Masterpiece (26 page)

Alarmed, Marvin crawled back to James’s knuckle. He could only imagine what would happen if Denny found out they were on their way to the place where Dürer’s masterpieces lay hidden.

“No?” James sighed. “I guess you’re right. They won’t understand, and then they won’t let me go.”

He stood up, thinking. “Okay, look, it’s not far from here. My dad will totally freak out, so we can’t be gone long. I don’t even know what you want me to do, but maybe you can show me when we get there.” Marvin returned delightedly to his fingertip.

James looked down at him anxiously. “Is this going to be dangerous?”

That sounded so similar to something Marvin himself would say to Elaine that he almost smiled, despite his jangled nerves. As long as Denny was there at the museum, they were safe. He hoped. He looked up at James, not knowing how to respond. Getting to the apartment was only half the battle, Marvin knew. Then he had to figure out a way to get James to the drawings.

Clutching the label in his fist, James scrambled to his feet, tucked Marvin under the cuff of his jacket, and ran down the hall toward the exit.

J
ames walked much more quickly than Marvin had expected, covering the dozen blocks to the apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street in long strides. When they got to the large front stoop, he hesitated, shivering, as he scanned the metal panel of apartment numbers and buzzers. It had started to snow lightly, wet flakes dusting the sidewalk.

“What should I do? Push the button?” he asked Marvin. Marvin crawled to the tip of his finger, but with no particular enthusiasm. He knew the apartment was empty.

“Let’s see, 5D,” James said. He read the label again. “Perry. Here it is.” He pressed. There was no response.

James bounced on his sneakers. He looked up at the tall front of the building, blinking away snowflakes. Then he shrugged. “I guess we have to find a way inside, huh? Somebody must be home in one of these places.”

He dragged his fingers over the double row of
buttons, hitting every one. The intercom crackled, with multiple voices sputtering, “Yes?” and “Who is it?” until someone indifferently pressed the release button and the front door buzzed. Quickly, James turned the handle and pushed his way into the small tiled lobby.

They rode the elevator to the fifth floor, with Marvin trying to think how to get into the apartment. He could certainly crawl under the door, but that wouldn’t help James. Once inside, he supposed he might be able to set off the fire alarm (Uncle Albert, the electrical whiz, had taught Marvin a few tricks), and if he succeeded, the building super was sure to come and open the door for a look around. But how would James explain what he was doing there?

James found the door marked with a brass plate showing “5D.” He looked nervously down the hallway. “Okay, I guess I’ll knock,” he told Marvin. “There’d better not be some
criminal
in here.”

He took a deep breath and tapped on the door. There was no answer. He looked down at Marvin. “Now what do we do?”

Marvin ran to James’s fingertip and waved his front legs at the door.

“I know, I know. You want to go inside. But how?” James tried the door handle with both hands. “See, it’s locked.”

Marvin, seeing his chance, crawled quickly onto the doorknob. The only thing he could think to do was to try to spring the lock himself. He took a good, long look into the blackness of the keyhole, then plunged inside.

“Wait! What are you doing?” James protested.

The keyhole was dark and crowded with chunks of cold metal. Marvin could see the workings of the lock with perfect clarity, but he had no idea how to move the mechanism and unlock the door. Great-aunt Mildred, the family locksmith, had given several lectures to the relatives on exactly this topic, but Marvin hadn’t realized he’d need the information so soon himself. The secret was some kind of leverage, as he recalled.

“Hey!” James whispered through the keyhole, sending a warm blast of air rushing into the tiny space. “Where are you, little guy?”

Marvin saw one of James’s worried eyes appear in the opening. “Are you trying to open it? Really? That would be so cool!”

Marvin pushed as hard as he could against the metal bolt, but it wouldn’t budge.

A minute later, James’s breath swooshed into the keyhole again. “Guess what? I have a paper clip in my pocket! Maybe that will help. Hold on.”

Marvin heard him rustling, and a moment later, the curved wire end of a paper clip came thrusting into the
keyhole. Marvin leapt out of the way right before it skewered him.
Take it easy
, he thought.

