by Tony Abbott
“The numerals IIVIVMVXDXX aren’t a single number,” his father said.
“Plus, nightfall’s going to be here before we know it,” Darrell said. “If something is going to happen, it’ll happen soon. Come on, people. Two dead. What does it mean?”
“Ackkk!” said Lily. “We need . . . we need . . . Simon! We need Simon Tingle. Mr. Memory. If he can’t help us put these clues together, no one can. Do you think we can call him? We need his brain. Terence, are our phones okay?”
“They really are,” Terence said. “I’m certain your phones are not how Archie Doyle found you. Go ahead, make your call.”
“He gave me his number this morning,” I said. I went through my pockets, fished out his scrap of paper, and made the call. I expected the same buoyant voice and electric enthusiasm he showed in his office, but when he answered, I wasn’t sure it was even him.
“Simon,” I said, hitting the speaker button, “we could really use your help.”
“What? What?” Simon barked into the phone. “Oh, it’s you.” He seemed angry. He was outside. I heard traffic.
“We’ve got a couple thousand questions,” Darrell said.
“I can’t talk.” He sounded like he was in a tunnel now, on the move. His voice went in and out as if he were running. “Someone’s after me. A car.”
My blood trilled in my veins, went cold. “Simon? Not a black car?”
“They’re all black!” he said.
“Simon,” said Roald, “you need to hide somewhere. We’ll find you. We’re approaching London now. We’ve seen that car. Name a time and place.”
Simon growled unintelligibly into the phone. When Roald asked if he was all right, he didn’t answer at all. Street traffic crackled through the speaker.
Lily leaned over. “Simon, are you there? This is Lily, the blond one—”
“I know who it is! I remember voices!” Buses roared by him. A distant siren.
“Simon, where are you?” Sara asked. “We’ll meet you anywhere you want.”
There was a long pause. I heard the blare of car horns in the background and the zip-zip of motorcycles. “Twenty minutes, the column in Paternoster Square. Twenty minutes. If you aren’t there, I’ll be gone!” The call clicked off.
“Paternoster in twenty minutes,” said Terence. “That will be tough. Hold on.”
He was a good driver on the wrong side of the street, but we still barely got there in time, screeching to a stop on Ave Maria Lane. Terence stayed with the car, while we rushed into the square. It was sundown, the workday over, and the square was crammed with people even in the rain, but it was easy to spot Simon, circling the column like a madman, checking and rechecking his watch. He was heated when we got to him, out of breath, and not happy.
“Well?” he said sharply, wiping rain from his cheeks. “What do you want?”
“Simon, where did you see the car?” Terence asked.
“Cars. There are at least three of them. No plates. They’re everywhere.”
“Should we call a friend?” asked Sara. “Sir Felix, maybe?”
“Sir Felix!” he gasped. “That’s a devil of an idea!” His eyes were wild, and he started to step away. “You know, you’d better toddle off. They’ll see you, too.”
“We need you!” I said. “We need to make some serious connections, and you’re the only one who can help us. You have a chance to save lives.”
“To save lives?” he said. “I mostly take them, you know. I analyze information and come to conclusions. They kill people based on my conclusions. That’s what MI5 does, you know.”
“MI5?” Roald said. “But I thought you’re with the university.”
“And you have a lot to learn,” Simon said. “They employ experts like me. To ferret out secrets. To know things. I’m quite an asset, I am. Or rather, my horrible, unstoppable brain is.”
That paused conversation for a few seconds.
“This isn’t like that,” Sara said finally. “It’s different. Please help us—”
“Then let’s get moving. A moving target has more of a chance.”
He power walked away from us, heading west. “For heaven’s sake,” he called over his shoulder, “ask me what you want! Do you expect me to guess?”
As we hurried to keep up with him, the inquisition began, us badgering him with all the questions we needed answers to, while Sara and Roald hung back and let us go for it, since we had figured out nearly everything so far.
“We have three scrambles. We don’t know what they mean,” Wade said.
“Of course you don’t,” he snickered. “What’s the first one?”
