Sadly, thought CJ, this night will give way to another day, and that day is one day closer to Saint James’s School. How he wished he were back in Brooklyn. He realized they might not have time to visit Grant’s Tomb before school started, but who cared? He didn’t care about the Post mystery anymore. He didn’t care that his family was suddenly wealthy. He felt scared about his new life, this new neighborhood that came with so many rules. And that was the last thing he thought before falling asleep right there on the floor. He slept soundly with his head under the fireplace flue, his legs sticking out into the room.
It was dawn when his father came into the office. “Fall down the chimney, CJ?” he asked casually, grabbing some papers off his desk. By the time CJ could get his eyes open, Bruce Smithfork was gone. He had not even waited to hear the answer. CJ lay on the floor, dazed, rubbing his eyes while listening to his dad shut the front door, leaving to beat the rush to midtown Manhattan. There is nothing to wake up for, thought CJ, and he drifted back into a thick sleep.
The next time CJ woke, bright sunshine was everywhere. He could hear Maricel shooing Carron off the tricycle as she rode up and down the main hallway. CJ lay there figuring out what to do with his fourth-to-last day of freedom. Maybe he would jump onto the A train, head back to his old neighborhood. He wondered if he would look different to his old friends after almost a week of living on the Upper East Side.
His mind swimming with nonsense, CJ stared up the chimney at nothing, until the nothing that he saw suddenly looked like something.
Up in the flue, about four feet from the ground, the tiles had some sort of inscription. He trained his flashlight on it, seeing numbers separated by dashes, placed in a ring. Were they dates? They were written in a circle, so how could he know where the inscription began and where it ended?
Quickly he sat up. Smack! He hit his head on the cold tile at the bottom opening of the fireplace.
“Agh,” he said, hardly stopping as he slammed open his dad’s desk to get a pen. He wrote down the numbers, keeping them in order and noting the dashes.
Just as he finished, someone pushed the office door open so forcefully that it slammed against the opposite wall. It was Maricel. “Are you allowed in here?” she asked. CJ could tell she thought he was always up to mischief.
“Yes, my dad was in here with me,” CJ answered, rubbing his head.
“Okay, then.” Maricel took a big breath. “Your mom is out. I put breakfast on the table for you and Brid. I’m taking Patrick and Carron to the park, and I think you should come, too.”
“Park, as in playground?” CJ grimaced.
“I cannot watch you if you aren’t with me, and what are you writing?” Maricel sounded exasperated as she looked at the numbers on his pad.
“Just a math problem. Can Brid and I please stay home? We won’t go anywhere. We’ll be good. Please?”
She looked skeptical. “I need to check with your mother.”
“I used to stay home alone all the time. Really, we’re used to it.”
“If they stay home, then I’m staying home,” Pat said. He was out of sight and his voice was muffled.
“¡Che Guevara! You see,” she said, “I cannot win in this house.” She threw up her arms and stormed off, taking only Carron with her, leaving CJ to stand and wonder why his Filipina nanny was speaking Spanish.
A full five minutes passed before the others came out of hiding.
“Is she gone?” asked Brid cautiously. She had been behind a closed bathroom door.
“I think so,” said CJ.
Giggles came from beneath the still-overturned sofa in the living room. CJ nodded toward the sound. “Guess Pat managed to skip the playground, too.”
“Party time!” said Brid.
“No, it’s clue time,” CJ said dramatically.
“Really? You found something?”
CJ motioned Brid back into the office, and Patrick crawled out from under the sofa to join them. “Lie on your back, right here,” CJ said as he crawled in and trained the flashlight on the exact spot.
“Whoa. Is that a secret code?” Brid asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s from a combination lock,” CJ said. “We need to check the other two hearths.”
Brid took the flashlight. “So it’s not really in the hearth, but you have to lie on the hearth to see it. Interesting.” Standing upright again, she picked up her pink spiral notebook and wrote down the numbers. Then she headed down the hall toward the living room fireplace, her brothers behind her.
