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

“Damned if I know. I hit the switch and the elevator kicked on but the cables were too rusty to take the strain. One snapped. Cage dropped half a story before the automatic brakes grabbed it.”

“What do you mean, it kicked on? There’s no juice in here. The mains are disconnected, all the power to the building is completely off.”

“All I know is this cage jumped the second I hit the switch. Motor sounded like it was above me, so there must be juice up there somewhere and we’d better find it before somebody gets fried. I’ve had enough surprises out of this place. Slide a ladder down here before this damned cage drops me into the basement!”

No need to see a doctor. Mafe Rochon patched me up. Mafe is Ojibwa, full-blood. Hard drinker, serious bar-fighter, a major attitude case. We’ve tangled more than once. I put up with him because he’s, swear to God, a genius with a torch. Mafe can cut metal or join it together so seamlessly you can scarcely see the line. But when you hire Mafe for his talent, his craziness comes with the deal.

As a bonus, I got an on-the-job medic, a skill Mafe picked up in the army before they booted him out. He’s a fair hand at patching people back together. He’s even better at busting them up.

Mafe was taping up my leg when Olympia Belknap showed up for her daily update.

“My God,” she said, paling at my ragged, bloodstained jeans. “What happened?”

“Nothing heavy. Broken cable. On the upside, I solved our bogus floor-plan problem. There’s a false wall at the east end of the building that conceals a freight elevator. Looks like there’s another false wall at the opposite end, too. Puck’s up on the roof, trying to find a way down...”

I broke off, listening to a strange shuffling sound. Footsteps, coming closer. From somewhere inside the walls.

Easing down off the table, I walked down the corridor, listening, as the footsteps drew closer. Mafe and Pia followed.

The sound stopped. So did I. Facing a blank wall.

“Danny?” Puck’s voice was muffled. “You out there?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“Back away from the wall, this thing’s nailed shut.” A couple of resounding kicks, and suddenly the wall burst outward. Swung open, actually. A concealed door, blended perfectly to match the paneling. Just inside, Puck was standing on a stairway, dusting himself off.

“Come on up,” he said quietly. “You’ve gotta see this.”

“The third and fourth floors are old hotel rooms,” he explained as we followed him up the stairway. “Once they sealed the doors off on the second floor, there was no other way up.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “They aren’t just closed off, they’re hidden.”

“You’ll see why in a minute.”

The stairway ended on the fifth-floor landing, facing a magnificent double door. Oaken, with leaded-glass panels.

I pushed through it, and stopped. Stunned.

It was a nightclub. A long, low-ceilinged room, filled with tables. A massive oaken bar at one end, bandstand at the other, facing a large dance floor with a mirrored ball turning slowly overhead, filling the room with swirling lights. Only a few lamps along the walls were still functional, but even in their wan glow, you could see how strange it all was.

The tables were still draped with dusty linen; some had plates, glasses, and silverware still in place, as though the revelers had just stepped out for a moment. Music stands still filled the stage, and there was a microphone up front. The bar still appeared to be stocked with liquor...

A long sigh filled the room. As though the building were taking a deep breath. It sounded so... human, we all took an involuntary step closer to each other.

Puck glanced the question at me, eyes wide.

“Probably the wind,” I shrugged. “Or maybe an air vent opening. The place has been closed up a long time.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Olympia said, wandering slowly among the tables. “Except for the dust, it could have closed ten minutes ago. Look, some of the plates still have food on them, or what’s left of it. What happened here? Where did the people go?”

“It’s your building,” I said. “Don’t you know?”

“I’m not from Malverne; I never heard of this town before I married Bob. When I asked his grandfather about the problems with the floor plans, he just said to stay away from this building. That it’s a terrible place.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I have no idea. I told you he’s a little drifty sometimes. That was all he’d say and it was the longest conversation I’ve had with him in months.”

“I see,” I nodded, though I really didn’t. “In that case, do you know anyone else we can ask?”

“It was called the Gin Mill,” Artie Cohen said, looking around the room, grinning like a schoolboy. He even looked like one, a gawky, fifty-year-old schoolboy with an unruly salt-and-pepper mop, sweater vest, and bow tie. Editor of the Malverne Banner, amateur historian. “My father told me about this place when I was a kid. I assumed it had all been torn out years ago.”

“Obviously not,” Pia Belknap said impatiently. “What can you tell us about it?”