Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

“My guess is the building was remodeled at some point and for some reason they didn’t register those changes. Maybe they were trying to avoid zoning or building codes. Is there anyone who might be able to tell us what was done?”

“My husband’s grandfather worked here many years ago,” she said doubtfully. “I can ask, but he may not remember. Some days he’s a little hazy about who I am.”

“I have days like that myself.” I sighed. “Look, this isn’t a deal breaker, Mrs. Belknap. I can redraw the plans as we go, but meanwhile we’re working blind. An updated set of blueprints would be a huge help.”

After she left, I scanned the plans again, trying to make sense of the measurements. Couldn’t. They simply didn’t line up. Hell, even the office I was in was the wrong size. According to the drawings, this room was supposed to be twelve foot by eighteen, but it was obviously smaller. I quickly paced it off. Twelve by twelve, period. Not an inch more.

So what happened to the missing six feet? Frustrated, I grabbed a hammer and pounded a fist-sized hole through the wallboard. And saw the inside of the wallboard to the next room. An ordinary partition, six inches thick, tops.

Crossing to the opposite wall, I repeated the process. Or tried to. The hammer chipped the wallboard but rebounded. This wall was solid. And it shouldn’t have been. According to the drawings, the building’s outer walls were plaster laid over lath. I should have punched through it easily.

Frowning, I examined the wall more carefully. And found a seam in the corner almost perfectly concealed by the vertical molding strip. A false wall.

I pressed it, trying to gauge its strength, and it moved. Slid slightly to the left. Easing the hammer claw into the gap, I moved it a little further... and it just kept on going. Disappeared neatly into the adjoining wall. A sliding panel. That concealed a freight elevator.

I’ll be damned. What was this about? I stepped into the cage, felt it shudder a little under my feet, giving me pause. How old was this contraption?

No roof on it, only a yoke supported by heavy steel cables that snaked up into the yawning darkness overhead.

Couldn’t see a thing up there. The building’s power was off and the generator-powered work lights in the office only cast shadows in the elevator. Grabbing a flashlight off my worktable, I played it around overhead.

An empty shaft, three stories, straight up. Couldn’t see a landing on the next floor up. Or even the one above that. Apparently this elevator went from the basement to the top floor. Which made no sense at all. Why go to all this trouble to conceal it?

No floor numbers on the controls, just three buttons: up, down, stop. I glanced around, wondering how many years ago this relic had been boxed in, and why. I absently tapped one of the buttons — and the elevator lurched upward!

Stumbling back, I banged off the wall and went down. The elevator cage was still climbing upward, bucking beneath me like a ship in a hurricane. Somewhere in the dark a lift motor was howling like a mad thing, straining to shift rusty cables as stiff as steel beams. Naked light bulbs flared to life in the shaft overhead, revealing quivering wire ropes, then exploding, raining down fiery sparks and broken glass.

The cage was shaking so fiercely I couldn’t get to my feet. So I crawled across the bucking floor on hands and knees, groping for the off switch—

With a deafening bang, something snapped. The cage floor dropped out from under me, plunging six or eight feet before jerking to a halt, slamming me into the floor face-first, knocking my wind out.

And then I was scrambling desperately to get out of the way as the elevator cable came whistling down out of the dark, crashing into the cage, whirling around like a crazed snake, gouging the walls and floor as it coiled and recoiled on itself.

Its jagged head tore into my jeans, slashing my leg open — and then, suddenly, everything stopped. I sat up slowly, my head ringing like an alarm bell, shin on fire, blood oozing through my torn Levi’s.

Puck’s face appeared in the opening above, ashen, wide-eyed.

“Danny? You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Don’t know that, either.” Swallowing, I took a deep breath, then got slowly to my feet, taking inventory. Both arms and legs worked all right, no bones broken. Left shoulder was sore as hell where I landed on it.

Checked my leg. The ragged end of the broken cable had sliced a five-inch gash across my shin. Bleeding pretty good, but it didn’t look too deep. Shin cuts always bleed a lot.

Okay. Working construction, hard knocks come with the territory. I was banged up, but not seriously. No thanks to the Belknap Building. That broken steel cable could just as easily have taken off my head.

“Danny?”

“I’m okay, Puck. The freakin’ building just tried to kill me, is all.”

“What happened?”