. Sam flung himself behind a couch and Ruby disappeared into a dark corner hidden behind a hanging tapestry. Gerald didn’t know which way to go. Across the room, the door opened. He dropped to the floor and rolled under the desk, just as the light came on.

  Gerald lay on his side and pressed himself hard against the front of the desk. The squeak of floorboards came nearer until a pair of tattered tartan slippers came to a halt a yard from his head. The major turned on a lamp, then took something from the top of the mantel. Gerald edged forward to get a better look.

  It was the wooden box that he had been looking at earlier. The major turned it over in his hands, then slid out a small panel that was part of the inlay. Under the panel was a switch, which in turn popped open another hidden panel on the other side of the box. The major shuffled the box in his hands, sliding panels and pushing buttons until at last there was a faint click and the top of the box opened.

  From his hiding place under the desk, Gerald saw the major pull out a square of paper. But then his view was blocked as the major moved. For minutes all Gerald could see was a curtain of dressing gown. Then the major stood back from the desk, put the paper back in the box and returned it to the mantel.

  The desk lamp clicked off, the tattered tartan slippers retraced their steps across the floor, and the room was returned to moonlight as the major closed the door behind him.

  Sam was the first to emerge. Without a word he went straight to the fireplace, picked up the wooden box, and began pressing his thumbs across its surface.

  Gerald popped up beside him.

  “It’s a Japanese puzzle box,” Sam said, continuing to run his fingers over the sides. “Our grandma used to have one—she hid her jewelry in it.”

  “How does it work?” Gerald asked.

  “Built into this pattern there’s a number of sliding panels, see?” Sam slid a sliver of wood the width of his thumb out from one side of the box. “Some have buttons under them that trigger another panel to open. Look, this one has a switch on a spring. It acts as a key unlocking a different panel.”

  A light twang came from inside the box as Sam pushed the switch. “You need to do all the right moves in the right order to open the top.”

  “How many ways are there to do it?”

  “Depends on how many panels in the box. This one looks like it might be about ten steps.”

  “So how long to open it?”

  “You saw the major. If you know the combination it’s just a few seconds.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  Sam continued to fumble with the box. “We could be here all night.”

  “Did you see what he put in there?” Ruby asked.

  “A piece of paper, but I couldn’t see what was on it.”

  “Another map?”

  “Maybe. But it wasn’t very big. Not like a page from a book or anything.”

  Something caught Ruby’s eye. “Speaking of books—”

  She shone her flashlight onto a bookcase next to the fireplace. It was lined with rows of books all bound in the same leather.

  “What is it?” Gerald asked.

  “Look at all these books,” Ruby said. “They look like they’ve been bought by the foot. I don’t think they’ve ever been opened.”

  “So? Maybe the major’s not much of a reader.”

  “Except for this one.” Ruby took down a volume; the spine was well worn at the top. She opened the cover. “Does Major Pilkington look like someone who’d be heavily into The Odyssey?”

  Ruby looked up at the gap in the row of books. Without saying anything she pushed her hand between the volumes and felt for the back of the bookcase.

  “Hello.”

  A hollow clunk sounded behind the grate and the back of the fireplace swung inward.

  “Cliché ahoy!” Ruby winked at Gerald. “Let’s go.”

  Sam reluctantly put the puzzle box back on the mantel. With their flashlights lighting the way, Gerald, Sam, and Ruby crouched down and disappeared into the passage behind the fireplace.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ruby was the last to crawl through the opening. As she got to her feet the fireplace swung shut behind her. She flashed her flashlight around the doorway but could see no way of getting back into the major’s study.

  “This better lead somewhere useful,” she muttered.

  Gerald, Sam, and Ruby found themselves in a gloomy corridor constructed from ancient bricks that formed a peaked arch above their heads. There were some rusted candleholders set into the walls that looked like they hadn’t been used for years.

  On the floor inside the corridor was a stack of cardboard boxes. Gerald folded back the top of the uppermost one and pulled out a bottle.

  “Whiskey,” he said, shining his flashlight on the label. “Must be the major’s private stash.” But apart from the hoard of booze there was nothing to be found.

  Gerald shone his flashlight deeper into the corridor and led th
e way. They had gone only a dozen paces or so when he stopped and swore.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “There’s a manhole here. I almost fell straight down it.”

  “Is that all? I thought you’d seen a rat or something.”

  Gerald swung his flashlight beam into Sam’s face. “A rat?”

