Chapter 16
Sixteen
Eventually I would learn that the Clyde Tombaugh Club was named for Clyde William Tombaugh, an astronomer who’d recently discovered the planet Pluto.
His achievement inflamed the Fairchild children’s imagination, which had already been burning brightly.
The year had introduced us to Wonder Bread, Mott’s applesauce, pinball machines, windshield wipers, and the first supermarkets.
But nothing could thrill youngsters more than the revelation of another planet out beyond Saturn, beyond Neptune, a new world on which they would never set foot and to which they could therefore attribute a most colorful zoology of both enchanting and terrifying creatures.
They had already been embarked on a mission to uncover the secrets of the Bram, if there were any.
The glory of Tombaugh’s discovery inspired them to rename their group, which they had previously called the J. Edgar Hoover Society.
So it was that I found myself hurrying with my adopted siblings along the main second-floor hall as the last hour of Friday ticked toward midnight.
Eventually I would learn all the rules by which successful investigations must be conducted.
At that point, however, I had been informed of only two tactics.
First, when running—and we would often be running when we weren’t stealthily creeping—we must not leap like gazelles or charge in the manner of stampeding cattle.
The cavernous spaces of the residence were conducive to echoes that might betray us even though their hardworking mother and father were said to “sleep like Egyptian dead under the ancient pyramids.” To make as little noise as possible, Isadora and Gertrude and Harry were barefoot on these adventures, but I could not be seen without the concealment of shoes.
Second, flashlights were essential to navigate the maze of passageways and the many chambers of abysmal darkness safely, but one must at all times keep one’s finger on the switch.
At the first noise—the creak of door hinges, a footfall, a cough, a stifled sneeze—that betrayed a presence elsewhere in the house, our Evereadys must be doused in an instant.
Either Rafael had been schooled in the need for quiet or canine instinct informed him of it.
His nails never clicked on stone or wood, and the pads of his paws didn’t thump on the Persian carpets as had been the case in my dream.
He glided along as though he had studied the prowling technique of cats, and he seemed even to make an effort to suppress his panting.
By eight o’clock or so, after Chef Lattuada and the Symingtons had taken dinner together in the kitchen, they always retired to the bungalow and did not return until morning.
The other employees were away at their own homes.
Although there were four of us in the Clyde Tombaugh Club and though Loretta and Franklin would wake and respond if we had reason to scream for help, the Bram seemed to be a lonely place at that hour, dangerously so, like an abandoned monastery or a forsaken mausoleum.
As we swarmed down the grand staircase, across the reception hall, and through a series of rooms, flashlight beams fencing with the gloom, I couldn’t escape the feeling we were not as safe as we assumed we were.
A mild, crawly sensation of supernatural menace overcame me, and I chastised myself for indulging it.
If some threat arose, whether an otherworldly entity or a mere burglar, good Rafael had the sharp teeth and the canine courage to deal with it.
Our first destination proved to be in the basement, which had not been on the tour that Loretta and Franklin had given me.
Instead of a stair-head door, access to this subterranean vault was through a legless Japanese cabinet more than four feet wide and over seven feet tall, a black-lacquered beauty lightly ornamented with a dozen butterflies rendered in gold leaf.
This hulking and yet delicate piece stood against the end wall of a corridor.
Isadora opened the doors, revealing a black interior with three empty shelves.
She felt for a hidden release, whereupon the shelves swung away, as did the back wall of the cabinet to which they were attached.
She stepped inside and was suddenly silhouetted by a light that came from the secret realm beyond, into which she proceeded.
Gertrude followed her sister, and Harry ushered me after them.
Beyond the back wall of the cabinet lay a wide landing and concrete steps leading down between rustic stone walls.
At the bottom, a formidable oak door succumbed to a key that Isadora produced from a pocket of her pajamas.
As Rafael wended among us, we passed through the door and into a chamber that was illuminated by a chandelier in the form of six little bronze men holding light bulbs shaped like candle flames.
The basement did not extend under the entire house but was only about twenty by thirty feet.
The walls were lined with wine racks that held hundreds of bottles of the most desirable product of France.