“Does that help?” James whispered.

Marvin considered the paper clip and the metal bar of the lock. He tried desperately to recall Great-aunt Mildred’s instructions. He positioned the paper clip carefully against the mechanism of the lock, then turned himself around and pressed the back of his shell
against the paper clip. Wedging his feet against the bar of the lock, he pushed as hard as he could.

Nothing.

He pushed again.

Nothing.

“How’s it going?” James whispered. “Maybe you aren’t strong enough on your own. I’ll try turning the paper clip, okay?”

Marvin repositioned the paper clip and pushed with all his might just as James began to twist it. Leverage! He heard a dull thunk as the metal bar slid back.

“It’s unlocked!” James whispered in delight, opening the door. Marvin scrambled out of the keyhole and onto James’s hand. A moment later, they were inside the apartment.

J
ames closed the door softly behind them. He flipped the light switch, surveying the small, tidy living room of the apartment.

“What is this place?” he asked Marvin. “Who’s Gordon Perry?”

Who, indeed. A friend of Denny’s? An accomplice in the theft? Marvin had no idea. He moved to the tip of James’s finger and once again dangled his legs in the air.

“Where do you want to go now?” James asked. He began to walk slowly around the living room.

Using the technique they’d perfected earlier, Marvin guided James, with a few false stops and starts, to the closed door of the study.

“Okay,” James said. “In here.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Huh.”

He looked around, scanning the bookshelves and table. Then he walked to the desk, glancing at the stack
of mail. “This is his place, all right. But there’s nothing here, little guy. What do we do now?” He hesitated in front of the window, staring gloomily out at the falling snow. “I have to go back. My dad will be really worried, and if he calls my mom . . . well, you know how she is.”

No! Not yet, James
, Marvin begged. He ran back and forth along James’s finger.

“Okay, relax. What are you trying to tell me?”

James turned toward the closet, where Marvin was pointing himself. “Something in there?”

Marvin scurried to the end of James’s finger and drummed all his legs in place, doing a frantic dance.

His brow furrowing, James crossed the room and opened the closet door, revealing a jumble of coats and a few packing boxes. The briefcase was on the floor in the back.

Marvin flung his front legs over the precipice of James’s fingertip, waving them in midair.

“What?” James asked, squatting on his heels. “It’s just a bunch of boxes. What are you so excited about?”

Marvin whirled in circles, desperate for James to discover Denny’s secret.

“Is it something about the drawing?”

Overcome with frustration, Marvin hurled himself from James’s finger to the floor and ran across the wooden boards to the briefcase.

“Oh,” James said. “That thing? Okay, let’s see.”

He picked up Marvin very gently and tugged the briefcase out of the closet. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he set it on its side and flipped the latches.

“It’s just a bunch of papers,” he said.

Marvin dove off his finger once again, landing smack in the middle of the packaging that surrounded the drawings.

“Listen, little guy. We have to go back to the museum. I don’t know what you think is here, but—”

Marvin pounded on the top layer of paper with his legs, thoroughly beside himself.

James took a deep breath. “I don’t think I should mess around with this stuff. That Perry guy will notice and get mad.”

Marvin rolled onto his back and waved all six legs in the air, as dramatic an SOS sign as he could think of.

“Geez,” James said. “You’re going crazy.” He touched the edge of the top paper with his fingers. With all his might, Marvin flipped himself onto his stomach and ran to the edge of the sheet.

James shifted it aside and hesitantly unwrapped what was underneath. He gasped.

There, unveiled in all its glory, was
Fortitude
.

James stared. “It’s the real one,” he said haltingly, as if he couldn’t trust his own eyes. “It is, isn’t it?” He looked down at Marvin in amazement. “You found it! The one that was stolen! How did you do that?”

James sprang to his feet, trembling. He began to pace around the table, gripping his head with both
hands and talking so fast that Marvin could barely keep up. “The Perry guy must have taken it! We have to tell my dad. We have to tell Christina and Denny. What if he comes back? What if he finds us here?”