by Sarah Rubin
‘What’s going on in here?’ Mom’s voice rang out from the lobby door. I looked across the house and saw her silhouetted in the doorway, Della by her side.
‘I found your daughter flailing about on the stage. She says she heard something.’
I groaned. Mom wasn’t going to like that. I took a breath and shoved my nerves back into place and did my best to keep my voice steady.
‘I’m OK, Mom.’
‘Alice Lynn Jones, what were you thinking? Why on earth would you go chasing after some noises in the dark. The theatre is very dangerous. You could have been hurt.’ She was down the aisle and at the foot of the stage by the end of the first sentence. ‘Why wasn’t the ghost light on?’ she asked Jarvis sharply. And then her eyes narrowed. ‘What are you still doing here?’
Jarvis narrowed his eyes right back. ‘I could ask you the same thing.’
Mom looked shocked. She took a deep breath, letting the tension out of her shoulders. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m sorry, Jarvis. I know you’re just making sure the Beryl is locked down for the night. I shouldn’t have come back without calling ahead.’
Jarvis looked from me to my mom and then to Della at the top of the aisle. He let out a long breath. ‘Dress-rehearsal week jitters,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it, Virginia. I’ll walk you out.’
I gave the pit an extra-wide berth as Jarvis led us to the lobby. He waited for Mom and Della to get their coats back on, and then he opened the theatre door and held it for us.
‘You said someone propped the Stage Door open?’ he asked me in a low voice as I passed him.
I nodded, surprised. Grown-ups usually ignored me about things like that, at least grown-ups besides my dad.
‘I’ll check it out. If you see anything else suspicious, though, come tell me, OK? Be careful.’ He waited until he got my nod before he shut the door. I heard the lock click fast on the other side.
Mom read me the riot act all the way home.
Mom dropped me off outside the house on Passfield Avenue, then she and Della headed back to their five-star hotel. I asked Della if she wanted to stay over, but she preferred the hotel’s jacuzzi bathtub and steam room to the shower at Dad’s. She also liked having her own bed. I think she was still mad at me.
Mom waited until I made it through the front door and waved to her from the window and then she drove slowly away.
Dad was already gone. He’d left me a note on the counter.
Stay warm and don’t wait up.
Next to the note was a fresh bag of marshmallows.
I took a shower, wrapped up in Dad’s old flannel robe and made myself a cup of hot cocoa with extra marshmallows before curling up on the couch. Outside, the wind stirred up the falling snow in gusts and eddies. I could see it building up on the edge of the iron bars that protected our first-floor windows. But the storm outside only made the warm soft couch cosier and the cocoa sweeter. I snuggled down into the robe, took an extra-long sip and grabbed Fermat’s Last Theorem off the coffee table.
I only got through three pages. I wanted to enjoy the book. I wanted to sit in the warm yellow lamplight, safe from the storm howling outside and lose myself in numbers. But I couldn’t. All I could think about was the Beryl. The Curse of the Casterfields opened in four days, and I wasn’t even close to figuring out who was behind all the disturbances.
I shook myself and went back to my book. But it was no use. Not even counting primes was going to clear my head.
I went to Dad’s office and got a clean notebook and a new pen. Unlimited stationery is one of the benefits of having a journalist for a father. Then I went back to the couch and started to write down what I knew.
It hadn’t started out as much. A few missing props, a curtain that kept jamming, Vivian’s broken shoe. But then the safe had fallen, and someone had searched Della’s dressing room, broken her mirror. It all pointed to a slow, sneaky attempt to ruin the show that was getting more bold the closer we got to opening night. And the only reason I could think of for ruining the show was to ruin the Beryl too.
I frowned. I was missing something.
Matthew Strange? Kevin had suggested that the disturbances might be about the Hollywood Star, not the Beryl. But the facts didn’t add up. No one had touched his dressing room or his costumes. He’d been the one to get hurt when the safe fell, but there was no way someone could have planned that to happen. There were way too many variables.
My head ached.
