The Pyramid of Mud by Andrea Camilleri

Author:Andrea Camilleri [Camilleri, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0143128086
Amazon: B06Y52F61R
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2017-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

10

This was a plausible hypothesis, yet to be verified.

For there was one thing he was sure of, which was that the controls to the basement entrance could not be inside the house. It would not have escaped the careful examination of the Forensics team, nor Terrazzano’s precision inspection.

Thus, before getting down to work, he wanted to check the garage walls inch by inch to see whether there wasn’t some sort of hidden button.

He found nothing.

He remembered how nice and convenient it was when, as a child, he believed in the existence of a magical formula that uncovered hidden doors and made them open.

Open sesame . . .

Just to leave no stone unturned, half joking and half pretending—and all the while feeling ridiculous and even a little ashamed—he uttered the magic words aloud.

No hidden door miraculously opened.

And so he went over to the switch, held his index finger on it, and began his search.

Three clicks in a row: nothing.

Four: still nothing.

Five: still nothing.

When he got to ten, he stopped.

No, that wasn’t the answer. Anyway, say somebody was in a hurry to get down into the basement, he couldn’t waste ten minutes going click click click with the switch.

He had to think about this.

He went out of the garage and set fire to a cigarette.

Turning it all over and over in his head, he came to the conclusion that his only choice was to remove the plastic covering and open up the switch to see how it was made and how many electrical wires ran into it.

He got back down to work with renewed enthusiasm.

The plastic covering was not attached to the switch frame as he’d thought, but was actually a sort of snap-on lid that you could remove with two fingers.

He took it off.

Removing the switch from the wall not only would have served no purpose, it would also have made his examination more difficult. To open it, one had to unscrew four screws.

The screwdriver Fazio had used was too big. Montalbano went and got another off the shelf.

He gave it a try. It would do.

He unscrewed the first screw, but as he was pulling it out from its hole to put it in his pocket, it slipped from his fingers and fell onto the floor, landing a few inches from his left foot.

Keeping his right hand, with the screwdriver, pressed up against the switch mechanism, he crouched down, bending at the knee, to pick it up.

At that exact moment he noticed that under the involuntary pressure of his right hand, the upper part of the switch mechanism had shifted a little.

He remained in that position, puzzled and not moving. How could it have moved if there were still three screws holding it in place? Were they there only for show?

He stood up, never minding the screw that had fallen.

Once again he pressed lightly on the switch mechanism with his palm, and this time he clearly noticed that the entire upper part had again shifted slightly.

So he pressed harder, to move the upper part clockwise.

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