The Disappearing Dwarf Read Online Free PDF Page B

spewed juices and debris over the rest of the jars. Neither Jonathan nor the Professor had any desire to have a go at the contents of those jars that hadn’t burst.
    ‘Selznak seems to have done all right for himself here,’ Jonathan said, shouldering his pack. ‘He was a regular gourmet, eating pickled eggs and mushrooms and roasting turkeys. Too bad he had to be such an evil sort. You wouldn’t think that anyone who had such an appreciation for food would go about terrorizing people so. Somehow I can’t imagine Selznak eating anything at all. Plates of dirt, maybe, or webs, but not bottled ale and roast turkey.’
    The Professor nodded. ‘I know what you mean. He wasn’t the sort of person to
like
anything, food included. He must have fought pretty hard against appreciating any of it.’
    ‘That’s right.’ Jonathan sighed happily as they once again reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘If he hadn’t, some of the pleasure of eating all this stuff might have leaked out and ruined him.’
    Jonathan twisted the top from the jar of whale oil and trickled a bit over the moving parts of the crank and pulley. He joggled the crank and poured some more on. Then he leaned out over the door itself and poured a bit along the chain and onto the iron ring that it passed through. He was careful to keep the oil off the handle of the crank itself so that he could get a good grip on the thing. When there was as much oil dribbled on as seemed to be sensible, he capped the jar and put it back into his pack next to his lantern.
    The Professor tapped at the crank to loosen it, and the thing moved ahead a quarter of an inch. Then he tapped the other way and moved it back. After a few moments of tapping and jiggling, Jonathan gave it a heave, and the rusty chain dragged and rattled through the ring. The heavy door creaked open, its hinges screaming as if protesting at being awakened. Below was impenetrable darkness. The stairs curved down and away to the left out of sight. A cold blast of musty air blew up the stairwell at them, rushing anxiously out of the darkness toward sunlight and freedom. Jonathan cocked his head and listened, although he didn’t give much of a thought to what he was listening for. He had the vague idea that if he heard anything at all he’d trip the catch on the pulley, slam the trap, and leave town. But there was nothing but silence below – not even the scuttling footsteps of rats.
    ‘What are you listening for?’ the Professor asked. The moaning of ghosts?’
    ‘I suppose I am at that,’ Jonathan said. ‘And I suppose that’s why you’re whispering.’
    The Professor, vaguely surprised to find that he had indeed been whispering, spoke up bluffly. ‘Hello,’ he shouted down into the darkness. ‘It’s just me, the taxman! That’ll scare the daylights out of them,’ he said to Jonathan. ‘Not that there’s much daylight down there left to scare.’
    Jonathan rummaged again in his pack, coming up with the lamp, the torch, and the candles he and the Professor had brought along. ‘This torch is too smoky,’ he said. ‘Let’s use the lamp instead and save the torch and the candles.’
    ‘Good idea.’ The Professor twisted the wick up in the lamp as Jonathan lit it. Light stabbed out into the darkness below, but it didn’t do much more than make everything else seem that much more black. Ahab peered past Jonathan and the Professor and growled down the stairs. Jonathan had a high regard for Ahab’s instincts, and he felt a bit like growling at the darkness below himself, just to let whatever was there know that he carried, as his friend Dooly would have aptly put it, a whackum stick. With the glowing lantern held at arm’s length, the three of them descended the stairs that spiralled downward into what turned out to be a surprisingly deep cellar. Jonathan stepped slowly from tread to tread as if the stairs were about to crumble to bits. Actually, however, they were solid as rock and seemed to