by Mike Rich
“No, I get to go first ’cause I was here first,” Mattie said as she straightened the hood of her cape. “Even though all of us are looking for the same thing at the same time. If I go, you’ll follow me. If you go, I’ll follow you. That’s what I get for falling out of a tree, I guess.”
Even here in the darkness, Henry could tell the cape made Mattie look larger than she actually was and slightly more intimidating. Same with the black pants under the dress.
Might be what she’s tryin’ to do. Takin’ on Skavenger’s Hunt all by herself.
Casually, she leaned against the base of the oak tree, taking a second to glance at the back of her fingernails.
“Tell you what,” she said to none of them in particular, “you three go ahead, and I’ll just stay here and watch for a while. When our friend the cop comes along in about, oh, twelve minutes, I’ll tell him to go over to the Vanderbilts’ and see if he can help you out.”
Mattie yawned and gestured for them to go ahead and get on with their business.
Smart. A little backbone there too. If I’d said that to Jack, he would have thrown me into that tree by now.
“Okay, all right,” Jack said after only a few seconds of thinking, knowing he didn’t have a choice. “We can do this one together. We’ll figure it out later.” He motioned for her to come over. “Where do you want to start?”
Mattie hopped over and turned her attention to Henry. “This one looks smart. What do you think?”
Me? Why does everyone keep pickin’ me?
Caught off guard, he didn’t say a word for a second. Mattie tried to get his attention.
“Hello? Hennnnnrrrry? I’m sorry, that was your name, wasn’t it?” she prodded him with a smile. His flustered look must have looked a little too flustered, he guessed.
“Quiet. Hold on a minute.” Mattie, suddenly serious, raised a hand as her eyes caught something from one of the neighboring estates.
Henry looked over and saw that a lamp in one of the adjacent mansion’s windows had brightened. All four of them could see the silhouette of someone inside moving behind the newly lighted curtain. The Vanderbilt place, however, stayed eerily dark.
Mattie looked back at him, a hint of urgency in her eyes. “May not have a lot of time here,” she said. “So, what was my question? Oh, right, what do you think?”
Henry looked up at the towering Vanderbilt estate. The very largest of the 5th Avenue mansions loomed high above them, its windows fixing the foursome with what looked like an unwelcome stare. Henry stared back, taking in as much of it as he could before turning to the trio not-so-patiently waiting on him.
“Whatever it is, it’s gotta be inside,” Henry finally said.
“I agree!” Mattie enthusiastically nodded. “Well done, Henry!”
“Inside where?” Ernie asked, incredulous, tipping his head toward the block-filling mansion. “Inside there?”
Henry nodded as he reminded them of the clue. “There your journey shall be unlocked . . .”
“. . . but only by a second!” Mattie smiled in agreement. “Yes. Okay. Let’s go.”
Go? We can’t all go in! I mean, yeah, the next clue’s in there, but why don’t we just send Jack in?
Mattie, though, had already begun walking toward the intimidating structure, Jack right alongside her. Until the two of them stopped, realizing they were the only ones doing any walking.
Mattie looked back over her shoulder at Henry and Ernie. “What’s wrong?”
It was Henry who finally took a deep breath, the kind usually marking a brave announcement, only to say, “I don’t think I can go in there.”
“Whaaaat?!” Mattie said with a wincing look as she and Jack walked back to them. “What are you, yellow?”
Yellow? What’s “yellow” mean? If that’s 1885 for “scared,” then yeah, I’m yellow. School bus yellow.
Ernie quickly agreed with Henry. “Are you kidding me? I’m with Henry. Do you know what’ll happen if the four of us break into the Vanderbilt Mansion? We’ll wish we only had to deal with one cop.”
“Ernie, we are not gonna have to break in,” Mattie assured him. “Henry knows that much, I can tell you that. All we gotta do is find the greatest of these. That means the biggest door in the place, of which it looks like there might be plenty.”
