by Nydam, Anne
A portal had opened again beside Chen, Polly, and Matias. Tobal strode through, heading away from the hidden children, around the tropical greenery at the center of the greenhouse, to meet Ammon Blank on the far side.
“Did you bring everything?” Mr Blank called out.
“I’m prepared to give you everything we can,” Tobal replied, raising Benjamin Franklin’s metal box so that the other man could see it. “Here’s the deal: we’ve got an answer for each of the clues, but you’ll have to figure out how they go together. Here’s the box with the key and the instructions for claiming the fund. Now, where is Mr Green?”
“Safe,” Ammon Blank replied with a smirk. “But I said I wanted the completed password. And I need the third magic Book.”
“You can’t have it. We’re offering you everything we know about getting the Franklin treasure. That’s the deal.”
“And I said the deal was the treasure and the Book. Do you want your friend back or not?”
Chen felt sweat seeping through his T-shirt in the tropical atmosphere. Polly was tense beside him, but he kept his eyes fixed on the two men beneath the palm tree.
A note of steel entered Tobal’s voice and it suddenly occurred to Chen that no matter how nice Mr Salceda was, a real wizard would be a dangerous person to cross. He wondered whether he really could do newts if he wanted to. The wizard said, “I suggest you accept the treasure and be satisfied, Mr Blank. A dead body in a safe won’t do you any good, will it?”
Chen felt Polly go rigid and he clutched her shoulder in warning. But she restrained herself and made not a sound. Chen wasn’t sure she was even breathing. Matias, glancing across her to Chen, put a hand on her other shoulder in a soothing gesture.
“All right,” Ammon Blank snapped, “Give me what you’ve got.”
Tobal handed him the box, which he popped open eagerly. After checking the contents, he nodded briskly. “Right. You’ll see your friend once the money is safely deposited in my bank account.” Then he flipped open his Book and disappeared through the page.
Back in Pearl’s crowded living room, Polly finally exploded. “That nasty, lying murderer! We gave him the treasure, and Raphael could be dying, and he still won’t let him go! We can’t wait any longer. We have to rescue him!”
Chen suggested hesitantly, “Maybe we could just make another effort to solve the password so that Ammon Blank will get the money right away.”
Polly looked mutinous, and Tobal said rather grimly, “I want to know what he’s up to. But you may as well try working on that password again while I see if I can figure out his plan.”
“Maybe we should figure out our plan,” Polly muttered, crossing her arms.
Matias said, “I didn’t bring my notebook. What did we have so far?”
“4, music, 8, rich, hard,” Chen recited.
“Who’s Richard?” Ms Whitaker asked, “I’m sorry; my hearing’s not what it was, dear. Do you mean Benjamin Franklin’s Almanac Poor Richard?”
“That’s it!” yelped Polly, so suddenly that Matias jumped and knocked over a stack of travel magazines balanced precariously on the little table beside him. Matias blushed and hastily bent to gather up the magazines, but Polly didn’t even seem to have noticed. “It’s not music, it’s tune! 4 tune 8 – fortunate! Get it? Fortunate Richard! Instead of the Poor Richard fund it’s the Fortunate Richard fund!”
“That totally makes sense,” Chen agreed excitedly, “You’ve done it, Polly!”
Now Mr Salceda looked up from the spy key sticking up from Plate XXXII. “What’s that? You figured out the password? Well done. I’m having trouble figuring out what’s going on with Blank’s Books and I want to try a more powerful scrying spell. Let’s get back home so I have more to work with.” He put the spy key back in his pocket and took out the Dragon Book’s key instead. Then he flipped to the picture of his own front door.
Pearl said, “Are you leaving already? But this is getting so exciting! Do let me come along; I’ve always wanted to go through a magical doorway.”
Tobal looked doubtful. “I’m not sure whether we’d be able to send you home afterwards, Ms Whitaker. It’s Mr Blank who has the Book with the portal to your house.”
“That’s all right. Let me just get my purse and a cardigan and I’ll be ready for anything. And really, you know, my dear, I might be able to help. I’m happy to do anything I can.”
Polly beamed gratefully at Ms Whitaker, and Tobal raised his eyes heavenward in resignation.
“Okay. But you’ve been warned.” He opened Plate XLVII and ushered everyone through into his front hall, where Uber leapt lightly down from the top of the Newel post and came to greet Polly. The falcon called shrilly from the top of the living room shelves.
“Matias, go fetch the scrying scope, please. We’ll work downstairs so everyone can see. It’s clear I won’t have any peace if I try to get anything done on my own.”
“Okay, Uncle Tobal.” Matias made a quick gesture with one hand and threw back the magical screen blocking the stairs, then ran up two steps at a time. In a moment he was back, carrying a black leather case, which he thumped down on the coffee table.
“Careful!” admonished Tobal, crossly, “A wizard who doesn’t take care of his equipment won’t last long.”
“Sorry, Uncle Tobal.”
Mr Salceda opened the case and brought out something that looked rather like an old-fashioned brass microscope, with a double tube at the top to look into and several knobs on the side. Instead of a flat stage for a microscope slide, however, there was a low tripod on which sat a shallow black bowl carved from a solid nodule of polished obsidian. Into this bowl Tobal placed several ingredients from various small vials packed neatly in the case.
Polly fidgeted impatiently, scuffing her sneaker against the floor, while Pearl began to browse the antique books on Tobal’s shelves. “And you really do real magic, do you? Oh, this is wonderful.”
