“Why doesn’t that surprise me.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “But look. That ladder carries on down, below the stage.”

And indeed there was a hole cut in the floor with the ladder descending on down into darkness.

“I didn’t notice that last night,” he added.

“It must lead to a storage area under the stage.” I went over and peered down. The cold draft came up to meet me. Below was complete darkness.

“I wonder if there are any electric lights down below,” Daniel said. “There is little point in going down to no light. I wonder if my men actually discovered this last night. I’d better take a look.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

“I’ll go down first and see if I can find a light switch.” He started down the ladder. I watched his head disappear into darkness, feeling a knot in the pit of my stomach. Surely everyone at the theater knew about this basement area? Surely it had been searched last night? I heard Daniel give a muttered curse.

“What?” I called.

“Hit my shin on some kind of box,” he said. “And I can feel no kind of light switch on the wall.”

“They are bound to have a lamp or at least candles in the props room,” I said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

Sure enough I found an impressive candelabra among the props, rooted out some candles and then matches to light them.

“Holy Mother of God, you look like the Ghost of Christmas Past, standing there like that!” Daniel exclaimed as he spotted me standing above him. I handed down the candelabra, then climbed down myself. It was indeed pitch-black down there and smelled damp and musty, as if it flooded during rainstorms. We picked our way forward, searching the various piles of wood, boxes, and old scenery that had been dumped there. At least, I let Daniel do the searching. I had no wish to touch a spider, or worse. But we found nothing.

“They must have searched this last night,” Daniel said. “See all these footprints in the dust on the floor?”

Suddenly there came a strong draft. The candles flickered, danced, and went out.

“Damn it,” Daniel muttered.

I wanted to grab on to Daniel’s arm but forced myself not to. I had my reputation of being a fearless detective to live up to. But instead of being in total darkness we found the floor painted with thin stripes of light from above. Light was shining through the cracks in the floorboards and ahead of us was a larger square of light.

“We must be under the stage,” Daniel said, looking up. And indeed this part of the basement was cleaner and tidier, as if more frequently used.