Chapter Twelve #2
“Not nearly enough,” he said, grinning behind his teacup.
“I had my umbrella confiscated tonight,” I told him. “Because of you.”
“Me? I wasn’t even here.”
“It’s called ‘consequences.’ My boss doesn’t trust me anymore, and this is exactly why.” I pointed at his chest, then poked him over the heart. “Dr. Fanshawe is convinced you and I are still involved and obviously, she’s right.”
“Miss March, your mother’s book has been stolen from the safe,” Mrs. Turner reminded me. “Someone needs to find it, yes? And with your grandfather away, we could use the assistance—”
“Your grandfather’s away?” Duke repeated. “Where?”
I didn’t answer at first. Then I had to say it. “Some off-the-books mission. But he’s been gone a week, and he’s almost never gone that long.”
“You mean your grandfather is missing?”
“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling.”
“First, your grandfather’s gone off to whereabouts unknown and now your book? Rainy,” Duke said, “that isn’t simply a case anymore. That’s what we in the business call a big case.”
“Mrs. Turner?” I said.
“Yes, Miss March?”
“Can you leave us alone for the next few minutes. I don’t want any witnesses.”
“Of course,” she said. “Come along, Master Koshka. I don’t want you involved in a rumble.” With a curtsy to Duke, she wheeled the tea trolley out of the library, Koshka at her heels, then shut the door behind her.
Duke looked at me. “Darling, you know you need my help.”
“Entirely beside the point. You have to go. Now.”
“Rainy,” he said, looking me deep in the eyes. “Please, let me help you. Allow me—for once in my useless, imaginary life—to solve a real case. I’ve been in print for eighty years and never once had the chance to help a real person before. Please. For your grandfather’s sake, if not mine.”
My shoulders slumped. “Duke…your books help real people—”
“No, no they don’t. They distract real people from their real problems. Or entertain them for a few hours. But I solve paper murders committed by paper criminals and mend paper hearts and restore paper justice. Do you understand what it would mean to me to solve a real crime?”
“Your books mended my paper heart,” I said.
“You’re being very kind.”
“I’m not being kind. It’s true. And you don’t have to prove your worth as a detective.”
“But I want to, love. Here. Look.” He gestured to the portrait over the fireplace. “They went to the trouble of cracking the safe. The thief took only your mother’s book when there are several dozen expensive first editions strewn about in plain sight.”
Duke ran his fingers over the spines of a dozen rare books on a nearby shelf.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” he continued. “It means that book is not simply a book.”
“Then what is it? Because I’ve read the thing a few billion times, and there’s nothing there except a fun little mystery where Nancy Drew and her father find a dead guy’s missing will.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
I dropped down onto the sofa. “Trust me, we looked.”
“Where? How?”
“Everywhere, I promise. In the words, on the endpapers, behind the endpapers, hidden between the lines, in a cipher, or in invisible ink. Pops even broke the rules and snuck into the story to ask if anyone knew Ellery March. Nobody had ever heard of her.”
“Did he go missing before or after your book?”
“He left over a week ago saying he had to go on a top secret mission. That’s all.
Except Penny, the new apprentice, mentioned tonight she wasn’t aware of any missions or assignments he’d been sent on.
And it’s her job to know,” I said. “Not five minutes after she told me Pops wasn’t on an assignment, I find out my mother’s book has been stolen.
” I held up my hands, empty of answers. “Honestly, I’m more worried about Pops than I am about getting the book back. ”
“Unless they’re related.”
“What?”
“In my cases, two odd events that happen in proximity to each other are always related. Always and without fail.”
“Yes, but your cases are fictional, and there are no coincidences in fiction. This is the real world.”
Duke put his hand to his chin as he often did when thinking deeply about a case.
“Duke?”
“Tell me what your grandfather said when he left. Every single word.”
“Actually…he didn’t say anything to me directly. He left a goodbye note.”
“Do you have that note?”
Good question. Recycling came every two weeks in Fort Meriwether. I went to the blue wastepaper basket and dug through the invoices and magazines and scrap paper.
I found it near the bottom, the note written on an index card.
“Here it is,” I said, and read the note aloud to Duke.
Dear Raindrop,
I’m afraid I need to leave on a top secret mission.
I’ll be incommunicado, but I’ll think of you every second of every minute and I’ll be watching the clock until I can come home again.
