The Secret Cellar (9 page)

“So they never caught him?” I ask.

Margaret scrolls down through the rest of the article. “Sounds like most people don’t even believe he existed. But to answer your question, no, they never caught him. They never found another shred of evidence about him. The article from 2002 supposes that if he ever existed, he is long dead and buried.” She stops to think about that for a second, calculating the age of somebody who arrived in Maine in 1942. “Maybe, maybe not. If he was in his twenties when he got here, he could still be alive. Of course, he’d be in his nineties.”

“I wonder why Lindsay was reading about this. And more importantly, why she didn’t want us to see it.”

Margaret types in “German submarine Maine spies” and finds several more stories related to the same strange episode. There are some hard-to-read articles scanned from old newspapers, and then updates of the story from the fifties, sixties, and seventies that all focus on the same two questions: One, was there a third man? And, two, if he did exist, what happened to him?

Very good questions indeed.

Big surprise waiting for me when I get home. Correction: Not big. Huge. Sitting across from my mom at the kitchen table is none other than Raf.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Sophie!” says Mom. “That’s not very nice. He came here to see you.”

“He’s a traitor. Coffeeteria! Phooey.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a few minutes to talk in private. I’ll be in my room. Just don’t kill each other, okay?”

“When’s dinner?” I ask, catching a whiff of Mom’s famous meat loaf. “I’m starving.”

“It’s in the oven; it’ll be ready in half an hour. Where have you been, anyway? Leigh Ann called for you a while ago; she said your cell phone must be turned off. I was starting to worry.”

“I was with Margaret,” I say, revealing no more than necessary. “I have my phone, but the battery’s dead.”

“Shocking,” says Raf, earning him a stuck-out tongue.

Stupid phone. I am constantly forgetting to recharge it, despite the steady stream of troubles that has caused me—a fact that Raf knows all too well. I mean, c’mon, America! We figured out a way to fry Snickers bars and pickles, but we can’t make a cell phone battery that lasts more than ten minutes?

I glare at him across the table. “So, what are you doing on this side of town, anyway? On a weeknight?”

“My mom is at a movie on Eighty-Sixth with a couple of her friends. I have to meet her back there in a few minutes. I have something I’ve been trying to talk to you about, but you haven’t been answering my calls—and
don’t tell me it’s because you forgot to charge. You’re ignoring me.”

And then, just as I’m planning to really let him have it for betraying me and Perkatory, he does something truly, truly awful. He tilts his head just so, causing his hair to fall perfectly across one eye.

Gulp.

Be strong, Sophie. Look away. And for crying out loud, whatever you do, don’t look into his eyes!

Too late. He’s smiling at me, and my defenses crumble completely at the first sight of his pearly whites, doggone it.

“You are such a jerk,” I say, failing miserably in my attempt not to smile back at him.

“I know. But I have some information that you might find interesting. I went back to Coffeeteria—”

“You what! How could you? When?”

“Oh, hold on a second. It was yesterday, when I was hanging out with my uncle after school. He needed something from some plumbing supply store over on this side of town, and it’s right down by St. V’s. He asked me if I knew anyplace in the neighborhood to get a coffee—what was I supposed to do? We went inside, and while I was ordering our drinks, I saw something really strange. The manager was working at the cash register, and as I’m talking to him, I see these little whiskers popping up out of his coat pocket, followed by a nose and two beady
little eyes. The guy just gently pushes the critter back down into his pocket—he doesn’t know I saw it.”

“He has a pet rat?” I ask. “That’s very interesting, because—”

“Because a rat is what got Perkatory shut down,” Raf says, finishing my thought exactly. “I overheard some kids talking about it.”

“I think I smell a rat,” I say. “I knew it! There’s a conspiracy to shut down Perkatory to make way for a whole … um, cluster of cookie-cutter Coffeeterias. Pretty soon, there’ll be one on every corner. Raf, we have to do something.”

