Wayne Manor Secrets

Wayne Manor slept quietly in the hills above Gotham City.

From the outside, on a still night like this, it looked like a house in a painting — grand stone walls, arched windows dark against the sky, ivy climbing the corners in neat waves. A gravel drive curved through the grounds. The gates stood closed at the bottom of the hill.

Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.

This was, of course, exactly how it was supposed to look.

Inside, Alfred Pennyworth moved through the manor's first floor on feet so quiet they made no sound at all. He was checking, as he always did on nights when Bruce was on patrol — moving from room to room in his neat suit and tie, hands clasped behind his back, eyes sharp as pins. He had served the Wayne family for more than thirty years. He knew every creak in this house, every draft, every shadow.

So when he heard the sound at 11:43 PM — not a creak, not a draft, but a very deliberate, very careful footstep on the garden terrace — he knew immediately that it was not the wind.

There were three of them, he deduced, watching the sensor readouts on the small security panel hidden inside the hall closet. Industrial spies, most likely. Someone wanted proof — photographs, documents, data — that Bruce Wayne was Batman. This was not the first time someone had tried, and it would not, Alfred was quite certain, be the last.

He stepped into the hall and straightened his tie. Then, very calmly, he got to work.

In the east wing corridor: Alfred engaged the ultrasonic emitter hidden behind the wall sconce. A high-pitched sound, far above what human ears could hear, filled the corridor — and the two men who had entered through the east terrace window froze, suddenly dizzy and disoriented, crumpling to their knees without knowing why.

By the time they recovered, their wrists were bound with the very same zip-ties they'd brought to use on anyone they caught. Alfred had moved so quickly that neither had seen him.

In the library: the third spy was more careful. He had a device that blocked the infrared cameras, and he moved along the walls, staying out of the pressure sensors' reach. He was, Alfred had to admit, rather good. He crossed the library and found, behind the stone fireplace mantel, the hidden panel. He pressed it. And behind the bust of William Shakespeare that sat on the shelf, a small lever — the trigger for the secret passage to the Batcave — clicked.

Alfred appeared in the doorway. "That," he said pleasantly, "is not something guests touch."

The spy spun around and reached for a device at his belt. Alfred was faster. He swept the spy's legs with a precise, unhurried motion — the kind of move that looks simple only because it's been practiced a thousand times — and the spy sat down hard on the library floor with a thump.

"Goodness," Alfred said, adjusting his cuffs. "You've scuffed the parquet."

It was at this point that Bruce Wayne walked in through the library window.

He was still in his Batman suit, cape folded back, cowl down, mask in hand. A silent alarm on his belt had whispered to him mid-patrol, and he had crossed the Gotham night in three minutes flat. He surveyed the library — the spy on the floor, Alfred standing over him with the unhurried calm of a man who has just weeded a garden — and then he looked at Alfred.

Alfred looked at him.

"I'd been managing," Alfred said mildly.

"I can see that." Bruce knelt and checked the spy's pockets quickly, efficiently. Cameras. Encrypted drives. A note with a corporate letterhead — not one of Gotham's criminal enterprises, but a rival technology company trying to steal Wayne Enterprises' research. He tucked the note into his belt. "I'll need this."

"Of course, sir."

Forty minutes later, the three spies had been removed with the discretion that Alfred applied to all unpleasant situations, the Gotham City Police Department had received an anonymous package containing enough evidence for a corporate investigation, and Bruce was sitting in the Batcave in his civilian clothes while Alfred brought tea.

All the stolen data had been wiped remotely. The drives were blank. The photos, untaken. The secret of Wayne Manor — the hidden door, the spiraling staircase, the great cave humming below — was exactly as safe as it had ever been.

"You know," Bruce said quietly, looking at his tea, "the manor is only as safe as the person inside it."

"Indeed, sir," said Alfred, and sat down in his own chair and opened the newspaper as if the evening had been entirely unremarkable. "More biscuits?"

Bruce smiled.

The bats rustled in the cave below. The computers hummed. And Wayne Manor closed its eyes and went back to sleep, looking from the outside like nothing more than a grand old house on a hill.

Just a house. Nothing unusual here at all.