“Patrick, our brother! The one who went up in the dumbwaiter yesterday.”
“Oh yes, the cheeky one. Go on. What book?”
“And then we found some messages in the fireplaces, and they have a code that reads ‘Servants Dumbwaiter’ and something else that’s probably a name.”
“Children, I’m rather confused at this point,” said Eloise. “What name? Please start at the beginning.”
“It spells Guastavino,” Brid said. “And from our research, it’s a popular last name in both Italy and Spain.”
CJ felt better. The decision to tell Eloise more had been made for him—and by his little sister. The interest he saw cross Eloise’s face proved to him that the treasure hunt had moved forward, that they really had found something Eloise had not.
“Who was Guastavino?” CJ asked.
“Guastavino and his son were tile makers and builders. They designed fireproof buildings at a time when New Yorkers were worried about fires. Back then, we had no sprinkler systems or firefighters with modern equipment. Once a building caught fire, it usually burned to the ground, along with all the buildings near it. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, New York was seeking more fireproof buildings, and the Guastavinos seemed to be the only men able to deliver them. In the 1920s and 1930s, they built many magnificent buildings with rounded ceilings and no wooden support beams to catch fire. Nobody else of that time could build in that manner—vaulted ceilings and no seams.”
“So maybe the treasure is in a Guastavino building?” CJ asked.
“Maybe it was.” Eloise seemed lost in thought. “But the water part throws me. I have no idea what that means, unless Guastavino built some structure that holds water.”
“Like a dam? Or the reservoir in Central Park?” Brid suggested. “We need to visit some of his buildings.”
“That could take a while,” said Eloise, smiling. “He probably has two hundred buildings here in New York. Listen, children, you must promise not to breathe another word of this to anyone. Can I count on you?”
They both nodded their heads solemnly. CJ said, “We have more to tell you. It’s about a book we returned to this library. When we did that, we were given another book, a book of poems, poems that your father liked.”
“Stop,” said Eloise. “This is not the place to talk freely, nor is our apartment building. It’s just not safe from prying ears. Can you meet me tomorrow, same time?”
“Sure,” said CJ, wondering how they would get away from Maricel for two days in a row.
“I will meet you at Belvedere Castle, at the southern side of the Great Lawn in Central Park. Do you know where that is?”
“We’ll find it,” said CJ.
“It’s behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, southwest. Go as high up as you can in the castle. We can speak privately there. Now, I will take my leave at once. To be continued,” Eloise said.
“Okay,” CJ said.
“Really, children, it’s not safe to be seen with me. Be very careful, and don’t share this information with anyone else.”
“Okay,” Brid said, watching Eloise scurry away, tying her scarf over her hair.
CJ looked at Brid. “That was weird.”
“Yeah, I thought she would be happy.”
“Well, she wasn’t unhappy.”
“No, just nervous.”
“If she’s nervous, should we be nervous?”
“Not sure.”
“CJ?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you going down in the servants’ quarters again without me.”
CHAPTER 20
To escape Maricel’s clutches the next day, CJ and Brid concocted a more elaborate plan. They told her CJ had a school project on ancient Greece, and he needed to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brid was going to help him. They planned to duck behind the massive museum and meet Eloise at Belvedere Castle.
Not surprisingly, Maricel seemed suspicious about their story, and she insisted on coming with them. But bringing Maricel also meant bringing Carron and Patrick. CJ was simply betting that Maricel would give up on following him through the museum and would eventually agree for him to meet up with her afterward. Still, it was a big risk to take. As Maricel struggled to get the bulky stroller up the enormous front steps of the museum and through the revolving doors, she showed no signs of giving up.
After just a few minutes in the museum, Carron started whining. CJ and Brid had brought notebooks and were taking very elaborate notes on the Greek statues. “You know, CJ,” said Maricel, “there is a playground, the Three Bears playground, just on the side of the museum. I’m going to take Carron and Pat there, and have you meet us when you are done.”
“Well, okay,” CJ said, trying to sound disappointed, “but I could sure use Patrick’s help, plus he’s really interested in the arms and armor exhibit. Can he come with us?”
“I’m sorry,” said Maricel. “If Patrick goes, then we all go.” Patrick looked at CJ, knowing exactly what was going on. The other kids had briefed him the night before. Brid feared he was about to tell on them, but instead he said, “I don’t want to look at any stupid knights in shining armor. I want to go to the playground.”
Brid couldn’t believe it. He was sacrificing himself so they could be free.
“Okay, then I guess it’s just me and CJ,” said Brid, a little too fake-sad.
“We’ll be at the Three Bears playground on the south side of the museum,” Maricel repeated. “You will meet me there in two hours, and you must be on time so I don’t worry.”
“I get you,” CJ said, smiling at her.
“Wish we could go to the playground instead of researching the ancient Greeks,” said Brid for effect.
Patrick looked uncertain, as if he were about to say something, but he reluctantly turned with Maricel and headed back out through the revolving doors and into the sunshine.