Jack had been quiet for too long, which could either be a good thing or a very bad thing. Henry saw him look over his shoulder at the enormous door to the Vanderbilt home.
“Anybody else wondering why no one else is even here?” the big suspender snapper asked suspiciously.
Ernie shrugged and said, “Maybe we’re just slow.”
“Or maybe we’re wrong,” Jack threw out the possibility, looking at Mattie. “All of us.”
“Nuh uh.” She frowned as she shook her head. “Whatever the clue leads to, it’s gotta be inside. Why’s everyone goin’ dotty on me?”
Dotty? What’s . . . never mind.
Jack’s expression backed her up 100 percent, proving that he now had a growing appreciation for Mattie’s gumption. At least that’s what Henry thought—even though he was still totally preoccupied with the question:
What’s there to be dotty about? How many things you want? Look at this place. They’ve prob’ly got guard dogs, guard tigers, guard ninjas.
“All right,” Jack started handing out orders. “Ernie, you check the door on the Sixth Avenue side. If ya ain’t gonna go in with us, least you can do is find out if that door’s bigger than this one right here.” He switched to Henry. “Babbitt, you check the one on the other side. Also, the one around back. Two of us’ll wait here in case anyone else shows up.”
Henry had been gone barely two minutes when his fear of going inside the mansion had started to ease just a little.
It wasn’t just because of the amazing mansion itself, though that was a part of it. Even the towering wrought-iron gate he was walking next to was incredible. Small lanterns glowed on the main posts and dark green iron vines wrapped their way around the bars. If Gigi had seen it, she would have passed out.
No, Henry’s fear had mostly eased because of something else.
Mattie.
She’s pretty cool, gotta admit. Kinda hard not to like those freckles, right? ’Specially when they scrunched up when she was standin’ up to Jack.
The way she just wanted to walk up and knock on the front door? That was impressive.
Too bad you went ahead and embarrassed yourself, though, Ace. Hanging back like a wuss, feet planted in the ground while she’s ready to march right inside. Maybe one of these days you’ll actually get around to doing or saying the right thing when you’re with a girl. ’Stead of goin’ all dotty.
Henry walked toward the corner ahead, mentally kicking himself. He’d already passed one door that was big enough for a small truck to drive through, but it wasn’t as large as the one on Jack and Mattie’s side of the estate.
He was on the 5th Avenue side of the Vanderbilt house now. Fortunately the street around him was empty, but Henry still walked close to the brick wall in case the cop was anywhere nearby. It was somewhat darker there and he figured he’d be harder to spot.
Henry craned his head to find out if he could even see the top of the mansion: barely able to spot the towering brick chimneys next to the fifth-story gables. The whole thing looked like it went halfway up to the moon.
For the first time in a while, and even though he was alone and walking in the dark, he smiled.
“Henry,” his father’s voice tumbled back into his head again. “When you get a little older, you and I are going to find an adventure. We’ll sail somewhere. We’ll fly. We’ll climb the highest mountain we can find.”
Henry let his hand run along the bricks of the gated wall. “And when we’re done with that adventure?” his father’s voice promised, “We’ll move on to the next one. All right?”
“All right,” Henry whispered to himself, realizing he’d stumbled into an adventure even his
father could never have imagined. For good and for bad.
Without thinking, he reached into his pocket for the ledger sheet and gave it a quick look.
Another destination line had magically been filled in.
The Vanderbilt Mansion, New York
Great, he thought to himself. Another ledger entry gone. Gone, gone, gone.
That meant four spots were now filled, even though Henry was sure Grand Central Depot was a wrong guess. One by one, wrong or right, they were steadily being filled in.
He folded the ledger sheet up and tucked it away. It might be out of sight down in his pocket, but it still taunted him.
Still haunted him.
Henry gave one more glance up toward the Vanderbilt’s darkened windows before turning the corner to the far side of the mansion, and suddenly found himself face-to-face with the one person in Chief’s story he’d forgotten all about.
