by Geoff Watson
“I should thank you once again for doing my dirty work.” Curt Keller reached out a bony hand to grab Tom’s arm, and without thinking, Tom wound up and cracked the old man’s ribs with the bat.
Slipping out of his grip, Tom hurdled over the desk and tore off down the concourse.
“Thief!” Keller shouted, and in the blink of an eye, an army of security and police were chasing after him. Tom skidded along the floor, eluding two uniformed guards before breaking toward the escalators. Down he ran. There was daylight on the lower floor, until two officers stepped into view at the bottom of the stairs.
Tom hurdled over the side and leaped onto the up escalator, only to see Lieutenant Faber was now at the top, waiting for him.
He was trapped on all sides, every escape route cut off. Tom walked up a few steps, clutching the bat in his sweaty hands. He glanced down at its inscription: Here your search will terminate. So pop the cork and celebrate!
Down the escalator continued. If he was going to solve this riddle, he had to do it right now. Tom’s eyes darted for an escape while his mind raced. This was the end of the line.
Here your search will terminate? What did that mean? What was his double-great-grandfather trying to tell him?
He couldn’t figure it out.
“Okay, okay. You got me.” Tom raised his hands just as the stairs dropped him off right in front of Faber. She calmly held out a hand for the bat.
“I believe that’s stolen property.”
“Lieutenant Faber, wait!” Tom protested, stepping back as Keller limped to her side. “You don’t understand what this guy’s after!”
But he understood in one look that Faber’s loyalty rested with the bigwig CEO, not the troublemaking seventh grader.
Faber took another step toward him, causing Tom to retreat a few more feet. The baseball bat was now tucked behind his back, out of view. His fingers crept along the top of the barrel, where he could feel a small indent at the top.
Pop the cork!
“I’m through playing games here, Edison.” Faber shot him a dark glare as Tom retreated several more steps, buying a couple precious moments as his fingernails pried a cork stopper from the top of the bat. A tiny metal object, about the size of his pinkie finger, fell softly into his palm. Tom quickly replaced the cork and tucked the piece of metal inside the cuff of his shirt seconds before an approaching police officer ripped the bat right out of his hands.
Like a loyal Labrador, the officer handed the bat to Faber, who presented it to Keller.
“Nice work, Lieutenant,” said Keller, turning the bat over in his fingers.
“ ‘Here your search will terminate. So pop the cork and celebrate,’ ” he read, then knocked the bat’s barrel with his fist, holding it to his ear as if he were expecting it to whisper the Sub Rosa’s secrets to him. “Hard to believe a lifetime of searching ends here, eh?”
Tom did his best to look hopelessly crushed, even though his heart felt like it was about to burst through his chest. He prayed Keller wouldn’t discover the cork at the top of the bat. At least not until Tom was safe at home with his dad, although the chances of Keller cracking the next clue anytime soon didn’t seem too likely. Keller’s greatest asset was also his weakness: he paid other people to do his dirty work.
“Nothing personal, kiddo,” said a gleeful Keller, and he was about to turn toward the exit with Faber when something stopped him. “Ah, who am I kidding?” he added with a cocky shrug. “It’s a little personal.”
At the other side of the terminal, a team of firefighters flooded through the doors carrying several extended ladders to rescue Tom’s dad.
“We’re not done with you, son.” A cop grabbed Tom by the collar and led him toward a waiting squad car out in front of the train station. As they pushed him through the main doors, Tom kept his eyes on his dad for as long as he could.
He was so far away, though, that he couldn’t even make out his father’s sad smile.
Spring break was drawing to a close.
Tom, Colby, and Noodle waited quietly around the kitchen table for Tom’s mom to return from Manhattan’s Midtown South Precinct, where Mr. Edison had spent the last day and a half, answering questions about how he ended up hanging from the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal.
