He gave the wall a gentle rap as he kept walking. “A place like Castle Heterodyne—even if you was the boss—I’m betting you’d want to get away from it occasionally and to do that, you’d have to put your secret room somewhere the Castle couldn’t see. The Great Movement Chamber was as deep as the Castle’s perception went, so they stowed it below that.”
He stopped outside a bedroom door that, even compared to the others, was ostentatious in the extreme. Gargoyles and assorted monstrosities frolicked in all directions and the door itself sported inlaid panels of gold and jade. “And the only person who’d know about it would be the Heterodyne.”
“Oh!” Sleipnir snapped her fingers. “The Heterodyne Boys’ father was killed by their mother. He might not have had the opportunity to pass that knowledge down to his son.”
“This does make sense,” Theo chimed in. “From stuff I’ve heard from my family, Lucrezia could get anything she wanted from her husband, Bill Heterodyne.” He pushed open the great door and revealed an extremely ornate room, complete with a bed that could easily have comfortably slept a half-a-dozen people. “And knowing her, I’ll bet she even convinced him to give her the master bedroom.”
The room was large, but one could see that, even in ruins, it conveyed a feeling of comfort and power. The outer wall was dominated by a large set of cracked windows and a set of French doors that at one time must have led out to a balcony. This had been ripped away, but there was still a breathtaking view of the town spread out below. In addition to the bed, there was a parlor, a row of elegantly carved armoires, and a spacious, sunken marble tub. The walls were paneled from top to bottom in a reddish wood that even under the dust and grime of almost two decades conveyed richness and extravagance. The walls were hung with numerous paintings.
It was Zeetha, while studying them closely, who realized: “Hey. These all feature the same woman.”
Theo examined them and nodded. “That is the Lady Lucrezia,” he confirmed. “I saw portraits of her in the family gallery back home.” He shook his head. “My mother said she always loved looking at herself.”
Everyone examined the pictures with a renewed interest. Lucrezia had been a curvaceous blonde, with large, heavy-lidded eyes, a small nose, and sensuous lips. In every picture, the artists had managed to convey a sense of mischief and the underlying cruelty that one found in the most pernicious of practical jokers.
“So that’s Agatha’s mom?” Moloch asked. “She doesn’t look that dangerous.”
“Nevertheless, that’s the woman who became the Other, destroyed a whole bunch of the Great Houses, and rules the Geisterdamen,” Krosp reminded him.
While everyone else examined the paintings, Higgs was slowly walking the perimeter of the room, tapping lightly on the walls. Finally, he stopped, reached out, and gave a nondescript section of paneling a firm shove. With a faint groan, a narrow door fell inward, raising a cloud of dust. He nodded in satisfaction. The head of a darkened stairway could be seen.
“I’ll bet that goes straight down to her hidden lab.”
Theo nodded. “A nice little chain of logic there, Mister Higgs. Well done.”
As they filed through the door, Zeetha laid a hand on Higg’s sleeve. “Wait a minute—how did you know where the master bedroom was?” she asked quietly.
Higgs looked at her with raised eyebrows. “It was on the map.”
The passage wound down and down and down. They descended in single file, with Higgs leading the way. Krosp was fascinated. “This thing must connect to secret doors throughout half the Castle.”
Moloch hunched his shoulders. “I’m just amazed there wasn’t a trap every two meters.”
Snaug considered this. “This is a place the Castle intelligence didn’t go. Maybe there weren’t any.”
Moloch snorted. “If I was one of the wackjobs who built this place, it’s where I’d make sure there were traps.”
Higgs listened as he stealthily disarmed yet another trap. He nodded. Young von Zinzer would fit in just fine.
Eventually they came to a door that, when opened, revealed the ruins of Lucrezia’s secret lab. They all exclaimed at the sight of the collapsed ceiling and immediately spread out to look for Agatha and the others.
Krosp and Moloch gazed back at the stairway, which continued on deeper into the earth.
Moloch scratched his beard. “So—there are secret rooms under the secret room?”
Krosp grinned. “Exploring this place is going to be very interesting.” He clapped Moloch on the back. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”
Zeetha was searching near the pile of debris when she stumbled against an unstable rock—striking it with her shoulder. A small cascade of rubble began and Higgs yanked her out of the way just as a large stone block dislodged and fell. She looked at the cracked floor beneath it and turned to Higgs. “Thanks. I was careless.”
This was clearly not the response Higgs had been expecting. To cover, he gestured at the pile with the stem of his pipe. “We have to risk it to find the others, but this whole thing is unstable. Could come down at any time. You keep searching. I’ll keep my eye on you.”
Zeetha nodded, but at that moment there was a shout from Theo. “It’s okay! They all survived!” He was holding a wad of notes that had been placed on the same bench as the comatose Von Pinn.
“Then where are they?” Krosp asked.
“They’ve gone to fix the Castle.” He read further and frowned. “Ah. They say that the fake Heterodyne girl is still loose. Huh. Gil says she’s someone he met in Paris—and she’s a lot more dangerous than she looks,” He looked up. “They want us to take care of Madame Von Pinn.” He shook his head. “I can’t say they left us with the easier job.”
Moloch leaned into Fräulein Snaug. “Oh, I dunno. You mean I get to stay in a fortified secret room while a bunch of sparks race around trying to fix this death machine of a castle? Twist my arm.”
Snaug looked at his defenseless little arm and shivered. Soon enough, she promised herself. Aloud she said, “But first we’d better shore up this ceiling.”
By Von Pinn’s bedside, Theo was finishing up a quick examination and frequently referencing the sheaf of notes he’d found.
Sleipnir stood by passing instruments as requested. She bit her lip. “Poor Von Pinn. She looks so . . . vulnerable.”
Theo nodded. “At least she’s stable.” He laid down his stethoscope and shook his head in admiration. “This setup they put together is amazing. I think she could lie here for the next few months if she had to.”
“So what should we do?”
Theo again shuffled through the notes. “They didn’t leave me any specific instructions, which is flattering, but not particularly useful.” He flipped a page and then frowned for a second. “Ah. Look here,” he said, not showing Sleipnir anything. “Gil, Agatha, and Prince Sturmvoraus all worked on this. They’ve annotated each other back and forth.” A light seemed to go on inside his head. “Oh! Yes! I see! Amazing! And I think I can even improve this.” He looked up and his voice began to drop into the registers associated with the activation of the spark. “Yes! I’ve got everything I need already here! By the time you—” he pointed at Mister Higgs “—get that watchdog clank down here, I can have all of the preliminary work done and then some!” He wheeled about and gave Sleipnir a crazed grin. “I can do this!”