“And they went home to Germany,” Sammy said, nodding.
“No, most of them just disappeared into the mountains,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “Throughout the colonies, about a quarter of the Hessians who survived the war never went home. They were landless men—younger sons of landowners, or the sons of laborers. Life was a lot better here than back in Germany. A few that we know of stayed here in town, intermarried with the locals—especially the Shiffleys—and took up farming or went into the masonry and carpentry trades for themselves. Most just went off into the mountains. Without the free POW labor, the town ended up finishing off the courthouse very cheaply, with wood. That’s what burned. The basement survived very nicely.”
He patted the stone walls in one of the few places where they weren’t largely obscured by the file cabinets and boxes.
I had to admit, the Hessian stonework was impressive. If not for the utilitarian metal file cabinets, you could easily imagine yourself in the dungeon of a medieval castle. The fitted stone walls were slightly rough to the touch, but surprisingly even, considering. The vaulted stone ceiling was a little low, but looked reassuringly solid. Some of the keystones over the doorways even had little bits of carving in them. I was surprised they hadn’t gone in for a few gargoyles while they were at it.
What really surprised me was the temperature. I’d heard that the Evil Lender had turned off the air-conditioning ducts to the basement at the beginning of the summer, as yet another tactic to compel Mr. Throckmorton to leave. But the stone walls felt dry and cool and the ambient air temperature was a lot lower than outdoors.
We passed through a stone doorway into a much larger area with a slightly higher ceiling. Like every other space in the basement it was packed with files and boxes, here interspersed with nests of furniture and, at regular intervals, huge stone pillars. I estimated the room was about forty feet wide by sixty feet long, but I wasn’t good at estimating under the best of circumstances, and I had no idea whether the clutter made the space look larger or smaller. The short wall to our right and both of the long walls were interrupted at intervals by doors, presumably leading to other corridors and rooms full of documents. I spotted a kitchenette along one wall, and a curtained alcove that was probably Mr. Throckmorton’s bedroom.
Near the short wall to our left, at the far end of the room, was the counter that, in happier times, had separated Mr. Throckmorton from the customers who came to apply for permits and licenses or access documents from the archives. He’d hung curtains across the width of the room just behind the counter, cutting off our view of the entrance door, now barricaded both inside and out. Although, come to think of it, the curtain was probably there less to shield the barricade from his view than to keep the Evil Lender’s forces from peering in at his lair when he opened the plywood doors.
Most of the horizontal surfaces in the basement were piled high with stacks of paper, all weighted down with bricks, large stones, and other heavy objects to keep them from blowing away in the breeze created by half a dozen revolving electric floor and table fans. The whirring of the fans and the constant rustling of the papers made a rather restful background noise.
In the middle of the space was a battered but sturdy oak table. One half of it was piled high with dice, a hand-drawn map, and stacks of game cards and all the other paraphernalia of one of Rob’s role-playing games. The other half was empty, and I suspected Sammy had cleared away a space for Horace to use.
“You’re right,” Horace said. “I should take off my suit.”
He set down his bag and began scrambling out of it. He, it, and the clothes underneath were soaked with sweat.
“There are towels over there,” Mr. Throckmorton said. He pointed with his elbow, as if that was the only way he could refrain from grabbing the towel himself and handing it to Horace. “And you’ll find hangers a little to the left.”
Sammy obliged by handing Horace the towel. While Horace toweled the sweat away, Sammy, under Mr. Throckmorton’s close supervision, arranged the gorilla suit neatly on a heavy wooden hanger and hung it where one of the fans would blow it dry.
Horace stood in front of another fan for a few moments with a blissful look on his face. Then he straightened up, folded the towel neatly, set it on the floor, and picked up his kit.
“Okay, let’s do your hands,” he said.
“You should probably swab Rob’s cell phone, too,” I said. “He’s been handling that recently. Before he got the orders not to touch anything,” I added, before Rob could protest.
As I watched the now familiar process, I realized I had two options. Now that I’d safely escorted Horace here, I could go back through the tunnel to the outside world—and maybe have to come back again to coax him out when he was finished. Or I could twiddle my thumbs here until he was finished.