Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
“Thank you. I was already planning to solve this case, but now I’ll do it with you instead of in spite of you,” Duke said. “Makes things much more pleasant.”
“But…”
“Darling, you know I hate when you start sentences with ‘But’—”
“You can help me figure out where Pops went and help me find my book. But you have to be back in your book by midnight.” I thought one day should be safe enough for him to be out of his stories.
“Midnight? Surely not—”
“In The Velvet Coffin, you solved the case in less than twenty-four hours.”
He took a deep breath, then narrowed his eyes at me. “Challenge accepted. One day,” he said. “If only because it means we might finally solve the mystery of how we can be together.”
“And find out where Pops went.”
“Right so. Priorities,” he said. “Grandfather comes first. Book second. You and me third. A close third.”
“All right, but if we’re going to work together, even for a day, I need to set some ground rules.”
“Ground rules?” he repeated. “I have a crown. Ground rules are for people who don’t have crowns.”
“It’s a coronet, not a crown. And even dukes have to follow some rules.”
“Tell that to the first Duke of Buckingham.”
I began pacing. “Ground rule number one. No kissing me. Or me kissing you. Or anything more than kissing. Or even less.”
“Less? I’m doing less than kissing you now.”
“You know what I mean. No looking at me like you want to kiss me.”
“So I should wear a blindfold? I could be persuaded.” He grinned.
“Less,” I shouted at him. “Less than that!”
“That’s not a rule. That’s torture.”
“Ground rule number two—no declarations of love.”
“I already told you I still love you,” he said. “Didn’t I? If not, I love you and always shall.”
“Well, that’s more than enough, and see that you don’t do it again.”
“You’re adorable when you’ve lost your mind,” he said.
“And finally, no asking to stay with me. No asking me to stay with you. It can’t happen, won’t happen, so don’t even bring it up.”
“My lips are sealed,” he said. “May I start solving this case now?”
“Be my guest, please.”
“Thank you, I shall.”
Duke went straight back to the desk, and I followed him. He stuck the key in the lock of the bottom drawer.
It turned.
“Sometimes,” he said, looking into my eyes in a way that I think I had forbidden, “I am so good at this I surprise even myself.”
“Oh, open the drawer.”
Duke opened it and removed a notebook, a small brown notebook with a cord wrapped around it.
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s my grandfather’s case notebook.”
Duke opened the notebook and turned page after page.
“This is not a case notebook,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Every single page is about The Secret of the Old Clock. Look.”
He placed the notebook open on the desk. He pointed to a few entries, all standard fare.
August 30
I know my daughter. Ellery would not have left Rainy nothing but a book. Even her favorite book. There has to be something more.
September 2
New cipher failed. I won’t give up yet.
September 20
Curiouser and curiouser.
A suggestion from an unexpected source has me thinking along new lines.
Pops had written the final entry a week ago, just before he left.
September 30
I think I understand the message now. Of course it was right there all along.
But how could we have known? This changes everything we thought we knew about stories.
And my Ellery did leave Rainy an inheritance of sorts, a richer one than I ever dared to dream.
And poor Rainy and Duke, they’ll be star-crossed no more.
But if I’m right, my God, if I’m right, then…
Well, of course Ellery would’ve had to keep it all a secret.
This is explosive information. People in charge will want to cover it up.
I think…I think perhaps they already have?
I must tell Rainy. Except how can I? No, I have to confirm the truth first, otherwise she’ll be devastated.
Yet if I’m right…she’ll finally know the truth about her mother.
I can’t believe it was staring us in the face the whole time.
For a few minutes I read and reread that final entry, tattooing every word onto my mind.
And my Ellery did leave Rainy an inheritance of sorts, a richer one than I ever dared to dream.
This changes everything…
“Rainy?” Duke said softly. “Are you all right, darling?”
“It wasn’t just a book,” I whispered. “She left me more than a book. An inheritance? That would make sense. The whole novel is about finding a lost will. Is that it? Could that be the thing that changes everything?”
My knees shook and I had to sit down. Gently, Duke put me into my grandfather’s chair and knelt beside it.
“Breathe, Rainy. You’re turning even paler than usual.”
I met his eyes. “All this time, I thought I knew the message of the book. Don’t grieve me. Get on with your life and your adventures like Nancy Drew did. But that’s not it. There is more.”
Duke nodded. “It seems there is much, much more. But I wouldn’t start celebrating yet.”