Just like the three kids had done, he told them everything he knew: how they were in search of Thomas Edison’s secret formula to create gold, how Lieutenant Faber had planted the stolen book in Tom’s room, and how Curt Keller and Nicky Polazzi had been the ones who’d kidnapped Tom and Colby.
The detectives didn’t believe a word about any secret alchemy formula, but since so much of their stories checked out, they had no choice but to order a department-wide investigation on Faber, as well as on Sergeants Gilbert and Mancini, and have a judge issue a restraining order on Curt Keller for the time being.
But the old CEO’s whereabouts were currently unknown.
The sound of keys jiggled in the lock, and Tom’s parents entered the kitchen. His mom set Rose down and headed toward the fridge to make her lunch. She looked tired, Tom noticed. Not that he blamed her. She’d had the scare of her life when Tom went missing and now had to deal with fines, cops, and a delinquent son and husband.
Since it was their second strike with the police, Tom, Noodle, and Colby had been given mandatory community service, and their families each had to pay a five-hundred-dollar fine. Still, they hadn’t been sent to “the big house” as Noodle had feared, and had even received an e-mail of appreciation from the mayor for their help in uncovering an elevator that supposedly led to a private room in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel next door. What exactly that “secret suite” was, the kids had no idea.
Tom’s dad took a seat at the table. Nobody spoke.
Noodle finally broke the silence in typical Noodle fashion. “So you beat the rap, Mr. E?”
“Decent fine. License suspended,” he answered with a sigh. “All in all, though, I’d say I got off easy.”
Tom’s relieved eyes met his mom’s. She smiled. Or at least it looked like a smile. It was hard to tell with her sometimes.
“Your father explained everything on the way home from the station,” she said. “I’ll just never understand how the two of you get yourselves into these situations.”
“But,” Tom’s dad piped up, “your mom and I have also decided that even though the outcome wasn’t what we’d hoped, the adventure itself had given us something.”
He reached across the table and placed his hand over his wife’s. “Something this family had been missing for a while, and I think, when we’re in Wichita, that we need to remember how—” He broke off, confused. “Tom, what are you smiling about?”
“You’ve got exactly the look on your face that always worries me,” added his mother. “So spit it out. What do you have to tell us?”
All eyes were on Tom, who grabbed a notepad and started writing, then slid it across the table toward his father.
Here your search will terminate. So pop the cork and celebrate, it read.
“Yeah, yeah, we all know what the baseball bat said,” sighed Colby with a glance toward Tom’s note.
You’re not getting it, he wrote in huge, underlined print, shaking his head no like a mime as he gestured toward the ceiling. Tom was certain there were still a couple of Keller’s listening devices hidden somewhere.
“What’s to get?” whispered his dad.
Tom then reached into his pocket and placed a tiny metal key on the kitchen table. He’d hardly been able to contain his excitement while he’d waited for his father to come home from the station.
This was inside the baseball bat, wrote Tom.
His dad picked up the key, slowly turning it over in his hands to read its message. They could all now see that engraved into its side were the coordinates 41° 2’ 47.42” N, 73° 51’ 50.12” W.
“I can’t believe you held out on us for this long,” said Colby, smacking him on the arm.
“I wa
nted everyone to be together,” he whispered.
Tom’s mother scooped up the key and turned it over in her palm.
“Mommy, lemme see!” Rose’s round fingers wriggled for it, and Mrs. Edison held it close for her daughter to get a good look.
“Pretty,” Rose pronounced.
Tom’s dad sprang to his feet. He had his Swiss Army knife out and used it to slice open one of the storage boxes that was marked Mise—DESK DRAWERS.
“What are you looking for?” asked Tom’s mom. “I spent all week organizing those boxes.”
“Something we accidentally packed,” he answered.
After a few moments of searching, Mr. Edison pulled out a large map of the United States.
He was determined to figure out where those coordinates led.
Splintered pieces of baseball bat were scattered across the entire hotel desk, and Curt Keller was no closer to figuring out the next piece of the puzzle.