  “I don’t like rats, is all,” Sam said, shading the light from his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “I guess not,” Gerald said. He shone the flashlight into the manhole. An iron ladder ran down one side of a sheer vertical shaft. The light petered out before it reached the bottom.

  “Waddya think?” he asked the others.

  “I don’t think we’re going to find the peak of eternal light down there,” Sam said.

  Ruby leaned her chin on Gerald’s shoulder to peer into the hole. “We’ve come this far—we may as well keep going,” she said.

  Gerald clenched his flashlight between his teeth and lowered his legs into the hole. The ladder rungs were cold on his hands and the scrape of his footsteps echoed into the blackness. Ruby followed, then Sam.

  The descent seemed to take forever. With their flashlights in their teeth, there was no talking, just the rhythmic song of shoes and hands on the metal rungs. After a few minutes Gerald’s left foot made contact with the ground; it was so sudden that Ruby landed a shoe on his head.

  “Hey!” Gerald protested, spitting his flashlight from his mouth. “Ease up.”

  “Sorry,” Ruby said, dropping beside him. “Where are we?”

  They shone their flashlights around to reveal an arched passage identical to the one they had left far above. Still on the ladder, Sam pointed his light into the musty darkness. “Seems to go uphill.”

  They trudged along the dank corridor. Sam aimed his flashlight at his feet and kept very close to the others.

  “So what’s with the rat thing?” Gerald asked, keenly aware that Sam was bumping into his back every second step.

  “It’s their feet,” Ruby said before Sam could answer. “He hates the thought of their claws crawling across his skin.”

  “Shut up, Ruby!” Sam snapped. Then in a calmer voice, “I don’t like them, all right?”

  “You should see what happens when he sees one,” Ruby continued to Gerald. “It’s fireworks!”

  Sam went into a silent sulk.

  Finally the passage came to an end and they were faced with another ladder bolted to a wall, leading up into another shaft, this one about ten feet wide.

  “We must be getting close to something interesting,” Gerald said, and he pulled himself onto the lower rung.

  This climb wasn’t as long as the first but instead of opening into a passageway, the ladder stopped a meter short of a blank stone ceiling.

  Gerald pulled the flashlight from his mouth and pointed it at the flagstones.

  “What’s the story?” Ruby called from further down the ladder.

  “Dead end,” Gerald said. “Shine your lights up here so I can get a better look.”

  Three beams lit the area by Gerald’s head. There was no sign of an opening, no hint of an escape. Gerald was about to suggest they head back to the study and try to find an exit from there when the light caught something on the ceiling.

  “Sam!” Gerald called. “Hold your flashlight out a bit and shine the light up from a different angle. That’s it.”

  He flicked off his own flashlight and shoved it in his pocket. Hooking his right foot under a rung and holding onto the top of the ladder with his left hand, he leaned over the shaft and reached up to the ceiling.

  “Careful!” Sam said.

  “I’m all right,” Gerald grunted.

  “I’m more worried about who you’ll hit on the way down.”

  Gerald traced his fingertips along a series of grooves in the ceiling.

  “What is it?” Ruby asked.

  “These lines in the stone, they don’t look natural. It’s some sort of pattern, I think.”

  “Like what? A map?” Sam asked.

  “No, nothing like that.” Gerald turned his head on an angle. “It’s a picture, I think.”

  “A picture of what?”

  “It’s a picture, in three pieces. Like a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve got to—”

  Gerald climbed another step up the ladder until his shoulders were pressed against the ceiling. He crooked his right knee over the second-top rung and reached behind his head, leaning out across the shaft, stretching both his hands as far across the ceiling as he could.

  “Gerald!”

  “Just…a bit…farther…”

  With a final lunge he managed to hook three fingers into a small indentation in the stone.

  “Got it!”

  “Got what?” Ruby asked.

  But before he could answer, the wrenching sound of metal straining against metal echoed up the chamber.

  “What was that?”

  Gerald looked down toward Sam’s anxious voice but could only see the light from his flashlight wavering below.

  “It’s the ladder!” Ruby shouted. “It’s coming away from the wall!”

  With his fingers still wedged in the crack, Gerald fumbled into his pocket with his free hand and grabbed his flashlight. He flashed it against the bricks. Two large rusted bolts had almost pulled free from the wall. The ladder was beginning to move.

  “Gerald! You’ve got to come back.”