I spelled out the letters. “A-B-E-E-H-I-L-L-L. Possibly German, hall of—”
“Of course it’s German. Bleihalle. Bleihalle means ‘hall of lead,’ or ‘lead hall’—possibly Leadenhall. It’s a street.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Fifteen minutes back that way. What are the Latin letters?” Wade told him what we thought were Roman numerals. “Hmm. Let me work on them. Next?”
“Does Leadenhall Street have anything to do with Thomas More?” Lily asked.
“Ha, yes, now we get to it!” Simon said, barreling into a strolling couple. They both yelled at him, but we were already crossing the street. “Leadenhall is where German merchants did their business in London. As a member of the king’s privy chamber, Thomas More would have had extensive dealings with German tradesmen. The merchants were called the Hanseatic League. They were the heart of German trading activity in London.”
“Like the Hanseatic Walk?” asked Lily. “We were there this morning.”
“Yes, like the Hanseatic Walk where you were this morning. Next?”
“How about someone named Kratzer, a German astronomer?” I asked.
Simon looked both ways at the next corner, stepped off the sidewalk. “Nicolaus Kratzer was the king’s astronomer. He taught More’s children. By the way, the jumbled numerals resolve to a limitless number of dates, but I’ll take a stab that the only one that interests you is VI, VII, MDXXXV, or the sixth of July 1535, the date on which Thomas More was executed on Tower Hill. Next?”
“Hans Holbein,” I said. “The painter. Did he—”
“Holbein!” he snarled. “This is so easy! We’ve come full circle. Hans Holbein painted portraits of many Hanseatic members, was a dear friend of Thomas More, and died in October or November 1543, likely from the plague. According to his biographers, and I quote, ‘He was almost certainly buried either in the church of Saint Andrew Undershaft or in Saint Katharine Cree, both of which still stand’—ta-da!—‘in Leadenhall Street.’ Anything else?”
“That’s it!” I said, turning to the others at the next crossing. “Thomas gave the algorism box to Margaret Clement,” I whispered. “She knew to give it to Meg. In her grief, Meg gave the box to Holbein. He created the puzzle to show that he meant to keep Crux and have it buried with him. His puzzle points to his tomb in the church. Thank you, Simon, you did it!”
“Wait!” he said.
Then he came up to me and laid his hand firmly on my shoulder. His eyes burned—it was creepy—then he ran his fingers up toward my neck.
“Simon?” said Sara.
I started to pull away when he clutched the strap of my bag and yanked at it.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Removing this.” Simon lifted his fingers. They held a tiny silver dot plucked from the underside of the strap. “Military-grade tracking device. I noticed it this morning when you came to me. I didn’t know what to make of it then. But that’s how he always knows where you are. And now, where I am.”
“Who does?” asked Roald as he stamped on the bug. “Archie Doyle?”
All at once the light changed, and traffic moved behind Simon. He shuddered. His eyes, on fire a second ago, went cold, glasslike. The front of his shirt turned red. I screamed. Simon crumpled forward into Roald’s arms. A black BMW without plates raced away from the intersection. A pistol with a silencer withdrew
inside the open tinted window as it sped off.
“They shot him!” Lily cried. “They shot Simon!”
Roald lowered Simon to the sidewalk. “Someone call the police. And Terence!” We knelt next to Simon while Sara made the calls.
“An ambulance is coming,” Roald said. “But Simon, why? Why you?”
Simon breathed rapidly, his eyelids flickered. His lips curled. “Why? Because I’m . . . The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock 1934, remake, 1956 . . .”
His lips stopped moving, but they remained open, and his face twisted in pain. We were clustered there for several minutes, waiting for help, when we saw the BMW circling around the block. Suddenly, Terence was there in the beat-up rental car, weaving between the car and us, nudging it out of range.
At the same time, my phone rang. It was Julian. “Dad told me what’s just happened. I’ll meet you anywhere, but you have to get out of there now!”
“I’ll stay for the ambulance,” Roald said.
