Tunnels

yellow Post-it notes stuck around it. As they searched, Will focused his efforts on anything that was written on loose-leaf pages in his father's barely legible scrawl.

Finishing the last of the piles of papers, they found nothing of note, so they each took one side of the desk and started searching the drawers.

'Wow, look at this.' Chester produced what appeared to be a stuffed dog's paw fixed to an ebony stick from among a load of empty tobacco tins. Will simply looked at him and frowned briefly before resuming his search.

'Here's something!' Chester said excitedly as he was investigating the middle drawer. Will didn't bother to look up from the papers in his hand, thinking it was another obscure object.

'No, look, it's got a label with writing on it.' He handed it to Will. It was a little book with covers of purple and brown marbling and a sticker on the front that read Ex Libris in ornate and swirling copperplate lettering, with a picture of an owl wearing massive round glasses.

'Journal,' Will read. 'That's definitely my dad's writing.' He opened the cover. 'Bingo! It looks like a diary of some sort.' He fanned through the pages. 'He's written something on quite a few of these.' Pushing it into his bag, he asked, 'Are there any others?'

They hurriedly searched the remainder of the drawers and, finding nothing else, decided it was time to leave. Will locked up, and the boys made their way toward the Forty Pits, because it was close by and they knew they wouldn't be interrupted there. As they slunk though the streets, ducking behind cars when anyone appeared, they felt alive with the thrill of the forbidden mission at the museum and couldn't wait to look at the journal they'd unearthed. Reaching the Pits, they descended into the main chamber, where they arranged the cage lights and made themselves comfortable in the armchairs. Will began to pore over the pages.

'The first entry is not long after we discovered the lost train station,' he said, looking up at Chester.

'What train station?'

But Will was too engrossed in the journal to explain. He recited slowly, in broken sentences, as he struggled to decipher his father's handwriting.

I have recently become aware of a small and… in… incongruous grouping of interlopers coming and going among the general populace of Highfield. A group of people who have a physical appearance that sets them apart. Where they come from or what their purpose is I have yet to ascertain but, from my limited observation of them, I believe that all is not what it seems. Given their apparent numbers (5+?)… homogeneity of their (racial?) appearance… I suspect they may cohabit or at the very least…

He trailed off as he scanned the rest of the page. 'I can't quite make out the rest,'he said, looking up at Chester. 'Here's something,' he said, flicking over the page. 'This is clearer.'

Today a rather intriguing and baffling artifact came into my possession by way of a Mr. Embers. It may well be linked to these people, although I have yet to… substantiate this. The object is a small globe held in a cage of some type of metal, which, at the time of this writing, I have not been able to identify. The globe emits light of varying intensity depending on the degree of background illumination. What confounds me is that the relationship is directly inverse — the darker the surroundings, the brighter the light it emits. It defies any laws of physics or chemistry with which I am familiar.

Will held up the page so Chester could see the rough sketch his father had made.

'Have you actually seen it?' Chester inquired. 'This light thing?'

'No, he kept all this to himself,' Will replied thoughtfully. Turning the page he began to read again.

Today I had the opportunity to… scrutinize, albeit for a brief moment, one of the pallid men at close quarters.

'Pallid? As in pale? Chester said.

'Suppose so,' Will answered, and then read out his father's description of the mysterious man. He went on to the episode with Pineapple Joe and the inexplicable duct in the house, and his father's thoughts and observations on Martineau Square. There followed a large number of pages debating the likely structure within the terraced houses that lined the square; Will leafed through these until he came to a photocopied extract from a book, stapled into the journal.

'It says Highfield's History at the top of the page, and it seems to be about someone called Sir Gabriel Martineau,' Will read:

Born in 1673, he was the son and heir of a successful cloth dyer in Highfield. In 1699, he inherited the business. Martineau, Long amp; Co. from his father and expanded it considerably, adding a further two factories to the original premises on Heath Street. He was known to be a keen inventor and was widely recognized for his expertise in the fields of chemistry, physics, and engineering. Indeed, although Hooke (1635–1703) is generally credited with being the architect behind what is essentially the modern air pump, there are a number of historians who believe that he built his first prototype using Martineau's drawings.

In 1710, during a period of widespread unemployment, Martineau, a deeply religious man who was renowned for his philanthropic and paternal attitude toward his workforce, began to emply a substantial number of laborers to build dwellings for his factory workers, and personally designed and oversaw the construction of Martineau Square, which still stands today, and Grayston Villas, which was destroyed in the Blitz. Martineau soon became the largest employer in the Highfield district, and it was rumored that Martineau's Men (as they became known) were engaged in digging a substantial underground network of tunnels, although no evidence of these remains today.

In 1718, Martineau's wife contracted tuberculosis and died, aged thirty-two. Thereafter Martineau sought solace by joining an obscure religious sect and was rarely seen in public for the remaining years of his life. His home, Martineau House, which formerly stood on the edge of what is now Highfield's historic district, was destroyed by a fire in 1733, in which Martineau and his two daughters are believed to have perished.

Underneath, Dr. Burrows had written:

Why is there no trace of these tunnels now? What were they for? I haven't been able to find any mention of them in the town hall records or the borough archives or anywhere. Why, why, why?

Then, scrawled with such gusto the paper was wrinkled and even ripped in places, were large, crude capitals in blue ballpoint:

FACT OR FICTION?

Will frowned and turned to Chester. 'This is incredible. Have you ever heard of this Martineau?'

Chester shook his head.

'Very weird,' Will said, slowly rereading the photocopied extract. 'Dad never mentioned any of this, not once. Why would he have kept something like this from me?'

Will chewed his lip, his expression transforming from exasperation to one of deep preoccupation. Then he suddenly jerked his head up, as if he had been elbowed in the ribs.

'What is it?' Chester said.

'Dad was on to something that he didn't want anyone to nick from him. Not again. That's it!' Will cried, remembering the time when the professor from London University had pulled rank on his father and taken the Roman villa dig away from him.

Chester was about to ask what Will was talking about when, in a flurry, Will began flipping forward through the journal.

'More stuff about these pallid men,' Will said, continuing on until he came to a