  There was a second grinding creak and with a lurch the top of the ladder broke away from the wall. Gerald gasped. He kicked his right knee free and the ladder tumbled away beneath him. His fingers still clung to the cleft in the ceiling and his body swung back like a pendulum. The flashlight tumbled from his grasp and spun down into the blackness. His back thumped into the opposite wall and Gerald knew at once that he would fall to his death. His fingers couldn’t possibly hold his weight. He closed his eyes tight.

  Bolts popped like rifle shots from the bricks as the rest of the ladder pulled free. The sound of twisting metal tore into the darkness. But Gerald didn’t fall. He opened his eyes and looked down in disbelief to find the balls of his feet balancing on a rung. The ladder now spanned the breadth of the shaft at a steep angle, its bottom still fixed at the ground, its top wedged into the bricks on the opposite side. Gerald was caught at full stretch, three fingers still clutching the crevice in the ceiling and his feet just reaching the rung. With his back hard against the wall, he grabbed another rung with his other hand and held on tight.

  Gerald took a deep breath, but his relief shattered as he remembered Sam and Ruby. Had he killed them?

  He peered down. The twins were six feet below him, clinging onto the ladder, dangling by their hands above the void. They had held on as the ladder fell, but the jolt when it hit the wall opposite knocked their feet from the rungs.

  For a moment no one spoke. Ruby had dropped her flashlight and the only illumination came from the flashlight that Sam still held in one hand, his fingers wrapped around both it and the rung above his head.

  Ruby breathed, “Sam, you’ve got to get your feet onto the ladder, then climb back around the side, like this.” She swung a leg forward and hooked a shoe onto a rung. Then she smoothly pulled herself around until she was back on top.

  “Okay, Sam, your turn,” she panted.

  Sam followed his sister’s maneuver, hauling himself up, and soon they were both back on the ladder, but this time facing the opposite wall.

  “Gerald, are you all right?” Ruby called.

  Sam trained his light up onto Gerald’s face. He was still stretched across the top of the shaft.

  “Not on me,” Gerald shouted. “Shine it on the ceiling.”

  Hands shaking, Sam turned the light back to where Gerald’s fingers were clutching the rock cleft. Gerald could see a series of lines and whorls in a circular pattern on the stone ceiling. He took a tentative step higher up the ladder, giving him the leverage to pull hard. A large doughnut-shaped section of th
e ceiling turned and clicked into place. Gerald’s fingers were now next to another indentation in the stone: a bigger opening, into which he was able to squeeze his fist. He heaved his weight in the opposite direction and an inner ring slowly turned until it too clicked into place.

  From below, the pattern on the ceiling was transforming into a distinct picture.

  “I can see it,” Ruby said. “Just the center piece to go, Gerald.”

  Rivulets of sweat were streaking across Gerald’s face and running into his eyes. He wiped his brow on the sleeve of his outstretched arm.

  For the third time, the shivering grind of metal echoed in the pit.

  “Hurry, Gerald!” Ruby cried. “The ladder’s not going to hold much longer.”

  Gerald took a deep breath. With the second ring slotted into place, another indentation lined up. He took another step up the ladder and hooked his right foot under a rung. He reached out his other hand to squeeze all his fingers into the space in the stone.

  “Come on, Gerald!” Sam stammered. “Hold on.”

  Gerald dropped his head back and saw Ruby’s anxious face staring up at him. He gave her a grim smile then twisted hard at the shoulders, swiveling the central piece until it lined up with the outer rings. Another deep click sounded. Gerald released his hands and, with his stomach muscles almost tearing under the strain, hauled himself back to the ladder.

  He looked up at the ceiling. Where before there had been faceless rock there was now a clear image.

  “What is it?” whispered Ruby.

  “That,” said Gerald, still catching his breath, “is the Archer family crest.”

  Carved into the rock were three forearms, each hand clasping its neighbor by the elbow to form a triangle, with a flaming sun in the center.

  “What is that doing here?” Ruby asked.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” said Sam. “How does it get us out of here?”

  Gerald stared up at the image.

  “That is a very good question.”

  He again braced his foot under the rung and leaned out across the shaft. He pressed a palm against the central carving of the sun. A thin line appeared around the outside of the crest and with only a little effort from Gerald, the entire centerpiece moved up and across to one side. The dull glow of moonlight filtered through the opening. Gerald flung his hands over the lip and kicked his legs free of the ladder, leaving him swinging.