“I didn’t see them last night, but there are numbers here, too!” she said. At about the same height in the second chimney, the tiles were laid with another circle of numbers. This circle was larger, because it had more numbers.
“Brid, hand me that paper,” CJ said. Brid tossed her notebook to him. “Just tell me the numbers, and make sure you read them beginning at the twelve o’clock spot.”
Though her voice sounded far away, Brid shouted the numbers, while CJ wrote them down.
23-1-9-20-5-18-4-21-13-2
CJ stared at the numbers while Pat, seeing that their work was done in the living room, seized the chance to get to the next fireplace before them. “I’m the only one who can fit in the kitchen fireplace,” he said, running down the hall, the others at his heels.
The kitchen hearth had the narrowest opening, making it hard to see inside.
Without any hesitation, Pat crawled onto the hearth, unfolded himself slowly, and stood up in the chimney.
“Pat, what’s it like in there?” Brid asked, her pencil sketching the shape of the hearth.
They could hear Patrick cough. “It’s dirty.”
“Is there anything unusual in there? Anything you can read?”
“Nope.”
“Bummer.”
“Pat?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You can come out now.”
“When I’m done.”
“When you’re done with what?” said CJ.
“When I’m done seeing through the dirt. I need a rag or something to clean with.”
“Seeing what through the dirt?” Brid asked impatiently.
CJ was calmer. “Pat, are you reading something?”
“Stop shaking the flashlight. I’m not reading, I’m seeing. Can you really read numbers like words, or do you just see numbers?”
CJ groaned. “Pat,” he said, “you can hardly read as it is. What do you see?”
“Some very dirty numbers that I’m cleaning off with my shirt.”
Brid jumped up and down, flapping her arms.
“Pat, please tell us the numbers you see,” CJ said.
Pat’s muffled voice read, “Twenty-two, one, fourteen, twenty, nineteen, nineteen, five, eighty-one.”
“Oh no!” said CJ. “It’s not what I thought.”
“Not what you thought about what?” Brid asked, scribbling furiously.
“Well, at first, I thought the numbers were a substitution code, like where one is the letter A, two is B, and so forth. It’s a pretty common code. But that would only work if no number was higher than twenty-six, because there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Patrick saw an eighty-one, so it blows my theory. Now I don’t know what the numbers mean.”
Brid was quiet for a second. “Pat, before you come out,” she said, “can you please give us that last number again?”
“Yup, eighty-one.”
“And which digit is first in that eighty-one?”
“Duh, the one.”
“So it reads one and then an eight?”
“Yup.”
“You’re a genius, Pat. C’mon out now.”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“Depends if you have any bubble gum for me.”
CJ and Brid grinned at each other. “But how do we know he didn’t jumble any of the other numbers?” CJ asked.
“Pat only turns things around at the beginning or end of a sentence,” said
Brid. “I bet it’s the same with numbers. Let’s see if it works.”
Slowly, Pat pulled himself out of the hearth. He had soot on his head, which made him look like he was wearing a black cap. “How’d they ever find a grown-up as small as me to put those numbers in there?” he asked.
“Because they did it as it was being built,” said CJ. “Someone put these puzzles in right from the start, in the 1920s. Mr. Post must have known for a long time he wanted to hide stuff, but the question is why?”
“Maybe he needed a place to hide his riches,” Brid replied as she doodled in her notebook.
“From who?” said Pat.
“I don’t know. Maybe the banks, or the government, so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes?” said CJ.
“Or maybe bad guys,” Patrick said.
“Maybe he was worried the good times would end, and he needed a safe place to store money and valuables. Because the good times did end,” said Brid.
“Yes, the stock market crashed, and that started the Great Depression. Lots of people had no jobs, and some lost their homes,” CJ agreed.
“Sounds a little like now,” Brid said.
“A little, but much worse,” said CJ. “Maybe Mr. Post thought the world was coming to an end. Maybe he didn’t trust his bank, and he didn’t have a backyard to bury his treasure in.”
