Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Henry was working on a math assignment in the kitchen when the phone rang. He usually wouldn't answer it. That was Gramma Carol's job, and he knew it wouldn't be for him. He never got phone calls.

After the second ring, Henry remembered that the answering machine wasn't going to pick up because it had been broken when Mr Tull had thrown it across the room last month. Henry decided he'd better answer the phone so that it wouldn't wake Gramma Carol up from her afternoon nap.

"Good afternoon, Henry Quill speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"Is Malcolm Tull in?" a deep voice at the other end of the line asked. "I need to speak with him. It's urgent."

It had been over a week since Mr Tull's body had been discovered in the writing room and Henry decided that the truth was the easiest way to deal with the caller.

"Mr Tull's dead. Can I help you?"

There was silence on the line then the caller disconnected.

"Huh. Rude," Henry said to himself as he hung up the phone.

Two math questions later, the phone rang again. Henry answered. He thought he'd handled the first call quite professionally and perhaps Gramma Carol would let him become the official Hoodoo House receptionist. He could use the salary. Comic book prices were going up, after all.

"Good afternoon, Hoodoo House, Henry Quill speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"Henry. What are you doing answering the phone?"

It was Mr Yamada.

"Gramma Carol's lying down for her afternoon nap and the answering machine's still broken."

"Look, would you let her know that a private detective named Declan Hunt will be coming by? I've hired him to look into Mr Tull's missing computer. This is important, Henry, because it has files on it that belong to Mount Temple Press. I want to make sure Mr Hunt gets all of the assistance he needs. Tell Mrs Cameron to allow him full access to the house and answer any of his questions."

"Okay. No problem," Henry replied.

"Did you get all that?"

"Yup. I've got it," Henry answered, trying not to sound annoyed.

There was a pause on the phone, then Mr Yamada said, "Maybe you should wake Mrs Cameron up so I can talk to her."

Henry sighed. "There's a detective named Declan Hunt coming to the house to find Mr Tull's computer and we are to help him with anything he needs. I can remember that, Mr Yamada. And I'm sure Gramma Carol will call you if she has any questions. Now, if there's nothing else, I have the mathematical probability of independent events to get back to."

After Mr Yamada hung up, Henry tried to return to his homework, but he couldn't focus. He'd never met a real private detective before. He wondered if he was like any of the ones Henry had seen in his comic books. And what would he ask?

Henry stared at the math problems on the table. They became less interesting the more he thought about the detective and what he was coming to look for—Mr Tull's computer. Where could it be? Somewhere in the house? Maybe Henry could find it first. He knew Hoodoo House better than anyone. And Gramma Carol would be asleep for at least another half an hour. Maybe he should do a little sleuthing. If he found the computer before the detective got here, maybe Mr Yamada would give him a reward.

Henry decided to start in the writing room. The door had been kept closed since the police had removed the body of Mr Tull, and Gramma Carol had scoured the place with a strong cleaning solution in order to remove any trace of what had happened. Henry entered and quietly closed the door behind him.

He looked around the room. It appeared to be exactly as it had been before Mr Tull's death. Henry made his way to the desk and checked the desk drawers. They were locked, but he knew that Mr Tull had kept the key tucked inside a book called The Keys of the Kingdom. Henry knew a lot of things about Mr Tull.

He retrieved the key and opened the desk drawers but nothing was out of place. Henry was certain since he knew where everything was supposed to be.

Mr Tull's bedroom was next to be searched, even though Henry knew the police had been through it. He looked everywhere, including under the dresser drawers, behind the framed prints on the walls, even under the mattress and the bed itself, tugging away at the fabric that sealed the bottom of the box spring just in case Mr Tull had slid something in there, like Henry had done in his own room with his memory box—but he found nothing.

That left only one more place to look—the basement…and the tunnel.

Henry crept down the stairs to the main floor. Over the years he had mapped out in his mind which stairs to avoid if he didn't want the squeak of a loose tread to cut through the house. Once he'd reached the main floor in safety, he crept down the hall and opened the cellar door, then turned on the light and descended into the basement.

The cellar was large, damp and lined with shelves. There wasn't much stored there, but what there was, Gramma Carol kept on the shelves near the foot of the stairs. She hated to go down to the basement. There were all sorts of bugs down there which freaked her out. Henry found this strange because nothing else seemed to frighten her. Henry liked insects. Whenever he heard Gramma Carol shriek in another room, he'd come running. Before she could get the broom to swat the insects to heaven, Henry would come to their rescue, scoop them up into his hands and rush them outside to safety. But today wasn't about bugs—Henry was on a sleuthing mission.

First he examined the shelves to see if anything had been moved, but it all looked pretty much the same as usual. No computer here.

He made his way towards the wall of shelves farthest from the stairs. It had a gap beside and behind it wide enough for a person to slip through. No one would ever notice it unless they got up beside the shelf because the light from the single bulb in the ceiling didn't reach to the far corner.

Henry aimed for the gap and rounded the corner. Behind the shelves there was an archway built into the stone wall of the basement which led to a hallway, though it was more of a tunnel with rough wooden walls and a packed dirt floor. Henry followed it to the end and came to a door made of slats of wood that he knew opened onto the coulee behind the house. There was still no sign of the computer.

As he retraced his steps, Henry thought back to the day before Mr Tull was found dead. Henry had planned on taking a shortcut through the tunnel out to the coulee. At the top of the stairs to the cellar, he'd heard two voices. One of them had been Mr Tull's and the other one certainly hadn't been Gramma Carol. Her voice wasn't that deep. Henry didn't remember anyone else coming in through the front door, so the other person must have come in through the tunnel.

As Henry had stopped at the top of the stairs to listen that afternoon, the voices had started to fade away. Henry had been curious, so he'd gone down the stairs and slipped into the gap behind the shelves. He'd heard a faint beeping sound. By the time he'd gotten to the tunnel, Mr Tull and the other person had been nowhere in sight. Maybe Mr Tull and his guest had left through the coulee door. Henry had decided to confirm his hunch, but about halfway towards the door, he'd heard a sound coming from behind a section of the wall. One of the vertical boards that separated the wall into sections had been loosened and jutted out at a slight angle. He had reached towards the board, but at that exact moment, Henry had heard a sharp sound, followed by a muffled scream from behind the wall. He'd run back upstairs to his second-floor bedroom and closed his door. He hadn't been back since.

Today, with no Malcolm Tull or friend around, and Gramma Carol sound asleep in her room, Henry felt no fear. He located the vertical board he was looking for and tugged at it. The board came away. It was hinged and when opened revealed a new-looking keypad. Henry knew there must be a room behind the wall. Maybe that was where Mr Tull had left his computer. He punched in as many codes as he could think of, but none of them seemed to work. After ten minutes, Henry gave up and headed back to the kitchen. He decided he wouldn't tell Gramma Carol about this yet. He'd wait until the detective came then reveal what he knew, just like the hero always did in his comic books.