Ben used his flashlight to take a good look around the art supplies room, making a mental map as he did.
Except for the area on either side of the door, all the walls were lined with shelving units, some made of wood and others of metal. And the center of the room was also filled with metal shelving. Not surprisingly, most of the shelves in the room were empty. All kinds of supplies and equipment from Oakes School had been moved to other schools in the district and to storage locations, a steady stream for the past month or so, getting ready for the big teardown.
The entry door was on the west wall, which backed up against the art room. The east wall, about twenty-five feet away, backed up onto the janitor’s workroom—and Ben reminded himself that silence was critical.
The south wall of the room was brick, the outer wall of the school. It had four wide windows just like the ones in the art room, except these windows had been nailed shut, and the glass had been painted over with the same thick brown paint that covered the walls.
The north wall was the important one, the one that backed up against the hallway. Three of the hallway posts—the foot-hooks—were right there, just above the wooden shelves.
Ben had already figured out that the middle post was the fourth one from the corner out in the hall, the one that sounded like brass. Looking carefully with his light, the part of the center post visible above the wooden shelf unit looked no different from the other two posts.
Immediately, Ben saw something different about the shelves that ran along the north wall, the shelves that covered the lower six feet of each post. Unlike the shelves elsewhere in the room, these wooden shelves were old—very similar to the heavy oak bookcases that lined the outer walls of the library, bookcases that dated back to the 1780s. The long wall of shelving was divided up into five sections—four wide ones, and one narrow one.
He felt like he was getting to know John Vining, the ship’s carpenter who had done the actual work of concealing the captain’s safeguards. There was no real reason to have one narrow shelf unit with wider ones on either side. John Vining had put the thinner one there on purpose, right in front of that particular post!
Ben began clearing the center shelf unit. It held mostly drawing and construction paper, and he stacked the packages gently on the metal shelves behind him. The unit was about eighteen inches wide, and about that deep as well, and when it was cleared, he got his light up close to the back of the unit. There was nothing much to see. All the joints back there looked tight, and when he tapped the back of the unit gently, it sounded solid, with no give at all.
But when he focused the bright beam on the outer edges of the unit, Ben smiled. There were face boards along the top and bottom of the shelf units running from wall to wall, boards that should have run without a break from the west wall to the east wall. But they didn’t. There were two joints in the boards, top and bottom, one on each side of the center shelves. It meant that the narrow unit in the center was a completely separate object, and that meant that it could move!
Digging into his book bag, Ben found his stainless-steel ruler. He worked the thin edge of it into the crack between the center unit and the shelves on the left. Using it like a putty knife, he gently removed dust and dirt, dried paint, and hardened varnish. When the left-hand crack was clear, he did the same thing on the right-hand side.
The top! he thought, and using the front of the shelves like a ladder, he stepped up twice, and reaching back, he cleared the crack where the wall and the wooden post met the wood of the shelf unit. The top of the shelf was covered with thick dust and grime, but the seams were easy to clear out. Then, on both the right and left of the top of the unit, he cleaned out the cracks running from the wall out toward the front of the shelves.
He climbed down, got to his hands and knees, and began to work on the bottom of the unit where it met the floor. This was much harder, and he found himself using the ruler more like a saw than a putty knife. It was the old floor varnish that made it so tough, and it was especially difficult because he had to move so slowly, working as quietly as possible.
When he finished, he was panting, and sweat from his forehead dripped down onto the floorboards.
His hands were filthy. But this was a supplies room . . . yes! A big roll of brown paper towels. He tore off a length, wiped his face to get it damp, and then scrubbed most of the dirt off his hands and arms.
And now the dangerous part. He felt sure that this narrow shelf unit was supposed to move, to pull straight out, away from the wall. And from the front of that post.
First, Ben made himself stand still. He had to get his breathing back to normal and stop his heart from beating so fast.
When he felt calm enough, he walked carefully to the east wall, the one facing the janitor’s workroom. He slipped into a space between two metal shelf units and laid his right ear flat against the painted plaster wall. He held his breath and listened. And listened. And listened.
Nothing—no voices, no sounds at all except a slight hum, sort of the kind a refrigerator makes.
Moving back to the narrow shelf unit, he laid his flashlight on the floor, braced his arms against the front of the top edge, and then flexed his legs upward as gently as he could . . . and it moved! Not much, but enough so he could tell that it wasn’t nailed or screwed to the larger units on either side.
Encouraged, he pushed upward with a little more force, and again, there was give, and a pretty loud sound, sort of like a stick scratching on the sidewalk.
He froze, listening . . . listening . . . . Nothing.
Letting go of the top of the unit, he hooked the fingers of both hands under the front lip of the center shelf, which was about waist high.
Ben leaned back—didn’t really pull, just leaned back. With only a slight scratching sound, and almost as smoothly as opening the drawer of a file cabinet, the whole narrow shelf unit rolled toward him—the ship’s carpenter must have devised some sort of wheels under the shelf! Astonished, he kept pulling, and it came forward until it stood completely free of the shelf units on either side, a full twelve inches beyond their fronts.
His mouth felt completely dry. This was like a scene from a horror movie—the haunted mansion where someone touches something and a secret doorway glides open!
He grabbed his flashlight, stepping to his right so he could aim the beam back into the space where the shelves had been. He needed to see the lower portion of the post, the hidden part.
That post was not made of brass—he saw that right away.
But set within the oak, completely surrounded by the dark wood, there was a panel that lay flush with the chiseled surface. And letting the small circle of light play across its surface, he knew that the panel was made of brass. Definitely.
The panel was about two feet high, and, at its widest, almost a foot wide. And staring at it, Ben shivered—he couldn’t help it.
The panel was shaped like a coffin.