“And it’s clear he didn’t want anyone to just find it by accident,” Brid reasoned. “CJ?” she asked as she continued to try and translate the numbers into letters.
“Yup.”
“I’m definitely getting a message here.”
“Do you think the answer will be in this chimney?” Pat interrupted.
“Nope,” CJ said. “It’s not going to be that easy. That’s why I stopped carrying that big key around. No lock is suddenly going to show itself, screaming, ‘Open me.’ This will take some detective work.”
CJ was looking over Brid’s shoulder. “So it is a number-letter association,” he said, smiling.
“It’s not even a skip-seven,” said Brid. “It’s a straight substitution code. Are you ready?” she asked her brothers.
They nodded, and she began to recite three words.
CHAPTER 11
“What does that mean?” Patrick asked, looking at the three words Brid had written down, one for each of the hearths. Even if he could read them himself, they made no sense.
Tavinogus Servants Dumbwaiter
“I don’t know,” said Brid. “Maybe the company that installed the fireplaces did it for fun.”
“Oh,” said Patrick, unconvinced. “So what’s fun about those words?”
“C’mon, Pat, I’m trying to figure this out!” She kept moving the letters around, her pencil scratches the only noise in the room.
Patrick was getting restless. He ripped open a bag of fried edamame chips, the only semigood thing he found in the cupboard. “So we’re looking for a message?” he asked, munching loudly. CJ and Brid ignored him. Pat continued, “A message about the stupid guy in the servants’ quarters?” He leaned over the notes, and sweat from his forehead began to drip onto the pages.
“Gross,” said Brid, putting her notebook away. “What do you mean, a stupid guy?”
CJ laughed. “I think he means a dumb waiter. Pat, a dumbwaiter isn’t a stupid guy. It’s like a miniature elevator, used to bring things from one floor to another, usually from the kitchen to the dining room. I bet there used to be one in this apartment. Since one of the words is servants, I think we should look for it in the servants’ quarters. But that first word? Tavinogus? Never heard of it.”
Patrick kept staring at it. “But, since it’s written in a circle, how do you know where the word begins and ends?”
Brid replied, “I’ve written down all the possibilities by moving the first letter to the back of the word until we try every possible starting point. If I move the starting place over to the V, then the word is vinogusta, whatever that is. Still, none of these words make sense to me. Look at this list!” Brid held out her paper, which read:
Tavinogus
Avinogust
Vinogusta
Inogustav
Nogustavi
Ogustavin
Gustavino
Ustavinog
Stavinogus
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” said CJ. “Let me do an internet search; maybe one of these will mean something in another language. I mean, it sort of sounds like Greek or Italian to me if you say it with an exclamation at the end. Ustavinog to you!”
Pat and Brid giggled. “Nogustavi, Patrick,” Brid said. “Nogustavi, and you’re welcome.”
In their father’s office, CJ typed dumbwaiter and servant, while Pat and Brid sat on either side of him, watching. “Hey, what’s this?” said Pat, lightly touching the second computer. The screen came to life with the same swirling purple cyclone that CJ had seen the night before. Music blared, like something from a James Bond movie. The designs swirled into exploding fireworks, and the lights joined together to form the words:
DIGISPY, A PRODUCT OF THE LECUBE COMPANY!
As the dancing words and the music evaporated, the three Smithforks sat there in silence. The keyboard was practically begging them to hit return, to enter whatever fabulous world Mr. Smithfork was creating these days. They were tempted to open the game, but none had the courage.
“Now, that’s interesting,” said Patrick.
“Did you know Dad was working on a spy game?” Brid asked CJ.
“Dad hasn’t been talking about work as much as he used to,” said CJ. “I don’t even know what that game does.”
“Can we try it?” asked Brid.
“We should leave it alone,” said CJ. “If we mess something up, he’ll be mad. Let’s stick to one mystery at a time.”
