The Secret Cellar

by Michael D. Beil

  Livvy doesn’t know what to make of Becca, and whispers in my ear, “Is she serious?”

  “To be honest, I’m never a hundred percent sure,” I say.

  “He was one of them,” Margaret says to Becca. “He was a German spy during World War II, remember?”

  Becca folds her arms across her chest. “Perfect cover for an alien.”

  “Well, I’m going to open it,” says Margaret, inserting the key into the center of the medallion. She pauses, takes one last look at the faces surrounding her, and turns the key. This time, there’s no whirring or clicking or ker-chunking: the door swings open with barely a sound.

  Nine anxious, curious people crane their necks to look down the muddy two-foot-wide tunnel that leads away from the wine cellar.

  “Cool,” says Becca.

  “Creepy,” says Leigh Ann.

  “Shhh!” Margaret hisses. “Listen!”

  Leaning in closer and closer, all I hear is the sound of my own nervous breathing … until … Yes! There it is—a long way off—a voice!

  We all step back involuntarily; let’s face it, nobody was expecting that.

  “Do you have any idea who that might be?” Dad asks me. “I have the feeling you haven’t told me everything.”

  “Wellll, I have an idea, but—”

  “It’s this guy, Marcus Klinger,” says Margaret. “It has to be. His shop is right”—she points down the tunnel—“there. It’s on Eighty-First, just behind this house. He must have believed that we really found the will, and panicked. He knows he’s not going to get the house, so he might as well steal all the wine.”

  “But if he knew about the tunnel all along, why wait until now to steal the wine?” Shelley asks. “He could have taken it months ago.”

  Margaret’s head—I swear!—turns into a giant light-bulb as the truth hits her. “He didn’t know about the tunnel until Lindsay showed him those blueprints! Remember, Soph? We were hiding in the elevator and spying on them, and she told him about the plans.”

  “And he asked her if he could take a closer look!” I say.

  Dad holds up a hand to stop us. “Wait, wait, wait. What plans? Who are you talking about?”

  “Um, yeah, Dad,” I start. “There’s actually a lot I didn’t tell you.”

  “And there’s no time now,” says Margaret. “They’re coming!”

  Leigh Ann’s eyes are big as platters. “Oh my gosh. What are we going to do? What if it’s not Klinger?”

  Margaret softly closes the tunnel door. “Everyone hide! We need to see who it is, and then—”

  “I’ll sneak around and shut the door behind them,” says Raf.

  Dad gives me a what-did-you-get-me-into? look and ducks behind a stack of wooden wine cases. “Romanée-Conti,” he sighs loudly. “If they start shooting, please, God, let them hit me and not the wine.”

  “Sh-sh-shooting?” stammers Mr. Applewood. “Miss Gallivan, you didn’t say anything about … You d-don’t really think …?”

  “No,” I say firmly. “We’ll be fine.”

  I mean, we will, won’t we?

  When will these crooks learn to stop underestimating us?

  And so we wait, hunkered down behind thousand-dollar bottles of wine. Whoever is out there is getting closer, but I still can’t distinguish voices through the thick door.

  “Sounds like they have a wagon,” Leigh Ann says. “Something’s squeaking.”

  “Those are probably the GSRs,” says Becca.

  “GSRs?” Shelley asks.

  “Giant subterranean rodents,” Becca answers. “They’re all over Manhattan.”

  “You can’t scare me with rat stories anymore,” whispers Leigh Ann. “Now that I got to know Humphrey, I realize that rats are only trying to survive, and take care of their families—just like everybody else in the world. And there’s no such thing as a GSR. You stole that from that movie with the princess and the giant and that you-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die guy.”

  “His name is Inigo Montoya. And those were ROUSs—rodents of unusual size,” I say. “Totally different creature. These are much bigger. And more dangerous.”

  Margaret shushes us. “They’re right outside,” she whispers. “Stay down.”

  “What is your plan?” Dad asks her.

  Margaret smiles, shrugging. “I don’t know. I’m … improvising.”

  Something bumps into the door, and a few seconds later it swings wide open. I can’t say that I’m shocked when Marcus Klinger—unshaven, filthy, a bit desperate-looking, and holding the walking stick—steps inside. I expected to see him.

