Galahad's Castle: A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery by Anna Elliott & Charles Veley

Author:Anna Elliott & Charles Veley [Elliott, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilton Press
Published: 2022-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19: FLYNN

Flynn groped his way along the back wall of the cellar. This far away from the narrow shaft of light from the trapdoor, it was almost pitch black, and he shuffled his feet and kept his hands straight out in front of him to avoid tripping or running into the wall.

“Find anything?” Becky called from the other side.

“Yeah, there’s a back door over here. I just didn’t think to mention it,” Flynn muttered. He’d been trapped in unpleasant underground places before this, and he’d reached the now familiar stage where he started to picture the weight of all the tons of earth on top of them. His lungs felt tight, and his skin was hot and prickling despite the cold, dank air.

Becky ignored him and said, “There’s nothing at all over here. Although the walls feel like they’re made of dirt. If we had enough time, we might be able to dig our way out.”

“Using what? Our bare hands? An army of trained moles?”

He couldn’t see Becky’s face, since she was just a vague shadow in the dark. But he heard her blow out an annoyed-sounding breath. “Fine, what have you found?”

“I told you, nothing—” Flynn started, then broke off as his outstretched hands suddenly connected with something “Hold on.”

“What is it?”

“Not sure.” Flynn felt around in the darkness again, running his hands across a rough wooden surface. “I think it’s some kind of a shelf, mounted on the wall back here. Wait.” He stooped and felt down lower. “Yeah, there’s a couple of them. The wall is brick, not wood, and there’s a pair of wooden shelves attached.”

“That would make sense.”

Flynn almost jumped at Becky’s voice coming from so close this time, and realized she’d crossed the cellar to stand beside him.

“My guess is that we’re in the root cellar of that little cottage place we found.”

“Why?”

“Because whoever locked us in here couldn’t have carried us very far—not without risking someone seeing them. So if we’re in a root cellar, it was probably once used for storing crops—carrots and potatoes and all that kind of thing. Is there anything on the shelves?”

Becky stepped nearer, reaching to feel them for herself.

“Not that I’ve found.” Flynn ran a hand across the top shelf, then jerked back. “Ouch! No, nothing but splinters that I can find.”

Becky sighed. “That’s that, then. I kept thinking that there had to be something down here that would help us get out. Because of what the red-haired woman said about betting that we’d be free by the time she sent help back. I thought she must have seen something from up there that we hadn’t found yet. But maybe I’m giving her too much credit—”

“What about the shelves?” Flynn interrupted.

“What?”

“The shelves. They’re sturdy and made of wood. And a good six feet long, at least.”

“If you’re thinking of building a ladder—” Becky began.

“Not a ladder. But I’ll bet if we could get one down from here, we could prop it up against the wall near the trapdoor like a ramp.

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