Mysteries are a lot like maths. Sometimes the hardest part is figuring out what you are actually trying to solve. Once you know what question to ask, then it’s just a matter of solving for x.
I ran through the list again. Something sat on the edge of my memory, just out of reach. There was something all those problems had in common. But the harder I tried to remember, the vaguer my memory got.
I closed my eyes and counted in primes, focusing on the numbers and ignoring everything else: 2, 3, 5, 7. The small numbers came easily but the higher I got, the more I needed to concentrate. When I hit 513, something clicked.
Vivian’s shoe, the safe and Della’s dressing table were all pieces from the original 1927 production of The Curse. I thought furiously, trying to remember if the other problems were connected to the original show as well.
I grabbed the wall phone and dialled.
Della answered on the fourth ring, the longest she could make me wait without ignoring my call. I guess she was still upset.
‘Yes?’ she asked, her voice cool.
‘Can you tell me about the props that were misplaced? Were they new ones or ones Pete had salvaged from the original show?’
Della was quiet for a moment. ‘They were from the original show,’ she said slowly.
‘All of them?’
‘The decanter set, the breakfast tray, the jewellery box, the bedroom safe, the banister rail.’ I could imagine her standing there ticking each item off on her fingers, and the excitement in her voice grew. ‘Yes, everything we had a problem with was something original. Pete was in pieces. But what does that mean?’
I thought for a minute before answering. ‘I don’t know.’
Della practically growled.
‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ I said quickly, before she could start asking questions. ‘Night.’
I hung up the phone on Della’s protest. I needed to think.
All the parts of the show where things had gone wrong had been part of the original 1927 production. Did that mean something or was it just a coincidence?
Della would probably say it was proof that Kittie’s ghost was haunting the production, but there had to be a more rational explanation. Why would someone trying to sabotage the show only go after things from the original production? Maybe it was a coincidence? Maybe old things were easier to sabotage? Maybe I had no clue what I was thinking.
I closed my eyes and kept counting.
I woke up when an arctic blast of wind swept across the living room and Dad hunched in through the front door. I sat up, wiping the sleep from my eyes. The street outside was still dark, but the clock on the microwave in the kitchen blinked 3.58.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I said. My mouth tasted sour and dry.
‘I thought I told you not to wait up?’ Dad stomped the snow off his shoes and shook his coat free of his shoulders. He was in his tuxedo and had a plastic bag from Walgreens tucked under one arm and a large catering tray of leftover hors d’oeuvres in the other.
‘I didn’t. I fell asleep. How was the party?’
Dad smiled and did a little dance on the doormat.
‘Did something else get stolen?’
‘No,’ Dad sighed. ‘But I did get a chance to talk to one of the security specialists who was working the party. She found me very charming.’
I scrunched up my nose.
‘Don’t worry, kiddo,’ Dad said. ‘I think she was more charmed by the crab puffs I kept bringing her than she was by me.’ He lifted the tray in his han
ds slightly by way of explanation. Then he kicked off his shoes and went to the kitchen where he started making a pot of coffee.
‘So did you get a scoop?’ I asked as he pressed the percolate button.
Dad smiled like a cat with a key to the canary cage. ‘I did indeed.’ He put the hors d’oeuvres away. Slowly.
‘Well?’ I said. I knew it must be some scoop if Dad was giving it such a big build-up.
‘The guard says that there’s an agent from Interpol working the case – you know, the missing Astor jewellery.’ Dad was almost giddy. ‘This is off the record, of course, very hush-hush.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I did my best to look suitably impressed.
‘And that’s exciting?’
‘Interpol is the international police. They’d only be called in for an international criminal. A big one.’
‘So you think there’s some famous international jewel thief in Philadelphia?’
Dad nodded, too excited to speak. His fingers drummed against the counter like he was already typing up his story.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing at the Walgreens bag.
‘I got the photos from my bow tie camera printed. Want to check out the Liberty Ball?’ Dad sat down on the couch next to me and slid the photos out of the envelope and started flipping through them.