“Mother and father,” Gertrude assured me, “are not alcoholics, and they aren’t crazy-violent bootleggers either. They don’t own even one machine gun.”
“Maybe one,” said Harry.
Dismissing him with a wave of her hand, Isadora said, “They just sometimes like to have wine with their dinner, especially when they’re entertaining guests. Thinking people must not sacrifice all expressions of elegance on the altar of the Anti-Saloon League.”
As Rafael sniffed along the rows of bottles as if appreciating the fine Bordeauxs and Burgundys, Isadora opened a shallow drawer in a center table.
She removed napkins, various corkscrews, and a small glass aerator.
When the drawer was empty, she withdrew it and turned it upside down on top of the table.
A plastic sleeve had been glued to the bottom.
From that she withdrew an eight-by-ten envelope and opened the clasp and spilled a few items from it.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Evidence. We hide it here so that it can’t be easily found and destroyed.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Evidence of the darkest secrets of the Bram,” Harry said.
Gertrude explained further. “Evidence of nefesterous deeds.”
“Nefarious,” Isadora corrected.
“That’s how snippy twelve-year-olds say it,” Gertrude replied, “not how everyone says it.”
With one finger, Isadora tapped a wallet-size photograph of a man in his thirties.
He had curly hair, thick eyebrows, a droopy mustache, and a stern expression.
“We found this in a game box, the Landlord’s Game, which we like to play.
It was stuck to the jail square. It had never been there before, but at first we didn’t realize someone had intentionally put it there for us to find. ”
“Who?”
“That remains an ongoing mystery.”
“And who is this guy?” I asked, indicating the photo.
“We’re not sure, but we suspect he’s Francois Le Clerc.”
“Who is Francois Le Clerc?”
Isadora passed a one-column four-inch-long newspaper clipping to me. “Two weeks later, this fell out of Gertie’s hat when she was getting dressed in her Sunday best.”
“It’s the prettiest hat in America,” Gertrude said. “It’s got blue ribbons and silver fringe all around the band, and a little yellow bird.”
The clipping reported that Francois Maurice Le Clerc, 36, of Santa Monica, had been sentenced to a prison term of fifteen years following his recent conviction for voluntary manslaughter in the death of Martin S.
Leveret. Before being removed from the courtroom, he had disparaged the judge with a series of words, none of which could be printed in a reputable newspaper.
At the bottom of the clipping was the date August 14, 1929.
Harry had been studying for his role as Sherlock.
“Quote—‘Voluntary manslaughter—the unlawful killing of a human being without malice, either expressed or implied, without deliberation, upon a sudden heat of passion, or otherwise during the commission of an unlawful or lawful act without due caution and circumspection.’ End quote. If there’s malice, then it’s murder, so this Le Clerc guy maybe wasn’t feeling malice, but he was sure feeling something. ”
“Who put this in your hat?” I asked Gertrude.
“We don’t know, but we’re going to find out if it’s the last thing we ever do.”
Rafael appeared tableside and grumbled as if in agreement.
“Just one month after the hat,” Isadora continued, “on October fourteenth of this year, Harry found this placed like a bookmark in something he was reading.” She held up a small photo of a flat-faced man with an uncertain smile and the myopic gaze of someone striving to pass—but failing—an eye exam.
“We suspect this might be Martin S. Leveret, the victim of Francois Le Clerc, though we haven’t been able to confirm our suspicions. ”
“What book was it in?” I asked Harry.
“The Wise Man’s Poker Strategies by Albert Roy Bluffer, also known as Albuquerque Al, published in 1872 and still in print.
I’m going to be a professional poker player, chasing the game from San Antonio to Santa Fe to Pascagoula—or maybe picking clean the gulls and grifters on paddle-wheel steamers up and down the Mississippi. ”
“Or a dentist,” said Gertrude.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gertie. I’d never be a dentist. Who in his right mind would want to be a dentist?”
“Well, before Albuquerque Al, you were crazy about Dr. Sheldon Sarsaparilla and his book, The History of Teeth.”
“His name wasn’t Sarsaparilla. It was Solomonson.”
“Whatever his name was, you carried that book everywhere. You slept with it under your pillow.”