ELEVEN
Doubt and the Dark Men
HIRAM DOUBT’S HANDS were gently folded over the crown of his walking stick—the first thing Henry saw as he nearly walked straight into him.
“Looking for something?” Doubt inquired with a sparkling gleam in his otherwise bleak gray eyes. The old New York Times photograph in Chief’s study had been frightening enough—and that was just an old, faded black-and-white image. Fuzzy on the edges.
Here the man was all too crystal clear. The eyes that had somehow managed to pierce through century-old newsprint now leveled icy daggers into Henry’s rapidly blinking ones.
No! No, no, NO! Sorry, can’t . . .
Henry started to back up as if to turn and run, but the idea was quickly squelched.
“Try to move?” Doubt advised with a clipped voice, raising a slender pointed finger, “You won’t move for long. Call for your friends? It’ll be the last call you make.”
Henry’s heart stopped as he glimpsed something moving in the shadows behind Doubt.
The Dark Men!
One by one, all four of them appeared, all wearing black top hats and long black coats that reached all the way to the ground. Henry decided the safest place to be, ironically, was standing right where he was, in front of the man with the pale-gray top hat and the bleak and dreary eyes.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the disconcerting man said. Without raising a hand, but with a slight tilt of his head, he gloomily uttered, “Hiram Doubt.”
“I know,” Henry replied, his voice cracking.
Doubt’s lips curved into a wicked grin. “I’ll take only a moment of your time,” he said, “because at this moment, young man, you and your friends are impressively close to cracking Mr. Skavenger’s next clue. A clue which, yes, I have already solved.”
Despite being more frightened than he could remember, Henry couldn’t help but take in the thin gray scar running the path of a teardrop down Doubt’s left cheek. The snaggled and wisping gray edge of each eyebrow was hard to miss too. Everything about the slim man in the dark charcoal suit—his sixty or so years of age, his height of six feet and maybe another inch, seven feet with the hat—felt gray and threatening, though oddly cultured as well.
The sinister-looking man continued on, “While hundreds still aimlessly wander the grounds of the Dakota and others still climb the walls of the Grand Central Depot, the four of you have displayed a deductive intelligence far, far beyond your years. Worthy of commendation.”
Doubt unfolded his malevolent hands and Henry saw that his cane was capped with a gold-plated head of a snarling wolf.
“Now, listen to me carefully, young searcher,” Doubt’s voice dropped low. “If I see you again—and I’m certain I will—it will be either because you have solved a clue I have also solved, or because you have solved one I’ve yet to decipher.”
He raised his cane and the wolf’s golden teeth drew close to Henry’s nose. “And when I ask you for the answer to that riddle? The one you have solved, and I haven’t?” Doubt let his words settle before finishing. “You. Will. Tell. Me.”
The edge of his dark lips raised into a baleful smile. “Because if you don’t,” he ominously added, “I will go about eliminating your friends. One . . . by one . . . by one. Starting with the largest, moving to the smallest, and then finishing with you.”
Henry heard the sound of footsteps approaching just behind him. A pair of polished black shoes stopped at his side, complemented by white gloves and a crisp dark coat with four buttons.
The cop! Yes . . . finally!
“Everything all right here, Mr. Doubt?” the New York policeman asked with a tone that suggested the two men had already talked, perhaps only minutes earlier.
Oh no.
“Everything is fine, good sir,” Doubt assured him. “Just a young lad inquiring of directions. We’ll make certain he’s on the proper path.”
The police officer nodded and walked away with a hard look at Henry. Skavenger’s rival once again folded his hands over his walking stick.
“Now.” Doubt bent slightly, almost politely. “You will say nothing of our meeting to anyone, most especially your fellow young hunters,” he cautioned. “The four gentlemen accompanying me would be most disappointed should you choose to do so. So, young man . . . until our next conversation. Happy hunting.”
Doubt smiled one last time, his way of bidding Henry farewell. He turned and walked away, without the slightest of limps despite having a cane. As Doubt faded into the darkness, Henry looked toward the shadowy quartet of Dark Men.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.
