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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DanMcS" data-source="post: 536865" data-attributes="member: 6530">Rae performed ad hoc surgery one Wolfgang in the bathtub of the hotel room, pulling out  a couple of slugs and sewing him up as best she could.  He'd need to rest a day or so  before he'd be particularly mobile.  He was left to recuperate in the hotel while we  went to case the library.It was much easier to get into now that it was open.  Isaac went to talk to the  librarian, Rae and Mason checked out the area the antiques were stolen from.That room was police-taped off, but Mason slipped inside and wandered around, spotting a  slip of paper on the ground with the phrase 'hidden door?' written on it.  He pocketed  that for later.The librarian tolds Isaac that the police hadn't mentioned any leads, the auction hasn't  been rescheduled yet, and that's about it.A brief discussion sent us to the city offices, to get blueprints for the library.***The library was built in the late 1800s; remodeled in 1979.  Inspection of both sets  (original and post-remodelling) revealed two voids which might contain hidden rooms;  both adjoin the space the artifacts were being held in.  No entries were apparent to  either void, in either set of blueprints.  We returned to the hotel room to plot.Rae spoke up.  "We need to get in there and check for hidden doors.""We could hide in the bathrooms until the place closes, and then snoop around," Mason  suggests.  This is roundly denounced as a stupid idea."We could hide in the basement.""That was locked.""We could break in through the loading dock.""Security cameras.""We can sneak in through the sewers.""Good luck with that, let us know how it goes.""We go to the library, find the janitor's address, go to his house, tie him up, steal  his keys, come back to the library, and hide in the basement.""..."***At 6:00, the library closed.  The upstairs librarian left almost immediately, turning  off the lights to the second floor as she went.Isaac peeked out of the closet he was hiding in; no one around.  He tiptoed out, and whispered into Mason's, Rae's, and Wolfgang's hiding spots in turn.  They carefully  snuck out of the bathrooms and regrouped by the stairs.Three guards were hanging around in the downstairs lobby.  We could hear them from the  balcony overhead.  They were distracting each other, we could sneak by and get to the  crime scene before they started patrolling.Rae went down the stairs first.  She walked softly across the carpet, but one of the  guards heard her, and shone a light back that way.  She laughed.  "I was up in the  bathroom, and they turned out all the lights.  Is the library closed?"  Two of the  guards show her the way to the door, leaving one looking back at the open space.Isaac follows a bit too closely, and gets caught by the third guard.  "Hey, buddy, did  you see where my girlfriend went?"  The guard shakes his head, grabs Isaac by the arm,  and heads him towards the door as well.Mason creeps quietly down the stairs, catches his toe on the step, and falls down the  last few stairs with a CLATTER, BANG, WHACK.  All three guards are busy  out in the entryway with Isaac and Rae, who pester them with irrelevant questions about  the library's hours of operation, and Mason's fumble goes unnoticed.  He scrambles  across the lobby and through the door.Wolfgang, injured and gimping, is the quietest of the four, and wonders what he did to  deserve these nimrods.Rae and Isaac find a deli across the street to sit in, order some food, and monitor the  walkie-talkie.  Of course, Isaac had the team's copy of the blueprints.Wolfgang and Mason searched the employee-only rooms that abutted the void on the map.   Nothing to be found.  They snuck out of that area and around the corner into the crime  scene, over where the note had been found originally.  Inspection revealed what could be  a door shape in the wall, but no opening mechanism.A call to Isaac, and we found that they were near where a wall had been removed in '79.   The opening mechanism must have been on that wall, then run either through the floor or  the joining wall to open the door.  Wolfgang ripped up the carpet, found nothing.   Probing with a knife, Mason found a soft spot in the wall which revealed a rod.  Taking  a guess, he pulled on it, and with a click, the door opened.</blockquote>

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