“Like what?”

“Like clear Perkatory’s good name. Who knows how high this goes—the landlord, the health inspector, even the mayor!”

“Do you really think the mayor cares enough about a coffee shop to get involved in this conspiracy? Even one with a cool name like the Cookie-Cutter Coffeeteria Conspiracy.”

“Don’t be so naive, Raf! This isn’t just about Perkatory; it’s about the very soul of the city. So, you’re going to help me, right?”

As if he has a choice.

When I tell Raf the story about the spies landing in Maine and the FBI manhunt for the Third Wise Man, he says something that gets my attention.

“That sounds a lot like an old movie I saw with my grandfather,” he says. “It’s called
The House on 92nd Street
.”

His grandfather worked as a projectionist at a movie theater in Times Square in the forties and fifties, and is a real movie nut. I swear, he and Raf have watched every black-and-white movie ever made. Okay, maybe not every one, but Raf
has
seen a lot of them, and the kid has a remarkable memory for details about each one.

“Directed by Henry Hathaway. Lloyd Nolan and … Gene Lockhart, I think. Not great, but not bad. It was actually filmed at a house on Ninety-Third Street. It was about these German spies who were in New York to steal secrets from the guys who were working on the atomic bomb. It was a true story—they really were in a house on Ninety-Second Street.”

See what I mean about the details? He’s a freak.

“Wait a second. That’s strange. There’s a movie about spies in a house on Ninety-Second Street. And Lindsay’s reading that article about the Third Wise Man and getting all weird when we told her about what I found in the pen. I wonder if she thinks—”

Raf finishes my thought: “—that the pen guy was some kind of spy?”

“Exactly.”

Friday after school the temperature is all the way back up to the midthirties, and we’re standing on the sidewalk in front of the house on Eighty-Second Street—the former home of Curtis Dedmann. I elbow Becca. “Remember what Madame Zurandot said? She saw an old man with a cane, standing in front of a blue door with the number nine. Well, Dedmann was old, he used a cane, his door is blue, and it has a nine on it. Freeeaaaakkkyyyy.”

“I see two nines,” says Becca, suddenly Miss Literal.

“Maybe Madame Z. couldn’t see the other nine because the guy was standing in front of it. And I forgot to tell you the best part. Shelley—the woman who we’re going to see—found him dead at his desk … with his pen in his hand.”

“Shut up!” says Becca. “Now you’re messin’ with me.”

“No, I swear!” I say. “Just like Madame Zurandot said.”

Becca grabs me by the shoulders and looks straight into my eyes. “If you’re lying, I’m going to pound you, St. Pierre.”

“Okay, everybody just calm down,” says Commander Wrobel. “And let these red blazers work their magic.”

We follow Margaret up the steps (nine of ’em) to the main entrance, where she pushes the doorbell button. A few seconds later, Shelley Gallivan answers the door; she’s dressed in jeans and a Vassar sweatshirt, with her abundant, wavy red hair pulled back into a thick knot.

“Hi! It’s Shelley, right?” says Margaret in her most cheerful voice. “Remember us?” She pulls me forward so I’m standing right next to her.

“Oh, from the auction the other night,” Shelley says. “And you are Margaret and … Sophie.”

“And Leigh Ann and Rebecca,” says Margaret. “We were wondering—if you’re not too busy—if we could talk to you about something.”

“Why, uh, yes, I suppose so. Come in out of the cold.”

Once we’re inside, she leads us into a comfortable denlike room with dark paneling and a fireplace, in which there is a barely smoldering fire.

“Are you cold?” she asks. “I can stoke the fire if you’d like.”

“No, we’re fine,” I say. “Boy, this is a great old house. Mr. Dedmann lived here all by himself?”

“I’m afraid so,” says Shelley. “It was just him and Bertie, his dog, knocking about this old place. Now, what can I do for you girls?”

