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Memphis lifted the lantern. Its light could reach only so far. “I need to see. Just a little.” He started down the narrow passageway, ducking his head as he came to a low beam. “Watch out there,” he cautioned.
“Watch out for what?” Sam said.
“Your…” Memphis looked over his shoulder. There were a good couple of inches between Sam’s head and the low ceiling. “Head,” Memphis said, fighting a smile.
“Some of us have to duck,” Jericho said, clearly happy to have a reason to needle Sam.
Sam folded his arms. “You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
Jericho broke into a full grin. “More than you can imagine.”
Memphis hoisted his lantern again and peered through its hazy glow into the earthen curve of the tunnel. “This thing looks like it goes on for a mile.”
“I’m not up for a mile, pal. Sorry,” Sam said. “It’s been closed up for decades. For all we know, there’s no way out.”
There was a lot Memphis wanted to say to that. “So where’s this storeroom?” he said instead.
“This way,” Jericho said, opening up an easily overlooked door into a cold tomb of a room. “This is where I found all of Cornelius’s letters to Will.”
He snapped the chain for the overhead bulb. Its sick yellow light fell across another mural: a dark, macabre forest full of ghosts. There in the center was the man in the hat facing a young Negro man. Memphis frowned.
“Yeah, me, too, pal,” Sam said, coming up beside him. “It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen—and I once saw my uncle Moishe naked at the Russian baths.”
“Why would somebody put that here?” Memphis said. “It doesn’t look like the others. The others are hopeful. This…” He shuddered. “This is a nightmare.”
“Hey! Come see what I found,” Jericho called.
Sam turned to Memphis. “See, when somebody says that to me in a dirty, creepy hole of a cellar, my first inclination is to run.”
In the corner, Jericho held up a small canvas sack. Sam and Memphis coughed as they waved away the clouds of dust released into the stale air. “How come it doesn’t bother you, Freddy?” Sam croaked out on a burst of coughing.
“Giant’s blood,” Jericho said, getting in one more jab. “I found this tucked behind some Christmas ornaments.”
“The professor used to decorate for Christmas? That may be the most surprising thing I’ve learned today,” Sam said, wiping his eyes.
They peered into the canvas sack. Inside were several moldy cardboard canisters. The paper labels, freckled with black mildew spots, read EDISON GOLD MOULDED RECORDS.
Sam wiggled off the top of a canister and pulled out what was inside. “What are these? Look like dusty, hollow candles.”
Memphis turned one over carefully in his hand, then put it up to his eye, peering through the tube of it. “They’re wax cylinders! My father recorded some of his music on these.”
“How did we miss this last time?” Sam said.
“We weren’t looking for them. We were looking for letters,” Jericho reminded him. He examined the old canister. A faint stamp on the bottom, barely legible, read, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF PARANORMAL. “These could have valuable information on them.”
“Or they could be recordings of somebody’s eighty-year-old aunt singing patriotic songs,” Sam said.
Memphis shrugged. “Worth a listen.”
“Okay. But if I hear a quavery soprano, I’m outta here,” Sam said.
“Where’s the player?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Like a phonograph player—wooden box with a big megaphone coming out of it.”
“I’ve seen it. It’s upstairs in Will’s office,” Jericho said.
