The Sandler Inquiry Part 99

"Furnace room?" he guessed.

"The furnace room is behind the stairs," she said.

They neared the open doorway. He felt her hand on his shoulder.

"I'll go first if you wish," she said, motioning with the pistol as if to indicate why. He shook his head. He expected nothing living past the doorway. Nor would he admit fear or hesitation.

'I'll go," he said.

He stepped through the pa.s.sageway, followed quickly by Leslie.

They found themselves in a mausoleum. There were plaques on the wall, marking births and deaths.

He screwed his face into a perplexed scowl.

"What in h.e.l.l is this?"

he asked breathlessly.

She was more calm. There was a small altar before the plaques on the wall, complete with candles and the dusty remains of flowers which had faded and died innumerable years earlier. They both had the sense of having stepped into some bizarre medieval sacristy, a holy shrine of a small and perverse order. In a way, the sense was a proper one.

"There are names on the plaques," he said.

At once they stepped forward, examining the names. Each name was the same-only the dates differed on the small tarnished gold plaques.

ANDREW, read the first gold plaque, corroded with age, but still legible. 1932-1939.

And the next, ANDY 1939-1946.

And the next and the next, all the same, at various intervals until the last in 1975.

"The dogs," said Thomas.

"It's where she interred the dogs' ' Leslie shook her head incredulously The room was a canine mausoleum, complete with a small bronze statue of a poodle on the opposite side from the altar.

"Incredible said Thomas.

"A crazy old woman. A fortune and all the time in the world. And this is what she does with it' He pondered the darkest recesses and warpings of the human mind.

This was Victoria Sandler's other family. Her Andys. It was cold in the room. The lanterns moved from moment to moment and threw changing, disproportionate shadows on the walls. At one point Leslie's lantern shone directly upon the statue of the poodle and a giant shadow of the dog rose in stark black against a side wall. For a moment they could almost feel the presence of Victoria Sandler, of the mind of the recently deceased woman who had consecrated this most sacred part of her world.

The man's voice came suddenly from behind them, loud, casual, and totally unexpected.

"Find anything?" it asked solemnly.

They almost felt their insides explode as they whirled in their tracks, both brandis.h.i.+ng their lanterns and Leslie raising her gun to fire.

A third lantern shone back into their eyes, blinding them.

"Sorry," said the man, filling much of the doorway.

"Did I surprise you?"

He lowered the lantern. It was Hammond.

Leslie and Thomas drew deep breaths, neither completely willing to admit that Hammond, approaching without being heard, had set their nerves on edge.

Leslie eased her pistol downward, scared that she might actually have fired. The weapon had been trained accurately on the center of Hammond's chest. And her jittery finger had been squeezing.

People had been accidentally, killed for less.

Leslie conversed with Hammond, explaining what they'd found.

But Thomas's attention was transfixed by what he'd seen quite accidentally in the shadows on the other side of the altar room. He might never have noticed it had he not had reason to whirl suddenly and s.h.i.+ne the lamp the wrong way.

But there was a long convex section of the concrete floor. A section maybe nine feet by four feet, and unnoticeable to the eye in proper light. It had been uneven in the beam of the light, however, reflecting the shadow disproportionately.

"Wait a minute" asked Thomas as Hammond and Leslie were ready to dismiss the altar room altogether.

"What's this?"

He motioned with his lantern, s.h.i.+ning a beam up and down the length of the slightly convex area. At first they didn't see it, didn't realize what he was indicating. Then they both noticed also. The dirty gray concrete of the floor was ever so slightly higher in that small area than anywhere else in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Hammond stooped down and examined the area, looking first at the convex area, running his hand across it, then looking at the concrete along the wall. He compared the concrete there to the rest of the cellar.

"You've got a pair of eyes," Hammond said.

"This floor's been refinished. It's anywhere from fifteen to thirty years old. The rest is original " He studied it again.

"The new floor's higher than the old, too," he concluded.

"But not by much. Sharp eyes, all right, Daniels" "I knew what I was looking for," allowed Thomas, drawing curious glances from both of them. Yet exactly what Daniels had been looking for was already evident. Hammond began nodding slowly.

Leslie made no indication, though all three of them knew immediately what could be in a rounded section of the floor in an area of that size.

"A grave," said Hammond.

"Maybe' He glanced up, searching the face of Thomas Daniels.

"Did she ever have any large dogs?" he asked.

"No." Thomas was already shaking his head.

"Not that I ever knew of."

"Figures," said Hammond softly, looking back and still holding his fingers to the concrete floor, as if to pick up sensations or intuition.

"We'll have to chisel it up, wont we?"