The Luitpold Academy was a dim and dreary old building on a street near the center of nineteenth century Munich. It was three storeys high and the walls were black from the smoke of millions of city chimneys. The streets were bustling with horse drawn trams.

Behind the school was a grassed courtyard. In the courtyard was stone structure that was half under ground. It had been there for longer than anyone could remember. It was perhaps an ancient wine store but no one knew for sure. It was square on the outside but when you went in through the arched doorway and down the steps the low chamber had a vaulted stone ceiling. The boys from the school came here when it was wet to play dominoes or skittles. Some of the older boys would sneak down for a smoke but the masters also went down there regularly so that was generally not a good idea. There were better places for a cigarette!

It was a cool place on a hot day and a warm place in freezing weather and beyond this there was something special about the garden cellar. It had an atmosphere. There were stories about it being haunted but they were laughed at by most of the boys although none of them would choose to be there on their own or after dark.

Berty didn’t feel the atmosphere as malevolent. To him it was a friendly and welcoming place and on this day in 1889 he was there alone. He was not afraid. He had more important things to be afraid of than an old stone room and silly stories of ghosts.

Berty was 10 years old and small for his age. His family had lived in Munich since he was six months old and he knew nowhere else. But school was hard. He was not clever like many of the other boys and the headmaster had caned him several times for his failure to understand some elementary mathematical exercise or for using incorrect grammar. And now he had been sent out of a class because of geography.

The teacher, Herr Maulaer, had asked him a difficult question and he hadn’t a clue about the answer. He had opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish but no answer had come out even though his brain went into overdrive. He just did not know the name of the capital of Abyssinia.