“Why not?”
He tapped my grandfather’s notebook. “Your grandfather hid this and put an enchantment on the lock. I think he learned something so dangerous he was afraid to even write about it in his notebook. Which means either he is on a top secret mission investigating what he discovered…or someone learned he discovered this information and—”
“Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
“I’m sorry, Rainy, but we have to accept the possibility he’s been taken somewhere against his will.”
My grandfather’s old desk chair creaked as I sat back, my hand over my mouth in shock.
I shook my head. “No, he left me a note—”
“That he may have been forced to write,” Duke said. “Which is why he had to write in code, to tell you where to find the key.”
“He’s been gone a week. What if he’s—”
“Don’t say it,” Duke said. “We’ll find him.”
I threw my arms around his shoulders and he pulled me close.
“What about the ground rules, darling?” he asked.
“We’ll get back to them in a minute.”
I rested my chin on his strong shoulder. Relief coursed through me. I wasn’t alone in this. Duke was going to help me. As I’d told Penny, fictional detectives could make you feel like they could solve all your problems, that everything would be okay if you just let them handle it.
I pulled back, and he smiled that irresistible smile of his.
Rules or no rules, I wanted to kiss him, and he certainly seemed amenable to the idea. When I leaned in, he leaned in closer.
But before our lips could touch, the phone rang. It wasn’t my cell but the red landline on my grandfather’s desk. Someone from the Coven was trying to get in touch.
“I have to get this,” I told Duke.
“Let me listen.”
I picked up the receiver, ten times as heavy as even the largest smartphones, and put the call on speaker.
“Hello? Rainy March here?”
Silence…a long silence, and then.
The line crackled and then someone spoke as if they were calling long-distance from another universe. “Rainy?”
“Pops! Where are you?” I jumped to my feet in excitement.
But the only answer was more static. Finally, he spoke, his words breaking up every few syllables.
“…can’t talk long,” he said. “You found…notes?”
“What?” I shouted. “Yes, we found your notes! Are you safe?”
“Yes! I…right.”
“You’re all right?” I asked.
“He said he was right,” Duke whispered, listening in and taking notes.
“Right? About what?”
“I know the message…book. What it means…changes everything…mother tried to tell…right about everything…”
“What’s the message? And where are you?”
“I can’t tell…wish I could…”
“Can’t tell me? Why can’t you? Is someone there?”
“Rain…need to…” The phone popped and crackled again.
“What, Pops? What is it?” I was practically screaming into the phone, willing my voice to find him and his voice to find me. My heart was pounding like a hammer on my ribs. “What do you need me to do? I’ll do it!”
And then…suddenly, the line cleared and as if Pops were in the room with us, I heard him speak four strange words.
“Find the March Hare.”
Then he hung up.
—
“Find the March Hare?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
If there were a museum for lost and forgotten sounds, the dial tone of a landline phone would surely be a future exhibit. I listened to that sound for a full ten seconds before finally hanging up.
I looked at Duke, who was looking at me.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Good news,” Duke said. “That was good news. We know your grandfather is safe. And right, apparently. He said he was right, he figured out the message from your mother.”
“He’s safe. He’s alive. But where? And what does ‘Find the March Hare’ mean? Why couldn’t he tell me?”
“Rainy, you’re hyperventilating, so perhaps sit a moment while your brain reoxygenates itself.”
“Right, right. Oxygen. Brain. Good.” I slowly sank down into the desk chair again. I met Duke’s eyes. “Any idea what he meant?”
“No clue,” Duke said, sitting on the edge of the desk. “I was expecting a ransom call, not that.”
“Ransom? Do you think…Duke, what if someone made him call me?”
“I didn’t get that impression. He said he was safe. But he was speaking in a sort of code for a reason. Unless he literally meant we’re to literally go into the literal story of the March Hare and have a literal chat with him.”
“I can’t think of any March Hare,” I said, “except for the same March Hare in the other Alice book— Through the Looking-Glass. ”
The March Hare, as all readers know, is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Like every other denizen of Wonderland, the March Hare was mad. But that’s all I knew about him. What else was there to know?
“This is crazy, Duke.”
“Mad even,” he said.
Suffused with nervous energy, I stood up and started to pace.
“Pops locked the drawer,” I said. “Enchanted lock. He must have felt us breach the lock.”
“He did leave us the key to find,” Duke said. “Makes sense. And according to your grandfather’s final entry in his notes…”