  “C’mon,” he growls. “We still have a long way to go. All this Burgundy has to be moved, and then the Bordeaux. If you want your share, you’re going to have to get a little dirty. Stay there! I’ll hand the cases to you, and you stack them on the wagon. It’s too hard getting it over this threshold. And be careful. If you break it, it comes out of your share.”

  The second person grunts something unintelligible from the tunnel. From my vantage point, I can see the back wheels of the wagon, and for the next few minutes, Klinger lifts case after case of wine, setting each on the back of the wagon. A pair of dirt-covered hands then pulls it forward and out of sight. Just as I’m getting really frustrated at not being able to see who it is, the helper in the tunnel backs up to the doorway. I can’t see his face, but I would know that baggy, dirt-brown suit and those clunky black wingtip shoes anywhere—it’s Gordon Winterbottom! For crying out loud!

  Margaret reaches the same conclusion at the same moment, because she turns to me with open mouth, upturned hands, and a look that says, “Once a crook, always a crook.”

  As they continue loading, I try to imagine how this dastardly duo managed to join forces. Seriously, it’s like the Joker and Lex Luthor getting together. Apparently, Gordon’s performance was even more convincing than I originally thought—he fooled us completely. That old so-and-so must have run over to Sturm & Drang the second we left to tell Klinger what we had done, just so he could really stick it to us! When Klinger heard that we would soon have our own key to the cellar, he panicked and headed for the tunnel. And now my old pal Winterpatootie thinks he’s going to get a piece of this million-dollar pie.

  Well, you know what? I don’t think so!

  “Hold it right there, you two!” I shout, surprising everyone—including me.

  Klinger spins around so fast that his face is a blur. “What the … Where did you …?” (Thankfully, he doesn’t drop the case of 1999 Aloxe-Corton he is holding; I hate to think what my dad would have done to him in the face of such senseless destruction—’99 was a very good year, after all.)

  But it’s Gordon’s face that is the real shocker. When I shout, he turns and … and … well, it’s not Gordon Winterbottom at all. It’s Lindsay—wearing one of Gordon’s old three-sizes-too-big suits.

  “Lindsay?” I say. “I thought you were … those clothes … Winterbottom.”

  She just stares at me, so filthy and exhausted that she almost seems glad that they’ve been caught red-, no, make that dirty-handed. She sheds Gordon’s suit, which she has been wearing in place of coveralls, and stands before me in her own tasteful (if a bit young for her) clothes … and those clunky wingtips.

  Klinger, meanwhile, realizes that he’s surrounded by the eight of us (Mr. Applewood chooses to remain safely behind the stacks), so he sets down the case of wine and throws his hands high in the air. “Fine. I give up.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” says Margaret. “Look at those grubby hands, Mr. Klinger. I hope you won’t be handling any of those nice books in your shop in this condition.”

  “You girls really are … exasperating,” he says.

  An enormous grin splits Margaret’s face. “You know, even if there hadn’t been a single bottle of wine back here, it still would have been worth all this effort just to hear you say that.”

  We spend the next hour lugging cases of wine back from the basement of Sturm & Drang to Mr. Dedm
ann’s secret cellar. Shelley has decided not to involve the police, as long as all the wine is returned, and appoints my dad supervisor of that effort. Dad is a nervous wreck, and there are some cases that he won’t even let us kids touch.

  “I’d rather do it myself,” he says, as if it’s his wine! “It’s better than watching you drop a case of Romanée-Conti.”

  The tunnel, we learn from the exhausted, defeated Lindsay, was built by Dedmann for his own escape from the FBI, when they came knocking.

  “But they never did,” she adds. “He was smarter than they were, I’m afraid. Soon the war was over, and Dedmann was a man without a country, in a sense. He had a fortune, thanks to his years in the black market … and nothing to do, no one to fear. He spent the next sixty years pretending to be someone he wasn’t.”

  “And collecting wine,” adds Dad.

  “If I had to guess,” says Lindsay, “I would say that, like most German spies of that time, he spent some time in England and France, where he probably developed a taste for … the finer things. Things he wouldn’t have found in Germany in the 1920s and ’30s.”

