Sinbad and Me

by Kin Platt

  I was still puzzled by the doorway.

  But right now I wondered how the blond man was going to open the house. The big iron key was just for the padlock on the gate.

  He took out a big key-ring with twenty of more keys on it. He tried about six of them. One almost fit. He took it out, put the flash on it for a second, then reached into his pocket for a steel file. While he worked on the key I tried to concentrate some more on that doorway.

  Sinbad sat down near my feet and looked at it too. I felt like asking him what he saw. The door was in very good condition, and painted black. That went with the white trim. The panels were carved and deep sunken, and there were eight of them. Two columns and four rows, a geometric design. The top and third row were small panels, the second and bottom ones long rectangles. In the center, between the second row panels, was a short gleaming ornament, the latch or knocker, evidently made out of brass. I recognized its design, the flat clusters of the anthemion. The honeysuckle. Greek.

  That was all I had time to notice because the blond man suddenly whistled softly. He had the door open. The dark one came up behind me but not too close. He looked down at Sinbad. Sinbad didn’t even look at him.

  “What’s with Tiger tonight?” he asked. “Is he sick?”

  “Yeah,” I said, remembering. “He ate some bad meat.”

  He made a clucking sound with his lips. “You gotta watch that,” he said. Then he motioned me forward and as Sinbad and me started, he said: “Some watchdog.”

  What could I say?

  We went up the steps to the landing. The blond man was inside holding the door open. The dark man said as he closed the door behind us: “I guess he only looks tough, huh?”

  I didn’t want to answer that one either.

  The blond man flicked on the flash. We were in the entry hall. The stairway was set far back, big and spacious. Late Georgian.

  That meant the central chimney had been removed and there would now be two or four chimneys, one or two on each side of the hall. They would be between the two major rooms of each half of the house. That way, each of the four rooms on each floor would have its own fireplace. Most likely at the end walls. The big houses had four.

  “Okay, kid. Which way?” I heard the blond man say.

  I motioned left and hoped it was the dining room. There was a long dining table and some chairs.

  “Now where?” He flicked the flashlight on and off.

  “It’s too dark,” I said. “Aren’t you going to put on some lights?”

  This time he really laughed. “This kid’s a panic,” he said. “Lights! That’s all we need. We gotta advertise the fact that we’re in here.”

  He flicked his light on for a second to see where the windows were. Then off. He went over to pull some curtains. “Okay. They’re covered,” he said. Then he flashed his light quickly around the room. Then off.

  He whistled. “Not a bad looking joint.”

  I was right about the fireplaces. They were at the end walls. I saw one big one.

  Two of the walls were half paneled. The other two had wallpaper. The imported kind. Late Georgian.

  The blond man looked at his watch. “Let’s move it.”

  I remembered the cipher in the cave. “What time is it?” I asked.

  His hands jerked. He got mad fast. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Take it easy,” the other guy said. He was more relaxed.

  Blue-eyes glanced at his watch. I guess it had the luminous dial and hands. “Almost nine o’clock. What’s that got to do with it?” he said. “This treasure is some kind of a time vault? A time lock on it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Nothing opens till nine o’clock.” If they could believe that for a while I’d have a few more minutes to stall. Then, after that, I had to get lucky. “Hey, are you two guys really gangsters?” I asked.

  The dark meaty-shouldered one answered. “No. We’re pro-football players.”

  “Since when do football players need guns?”

  “We need it for the referee,” the hard blond man said. “In case he calls a penalty we don’t like. Also for wise-guy kids who try to get smart,” he added.

  I took a chance on one more. “Say, tell me. Did you guys really come up all the way just about that Frankie Teska IOU note?”

  The blond man whistled. “Say, this kid knows everything. He’s a regular Dick Tracy.” Then his voice got flat. “What do you know about a Frank Teska IOU?”

  “I saw it,” I told him. “In Mrs. Teska’s icebox.”

  “That’s the same place we saw it.”

  “Oh, so you’re the ones that took it,” I said.

  He grinned a little and I could see his teeth. “Small world, huh?” he said.

  He flicked his torch on again. We’d left the door to the center hall open. I thought I saw a shadowy figure move in there. I hoped it was Captain Billy’s ghost. It was getting to be about time for him to do something. After all, this was his own house.

  The main reason I was stalling, outside of the fact that I didn’t know where the treasure was, was because I knew these old houses often had secret passageways. Some led to rooms called Listening Rooms, or Whispering Rooms, dating back to the late 17th century, when they had those terrible witch trials in Salem. Even before, too. People had realized such trials could happen again so they made sure next time they wouldn’t be trapped. Just as in Colonial days when you never knew when you’d have to make a hurried exit. Sometimes to escape from Indians!

  I’d seen pictures of some of these houses with their secret passages and hiding rooms so I was hoping. Only a few hours ago when I’d tried to come in through the Jonah jaws of the cave, where would I have landed? Suddenly I knew Minerva was right. It would lead me right into Captain Billy’s house. Through a secret passageway!

  That reminded me I’d goofed on our prearranged signal. I was to light a fire in the house if I made it!

