How does a human get into a locked room? Charlie asked himself. With a key. A light went on in Charlie’s brain.

Key!

He needed to ask Cozette about her ring of keys, and why they didn’t work when he tried unlocking the door to help Tyler.

Charlie imagined Tyler, lying in a hospital room. The last time he’d seen Tyler, the other boy was trying to lift the Hades statue. And he did, sort of. It was heavy, but not impossible to lift. If you had help.

“Brack,” said Charlie. “How did those statues get here in the first place? I mean, they’re heavy.”

Brack paused, both hands gripping the top of his cane. “Well, I’m sure Endriago had them shipped here from Spain.”

Charlie shook his head. “I mean, here. This floor. Those statues are heavy.”

“Most of the heavy objects, like furniture for the guests rooms, were hauled up on the freight elevator at the rear of the hotel,” Brack explained.

Charlie knew that the hotel’s elevators didn’t stop at the thirteenth floor.

But he wasn’t so sure about the freight elevators. He hadn’t seen them or used them before. That reminded him of the blueprints he’d found while looking for clues. They showed every part of the hotel. Charlie slipped his backpack off his shoulder and dug inside.

“Recognize these?” he said proudly to Brack, pulling out the big roll of paper.

“My blueprints!” the old man exclaimed.

“I found them in the magicians’ dressing room backstage,” said Charlie. He had discovered them the day before while searching for clues to Brack’s disappearance.

Charlie pulled out the huge sheet that showed the 3-D version of the entire Abracadabra Hotel. Each floor of the hotel was outlined in faint white lines against a blue background. Every hall, every room could be seen.

“Here’s where we are now,” Charlie said, pointing to the page.

“And here are the freight elevators in back,” said Brack, indicating a tall vertical tube at the back of the hotel.

Charlie cried out, “Yes! The freight elevators do stop at this floor!” Without waiting for his friend, he ran down the dark halls, shooting his flashlight’s beam ahead of him.

After several minutes of searching, however, he ran his fingers through his rust-colored hair in frustration. “Where are they?”

Brack slowly padded around the corner on his cane. Charlie turned to him. “They’re not here,” Charlie said. “According to the blueprint, they should be…” He trained his flashlight on a wide panel of sunflower wallpaper. “…Right there!”

Brack tilted his head. “I hear something rumbling,” he said.

Charlie put his ear to the wall. “The elevator?”

The boy scanned the flowers on the wallpaper. Maybe there was a plaster knob like the two that controlled the ramps to the thirteenth floor.

“Yes, yes!” said Charlie. He found a sunflower whose dark brown head, inside its yellow petals, was sunk at least a quarter of an inch deeper into the wall. A button.

Charlie pressed the button and the flower immediately lit up. “Cool!” he cried. Within a minute a panel, covered in wallpaper, slid soundlessly up and into the ceiling, revealing the freight elevator.

“And look there!” said Charlie. He aimed his flashlight at a far corner of the elevator. The light picked out an orange metal trolley. Thick canvas straps lay at its wheels.

“That would be really useful for moving a statue,” said Charlie.

They entered the elevator and Charlie pushed the button for the first floor. With a rumble, the door slid shut. There was no light inside the elevator, so Charlie kept the flashlight on. He did not want to be trapped in the dark again. When the elevator finally jerked to a stop, the back wall opened up, revealing the alley behind the hotel.

The loading docks, thought Charlie.

The storm was gone. Overhead, they could see gray clouds moving in the narrow stretch of sky between old, brick buildings. A cool breeze blew into Charlie’s face.

A truck delivering bread was backed up to another door alongside them. “This has to be where the crook took the Aphrodite statue,” said Charlie. “This is how he got it downstairs. Now we just have to figure out how he got it out of that room, while Tyler was locked inside!”