  As I glance around the wine cellar, I wonder: how many more secrets are hidden away, just waiting to be discovered? Something tells me that the Third Wise Man has a few tricks up his sleeve yet.

  Leigh Ann looks down the dark length of the tunnel. “There’s still one thing I don’t get. Why did he dig a tunnel to the bookstore’s basement?”

  Margaret nods. “Good question.” She turns to Klinger. “And why did you wait until now to do anything?”

  Lindsay answers for him. “Because he didn’t know about the tunnel until I showed him the plans for this house.”

  Margaret nudges me with an elbow. “See! Just like I said!”

  Lindsay continues, “As for the tunnel, it leads there because, one, it’s close by, and two, Dedmann owned that building, too. Before he sold it to Marcus’s father in the sixties, he walled up the tunnel. By then, he was certain that he would never need it.”

  “Right there … all those years,” mutters Klinger. “My own basement. Two measly inches of concrete. And Dedmann never let on.”

  “His real name was Neuner,” says Becca. “Kaspar Neuner.”

  Klinger’s bottom lip trembles, and Lindsay gasps.

  “How do you know that?” she asks. “What did you find? Where are his secret files? Please, you have to show me. I’ve waited years to see them. That man killed my grandfather. They could help me finally prove it.”

  “I don’t know about any secret files,” Becca answers. “His name was written in the stars, just like he said it would be. You know the big table with the Milky Way painted on it? It’s right there, plain as can be.”

  As you can imagine, that takes a little explaining.

  After we reveal the name written in the Milky Way, Leigh Ann tells Dad, “Sophie’s the one who figured it out.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” I say modestly. “We all did it. And it was my aunt Noëlle who really deserves the credit.”

  Dad’s head tilts several degrees to the left. “Ma soeur? Noëlle? What did she do?”

  “She sent me this Christmas card,” I say, holding up the “magic” card with the red cellophane.

  “Oh. I think I’m getting a headache from trying to keep up with you, Sophie.”

  “It’s never boring, though, is it?” I say, thoroughly satisfied with myself.

  “Well, what do you think, Mr. Applewood?” Shelley asks, sweeping her arm around the room and its contents. “Do you think I have enough here to start a nice little art school?”

  “And then some,” Mr. Applewood answers.

  “How about you, Mr. St. Pierre? You’re the wine expert here. What do you think?”

  Dad scratches his chin. “I think you could open three schools.”

  Seriously, I think I’m going to have to draw the kid a picture

  When we are certain that all the wine is back where it belongs, we send Klinger and Lindsay scurrying on their way through the tunnel. Dad, meanwhile, finds some scraps of wood to wedge into the doorframe to ensure that there won’t be any more unwelcome visitors to the secret cellar.

  “And now I think we celebrate,” says Shelley. “Upstairs, everyone. I have champagne for the grown-ups and ginger ale for the rest of you. I still can’t believe it; I feel like my feet aren’t touching the ground. How can I ever thank you girls?”

  “Just get this school up and running,” Margaret says.

  “And give Mr. Winterbottom a chance,” I add, feeling a little guilty that I was so quick to assume he had stabbed us in the back. “You know, now that we’ve kept the world safe from the evil clutches of Marcus Klinger, and since it wasn’t Gordon down there helping him, we still have one more job to do.”

  “Gordon and Winnie?” Margaret asks.

  “Yep,” I say. “And this time, I have a plan. We have to head down to Elizabeth and Malcolm’s when we leave here. Apparently, Malcolm made his famous eggnog and is cooking a giant ‘roast beast.’ Elizabeth left me a message saying that she remembered something Winnie told her a long time ago. When I called her back, she wouldn’t tell me over the phone. I think she just wants to make sure we really come.”

  Upstairs in the formal dining room, we toast our success with enthusiastic clinking of crystal champagne flutes. After wishing Shelley well in her new life, and promising to keep in touch, we say our good-byes to her; Mr. Applewood; Livvy, whose parents are waiting for her at home (and who promises to meet us Saturday night at Perkatory); and Dad, who has to hurry downtown to the restaurant.