Love Always,
Pops
“His handwriting?” Duke asked.
“Definitely. And only he calls me Raindrop.”
Duke nodded, and I knew he was committing all this information to his prodigious memory.
“Where did you find the note?”
“He left it propped up on the reading table against the lamp,” I said, pointing to the brass reading lamp. “That’s always where he leaves notes for me to find.”
“Was anything out of place? Any signs of a struggle?”
My stomach dropped at this line of questioning. Did Duke think my grandfather had been kidnapped?
“Nothing like that. Everything was normal. And he does go on missions sometimes. He gets up at five in the morning most days, so he’s often gone before I get up, and he leaves me notes like this. Should I be scared, Duke? Because I am.”
“Not yet,” he said, which didn’t comfort me as much as I would’ve liked. “Has he ever been gone this long before?”
“Not quite this long. It’s been”—I counted in my head—“eight days. Which I guess isn’t a long time. Is it? Is eight days a long time to be gone when you’re eighty years old?”
I was trying to talk myself out of terror, but it wasn’t working.
“You said you gave up looking for the secret message in the book?”
“I did. Years ago.”
Duke mulled this over a moment.
“Is it possible your grandfather still believed there was a message hidden in your mother’s copy of The Secret of the Old Clock? ”
I shrugged. “Maybe. A year or so ago I asked him to stop talking to me about it. I think he kept looking though.”
Duke’s brow furrowed. “Why did you ask him to stop talking to you about it?”
“Who knows?”
“I know,” Duke said softly. “You wanted there to be a message, and yet there wasn’t one. The wound couldn’t heal as long as your grandfather kept picking at it.”
“A disgusting yet apt metaphor,” I told him.
“You said you believed your grandfather was still attempting to crack the code, so to speak?”
“Right. I think so.”
“How do you know he carried on his work if he didn’t tell you about it?”
“I’d catch him looking through the Nancy Drew book and writing in his case notebook. But he never said a word—”
“His case notebook? Tell me about that.”
“Not much to tell. He keeps a case notebook. We all do,” I said. In fact, anyone reading this story right now is reading my case notebook. “I think he took it with him.”
“Are you sure?”
“He always kept it in his desk.” I nodded toward the desk by the library windows. “And it’s not there. I already looked.”
Duke went to the desk and examined it thoroughly, pulling drawers, lifting objects, checking it top and bottom.
Despite my fear and extreme annoyance at having an unauthorized fictional character roaming around my house, I couldn’t help but watch him work.
This is why readers return to the same series over and over, even though the outcomes are always predetermined…
Watching Sherlock or Miss Marple or Duke solve a crime is like watching a gymnast backflip or a sword fighter disarm an opponent with one glorious parry.
It never gets old, watching someone being phenomenally good at their very difficult job.
“The bottom drawer is locked,” Duke said, glancing up at me.
“Pops would have the key.”
“I’ll have to pick it,” Duke said.
“Tried that already. It’s an enchanted lock. It can only be opened with the key. See?”
I pulled the drawer handle, and pale orange electricity danced over my hands. But the drawer didn’t budge.
“So you did have your suspicions?” Duke asked.
“I was being nosy,” I admitted. “I wanted to know where he went.”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed.
“He’s lonely,” I said. “With Grandma gone. I thought maybe he’d met someone and was going on a trip with her but was too embarrassed to tell me. I’m allowed to be nosy. He’s the only family I have left.”
“Let’s see the note,” Duke said. I handed him the card, and he read it aloud again. “ I’ll think of you every second of every minute. I’ll be watching the clock until I can come home again…. Dramatic statement. Almost melodramatic.”
“He does love me.”
“Still, a bit of overkill,” Duke said. “Miss you every second of every minute, and he’ll be watching the clock?”
“What are you implying?”
“I am implying…it sounded like he wanted to send you a message.”
“That is the message.” I pointed at the card.
“A message…behind the message,” Duke said. He turned around, scanning the library with laser-like focus. Then he walked straight over to the mantel, plucked the small carriage clock off the shelf, and shook it gently.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, merely flipped the clock over and popped off the back to expose the inner workings.
“Voilà,” he said and held up a small silver key.
“That…that’s the key to the desk lock.”
“Apparently there is more than one secret of the old clock. Now will you let me help you solve this case, darling?”
Slowly, I nodded my head, dazed and dazzled and delighted.
“You’re hired.”