Margaret takes an eight-inch piece of red ribbon from her bag. “I’ve got it covered.”
Mr. Eliot looks at our waiting faces. “I still want to hear the rest of this story, but fine, okay, let’s go. I reserve the right to reconsider.”
“So you’ll really do it?” Becca asks, not hiding the surprise in her voice. “I bet them you wouldn’t.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Chen.”
“We’ll see,” she says. “The opera ain’t over till it’s over.”
But he doesn’t change his mind, even after hearing the rest of the story on the subway ride to Eighty-Sixth Street. We stop a few doors down from Sturm & Drang for a quick review of the plan. Mr. Eliot checks his coat pocket one final time for the piece of red ribbon and the folded paper with the information that Margaret printed out from Marcus Klinger’s website, and then he’s off.
Once he’s inside, we scurry down the sidewalk to the near corner of the bookstore’s front window and crouch into spying position, ready to pounce the second we see him crack open Nine Worthy Men.
For a used-book store in an out-of-the-way location, Sturm & Drang is strangely busy; there are three other people in the store besides Mr. Eliot, and Marcus Klinger moves from customer to customer, chatting and smiling—things he never bothered to do for us. Mr. Eliot discovers the Dickens shelf, and spends a long time leafing through a copy of David Copperfield.
“What is he doing?” Becca asks.
“He totally forgot why he’s in there,” groans Leigh Ann. “Look, now he’s reading that huge book. He’ll be in that shop forever. Man, he is such a dork.”
“Relax,” Margaret assures us. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“Now I’m sure we’re in trouble,” says Becca.
My legs start to cramp as Mr. Eliot continues reading. Just as I’m starting to think Becca and Leigh Ann are right, he closes David Copperfield—a bit reluctantly, I think—and makes his move toward the locked glass cabinet. He unfolds the paper and checks it, looks at the books, and then back at the paper.
Klinger approaches, glancing at the paper in Mr. Eliot’s hand. We can’t hear the conversation through the glass, but everything seems to be going according to plan. Mr. Eliot shows him the paper, on which he has circled the crucial details about the other George Eliot’s masterpiece. Klinger nods enthusiastically at something Mr. Eliot says, unlocks the cabinet, and hands him The Mill on the Floss.
“I don’t think Klinger asked him if his hands were clean,” I whisper to Margaret.
Mr. Eliot examines the book so carefully that I start to believe he’s actually going to buy it. Klinger wanders off to help someone else for a moment and when he returns, Mr. Eliot hands him the book with a shake of his head and points at something else in the cabinet.
“Here we go,” says Margaret as Klinger reaches for the slipcased set of Nine Worthy Men. “Everybody ready?”
The rest of us grunt at her. “It’s about time,” Becca complains. “I can’t feel my toes. If we have to make a run for it, I’m in big trouble.”
Mr. Eliot is opening the first volume as we burst through the door, talking noisily.
“Why are we going in here again?” Becca says loudly.
“Yeah, Sophie, I thought you said you would never sell him that pen,” Leigh Ann adds.
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” I say. “Five hundred bucks would buy me a lot of books. We could buy that copy of A Christmas Carol.”
We walk past Mr. Eliot without a look and head for the farthest corner of the store, where we all start pulling books from the shelves willy-nilly.
Our little plan works perfectly. The mere sight of four street urchins with their grubby little fingers all over his precious books sends Marcus Klinger into an absolute tizzy. He rushes to the back of the store to deal with us, leaving Mr. Eliot alone with Nine Worthy Men.
“Young ladies!” he cries. “Please, be gentle! This is not a thrift shop! These are valuable antiques, and must be handled properly. If you want to see something, I would greatly prefer that you ask me to show it to you. Please.”
I know he’s only being nice to us because there are other customers in the shop and because he wants my dad’s fountain pen. The soupçon of hope that I may be reconsidering has worked a small miracle on his disposition.
As he’s showing Becca the proper way to turn the pages in an old book, I glide a few feet down the aisle until I can see Mr. Eliot. He glances around the shop, looking very nervous and trying to determine where Klinger is. When he’s finally satisfied that Klinger is occupied with helping us, he closes his eyes and gives the red ribbon a healthy tug. His eyes open wide as a few more inches of ribbon come out from somewhere inside the binding. He pulls again, and even more ribbon appears. The look in his eyes tells me that he’s starting to panic as he’s suddenly holding on to two feet of ribbon.
