Of course Uncle Edgar didn’t believe him at first. Harleigh couldn’t help feeling impatient with him, because there was no time to waste if something was going to be done about Junior before he managed to untangle himself from his yew tree trap. But at the same time, Harleigh wasn’t able to blame Uncle Edgar too much. He couldn’t help being aware that if someone else had told him such a wild story, he probably wouldn’t have believed it either.
But of course positive proof, of a sort, was easily available if Uncle Edgar would just accompany him to Aunt Adelaide’s recital hall and see for himself. Harleigh knew, however, that it wouldn’t be easy to get Uncle Edgar to visit a place he often referred to as the Throne Room of Adelaide the Great and probably hadn’t set foot in for years.
Harleigh guessed right. It was only after he’d suggested, asked, and finally demanded that he come see for himself, that Uncle Edgar levered himself out of his chair and began to lumber down the entry hall. They had turned off into the west corridor and had almost reached the recital hall’s double doors when they suddenly became aware of a hair-raising sound. Aunt Adelaide’s wheelchair.
They froze in horror, at first turning their eyes and then their heads, in time to see the wheelchair rounding the corner and hear Aunt Adelaide’s scratchy voice demanding, “What’s this? What is going on here?”
Harleigh stared at Uncle Edgar, hoping he would begin the explanation, but Uncle Edgar only stared back. At last Harleigh turned to face Aunt Adelaide’s steely glare and began to stammer, “We—we were just going to—I was just going to show Uncle Edgar what Junior did to your room. To the floor of the stage, that is. See, what happened is . . . Well, Junior was just starting to chop a hole in the floor when . . .” His voice trailed off in despair. Waving one arm in the general direction of the recital hall, he finished weakly, “Come and see. I’ll show you.”
While Uncle Edgar held one of the doors open, they filed through: Harleigh first, right behind him the wheelchair pushed by Cousin Josephine, and last of all Uncle Edgar.
And there it was. All of it, in plain view. The stage curtains were still pulled open and the recital hall’s bright lights were spilling in to reveal the stage floor, where Junior’s huge ax was lying beside a gaping, roughly cut hole.
They moved closer, rounded the rosewood desk and the enormous canopied bed, and continued on to the very edge of the stage. And then Aunt Adelaide was pointing at Harleigh and screeching, “You. You ungrateful, destructive, incorrigible . . .” Her voice had trailed off into an unintelligible screech when it happened. Suddenly lurching to one side, Aunt Adelaide collapsed limply over one arm of the chair.
Harleigh and Uncle Edgar stared at Aunt Adelaide and then at Cousin Josephine, who was calmly turning the chair while she steadied Aunt Adelaide with one hand. “Here,” she said to Uncle Edgar, “help me get her onto the bed. She’ll be all right soon.”
“You mean she’s not—not dying, or anything?” Harleigh gasped.
Josephine shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not likely. She’s been like this before. It happens when she gets too excited. She’ll probably sleep for a while, and when she wakes up she’ll be as good as . . .” Josephine paused and then, smiling grimly, went on, “That is, she’ll be the same as always.”
So it wasn’t until Aunt Adelaide had been lifted onto her bed, her shoes removed and her pillow fluffed, that the rest of them turned back to the damaged stage.
“There,” Harleigh said. “See, I heard this loud chopping noise and I came in to see what was happening. And there Junior was . . . There he was chopping this hole, and when he saw me, he started chasing me with a crowbar and I—well, I . . .” He trailed off and turned to Uncle Edgar. “And like I told you, he’s stuck in the maze now, or at least he was. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
There followed quite a pause while the three of them looked at each other and then, uncertainly, back at the hole in the stage floor, until Harleigh began to realize it was going to be up to him to do something.
“All right,” he said. “Come on. Let’s find out what’s in there.”
The first step was to get Uncle Edgar up onto the stage, which was only accomplished with a lot of pushing and pulling. And then came the problem of getting him back on his feet, which he finally managed himself by scooting to the upright piano and using it to balance on as he straightened up. At last Uncle Edgar was on his feet and dusted off a little, and Harleigh was free to peer down the hole. But the light was bad and the hole was small. Nothing was visible.
While Cousin Josephine went to get a flashlight, it occurred to Harleigh that there must be another way. Somehow it just didn’t seem likely that a first-generation Weatherby, or even a second-generation direct descendant, would store something valuable in a place you could only get to by chopping up valuable hardwood flooring. Somehow it seemed more likely . . .
Moving around the stage, he checked out the three steps that led down to the stage door, but they seemed to be firmly and immovably built in. And on the stage itself there were only the two ancient pianos, the three-legged grand and the bulky, old-fashioned upright that sat back against the far wall. Looking around, Harleigh studied the scene and began to wonder—why two pianos? And then he asked Uncle Edgar to help him try to move the big old upright.
And so they did, but it wasn’t easy. Even with Uncle Edgar’s weight leaning against it, the piano moved to one side only very slowly. But move it did, leaving exposed a large, dusty rectangle, which it had covered for many, many years. And in the middle of that rectangle, a well-constructed trapdoor.
The trapdoor lifted easily and they all peered down, saying things like, “My God, would you look at that!” That was Uncle Edgar.
Cousin Josephine said, “Stand aside. I’ll do it,” followed by, “Oh my goodness. I can’t go down there. There are sure to be spiders.”
So it was Harleigh who was sent down to explore. Carrying the flashlight Josephine had provided, he went down two steep steps to where a collection of metal boxes sat in neat rows, covered by many years of ancient dust. And it was also Harleigh who, one by one, dragged the boxes to the steps and lifted them up to Josephine and Uncle Edgar.
Most of the boxes were not very heavy, but a few others were, and they rattled in a muffled but vaguely metallic way—an exciting, possibly golden, sound. But all of them were firmly locked with small rusty padlocks. It wasn’t until all eleven of them had been brought up onto the stage that Harleigh caught his breath—and remembered about Junior.