Here your search will terminate. So pop the cork and celebrate!
He’d found the worn cork on the top of the barrel, but once he’d popped it, there was nothing hidden within the hollowed-out space.
Had the little Edison brat managed to sneak it out right from under his nose?
Rage filled Keller’s brain. It was bad enough that there was a warrant out for his arrest, but now Faber wasn’t answering her phone, and neither was that pitiful private eye.
The Edisons had to have the next clue, Keller decided. There was no other explanation.
Stepping into the hotel bathroom, he gave his reflection a hard stare. He was showing his age. The wrinkles around his tired eyes and in his sallow cheeks were losing the inevitable battle against time.
The alchemy formula would be his final fight, and he would not be at peace until it was in his hands where it belonged.
All in due time, he thought. For now, there are more pressing matters.
First, he’d have to reach Faber and figure out how to distance themselves from these kidnapping and robbery charges. So many people would have to be paid off, so much evidence hidden. It was exhausting just to think about.
The cops would certainly be looking for the Babe Ruth bat. Fortunately, Keller and little Tom were the only ones who’d seen the Louisville Slugger up close.
It was his word against a seventh grader’s.
And once the police were taken care of, Keller could refocus his attention where it belonged—finishing his great-grandfather’s fight.
The Edison station wagon crept along the gravel drive and turned between the two columns that guarded the sprawling estate.
According to their research, the house had once belonged to the writer Washington Irving, who had not only written some of the best-known ghost stories of his time but was also one of the Thomas Edison’s favorite authors.
“Ya know, I do remember my father having a signed copy of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” said Tom’s dad as he followed the parking signs up the winding driveway. “But I think he had to sell it to fund some of his inventions.”
“So I guess Irving must’ve been in the Sub Rosa, too,” said Tom, taking in all the vivid flowers and overhanging trees that lined the property.
Tom’s dad shook his head. “I don’t think so. He died when Edison was only twelve.”
“Still looks like as good a place as any to bury a secret,” added Colby.
His dad parked the car, and Noodle and Colby sprang out, racing each other to the front door. The house itself was a quirky piece of architecture, multigabled with a red tiled roof adorned with copper weather vanes and multiple chimneys. Blooming wisteria vines snaked their way up the estate’s stone walls, which made the whole structure look enchanted.
“Mom would love this place,” said Tom as he and his dad approached the house’s entrance and Mr. Edison paid for all of their tickets.
“Maybe we’ll bring her next time.”
Tom’s mom had only allowed them to follow the next clue under the condition that she didn’t get any surprise calls from the police. Even with the promise of the Sub Rosa treasure, she still wasn’t thrilled about Tom and his dad making this trip.
Irving’s home had long since become a popular Hudson River Valley tourist attraction, and there was already a small crowd of people gathered for the two o’clock Saturday tour.
Slipping in with the tour group, the foursome was first led past the grand hall and into Washington’s cozy study.
“The estate was acquired in eighteen thirty-five and then dramatically improved by Mr. Irving,” said Hannah, their beetly little guide, her hands fluttering with excitement while she spoke. “To this day, we have worked to preserve and maintain his spirit of exuberant romanticism.”
Hannah then began to recount an anecdote about the origin of Mr. Irving’s favorite pen name, Diedrich Knickerbocker. As soon as the old woman turned to putter down another hallway, Tom’s dad gave the signal, and part one of their plan was put into motion. It was simple trial and error. All four of them needed to search every single lock in the house, to assess which ones might fit the tiny key.
Certainly not the most effective scheme.
Colby and Tom were the first to break away from the group, venturing into the estate’s formal parlor, a room filled with mismatched Victorian furniture and gilt-framed paintings. Its central feature was a lavish stone fireplace with intricate inlaid brick designs and hand-painted clay tiles.
Colby tapped Tom on the shoulder and pointed to a small sideboard in the corner of the room with a simple silver lock. Tom tried the key, but it was a little too big.
