The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(38)

“Come on,” Stevie tried again, this time with a hint of sadness. “I feel . . . responsible. I mean, I brought her here, and if a bear ate her . . .”

Nothing. Larry was like the mountain rock they stood upon. She tried to look distraught, but didn’t know how to make that happen. She ended up sticking out her lower lip a bit. Larry rolled his eyes and cast a look around the empty Great Hall.

“I’ll get you plain coffee K-Cups.”

“Go, Stevie,” he said.

“All I’m asking is to see where it happened. That’s all. It . . . freaks me out. I brought her here. Or, what I said did. I just want to see it.”

Larry clicked his pen a few more times.

“If I show you, will you stop?” he asked.

“Definitely,” she said.

Larry tipped his chair back a few inches, lowered his chin, and looked back into the half-open security office door next to him.

“Jill,” he said, “take over for a few minutes. I have to go down to the basement.”

“Yup,” came a voice from within.

He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a set of keys.

“Come on,” he said, getting up. Stevie fell in step behind him.

“My uncle used to say to me, ‘You’re a pain, but I can’t see through you,’” Stevie said.

“Your uncle had a point,” he replied.

“It’s my persistence that made me an Ellingham student.”

“Uh-huh.”

The Great House basement was accessed through a door in the kitchen, and the way to the kitchen was a wooden door under the grand staircase, which led to a half-set of steps to a partly subterranean space. The kitchen was a cavernous room with a white-and-black tile floor and white walls. Though the old appliances had long been removed and replaced with modern ones, there was still an air of the 1930s here—the wide wooden counters, a much-marked marble-topped table where pastries would have been rolled. There were massive cabinets and pantries, all with whitewashed wooden doors, slightly warped and cracking with age. The windows started only halfway up the wall, making the room slightly darker. Massive globe lights hung from the ceiling. Though it smelled slightly of the faculty’s microwaved lunches and dirty coffee mugs, there was still a feeling of authenticity here. Stevie could imagine the house cook and her assistant working away.

“This way,” Larry said, taking Stevie to an unmarked white door toward the far side of the room. “Watch the steps. They’re warped.”

Here, the Great House got a bit more real. The basement had a strong basement funk even from the entrance—a pungent, acrid smell that Stevie could feel on the back of her throat. The steps were saggy and made a noise like a scream when she stepped on them.

“You were always going to show me,” Stevie said as they went down. “Weren’t you?”

“If I didn’t, you’d find your way down here some other way.”

Stevie glowed with pride.

“It’s a warren down here, so stay with me,” he said.

Larry turned to the right, where they were immediately confronted with a wall. There was a small opening to the right side of that, which led to a space just a few feet square. This led to another chamber that was maybe ten feet square, that opened on either side to more little chambers. Each one was dark and had to be lit by a small pull-bulb.

Stevie had been in the recently excavated tunnel with Hayes the fateful week before he died. She had already been in some claustrophobic spaces. Though this basement was much larger, it had been cut into random little spaces with walls of old brown brick. It was a labyrinth.

“What is this?” Stevie asked as they twisted and turned through many tiny hovel-spaces.

“Albert Ellingham was a weird man,” Larry said. “People always forget that. He was weird. He and his friends used to play games down here. Some of these doors . . .”

They had, in fact, reached a door. He opened it to reveal a bit of brick wall.

“Are jokes. And just so people would never learn the layout, he’d regularly have the inner walls knocked down and moved.”

“That’s awesome,” Stevie said. “Why is this not in any books?”

“Because no one is allowed down here,” Larry said. “And all these pointless walls aren’t on any plans. They’re entirely cosmetic. I’d knock them down, myself, and make this space more useful.”

Some of the middle areas were more full of objects—bigger, heavier ones. Large boxes, old appliances, piles of chairs and bits of old furniture. They had to squeeze through some of these. There were some heavy metal hatches in the floor as well. Stevie shone her phone light down on them.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Old storage areas. They used to keep supplies down here—apples, potatoes, preserved food. Those down there were some of the icehouse storage. They’d cut ice in the winter and pack it in with straw. Before there were freezers, there were icehouses. Now . . .”

They had reached one of the larger parts of the basement—a space maybe twenty feet long and half as wide across. It went all the way to the window. Larry pulled his phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight function.

“Right now,” he said, “we’re just under Ellingham’s office. This wall”—he tapped his hand on the wall to their right—“is permanent and load-bearing. And right here . . .”