We could already hear sirens nearing. The crowd gathering around us kept growing. It was too dangerous to remain there. We told Julian where to meet us as we hurried away, backtracking through the wet streets, heading for Leadenhall.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Horrible . . . horrible . . . horrible!”
Sara said it as we rushed from the scene. Or Lily. Or maybe I did. I don’t remember who it was, but the word crashed into my ears and turned my blood to ice.
The horror was happening. Simon might survive, but the attack on him was ruthless and sudden and terrible and wrong. I wanted to scream, but had no voice. It seemed like everything was falling apart, exploding into a thousand pieces, even as things were starting to come together and we drew closer to solving the mystery and discovering Crux.
“The bug is how they found our safe flat,” said Darrell, in barely a whisper. “And how Doyle tracked us to Bletchley, despite our trick at the station.”
“But who bugged you?” Wade asked. “I mean, who was even close to you? If Simon saw the bug on you this morning . . . where had you been?”
“Westminster Abbey,” said Sara. “The crowd by the embankment. Maybe Doyle was there. Then the bookshop.”
“The Temple of Mithras,” said Wade. “But did you get close to anyone?”
“Then Pret A Manger,” Sara went on. “The university.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “One of those places.”
“Sir Felix?” said Wade. “Or did Simon put it there himself? No. I don’t know.” None of us did, and the idea ended there.
After twenty minutes of evasive walking, we stood on Leadenhall on the corner where it met Gracechurch. It was well past seven now and dark. While weather in the countryside had been clear, it must have continued to rain off and on all day in London, because water had pooled in the street and puddled the sidewalks. Shadows loomed on the slick surface of the street. I realized we weren’t far from the Hanseatic Walk. From Bucklersbury. From everywhere important to us, and to me.
At the corner of Saint Mary Axe, Julian quietly emerged from the darkness. The nighttime city blazed around us, but Leadenhall was eerie, solitary, overshadowed by skyscrapers. Among them was one that looked like a fat green pickle. Julian said it was nicknamed the Gherkin. Another was like a steampunk movie set. A third was wrapped up the side in scaffolding.
Beneath all of them, a ghost of the London past, was the church of Saint Andrew Undershaft, one of the two possible sites of the tomb of Hans Holbein.
The tomb that held the amber relic, Crux. We hoped.
After we filled him in on everything Simon had told us, Julian suggested we split up to save time. “Some of us might take Saint Andrew, the others Saint Katharine Cree. Becca, you said ‘after nightfall,’ right? That’s now.”
We decided that Wade, Sara, and I would take Saint Andrew, while the others would go down the street to the corner of Leadenhall and Creechurch.
Saint Andrew was small and old, with a square tower rising over it. It struck me how much I wanted modern London to fade away and the old city to blossom. That a small relic might survive five centuries, a catastrophic fire, ten months of aerial bombing, rebuilding, and decay was almost too much to hope for.
I needed the past to be alive in that church.
I needed to find Hans Holbein’s tomb.
Because it was late, all the church doors were locked. Wade was proposing we kick them open when we saw a boy stride alongside the church, followed by a man in work overalls. They entered a narrow patio leading into the back.
“Excuse me,” Sara said, hurrying after them. “Excuse me, is there any possible way that we can see inside the church?”
“Now?” The man paused at the door, jangling a set of keys. “It’s closed to the public right now. We have Bible study later. Have you signed up?”
“No, but it’s so important,” I said, trying to be polite and eager at the same time. “We’ve come a long way to see it, and we have to meet a flight in the morning.” It wasn’t much of a lie, after all. “We’re running out of time.”
The man looked us over and shrugged. “What do you think, Jeremy?”
The boy with him, maybe nine or ten, pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose. “One thinks it’s rather too late, Father. Sightseers should return in the morning.”
The man shrugged. “There you have it, then, from the buildings manager’s own son.”
It was odd, as if the father took orders from the son.
“But we . . . ,” I started. Then I had an idea. “We could pay a late-night sightseers’ fee. Or a donation to the church. For the upkeep?”