  “Nobody will believe me when I tell them what I’ve seen here,” he says, before adding, “Sophie—call your mother and tell her where you’re going. And don’t be late. And stay with Margaret.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her,” says Margaret.

  Rebecca comes between Raf and me, putting her arms around our shoulders. “Yeah, and I’ll sit between these two crazy kids.”

  “Gee, thanks for offering to be my personal chaperone, Becca,” I say, “but Raf has to leave, too.”

  “ ’Fraid so,” Raf says. “Family stuff.”

  “You sound thrilled about that,” says Leigh Ann.

  “I’m gonna end up babysitting a bunch of my cousins,” he groans. “They’re all brats.”

  I take Raf by the arm. “I, um, need to talk to you. Let’s go outside for a minute.”

  “You want me to go with her, Mr. S.?” Becca says. “You know, just to make sure there’s no monkey business.”

  “I take back all the nice things I’ve ever said about you, Becca,” I say, slamming the door in her face.

  The temperature has dropped in the two hours that we were inside, and we’re both shivering as we stand outside Mr. Dedmann’s—make that Mr. Neuner’s—front door.

  “I just want to make sure we’re still on for tomorrow,” I say. “You are going to make it to Perkatory, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll be there, I promise,” he says. “Unless—”

  “No! No ‘unless’! I’m leaving for France on Sunday—for ten days!”

  “Okay, okay. If my mom says anything, I’ll just tell her … something.”

  “That’s better.” I lead him out of the porch light and away from the line of sight of the Rebeccarazzi. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” I say, tilting my head to the side and breaking out my sure-thing, kiss-me-you-fool smile.

  Arggghhh! Raf totally misses the signs! He gives me a quick brotherly hug, and bops down the steps, shouting, “See ya tomorrow! Call me!”

  Walking into Elizabeth’s townhouse is like walking into a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. The fireplace, crackling and hissing, gives the room a warm, golden glow, aided by the dozen burning candles on the carved mantel. In one corner stands a ten-foot Christmas tree, simply, yet tastefully decorated, with stacks of color-coordinated packages beneath.

  Elizabeth, who is famous for her over-the-top outfits
, has outdone herself: she’s a vision in red-and-green checked slacks and green turtleneck, topped off with the red blazer she bought to match ours—and a Santa hat.

  “Girls!” she cries when Malcolm ushers us into the living room. “I was so afraid I wouldn’t get to see you all before Christmas. Come and sit in front of the fire—you must be freezing. Now, you’ve got to have a glass of Malcolm’s homemade eggnog.” She leans in and whispers, “Pretend you like it even if you don’t; otherwise, he’ll pout.”

  “I heard that!” says Malcolm. “But I’m not concerned. It’s simply inconceivable that they won’t like it. People rave about it.”

  Maybe it’s the atmosphere—the roaring fire, the Christmas tree, being surrounded by my best friends—but Malcolm’s eggnog is right up there with the best things I’ve ever had to drink.

  “It’s … incredible,” Leigh Ann says, agreeing with the yummy noises I’m making.

  Malcolm thumbs his nose at Elizabeth and sits on the arm of the couch. “Now, don’t you have a little something else for these young ladies?” he asks.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” says Elizabeth, springing to her feet and running to the tree. She digs into the piles of presents and returns with a single elegantly wrapped gift.

  Margaret starts to protest. “You shouldn’t have bought us any—”

  “Nonsense,” says Elizabeth. “It’s just a little something I had my friend Susanna put together. She has a small jewelry store downtown.”

  “Well, go ahead,” Malcolm orders. “Open it.”

  On the count of three, we tear off the paper and pop open the black jewelry box.

  Resting on the velvet surface inside is a half-dollar-size bronze coin that has been cut into four equal wedges, with a black silk cord looped through each.

  “It’s a copy of a piece my father found in France,” says Elizabeth. “He was leading an excavation around Rocamadour and it turned up—it’s the only one like it. No one knows for sure who the woman is whose face is on it, but when some of the local diggers started calling it the St. Veronica coin, the name stuck. The original is in the Metropolitan Museum, of course.”