The photos weren’t going to win any awards. I got glimpses of the grand entrance to the Academy of Natural Sciences. Tables covered in tasteful white cloths and rows of silver canapé trays sat around the feet of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Most of the shots were oddly framed, cutting off the top half of faces, leaving us looking at a lot of chins. I imagined it was pretty hard to aim a bow-tie camera. It was easier to see the people in the background.
‘There’s Rex Cragthorne,’ Dad said, holding up a photo. ‘He was in an even worse mood tonight than yesterday.’
Dad handed me a photo of a man in tuxedo with a bolero tie, giant silver belt buckle and a black cowboy hat. He had a cigar clamped between his jaws so tight I could see the veins standing out on his neck. He had a mobile to one ear and an expression that said he didn’t like what he was hearing.
‘The city told him he couldn’t file any more injunctions against the Beryl,’ I said, handing the photo back.
‘Did they now,’ Dad mused. ‘Maybe old Rexy is losing his touch. He used to have City Hall in his pocket. I wonder if someone there could give me a story.’
I flipped through a few more pictures, scanning the glamorous crowd for someone who looked like a jewel thief in disguise. I paid special attention to the catering staff. If that was how Dad was sneaking in, maybe that’s how the criminal was doing it too. But no one stood out.
‘Hey, look,’ I said pointing to one of the shots. ‘That’s Irinke Barscay.’
Dad raised an eyebrow at me.
‘She’s the Beryl’s main patron. She bought us a chandelier.’
Irinke was wearing the dress Mom had designed for her, a green sheath practically dripping with sequins and beaded fringe. Ashley was there too, looking nondescript in his tuxedo, talking to a woman in a powder-blue ballgown.
‘That’s her nephew.’ I pointed. ‘Ashley.’
Dad grabbed the photo and stared. ‘You know that guy? He’s talking with Connie Astor – the lady in blue. She’s the one who had her sapphire necklace stolen.’ Dad looked at me, his eyes gleaming. ‘Do you think he’d give me a story?’
The coffee maker beeped and he bounced up to get a cup.
‘Maybe, if his aunt gives him permission.’
Dad harrumphed and held up the pot. ‘Do you want a cup?’
I shook my head. Dad might want to stay up and type out his notes or research international jewel thieves, but I was planning on going back to bed. ‘I’ll ask Ashley if he’ll talk to you,’ I said with a yawn. ‘But I doubt he could help – I don’t think he’s that observant.’
Dad dumped five teaspoons of sugar into his coffee, then grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, getting ready for an early morning writing marathon. ‘Well, ask him for me, you never know where a lead might be hiding.’ He gave me a kiss on the forehead and then disappeared into his office.
I stood up slowly. My notebook had fallen to the floor when I’d nodded off. I reached down and closed the book, leaving it on top of my copy of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Then I trudged up the stairs and went to bed.
I overslept and woke up with bleary eyes in a too-bright room and the taste of stale cocoa clinging to my teeth. It was almost eight thirty. I groaned. It was too late to try to catch the graffiti bandit in the act. I rolled out of bed, hopping into clothes as I made my way across the hall to brush my teeth. A mumbled protest came from Dad’s bedroom when I closed the door a bit too loudly. Then he went back to sleep and the house went quiet.
I drank a cup of coffee warmed up in the microwave and had five mini-cheesesteaks from Dad’s party tray before throwing on my coat and rushing out the door. Rush hour and icy roads slowed me down even more and it was after nine by the time I wheeled up outside the Beryl and locked my bike to the lamppost outside the 7–Eleven. The clerk saw me through the window and I met his suspicious scowl with a friendly wave. Then I turned my back on him and started across the street.
I grimaced. We’d been right about one thing – the graffiti bandit had returned. The Beryl’s facade had been adorned with his trademark scrawl in eye-popping magenta. This time he’d sprayed the words Death Trap again and again across the walls.
I ground my teeth. If I hadn’t overslept, I might have caught him before he made such a mess. Now I’d have to spend all morning cleaning. I stopped mid-thought. There, standing at the far edge of the building, was Kevin Jordan. Yellow gloves on his hands, a bucket at his feet, scrubbing off the paint in slow steady strokes.