  Thinking of the fireplace I suddenly realized that sometimes I was even dumber than usual. I should have had the answer the last time the blond man switched on his light. I had seen the fireplace at the end of the wall. That would be the north wall, facing the bay. But as his light flicked the room in a fast irregular sweep, I had also caught sight of a big picture framed over a mantel. Mantels were usually over fireplaces. That was an inside wall!

  What was the fireplace doing there?

  “Okay, kid. Nine o’clock sharp. Stop stalling.”

  So this was it and no more fooling. Now I had my chance to see if all this stuff I knew about old houses could come in handy. If I was right the men wouldn’t get away with the treasure after all.

  Sinbad helped get me organized. He stepped on me with his big foot and made the small parrot sound. I took another loop around his leash on my fist.

  “You gotta put the light on again for a second,” I said. “Over there on the right.”

  He said: “Okay,” and flicked it on. It was a fireplace all right. Beautifully carved and ornamented, with fluted Ionic pilasters on the ends, framing it. And all on an inside wall!

  The heavy dark man said: “I don’t see no door.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said. “It’s a secret passageway.”

  The only trouble was I still didn’t know where, exactly, or how to find and trigger it.

  “It’s hard to find the exact spot.” I said, “Without the light.”

  “That’s tough,” the blond man said. “But I’m bettin’ you can find it. I think you like that mutt of yours too much not to find it.”

  “Just light it another second,” I pleaded.

  He snapped it on. I tapped the wall.

  Nothing.

  I fumbled all around. There wasn’t any hollow sound. No secret panel. I started to sweat and Sinbad seemed to get the idea that I was in trouble. He stood close to my feet. Suddenly he jerked forward and started to sniff around. A fine time for him to chase scents!

  His lunge was so quick and powerful I ha
d to reach out to stop myself from crashing into the mantelpiece. My hand hit the scroll top of an Ionic pilaster. There was a low rumbling sound.

  And it didn’t come from Sinbad.

  The blond man snapped the flash on. The big fireplace was slowly swinging open!

  CHAPTER 37

  A Message From Captain Billy

  “Holy mackerel,” the dark one said. “The kid found it!”

  He started forward, toward the big opening that now showed in the wall. The blond man hesitated.

  “This it, kid?”

  “It’s the secret passageway,” I said.

  The dark man stooped slightly and went through. The other one said: “Maybe I better go with you, Phil.”

  “What about the kid?” the dark one was already inside. He started down some stairs.

  “He can’t go anyplace,” the blond one said, showing the big black key in his hand. “The gate’s locked.”

  “So what are you waiting for?” His voice had a muffled sound in there.

  The fireplace now started to slowly swing back. The blond man looked at me. I shrugged. He tried to hold it back with his hands. He couldn’t. So he had to make up his mind fast.

  “No tricks now, kid, or you’ll be sorry.” His voice sounded deadly and ice cold. Then he dived for the opening and got through just before the big fireplace swung shut.

  “Well,” I told Sinbad. “That takes care of them for a while, anyway.”

  I remembered what Mr. Pickering had told me, about this house being cleaned regularly and kept up. That meant vacuum cleaners. And electricity. So I walked over to the wall in the dark and found a switch. The room flooded with light from a big chandelier overhead.

  Now I had a chance to look around and see what kind of a house Captain Billy built for himself and what the other Murdocks had done with it.

  It was Georgian all right. All the way through. Both Early and Late. Even late Late. The fancier fluted pilasters running up the walls to fretted cornices and friezes. Late! The paneling on the wall nicely cut. Olive green. Early! Over it on two sides the sepia and black imported wallpaper. Later!

  It was a special kind called Bay of Naples paper. I knew right away Captain Billy didn’t put it there because it was printed in Paris, about 1815!

  So another of the Murdocks had good taste.

  The paper had another name, too. It was also called the “Vues d’Italie” set because it came in different sections and showed all the famous historical things. Like the Bay of Naples, Tivoli, Amalfi, and the volcano Vesuvius in eruption.

  The ceiling, like that reporter Defoe said, was a white rectangle. No square. That reminded me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I could solve that riddle, too.

  “Come on,” I told Sinbad. “We got a chance now. Let’s look around.” He liked that idea.

  The rug was light green with a Greek fret running the borders. The long table in the dining room was a Duncan Phyfe and there were four striped Sheraton chairs around it.

  The fireplace over at the end wall was done in the style of the one that had opened. It had the same garlanded design on the mantel that Samuel McIntyre, the famous Georgian carver and architect, was noted for, with the wheat sheaf on the corner columns. A carved Greek fret ran under an ornamented cornice. That was Late Late!

  Next to it on the wall was one of those crazy girandole convex mirrors, in which I could see a distorted reflection of Sinbad behind me. It had a very elaborate gold crested frame.

  Over the mantel hung the portrait of Captain Billy Murdock!

  It was done in the style of that Gilbert Stuart who is famous for his great paintings of Washington. It was three-quarter length in a simple gold frame and showed Captain Billy standing, leaning on his silver-headed cane against a table. He wore a wig, a fancy shirt, and a long embroidered coat with the ruffles of his sleeves extending.