“I thought you tested his games for him,” Brid said to CJ.
“I used to,” said CJ with a little catch in his voice. “Now he hires people to do it.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”
Patrick was a little relieved not to be peeking at the spy game, because he was usually the one who touched things and ended up in trouble. Now, he wanted to focus on the mystery, but neither CJ nor Brid was telling him much.
Brid and CJ knew the trick to using Pat to help them was not telling him exactly why they had him do certain things. He loved to talk and to tell secrets, and CJ and Brid had gotten in trouble more than once when he’d told their mom something the kids were up to. But the older he got, the harder it was to fool him. Now that he had gotten information from a wall and a fireplace, he was too excited to simply go away.
“Why don’t you go play basketball?” Brid said to him.
“Where? In the backyard we don’t have?”
“How about the hallway? Maricel and Mom are out, so you can go crazy, and we won’t tell.”
“What if that old lady downstairs complains?”
“She won’t,” Brid said. “I have the feeling she sort of understands us.”
“Oh, okay, I guess you’re sick of me,” Pat said, stomping out of the room. A few seconds later they could hear him pounding on the floorboards.
“He’s actually been really helpful, at least more than he used to be. I almost wish we could include him,” said Brid.
“Yeah, so he could blab to everyone that our house is sitting on a gold mine?” CJ snapped.
“No. He’s not a baby anymore, and I think he can keep secrets. If we only give him half the information, it won’t be long until he’s mad, and he won’t help us anymore,” Brid answered.
“Whatever.” CJ continued to type.
“CJ, are you nervous about school?”
“Nervous? I never get nervous. What school, anyway?” CJ said, knowing full well what Brid was talking about. He stopped typing and closed the laptop, too agitated to continue.
“Hello? First day of a new school?”
“Who cares? It’ll be fine,” said CJ, as his stomach f
lopped. He changed the subject, talking rapidly. “You know what our problem is? Every time we have a question, it gets answered with more questions. Our list of clues grows, but not as fast as our list of questions. We know two of the words are dumbwaiter and servants. We need to find the dumbwaiter in this apartment, and my guess is it’s been taken out. I’m going down into the servants’ quarters to check, and besides, it’s too hot in here!” With an angry slam of the desk drawer, CJ stood up and went to summon the elevator. Brid sat, puzzled and a little sad about the way her brother was acting.
Ray didn’t say much as he and CJ descended to the lobby. The temperature in the elevator was oppressive. Despite that, Ray had on his full uniform: gray suit, white shirt, tie, gold brocade shoulder epaulets, cap, and white gloves. The silence felt a little uncomfortable, so CJ tried to strike up some idle chatter.
“Where is everyone?” asked CJ as they stopped in the lobby.
“This building is mostly empty during the summer,” said Ray.
“But it’s September.”
“The whole neighborhood is empty until the night before school starts. Everyone has a summer house in the Hamptons, or they go to Europe, or out west. There are twenty-four apartments in this building, but only yours and two others are lived in this time of year.”
“What about that older lady who lives beneath us? Is she new, too?”
“Whatareyoukiddinme?” Ray laughed out loud. “Yeah, about eighty years new—she moved into the building as a kid.” He looked at CJ’s face and added, “Don’t feel bad, kid, things pick up real soon around here.”
“Not sure I want it to pick up,” said CJ.
“Kinda like it quiet like this, too,” Ray said. “I catch up on my reading.”
“So you’ve worked here a long time?”
“Ahhhfortyyearsorso,” he said, smiling so that his giant eyebrows merged into one. “Seenalot.”
“Do you know much about our apartment?”
“No. Wasemptyforsolong. After they split the original apartment into four separate ones, the Posts donated the one you’re living in to a museum. Later, when the museum tried to sell it, there were no buyers. It was after the Great Depression, and some people were still in a bad way financially. Nobody really lived there. Yuz got that wall problem, too. Yaknowaboutthat, right?”
Walls within Walls Page 6