“We might need to rethink our strategy,” he said, studying the room. “It could take weeks to find all the locks in this mansion.”
“Plus that key could open anything,” Colby added. “A box, a chest, a secret room that we don’t even know about.”
“Maybe the answer’s hidden somewhere on the film or in the Firestone photo.”
“Which, last I checked, are both in Curt Keller’s possession.”
“Right.” Tom stepped out into the downstairs hallway, checking both directions. For the moment, the house was dead quiet.
“I’m gonna go inspect the foyer,” he said, just as Noodle and his dad rounded the corner.
“The tour group went out to see the rose garden,” his father announced. “We’ve bought ourselves some time.”
“I did see one of the curators wandering around somewhere, but I’m pretty sure he’s half blind.” Noodle entered the parlor and peered out the window.
“Tom, why don’t you take the upstairs rooms?” his dad offered. “Noodle, you go look in the kitchen, and I’ll—”
“Excelsior!” Colby’s voice interrupted them from the parlor.
“What?” Tom followed her voice and found Colby crouched on her hands and knees, peering into the mouth of the large fireplace.
“Excelsior,” she repeated, pointing to a tile on the fireplace’s floor, where sure enough, the word Excelsior had been scripted in a neat vertical hand. It was almost identical to the brass plaque she’d seen in the secret tunnels below Grand Central.
“I saw this exact word in that elevator, too.”
“What does it mean?” Tom turned to his dad.
“It’s Latin,” he answered, bending over to examine the tile. “Means ‘higher,’ or ‘upward.’ Something like that.”
Tom knelt next to Colby to take in the soot-covered bricks that lined the back of the fireplace chimney. He lifted his head.
“Higher,” he whispered.
His eyes cast upward. In the back of the flue, one small black square of tile was almost invisible against the bricks, unnoticeable but for one thing.
The familiar seal of the Sub Rosa was etched into it.
Using his fingernail, Tom pried off the ceramic tile. It came off as neat as a lid.
“Crazy.” Colby caught her breath.
None of them could believe what they saw. Hidden beneath the tile was a tiny golden k
eyhole.
“I got a weird feeling that’s our match,” whispered Noodle.
Colby rolled her eyes. “Gee, how’d you solve that one, Copernicus?”
Tom’s father inhaled deeply with nervous anticipation as his son pulled the old key from his pocket.
With a little bit of elbow grease, Tom wriggled the key into the rusty lock and turned it to the right. From deep within the room’s walls came several low clicks and grumbles, followed by an eerie silence.
“Okay, that was weird,” said Noodle. “The house just burped.”
Mr. Edison looked up at the ceiling, then the windows. Something had begun vibrating beneath their feet. He just couldn’t tell what it was.
“Tom, watch out!” Colby dove and pushed him out of the way as a small section of floor in front of the fireplace began to lower, foot by foot, exposing a narrow spiral staircase that led deep into the ground below them.
“Man, the Sub Rosa’s some sneaky cats,” noted Noodle.
Tom’s dad pulled a flashlight from his bag. “All right, let’s take a vote,” he said. “Should we wait and tell a curator about this, or head down those stairs?”
“Stairs!” Tom, Colby, and Noodle answered in unison.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Mr. Edison quickly ushered the other three past him.
“Keep your eyes peeled and be careful,” he said as they began to descend the stone steps. “This house is old.”
Around and around they went, deeper into the floor. Halfway down the staircase, Tom noticed that the dark walls were beginning to grow lighter, until they were almost a bright gold color, while the streaky sunlight from the parlor above them faded with each step.
Finally, the four of them reached the bottom. The air was heavy with a musty humidity and smelled like a root cellar, though it was hard to tell where they were.
From her backpack, Colby pulled out another, smaller flashlight, which cut a narrow beam through the darkness. It caught bits of objects—the reflection of a brass chest, the flash off a shard of glass. It was clear now that they were standing in front of a wide, cavernous room.