  Without the beard and the wig and the fancy clothes, you could swear you were looking at a picture of Big Nick Murdock. They had the same flashing black eyes, the same swooping hooked nose and the same black swirling moustaches. Except Captain Billy’s were longer and he had the black beard too.

  The cane was in his right hand. In his left he held a book, with one of the pages open like he’d just stopped reading for a while so the artist could paint him.

  The portrait bothered me somehow.

  I looked around some more. There was a big white cupboard recessed in the corner with arched double doors. I went over to the other side and looked more carefully at that great Bay of Naples paper. It showed a lot of boats in the water of the bay. Three high-masted galleons and a tiny two-decker paddle-wheeler heading for shore. The largest galleon had a broken mast and all its sails reefed. There was a big tree in the foreground. And looking down you could see a lot of people along the quay waiting. The right side of the picture showed large swirling clouds, like they were building up to a storm. But the people in the picture were laughing and talking to each other, paying no attention to it.

  Something bothered me about that scene, too, but it had been a long time since I had seen Bay of Naples paper so I didn’t know what it was.

  The section on the other wall was different. This scene really made me blink. Because I knew for a fact that this paper wasn’t printed until after Captain Billy died, yet the part I was looking at could have given him the whole idea for his own castle!

  It was a big panorama covering about twenty miles. A big house or castle sat back on a high cliff overlooking a distant bay on the left. On the right was a high waterfall. Even though the house was in the background I could see the carved Greek pediment clearly. It was supported by six Ionic columns. A high wall ran around the front and sides of the house. A small boat was in the bay heading for the dark cliffside. It could have been me or anybody rowing toward his secret cave!

  The other part of the old print showed a road curving toward a village far in the background, behind the cliff wall. Just like our village did!

  In the foreground was a man talking to a boy who led two horses. Two women were in the water washing clothes. A man walked by leading some white sheep.

  I went out to the hallway. It had a high ceiling and a handsome staircase with a decorated open string, three balusters to the step, each one twisted and turned a different way. Late Georgian. Earlier Georgian didn’t have the doorway pilasters or the cornices, and the fireplaces would be smaller and faced with tile, not carved like in this house.

  At the second floor landing was a Chippendale tall-case clock.

  The polished handrail was mahogany and swept down into a carved newel post. The stair wall was paneled to the height of the handrail. The floor was hardwood. Painted with a decorative border and a classic centerpiece.

  Early Georgian.

  Behind the stairway was a paneled cupboard. Above it, under the stairs, a carved ornamented soffit that ran at an angle up to the cornice and frieze near the ceiling. Near it was a Chippendale sofa and a Hepplewhite chair. The white wall panels were only half cut. Above, framed by the soffit and pilastered doorway, was more of that Bay of Naples paper, this section showing Vesuvius blowing its stack.

  I opened the door to the other room and flicked on the light. This was the parlor or sitting room. The curtains were bright blue and apricot. There were three scatter rugs on the oak floor. A Queen Anne table, a couple of Fiddleback chairs. A Hepplewhite mahogany bowed sideboard. A big Sheraton sofa. The door was white and so was the ceiling. Still no square. Another rectangle. Portraits on the wall.

  “You see anything yet?” I asked Sinbad. He looked up at me and his lower tooth was hooked outside his upper lip. He cocked his head and made the parrot sound like he was stumped too. He trotted back inside and I went after him. Then I came to a stop.

  I turned back to look at the portraits. Three other Murdocks. I guess these were Simon, Joshua, and Adam. But a funny thing: this was supposed to be Big Nick Murdock’s house, and so far he still was not represented. Just like they d
idn’t let him in their graveyard either!

  I went back to the dining room.

  As I told you, sometimes I get a feeling that these old houses are talking to me. I had it now. A tingling feeling something was going to happen soon.

  “Okay, talk,” I told the house. “I’m listening. What’s the message?”

  Sinbad was sitting in front of Captain Billy’s portrait. That seemed like a good enough place. I might as well get any message there was straight from the head of the family himself.

  If you remember he had a book in his left hand. I stood closer and saw there was printing on the page. I tried to read it and then realized I was wasting my time.

  Usually, when an artist has to paint type in a book, he just indicates a few letters or a word here and there, and blurs the rest off. Some nut of a realist painter might go all out and letter a whole page, just to prove he could spell. But that’s hardly the usual thing.

  What I saw on the open page of the book Captain Billy held was nothing like that. Nothing like anything.

  I reached into my pocket, got out my old reliables, the pencil and pad, and looked right into the old man’s fierce black eyes.

  “Captain Billy,” I said softly, “I’d sure hate for you to give me a Christmas present. By the time I got all the phony boxes open, down to the real present, I bet it would be the Fourth of July!

  The black lettering was small and neat.

  Three lines. 90 letters. 30 on each line.

  AAB ABA BAA AAB BAA AAA BBB AAB AAA BBB

  AAB AAB ABA AAA BBB ABA AAB AAB AAA BAA

  BAA ABA BBB BBA ABB AAA AAB AAA AAA BAA

  “They had to kill him,” I told Sinbad as I put the pad and pencil away. “With so many riddles I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The Black Door