“Hurry up,” said Brid, crossing to the exit doors on the north end of the hallway. “We can’t be late for Eloise.”
The two children bolted down the steps, slipping into the crowd outside. They ran behind the museum and up the hill that led to the Great Lawn. Ball fields were everywhere, making CJ salivate for the spring baseball season. But the surreal and magical sight of a most magnificent castle soon interrupted his thoughts. It was like something out of a fairy tale. There was even a flag on the top turret. With a sense of joy, the kids tore across the enclosed fields, running fast and free, feeling the elation of not being in a crowd and of having a terrifying and exciting secret.
The steps that led up the castle’s side were crowded. There were nannies helping toddlers up the massive staircase and people taking photos. It was a human traffic jam. Why would Eloise choose such a busy place? But a funny thing happens with people. The higher they have to climb, the fewer are willing. Stair after stair, level after level, the crowds grew thinner, and the more alone Brid and CJ found themselves.
“I cannot believe a seventy-year-old lady can do this!” Brid said as she puffed and wheezed her way higher.
“Seventy? Do the math. If she was born in the nineteen twenties, she could be in her eighties.”
They were to meet Eloise in the top room, which held a few small science and natural history displays. The only other people in the room were a young couple, who were speaking in German. The coast was clear. CJ and Brid heard footsteps, and then there she was, a silk scarf tied over her hair. Was it a disguise?
Eloise didn’t say hello to them. She crossed the room to a corner display, something about squirrels. CJ and Brid knew instinctively not to bother her. Instead, they fixed their eyes on some papier-mâché birds hanging from the stone ceiling. Brid’s heart was still pounding from climbing up all those stairs.
The German girl said something to her companion, and they turned and began to head down the steps. Eloise looked at the Smithforks and waved for them to follow her up a small staircase with a panel roof on top. There was a padlock that appeared l
ocked but wasn’t. She put her hands on the roof panel and pushed up. It sprang easily upward to reveal a few more steps. She indicated they should follow her, and they soon found themselves on the turret of Belvedere Castle, with the kingdom of Manhattan spread out below.
The scene was breathtaking, and nobody spoke for a full minute. “How did you ever find this place?” asked Brid softly.
“Everyone in New York City, everyone who is to survive in this town, needs a place like this, a place to be alone. For some it can be a bathroom with a cozy nook and a solid lock on the door, for others a rooftop filled with pigeons, but for me, it’s here.” Eloise looked sternly into their eyes. “And don’t you dare go and tell anyone.” She smiled.
“We won’t,” Brid said.
CJ thought of his private places: the stairwell in the back of the apartment, the servant/storage area—new places he could see himself getting used to. They might not be his old backyard, but they weren’t bad.
Eloise took out a picnic blanket from her canvas bag. She spread it over the top step and stiffly lowered herself onto it. She gestured for them to sit on the concrete.
Dramatically, she untied the corners of the scarf, releasing wavy, silver-white hair. She ran her fingers through it and shook her head, and Brid thought she looked beautiful.
“Finally,” she said. “I may not act excited about what you children have to say, but I appreciate your thoughts on this mystery. Please start at the beginning, and don’t leave out a single detail.”
Brid opened her notebook, ready to review the clues. It felt so good to be up here, in the open air, to have so much information, so many questions for which she might soon have answers, and to not worry, finally, that someone was listening.
CHAPTER 21
The afternoon passed quickly, and the sun was setting behind the Central Park trees and the West Side apartment buildings by the time CJ and Brid finished speaking. They told Eloise everything about their family, about their new apartment, and how they first learned about the mystery on moving day when they discovered the eye behind the wall. But they still had not told her everything they knew about the one most important object.
CJ unzipped his backpack and rubbed his fingers against the worn leather of Lyon Post’s poetry book. “Miss Post?” he said timidly. “There is one more thing. We found a library book back behind our wall that was due in 1937, with a note asking whoever found it to return it.”
Eloise nodded. “You are detectives, aren’t you? I remember that old thing. I kept thinking I would get around to returning it and then I just hid it somewhere. It was one of those chores I kept thinking I’d get to. Wherever did you find it?”
“You mean you knew about it?” Brid said as she and CJ looked at each other. “Well, it was on a high shelf, behind the wall. We took it back last week, and the librarian gave us something that was waiting for many years for the person who returned the book. I believe this is yours.”
Carefully, CJ placed the old, leather-bound poetry book in her hands. Eloise seemed to have no words. Lifting a finger, she opened the cracked cover to the note that lay inside. A slight wind lifted the sides of the paper, threatening to blow it away.
Slowly, she read the note her father had written to her so long ago. She kept a stoic face as she read her father’s sentiments. Brid followed Eloise’s eyes moving back and forth across the lines of the note at least three times. Then she turned to the next page, the page with the Langston Hughes poem, and she inhaled the way people do when they’ve had a great surprise. She briefly looked at the back of the book before firmly closing it. CJ and Brid didn’t know why Miss Post stopped.