‘What are you doing?’ I puffed as I clambered over the snowbank on to the kerb.
‘Hey, Alice.’ He turned to me and smiled. It actually looked like he was enjoying himself. ‘You weren’t here so I couldn’t do anything in the storage room. And Matthew needed to rehearse. So I got that creepy caretaker to let me in to get the bucket so I could clean this off.’
‘You convinced Jarvis to let you in?’ I asked.
‘Hey, I’m a very convincing guy.’
I smiled, I couldn’t help myself. Kevin really could sweet-talk anyone. He threw me a spare pair of gloves and an extra brush. ‘Chop chop.’
Kevin and I spent the next hour cleaning. Magenta was a lot easier to remove than blue or green, and we finished before ten.
‘What?’ Kevin asked as he emptied the bucket into the storm drain, staining the snow on the street.
‘I guess you overslept too?’
‘I must have missed him by minutes. The paint was still wet when I got here.’ Kevin held out the empty bucket and I dropped in my sponge. ‘We’ll get him tomorrow.’
‘You think he’ll be back? Again?’
‘The wall’s clean, isn’t it?’
I banged on the Beryl’s door and waited until Jarvis let us in. He eyed me and then Kevin and then checked the street to make sure we hadn’t been followed. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but after last night Jarvis seemed even more paranoid than usual.
He let us in eventually and I started to take off my coat, then I stopped. It was freezing.
‘Why’s it so cold in here,’ I asked.
‘Heater’s busted,’ Jarvis grunted.
‘You don’t think someone—’
He cut me off. ‘Naw, it’s just on the same circuit as the chandelier. No one noticed that the boiler went off when the fuse blew yesterday and so it got cold overnight. I relit the pilot light, and it’ll just take a while to warm back up. Till then, you probably want to keep your coats on.’
‘No kidding,’ Kevin said, teeth chattering.
I glanced across the room to the coatrack. It was empty except for one parka with a fur-lined hood. For a moment, I wondered who would be crazy enough to be running ar
ound without their coat. And then it hit me.
‘What are you doing?’ Kevin asked as I ran across the lobby. Irinke’s friend the jeweller had come through and the room was full of empty glass display cases. I dodged and weaved through the chaos until I got to the coatrack.
‘That coat. I pulled it off that graffiti bandit the first time I almost caught him.’
I grabbed the coat down from the hanger and rifled through the pockets, laying the contents on the ticket counter. I brought out a fistful of paper, receipts, sweet wrappers, little balls of lint. I reached into the last pocket, a small zippered number on the inside of the jacket. My fingers closed against a small smooth block of heavy plastic. I pulled a phone out of the inner pocket. For a moment, I just stared at it. Then I smiled.
It wasn’t a new phone; the screen was scuffed and scratched and a small chip of the case was missing. The back had been personalized, and the style was unmistakable. Splatters of day-glo orange and yellow fought for attention with hot pink behind a single word in midnight blue.
Benji.
The graffiti bandit’s name was Benji.
A small laugh bubbled inside my chest. The phone had been there the whole time. Normally, checking the pockets would have been my first move, but I’d gotten so caught up in Della’s case and the drama at the Beryl that I forgot. I shook my head ruefully, but there was no use worrying about it now.
I flipped open the phone. Benji had been making a call every morning just before 7 a.m. Right after he’d tagged the Beryl. All the calls were to the same number. I hit ‘redial’ and held the phone to my ear.
A bright professional voice answered on the second ring. ‘Kingdom Cinema’s Corporate Office, how may I direct your call?’
Kingdom Cinemas was Rex Cragthorne’s company.
I hung up quickly, my eyes wide.
‘What is it?’ Kevin asked.
‘Benji was in touch with Rex Cragthorne.’
We stared at each other as the meaning sank in.
‘Do you think he’s paying Benji to spray the building, to make it look bad?’ Kevin asked.