This time the man frowned. “Well, I don’t know . . .”
“In your names, perhaps,” said Sara. “A hundred pounds? A donation from Jeremy and . . .”
“Tim,” the man said. “From Jeremy and Timothy Larkin. I like the ring of that. I think that’ll do nicely, yes. Follow us in, then.”
“But Father, one hundred pounds—”
“Nix it, Jeremy. It’s for the church. Come on in.” He unlocked the back door, and we were suddenly in a warm, small office. It smelled of coffee and steam.
“One usually comes to see the window,” Jeremy said as his father darted into an adjoining room. “It’s Pre-Raphaelite, you see. Survived the Blitz. Barely.”
There were sounds coming from the next room. Tim reappeared, then went into what we discovered was a kitchen. Two men were boiling something on the stove in there. Jeremy continued into the nave of the church, and we followed.
My heart sank.
Aside from a set of high arches on either side of the nave, Saint Andrew Undershaft had been completely modernized, with light wood paneling, freshly painted white walls, a cluster of cushy chairs, and tables stacked with paperback Bibles. All my visions of a mysterious old chapel were instantly dispelled.
“Are there any crypts or vaults?” Wade asked. “From the early days. Sixteenth century. I mean, do you know where Hans Holbein is buried?”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. “One thought you wished to see the window. So it’s Holbein one is after? Well, one supposes there are vaults under the floor, of course”—he tapped his foot on the crisp new wooden floorboards—“but one has never seen them. There is no way for one to get to them. The oldest part of the church is the tower.” He nodded to the corner behind us. “One cannot go there, either. Not even Father, really, and he is buildings manager. Structure’s unsafe. Everything behind that door is off-limits.”
“Can we see the door to the tower, at least?” Sara asked politely.
The boy sighed, as if this was taking far too long; then he walked briskly to the back end of the room. He pushed open a wooden door with a glass panel in it. “There, if one must know.” At the bottom of a short set of steps stood a narrow black door. “One goes down under the new flooring, to the original floor of the tower. Or one would if one could. It’s quite unsafe and hasn’t been used for years—”
“Jeremy! The
Bibles!”
“Coming, Father!” he called back. It was strange to hear people shouting in a church. “Father requires one’s assistance to set up for Bible study tonight. In the meantime, touch nothing. One has one’s eye on you.”
“Yes, of course.” Sara smiled. “We’ll just poke around, if that’s all right.”
“One supposes that it’s all right, if, I repeat, one touches nothing and disturbs no one.” Jeremy gave us a particular glare, then spun around on his little heels toward the kitchen, muttering under his breath. We soon heard the sound of books being thumped on tables and the rattle of spoons being counted and stacked.
“I’m glad Lily’s not here,” Wade whispered. “One might expect a scene.”
“If there are crypts,” I whispered, “the tower might be the only way to them.”
“I think we’ve earned at least a peek,” said Sara. “I’m sure this is some kind of crime, but I’ll research that later. You go. I’ll stand guard. Don’t die down there.”
Wade and I slipped behind the glass door and down the steps. Jiggling the knob, we were able to coax the old door open. I pushed it in, and white stone dust showered my head. When it stopped falling, I looked up. Most of the steps to the tower’s upper floors had collapsed, leaving holes in the stone and some planks to show where they’d been. In the light from the street leaking into the tower from the windows high up on all four sides, we saw two or three partial floors sagging overhead and an uppermost landing that seemed to hang in midair.
“Jeremy was right,” Wade said. “A hundred pounds won’t go very far.”
“Let’s go in,” I whispered. “One at a time. Me first.”
Holding my hand over my mouth and nose, I pressed forward. There weren’t any vaults or crypts that I could see right off, but there was a short wooden door in the wall, half open, with darkness beyond. I crossed the floor and peeked around it. A narrow set of steps led down even farther. I squirmed past the door to get to them, scraping my elbows rather than touch the door. I knew it would squeak if I did. I half slid and half shuffled down the dust-covered steps.