And, because he didn’t know what to say next, CJ cleared his throat. “Our plan is this,” he said. “We know we are supposed to find seven structures and push some kind of symbol on each. We think each structure is related to one of these seven poems. We think each one of these poems meant something to your family and maybe refers to someplace that you liked to go together. When we push those symbols in the order they are in Mr. Post’s book, we will ‘get the flow of golden water,’ whatever that is.”
“We think that means the treasure,” Brid said.
Eloise didn’t seem to be listening. Slowly, she stood up, and the children stood, too. Efficiently, she rolled up the picnic blanket and arranged it back in the canvas bag. Then she tucked the book into the bag as well. “Shouldn’t you children be getting home?” she said in a low voice. “You’ve been gone for nearly two hours.”
“We’re meeting our nanny. Can we walk out together?” asked Brid, who was closing her notebook, surprised she would have nothing to write down.
“Best you go first,” Eloise said, looking at them as if to say, Get a move on.
“Don’t you want to tell us anything? Do you know what answers your dad is trying to give us in these poems?” CJ asked.
“Answers to what?”
“Well, obviously, you have to know what some of this means, right?”
“Why would I have to know anything?” Eloise snapped as she tied her scarf over her head once again. “I’m an old lady who might enjoy a good story now and then, but that’s about it.”
“Do you mean you don’t believe us?”
“I didn’t say that. I do believe you have found what you said you found, and the note in this book is in both my father’s handwriting and his style. I also believe you have the imagination of healthy children your age. Oh dear, I miss that active imagination.”
“I can’t believe this,” said CJ. “Why don’t you want to talk to us?”
“I love talking with you. You’ve been quite entertaining, but you do realize that any sane person would consider you quite off your rocker, should you go around speaking of puzzles in the wall, disappearing men in your brother’s room, and poetry books left in a library for over seventy years.”
“Is that it, Miss Post?” said Brid. “Do you really think we are making this all up?”
“Do you really want to know what I think?” Eloise said. “I think I see before me two very bright and lonely children. I think you miss your old life, your school, and your friends from Brooklyn very much, and your parents are too darn busy to pay attention to you right now. I think the prospect of finding treasure in an old and history-rich apartment on glamorous Fifth Avenue seems like the antidote for such loneliness. Yes, you know more than most people in the building. You know that the famous Post heiress is still living at that address under the pseudonym of Eloise Munn. Perhaps there was only one mystery to solve, and that was the location of my father’s poetry book. That is probably all the treasure he meant. It’s ironic really that by not doing a chore, I missed this little prize, and the walls my father had planned to erect following his death prevented me from doing that little chore. So I thank you for that. Now, I think it’s time you venture back into the real world and make some new friends your own age, and really start your new life on the Upper East Side of New York City.”
CJ was dismayed. “You’re kidding me, right? What made you change your mind? Why won’t you talk to us? There has to be more to the treasure than that book. But why is the dumbwaiter important?”
Slowly, Eloise turned back toward them and recited, “‘My fairest child, I have no song to give you.’”
All three were very quiet, and a red-tailed hawk swooped low, coming within thirty feet of them.
“I know that line,” said CJ. “It’s from a Kingsley poem. So are you saying that you simply have nothing to tell us? That this whole thing doesn’t seem plausible to you?”
“I’m saying that I love poetry, and sometimes a poem can summarize so beautifully what others cannot hear you say.”
“Huh?” said Brid.
“She means a poem can say more than a rambling conversation,” said CJ.
Eloise continued to recite:
“No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey:
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For ev
ery day.”
CJ felt angry. “So you’re going to let some dead poet speak for you? What is this supposed one lesson you are going to leave us with?”
“Young man, I cannot believe you know that poem. Charles Kingsley wrote it in the eighteen hundreds, and it’s called ‘A Farewell.’”
“I hate poetry,” said CJ. “It’s just that we read this in school, and I remember poems. They stick to my brain, and they bug me!”
Eloise continued, reciting the next verse:
“Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever
One grand, sweet song.”
With that, Eloise stepped down the turret steps, swung open the access door, and closed it behind her.
CJ and Brid were silent for a moment, then Brid spoke first. “So what exactly was she saying besides good-bye?”
“The poem is saying she can’t help us. That we should take action instead of just being dreamy, that we should make the most of life.”
“Isn’t that a little heavy?” Brid said. “I mean, it was really rude of her to leave us like that when it was her turn to share information.”
“Unless,” said CJ.
“Unless what?”
“Well,” said CJ, “she could be plotting to use the information we just gave her to solve this mystery herself.”
“That would be impossible,” said Brid.
“Why?”
“Because it seems like the treasure is in our side of the apartment. Why else is that guy trying to break in? Why else are the codes just on our side?”
“How do you know they are just on our side? Remember, the other eye and its writing were in the Williamsons’ apartment. And the Guastavino buildings? According to Eloise, there are over two hundred of them, and they’re everywhere.”
“Good point. What are your other ideas?”
“One, that she thinks we are crazy, and she wants nothing to do with us. The second idea is that she thinks we are in danger. Danger so bad that she doesn’t want to risk having us involved.”
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