Four trash barrels, and an indentation for a fifth. Not a clean indentation, but a blurred series of overlapping rings, as if the trash barrel had been picked up and put down in much the same place a few hundred times. Each of the remaining four trash barrels was surrounded by a similar set of rings.
And ten feet away was another indentation, this one sharper and surrounded by a slightly scorched area of grass.
At a guess, someone had been burning papers in a trash barrel and then taken the barrel away. Unless I was jumping to conclusions. I’d have to find a way to test my assumptions. Maybe pretend to Horace that I already knew all about the missing files.
Spike's barking interrupted my thoughts. Not that he hadn’t been barking intermittently the whole time I’d been snooping in Lanahan's office, but this sounded rather frantic. He’d probably smelled the lingering scent of some animal large enough to make an hors d’oeuvre of him and was boldly issuing challenges to an empty, echoing cage. Silly dog. Eric had brought him; I’d let Eric deal with him.
I had squatted down to study the area of scorching around the trash barrel when Spike's barking hit a new pitch, with a sort of yelping note.
Chill, I told myself. He's with Eric. Eric's a reasonably sensible kid—he’ll call for help if something's wrong. “Aunt Meg! Help!”
I abandoned Lanahan's office and took off in the direction of Eric's cry.
Chapter 26
Eric's voice and Spike's bark seemed to be coming from some place I hadn’t been yet, near the back of the zoo. I raced over a small rise and found myself trotting downhill toward an enclosure that was larger and much more elaborate than any I’d seen so far. A short outer fence kept visitors six feet away from a tall inner fence. Inside the inner fence was a ten-foot vertical drop down into the main part of the cage. Opposite me, the ground rose in a series of concrete terraces that were supposed to look like naturally sculpted rock and failed miserably. In two places, large clumps of jungle plants almost hid the cavelike openings in the concrete, though the camouflage would have been more effective if they’d bothered to plant clumps anyplace other than right in front of the cave mouths.
Welded to the outer fence was a sign that said “LION (Panthera leo).” And then below that, “Reggie.”
No wonder Spike was barking so fiercely. He’d found his way unerringly to the cage occupied, until recently, by the largest, most dangerous animal in the Caerphilly Zoo. He’d probably gotten so frustrated at not receiving any answer to his challenges that he’d fallen in out of pure exasperation. And Eric had fallen or climbed in after him.
I scrambled over the outside fence and peered through the bars of the inner barrier. Yes, Spike and Eric were both standing at the foot of the sheer concrete wall, gazing up at me. They didn’t look hurt by their fall. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Eric said. “But hurry! What if he comes out!”
I was opening my mouth to remind him that the zoo was empty when a low, rumbling noise echoed through the cage— much like Spike's growl, but three or four octaves lower. It seemed to be coming from one of the openings in the concrete wall at the opposite side of the cage.
Great. A lion in the den. One who probably hadn’t been fed since Patrick's death.
“Try to shut Spike up,” I said as I looked around for some way to rescue them.
“I’ve tried,” Eric said. “He just bites me and barks even louder.”
He sounded scared. Hell, he sounded as if he were hanging by a fingernail over the edge of hysteria, and I understood just how he felt.
Nearby I spotted a coiled garden hose. Just the thing! I ran over, grabbed it, and raced back to the cage. “Aunt Meg, hurry!”
“I’m lowering a rope,” I said as I tied one end of the hose to the bars. Then I flung the hose down into the cage. “That's a hose,” Eric said.
“Pretend it's a rope,” I said. “Can you pick Spike up and hold on to it?”
“I can’t even reach it.”
I peered down. Unfortunately, the hose I’d found wasn’t a normal-length hose. It was a mere stump of a hose. Eric was jumping up, trying to reach the end of the hose, but his best efforts were still a foot short.
“Can you find a longer hose?” he called.
Okay, there probably were more hoses around. I was about to go and look for one when the lion roared. Not a big roar, but then we were awfully close to it.
Eric whimpered. Spike shut up. He turned to face the sound, all his fur seeming to stand on end, and uttered one gruff, challenging bark.
Okay, I’d give him top marks for courage, but zero for brains. “Stand back,” I said. “I’m coming down.”