“It involves Mr. Dedmann, and his things, and this house,” Margaret explains. “There is something going on—something to do with Mr. Dedmann—and, well, right now we’re not sure who we can trust. But since you’re a St. V’s alumna, we figure you can’t be all bad.”

“Well, you certainly have my attention,” Shelley says. “Go on.”

“It started the night of the auction,” I say, reaching into my backpack for the rolled-up grid. “Remember, you told us that Mr. Dedmann’s last words were ‘Look inside,’ and you found that old picture in the box he was holding. Well, I found this inside the fountain pen.”

Shelley carefully unrolls it and reads the poem. She then holds the paper up to the light to examine the twelve rectangular holes. “What is it?”

“It all has to do with a book that Mr. Dedmann used to own, which is now owned by Marcus Klinger—”

At the mere mention of his name, a dark shadow seems to pass across Shelley’s face.

“We figured out that the riddle refers to Alexander the Great, one of the Nine Worthies,” Leigh Ann says. “And if you set this grid on the page where his story begins, the twelve words that show up are: ‘pull the ribbon and you’ll see the walking stick is the key.’ So, now we
know that we need to pull the marker ribbon attached to Mr. Dedmann’s own copy of the book,
Nine Worthy Men
, but—”

“Marcus Klinger bought that copy of the book at the auction,” Margaret adds.

“And he won’t let us touch his copy,” Becca finishes.

“There’s no chance Mr. Dedmann has another copy lying around here, is there?” I ask.

Shelley shakes her head. “Afraid not. I’ve been through all the books left in his study, and I’m positive it’s not there.”

“Do you have any idea what this is all about?” Margaret asks. “Do you know much about … Mr. Dedmann’s past?”

“To tell you the truth, no, I don’t know much about his past; I only knew him the last year of his life. It was kind of strange, to tell the truth. I was finishing up my last semester in grad school when, out of the blue, I got a call from his lawyer, Mr. Garrison Applewood. He told me that Mr. Dedmann wanted to hire me to catalog his music collection—he owns hundreds of original manuscripts from a number of different composers—and maybe even help him write a memoir. It was … Well, it was like a dream come true. A job in Manhattan, the chance to work with an amazing collection, and best of all, the position came with a place to live, so I didn’t have to go through the usual apartment-hunting nonsense.
I live right here, in the garden apartment. It’s much nicer than anything I could afford on my own.”

“You didn’t know him before that?” I ask.

Shelley shakes her head. “I’d never even heard of him. When I asked Mr. Applewood why Mr. Dedmann picked me, he said that one of my professors had recommended me for the job, but I never really believed it. I didn’t want to ask too many questions because I was afraid he would change his mind.”

“Did he ever say anything about the Nine Worthies?” Margaret asks.

“No, I never heard him mention them, but there is something you should see—in the basement. A room like no other. I think you’ll be amazed.”

She heads down the first-floor hallway, beckoning us to follow. A spiral staircase takes us a full level below the garden apartment, and into a room that is unlike any other I’ve ever seen, at least in New York. I have seen rooms like it before, though—in castles in France! First of all, it’s enormous: it stretches the length of the entire building, which must be eighty or ninety feet.

And second, it’s beautiful, in that dark-and-stormy-night-in-a-castle kind of way. The ceiling, a good twelve feet above our heads, is arched stone, and reminds me of the secret passageways we discovered in St. Veronica’s Church. There’s one big difference, though: on this ceiling, somebody has painted the solar system and the constellations in incredible detail. The sun, blazing in yellows
and oranges that are so bright I swear they’re giving off heat, must be six feet across. The planets stretch the length of the room, with sorry-but-you’re-not-quite-a-planet-anymore Pluto a dim gray disk in the farthest corner. In the spaces between the planets, gold-leaf stars form the twelve constellations that make up the signs of the zodiac.

“Whoa! That is cool,” says Becca, staring up at Jupiter, with its brightly colored bands, distinctive red spot, and multiple moons.