“Keep pulling!” I hiss at him.
So he pulls. And pulls. And pulls some more. I have to cover my mouth to prevent myself from laughing at the look on his face as the red ribbon simply keeps coming: he looks like a magician who has just realized he really can perform magic. As one hand keeps yanking yards and yards of ribbon from the binding, the other is busy scooping and wrapping and cramming long loops of the stuff into his coat pocket.
Behind me, I hear Klinger making noises like he’s finished lecturing Margaret, Leigh Ann, and Becca, and is about to return to the front counter.
“Hey, mister, how much is this book?” I shout, waving a copy of Sense and Sensibility. And then, in Mr. Eliot’s direction, I hiss, “Hurry!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Klinger says, exasperated. “Really, you girls need to learn some proper etiquette if you’re going to continue to come in my store. Now, what do you want to know?”
He starts talking about the book while I look past him at Mr. Eliot, who has pulled out a good twenty feet of ribbon and looks like he might drop dead any second.
And then … abracadabra, presto chango! He reaches the end of the ribbon, and something truly miraculous occurs! As he pulls the final few inches free and they drop to the floor, a perfect replacement ribbon is left in place, attached to the binding just as the original had been. He won’t even need Margaret’s piece of ribbon!
Mr. Eliot stuffs the last few feet into his pocket, and takes a much-needed deep breath. Gently, he slides the volume into place in the slipcase and takes one step back from the counter just as Klinger reappears.
“It’s quite a set,” says Mr. Eliot. “I’ve, uh, never seen anything like it. You’re sure it’s not for sale?”
Klinger rubs his chin. “Not right now, anyway. Maybe one day. Keep your eye on the website after the first of the year. If I change my mind, I’ll list it there.”
“Fair enough,” says Mr. Eliot, shaking his hand and making his way toward the door. “Nice little place you have here. Pity about those … little hooligans.” He pulls the door closed behind him.
Hooligans!
I guess that’s one way to make a gluten-free pizza
According to our plan, we’re supposed to wait in the store five minutes after Mr. Eliot leaves, so it doesn’t look too suspicious. Well, let me tell you, it is the longest five minutes of my life—keeping quiet about what I have just witnessed.
When the door clangs shut behind us, I run until I’m several doors down from Sturm & Drang, where I collapse onto the frozen ground in a fit of laughter. Margaret, Becca, and Leigh Ann look on, not at all sure what to think of their friend, who, it appears, has lost her mind.
Becca, naturally, is first to comment. “I knew this day would come. She’s completely cracked. Around the bend. Checked out. Bonkers. Loony.”
“You didn’t see his face,” I say, pulling myself together. “It just kept coming and coming. Like one of those magician’s handkerchiefs.”
“What kept coming? The ribbon?” Margaret asks. “How much came out?”
“Miles,” I say. “Miles a
nd miles. He’s pulling and pulling and trying to stuff it in his pockets, and—” I completely lose it again.
“She’s mental,” says Leigh Ann, checking her watch. “And we’d better get moving or Mr. Eliot is going to ditch us.”
Margaret and Leigh Ann pull me to my feet, and we find Mr. Eliot waiting inside the bodega at the corner, just as we had arranged.
“Remind me,” he says, calmly pouring himself a cup of coffee, “never to listen to you girls again. I almost had a heart attack in there! And you, Miss St. Pierre—fat lot of help you were. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ you say. What if he had come back and seen me with half a mile of ribbon wrapped around me?”
“We’re sorry, really,” says Margaret, trying to hold in a smile. “We didn’t know. Honest. That’s why we needed the diversion. Now, can we see this ribbon?”
Mr. Eliot hands me the end of the ribbon. “Show them what they missed.”
I re-create the moment, doing my best imitation of Mr. Eliot freaking out. It’s a wasted performance, though, because they’ve discovered that there’s writing on the ribbon and are desperately trying to read it as I yank it out of Mr. Eliot’s pocket.