He heard them as they turned to walk away. Not their footsteps, which were oddly, terrifyingly silent. It was another sound that accompanied each of them—a sound that didn’t make sense. At first Henry thought it might be some kind of low and deep whistle.
It’s different than that. It’s . . .
Three of the four men had already followed Doubt into the darkness. The fourth, though, had stopped and turned around. He was moving straight toward Henry.
That’s not whistling. It’s a . . . a hissing.
The last of the Dark Men stopped right in front of him. He towered over the boy, easily six and a half feet tall. His face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, at least most of it, but his eyes were icier than any the twelve-year-old had seen in the worst of his nightmares. Eyes that glowed silvery blue through the darkness.
Grace.
Doubt’s most trusted and dangerous bodyguard hissed just one single word that Henry was barely able to make out, but it made his blood go cold.
“Soooooooooon.”
The word whispered through the fog as Grace turned and walked away, the echo cutting through the pounding of Henry’s terrified heartbeats. A half second later, the entire moment was overpowered by another sound: that of the twelve-year-old boy’s clumsy footsteps as he turned around and ran.
Mattie had just nudged open the main wrought-iron gate as Henry ran up—completely out of breath, eyes still wide with fear.
“Hey, hey, calm down! Where have you been?” She looked at him with real concern. “Are you all right? You look like you just saw a ghost!”
What do I tell her? What can I tell her? What can I tell any of ’em? Doubt said to keep quiet . . . to keep quiet, or else . . .
“Cop,” was all Henry could manage to squeeze out. “Just another cop. I think he’s gone, though.” He leaned down to catch his breath.
Ernie, who had already returned from his own scouting trip of the mansion, gave Henry a much-needed reprieve. “Uhhh, if we could not use the word ‘ghost’ around this place, I would really appreciate it.”
“We almost gave up on ya, Babbitt,” Jack said, more than ready to head toward the dimly lit front landing. “You find any doors bigger’n this one?”
Henry shook his head, still not able to even say a simple “no” through his panting breaths. Or move, for that matter.
No. No doors. Plenty of other things, though. Like Doubt and four guys I can’t tell you about.
; “All right then,” Mattie said with a still-worried look aimed directly at Henry, “Jack and I are going in.”
She shoved open the gate to the massive Vanderbilt Estate and walked a straight path to the mammoth front door. Jack grinned and ran after her—leaving Henry and Ernie to fend for themselves out by the front gate.
Hopefully it was just the two of them.
Great. Now I’m out here with Ernie—and Doubt—and everyone else.
Henry looked in every direction, remembering that the Dark Men, at first, had almost been invisible on the other side of the mansion.
Soooooooooon.
He heard the word echo in his mind as an eerie breeze brushed through the leaves of the oak tree from which Mattie had fallen. Meeting her seemed like days ago now.
Hopefully the hissing was just a breeze. Hopefully it wasn’t something much worse. Something connected to Doubt’s piercing eyes, his cane with the gold wolf head on top, or worst of all: Grace’s hissssssssing and strangely silent footsteps. For all Henry knew, the scariest of Doubt’s men could be anywhere.
“I’m goin’ with ’em,” Henry said to Ernie before promptly heading for the door.
Ernie’s shoulders sagged. “What? Why?” he asked.
Mattie was already standing a foot away from the front door when Henry walked up. Ernie was a step or two behind—apparently thinking twice about being out there by himself.
“Okay, Henry Babbitt and Ernie Samuels!” she whispered and winked with approval.
“Surprise, surprise,” Jack said with a smile of his own. “I thought the two of you might be too pigeon-livered for this.”
The four of them gave each other one last look for luck, before Mattie slowly reached her hand out for the two-foot-long bronze handle.
She let out a long and deep breath, strong enough to puff out her cheeks. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, her thumb eased softly onto the latch, and having already closed her eyes, she quietly said, “Your journey shall be . . . unlocked,” and then Mattie McGillin gently squeezed.