FIVE 

Now everyone knows that the probability that a buttered piece of bread, when accidentally dropped, will land buttered side down is ninety-nine point nine per cent-recurring, or so it seems. This same rate of probability cannot however, be applied to the chance of a thin biscuit, being dropped accidentally, landing on it’s side and then rolling under a large Welsh dresser where, upon being retrieved, it leads to the discovery of a hidden door leading to a completely unknown place.

This happened to Charlie just after Gramps left to visit his friend Dr. Cirencester, who had a surgery just off Putney high street. He was walking from the kitchen balancing a glass of milk and two rich tea biscuits on a plate. He was intending to go into Gramps’ hobbies room where he was going to carry out some chemistry experiments. However, in a curious twist of fate, he tripped against the edge of a green and red Chinese rug that Gramps had laid in the middle of the highly polished wooden floor in the hallway and, whilst trying to keep his balance, a rich tea biscuit slipped from the plate. It landed on its side and rolled across the floor, right under a large mahogany dresser that Gramps kept pushed against one wall of the hall. Charlie put down the plate and glass of milk and dropped to his knees to retrieve the biscuit but when he peered under the dresser it was too dark to see it. A torch would be required. Charlie fetched the large rubber cased torch that Gramps habitually kept by the back door and returned and shone it under the heavy dresser. There, right at the back, was the offending biscuit but there was also something else that took Charlie by surprise, the clearly defined outline of the bottom of a door.

Charlie stood up and took a few steps back. There was absolutely no indication of a door when the dresser was viewed from an ordinary

perspective. Clearly the large piece of furniture had been placed in its current position in order to obscure the door. Why would Gramps want to hide whatever lay beyond it? Charlie had assumed that he knew everything about Gramps’ house but obviously he had been wrong. Curiosity now burned in him and he resolved to ask Gramps as soon as he returned. That was the plan.

Now Charlie is not the kind of youth who is normally given over to going where he shouldn’t. He is, however, blessed (or burdened, depending on your point of view) with an enquiring mind that immediately seeks answers to conundrums and this, in his view, was a conundrum of the highest order. He retrieved the biscuit and had intended to carry on with his planned chemistry activity and wait for Gramps to return. That was his resolve. His resolve persisted for a good ten or maybe even eleven seconds before he decided to just test to see if he could move the dresser-just enough to peer behind it at the door it concealed.

He stood at the left side; bracing himself to move the heavy looking piece of furniture and then began to gently prise one side of it from the wall. He was very careful because the dresser was loaded with plates and china ornaments which he knew he should remove. Thinking, however, that he would not be able to move the piece of furniture anyway, removing all the plates seemed like it would be a totally wasted effort. All he was doing was testing to see if, theoretically, he could move it, if he wanted to. He pulled gently at the dresser exerting a small amount of upward lift at the same time, expecting to find that it was like trying to move a medium sized family car. But, to his shock and delight, the dresser “clicked” and swung smoothly and effortlessly away from the wall on some sort of hinge device revealing a white painted door with a black metal handle and a potentially frustrating keyhole.

‘Aha!’ thought Charlie, just as he suspected; a concealed door. This was enough for his curiosity, or so he thought. After resolving to replace the dresser and to patiently await the return of Gramps he immediately decided to just test the handle of the door, which would certainly be locked. If Gramps had gone to so much trouble to hide the door in the first place he would almost certainly keep it locked. Wouldn’t he?

Charlie reached for the door handle and gripped it firmly. It felt cold and hard, as metal inevitably does. He hesitated a second and then, throwing caution to the wind, pushed down. The handle opened the door

with ease and it swung noiselessly toward him. The open door revealed a set of stairs that descended into a pool of liquid-like darkness. A cellar! Charlie was both intrigued and perplexed. He had never known that there was a cellar in Gramps’ house; it had never even occurred to him to ask if there was or to try and find one. Now, however, he realised that it would be ridiculous for a house of this age and size not to have a cellar. But why was it both hidden and so easily accessible? The way the dresser was hinged suggested that access was required on a regular basis.

What was the secret that Gramps had gone to so much trouble to hide? There was nothing sinister or even secretive about Gramps. With Gramps, what you saw was what you got. Nevertheless, he had not wanted the door to this cellar to be visible to the casual observer and that meant Charlie too. Of course, Gramps would certainly have some good reason and Charlie realised, at this point, that he should close the door, realign the dresser and either tackle Gramps on the subject later that day or wait for Gramps to tell him about it in his own time. Obviously Gramps realised that Charlie would have to know sooner or later, after all, the entire house would belong to Charlie one day.

Now that Charlie knew what he should do he immediately decided to enter the cellar just to get a feel for what it might contain. He felt inside the door for a light switch and in an instant the pool of darkness was drained and warm welcoming yellow light had refilled it. Charlie noted a wooden staircase that lead steeply down to a floor of terracotta coloured tiles. The angle of Charlie’s line of sight prevented him seeing anything else so he would have to go down the stairs, at least halfway, so that he could see into the cellar. This he started to do with a mixture of both excitement and uncertainty.

Charlie reached a point from which he could see around the room and he was immediately consumed by a crushing disappointment. The cellar was completely bare. There was not a stick of furniture, no mysterious chests made of dark ageing oak, no mad scientist equipment and absolutely nothing in the way of ill-gotten gains. In fact, nothing that Charlie might have reasonably expected to find in the concealed cellar of a two-hundred-year-old house. Charlie quickly descended the remaining few stairs in to the cellar and looked around. Bare brick walls, bare tiled floor, whitewashed ceiling with a single bare bulb hanging from it and that was it…except! His eyes were immediately drawn to something he

had not been able to see from his previous vantage point, another door set into a back wall. Ha! All was not lost. The cellar may yet offer up some dark secret.

By this time Charlie had completely forgotten about Gramps and was caught up in the thrill of adventure and discovery. He went straight to the door and tried the handle. The door opened but Charlie was again disappointed to see that it opened into a much smaller room, no more than a cupboard really, which was completely empty. There were the same stark bare brick walls and the same tiled floor. Charlie stepped inside to get a better look and immediately began to feel strange; it was as though he had stepped onto a revolving platform, like a roundabout in a children’s play park. It made him feel light headed and his ears suddenly filled with a sound that was like the rushing of fast flowing river water. He felt as if he was losing his balance and he threw out his hands to brace himself against the walls but the bricks seemed to start crumbling, or rather dissolving, before his eyes. He whirled around to leave the room but the door was no longer there, instead he faced another dissolving brick wall and then the whole room seemed to start spinning as well. A wave of nausea crashed over Charlie and he could tell that he was about to throw up. He was also afraid and completely disoriented; he was no longer sure which way he faced, where the door was or how to get out of the room. The sickness reached his throat and then began to burn the back of his mouth. He looked towards the floor and opened his mouth so that he could begin the inevitable retching and throw up but, to his horror, saw the floor also begin to dissolve and disappear from under his feet. He seemed to be standing on nothing but black air. Then the sound of rushing water was replaced by a booming crash-almost like thunder and, finally, there was a flash of white ultra bright light and, at that point, Charlie was transported over nine hundred years into the pas