“What does it say?” Mr. Eliot asks.
“I’ll bet it’s secret plans for building nukes,” says Becca, who sees conspiracies everywhere. (She’s convinced that the long-awaited and still-ongoing Second Avenue subway project is a cover story while the government digs up an alien race of pod people before they have a chance to take over the planet.)
“It’s just a string of hundreds of letters, on both sides. I can’t make out any words at all. It’s got to be a code.” As Margaret runs her fingers the length of the ribbon, she is getting that go-ahead-and-try-to-outsmart-me-old-man look in her eyes. “Well, I think it’s also safe to say that we are pretty darn good at cracking codes.”
Sleepover night at my apartment means two things when the RBGDA is on a case: we’re going to stuff ourselves on Dad’s latest culinary creation and then stay awake until we solve whatever problem we’re facing.
Imagine our disappointment, then, when we learn that Dad forgot to cook for us. No poulet au vinaigre. No macaroni et fromage. Not even a box of day-old pastries.
Leigh Ann is taking it hardest. She sits at our table, gazing forlornly at the oven that has brought her so much happiness over the past few months.
“Bummer,” says Becca.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” says Leigh Ann. “All week.”
“Sorry. Look, we’ll just order something. I even have a coupon for this new pizza place—Crazy Ray’s. Buy one, get one free. How can you go wrong with a deal like that?”
“I’m not so sure, Sophie,” Margaret cautions. “Let’s stick with something we know, like Trantonno’s? Or Famous Ray’s? Or Luciano’s, where your blue-eyed boyfriend works. Maybe he’ll even deliver it. At least with one of those, we’ll know what we’re getting.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say as I call the number on the coupon.
Turns out there’s a good reason Crazy Ray’s pizza is so cheap: it is just plain awful.
“This is worse than school cafeteria pizza,” Becca declares, prying her third slice loose from the box. “I can’t tell where the crust ends and the cardboard begins.”
Leigh Ann sighs heavily. “I think the crust is cardboard.”
“It doesn’t seem to be slowing Rebecca down,” notes Margaret.
Becca shrugs. “Bad pizza is still pizza.”
“Well, there’s a whole pie left, and I don’t think anyone is going to fight you for it,” I say.
Dad comes into the kitchen with his coat on, ready to leave for the restaurant, and instantly that noble schnoz of his starts sniffing like mad. “What is that terrible smell?” He opens the lid of the second pizza box. “Yeeouughhh. What is this? This is not pizza. Quelle horreur! This is a … disgrace to the good name of pizza. Sophie! Do not tell me that you bought this horrible stuff for your friends! This is how you treat your guests?”
My so-called friends turn and glare at me.
“See?” says Leigh Ann. “It doesn’t even smell like good pizza.”
“It’s your fault,” I say, pointing at Dad, who is shocked by my pronouncement.
“Excusez-moi? My fault, you say?”
“It’s not your fault,” Leigh Ann explains. “It’s just that usually, when we come over to spend the night with Sophie, you cook something amazing for us.”
“Ahhh. Now I see. I’m sorry, girls, but I promise—I will make it up to you. A true feast.”
“Yay!” shouts Leigh Ann.
“Now, please make that go away,” he says, giving the leftover pizza a dismissive wave on his way out the kitchen door.
“Wait! Dad, don’t leave!” I shout. “I have a question for you. Just a second, it’s in my backpack.” I run to my room and return with the empty wine bottle from Mr. Dedmann’s, which I hold up for Dad to see.
“Mon Dieu,” he whispers. “Château Latour. Quarante-neuf. Where did you get this?”
Well, this is awkward. Dad doesn’t know about Shelley or Mr. Dedmann, and the explanation would take too long.
“Um, from this woman we met who is, um, trying to sort out this collection of stuff she inherited. Kind of a long story. Boring, really. So, what’s the deal with this wine? Is it any good?”
Hoo-boy, was that the wrong question to ask.
“Is it any good?” he repeats, flabbergasted by my ignorance. “One might as well ask if the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is pretty. Or if Mozart’s music is nice. Sophie, this is not merely wine; this is poetry in a bottle. Château Latour isn’t good; it is … sublime. And that is in a bad year. But 1949 was one of the best vintages in history.” He sniffs the inside of the bottle and smiles. “Très magnifique.”
“So, what’s this stuff worth?” Becca asks.
Dad purses his lips and considers the question. “A bottle of ‘this stuff,’ as you say, would sell for six to eight thousand dollars. Possibly a bit more.”
That sound you just heard? Four chins hitting the floor.
“Eight thousand dollars! For one bottle of wine!” Becca exclaims. “No way. Nobody would pay that. It’s ridiculous. You’re kidding, right?”
Becca, Becca, Becca. Dad doesn’t kid about wine. He gives her his special version of “the stink-eye” and assures her that he is quite serious.
“B-b-but why?” she blubbers.
“Some people demand the very best,” he answers. “And this—this is the best. Also, as you can imagine, there are very few bottles left from 1949.”
“Doesn’t it, you know, go bad after all that time?” Leigh Ann asks.
“Not if it is stored properly,” Dad says.
“Like in a wine cellar?” Margaret asks.
“Oui. A wine cellar. Does your … friend have more bottles like this? With the wine still inside, perhaps?”
“We’ll have to get back to you on that,” I say.
Margaret takes out her notebook and shows Dad the note she copied from inside the one on Dedmann’s desk:
WILL TO GA
SI ROTH
SS VOUG
OS FIG
“Just out of curiosity, does this mean anything to you?” she asks. “Maybe something to do with wine?”
Dad stares at the paper for a few seconds. “No, it—Wait, yes, it makes sense. Except for the first line. The rest, though, is easy. The first two aren’t letters, they’re numbers. The five looks like an ‘S.’ ‘Fifty-one Roth,’ that’s a 1951 Rothschild. And a fifty-five Vougeot. The last one is a 2005 Figeac. These are all very good wines.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Good, like the stuff you and Mom drink, or good, like eight thousand dollars?”
“Somewhere in between,” he says. “But closer to the second thing you said.”
After the excitement over the eight thousand–dollar bottle of wine wears off, Margaret unrolls all twenty-seven feet of ribbon that Mr. Elio
t pulled from Nine Worthy Men. She passes it through her fingers, examining it inch by inch.
“Okay, we pulled the ribbon, just like the instructions said. What does he mean, ‘the walking stick is the key’?”
“I’ll bet there’s a secret compartment in Dedmann’s walking stick, and Klinger knows about it. If it has that, and he knows that it’s the key to those floor thingies, we’re toast.”
Margaret doesn’t even hear me; she presses her fingertips into her temples and drifts off to the happy thinking place deep down in her scary brain. “The code says that the stick is the key, not the stick holds the key. But either way, we need that stick.”
“Well, we could ask Mr. Eliot—”
“UNLESS!” Margaret shouts, interrupting the guaranteed-to-be-profound thought I’m about to express. She leaps to her feet and runs out of my room.
Becca, Leigh Ann, and I stare at each other. “Where do you suppose she’s going?” Becca finally asks.
Before I can answer, Margaret returns with a broom.
“I knew it,” Leigh Ann says. “Margaret is a wizard, isn’t she? That explains so much! How long have you guys known?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s time you heard the truth,” I say. “I’ve known for three years now. Margaret can fly.”
Margaret is too busy wrapping the ribbon around the broomstick to listen to what we’re saying. “Sophie, come here. Put your finger right here, on the end of the ribbon.”
“What are you doing?”
“The walking stick is the key,” she repeats, continuing to wind the ribbon around the broomstick. “It’s called a scytale, an ancient system for sending messages in code. It was used by the Greeks—people like Hector, and maybe even Alexander the Great. It makes perfect sense!”
“How does it work?” Leigh Ann asks over my shoulder.
“It’s incredibly simple, really,” Margaret explains, “as long as you have a stick that’s the right diameter. If you want to write a secret message, you take the blank ribbon and wrap it around the stick like I’m doing, then you write your message across all those wraps of ribbon. Then you just fill in all the extra space with random letters, unwrap it, and send it to somebody who has a stick just like the one you used to create the message. They wrap it around theirs, and they can read what you wrote. Obviously, Dedmann used his walking stick.”
The Secret Cellar Page 9