Tobal didn’t answer, too busy concentrating on measuring things into the obsidian bowl. Matias watched his uncle intently, and Chen watched, too, trying to keep himself from imagining all the bad things that were likely to happen. What if Ammon Blank started stealing things from the Cleveland Museum of Art and Chen’s parents got blamed? What if Raphael Green died in the bank vault? What if Mr Blank caught all of them, and put them all in the safe to die slowly in agony together? It didn’t take anything as ridiculous as cannibal cults to make a horrible end to this story.
Finally Mr Salceda pulled a few medium brown hairs carefully out of his shirt pocket and laid them atop everything else under the lens of the scrying scope. “I swiped these from Ammon Blank when we met in the greenhouse,” he explained, “A spell like this needs a focus to pin it to its subject, and anything with DNA is perfect. Plus hair isn’t as disgusting to collect as toenails. Matias, distilled water, please.”
“Oh right. I forgot.” Matias loped upstairs once again, and was soon back with a crystal flask which he set on the table very gently.
“That’s it,” Tobal said, taking the stopper out of the flask and pouring the water right up to the rim of the obsidian bowl. “Now, everyone be as still as you can. If the water’s jiggling I won’t be able to see clearly.”
The children held their breath, and after a moment Tobal slowly and carefully lowered his eyes to the eyepiece and began to adjust the knobs.
“Hmm… He’s in some sort of office or waiting room… Standard corporate blue carpet… He’s staring at the clues we gave him for the password. It looks like he’s still trying to figure it out. Ah, here comes someone to show him into a cubicle.”
Tobal straightened up and let Matias peer briefly through the eyepiece, and then Chen and Polly.
Visible through the scrying scope, Mr Blank was wearing his grey suit again, and looking utterly respectable. He politely removed his fedora with a charming flourish as he spoke with the young woman in the cubicle. The expression on his nondescript face was both bland and innocent, as if he spent his time s
o occupied with filling out forms or putting files in alphabetical order that such outrageous acts as theft, kidnapping, and murder would never even cross his mind. But as Chen watched he stole another frustrated glance at his list of clue answers.
Matias asked, “If he hasn’t figured out the password yet, will they give him the fund?”
“And if they don’t give him the fund, will he let Raphael free?” added Polly anxiously.
Chen suggested, “Maybe we should go and let him know the actual password, just to make sure.”
Tobal gazed into the scrying scope again, adjusting the knobs slightly. “He’s told them what he wants, that he needs to speak to the Manager of the Affairs of M. Joseph Charles, I guess. The woman looks puzzled. She’s probably telling him she’ll need to go ask a supervisor.” He raised his face and looked around at the children and Ms Whitaker. “I’m not sure what to say. If we don’t go there, we have no way of knowing exactly what’s going on - whether he’s succeeding in getting the fund, when he’s supposed to get the money, and when Mr Green is going to be released. But if we do go, I’m bringing you all into danger. It’s bad enough for me to endanger Matias, but at least your mom and dad know there’s a certain amount of risk when they leave you with a crazy uncle like me.” He smiled quickly, but his face remained grim. “As for Polly and Chen, I can’t possibly justify…” He let his sentence trail off, shaking his head.
“I want to go,” Polly repeated stubbornly.
Ms Whitaker said, “Mr Salceda, dear, he’s in a bank. Surely it would be safe enough to go there. What could he possibly do to anyone in a bank?”
“Lock them in a safe to die!” blurted Chen.
Pearl shook her head. “But not in this bank. Not when the bank manager’s right there interviewing him, surely! The risk of going together in a group to a public place like this seems relatively low, but the risk to Polly’s friend Raphael if we don’t go seems awfully high. Too high. We can’t sit here just watching and hoping when a man’s life is at stake.”
Tobal still looked unhappy. “Maybe you should call your parents first and get permission.”
“We don’t have time!” cried Polly in frustration, “Please, we just need to go!”
Finally Tobal nodded and opened the Dragon Book once again to Plate XXXII for the Wreath Book, which Blank must have used to get to Boston. “But I want Ms Whitaker to stay here and hold down the fort. The rest of you stay close to me and don’t do anything rash. Is that understood? Polly? I mean it. Okay then, here we go.”
XVII. The Affairs of M. Joseph Charles
The bank manager looked up from the folder on his desk, frowning at the untidy group who had just barged into his office without warning.
“Excuse me very much,” he said briskly, “But this is a private meeting. If you will please wait outside I’m sure someone can assist you shortly.”
Tobal said quickly, “Forgive the interruption, but we need to speak with the Manager of the Affairs of M. Joseph Charles about the Benjamin Franklin fund.”
The manager looked back and forth between Ammon Blank and the others. “Oh, I’m very sorry. Are you together?”
Simultaneously, Mr Salceda answered, “Yes,” while Mr Blank exclaimed “No!”
The bank manager was a short, brisk man with crisp grey hair and a crisp grey mustache. For a moment he was silent, assessing the five people crowded into his small, neat office. There was the eminently respectable-looking man in a respectable grey suit who had arrived first, and the somewhat less respectable-looking man with wild tousled hair and wrinkled khakis. There were also three middle school-aged children: a tall boy with wild tousled hair and glasses, a shorter boy with straight black hair and worried eyebrows, and a gawky girl wearing rainbow-colored plaid shorts, a bright blue hip pouch, and a collection of bruises on her arms, knees, and forehead. The manager straightened his wire-rimmed spectacles and looked again at the folder on his desk, as if drawing strength from the official documents there.
When he spoke, his words were as neatly clipped as his mustache. “I see. Let me begin by introducing myself. I am Praket Rajagopal, and I am the current Manager of the Affairs of M. Joseph Charles. When I am invoked, my charge is to proceed through a series of questions in order to determine whether or not the conditions of Dr Franklin’s special bequest are met. Before we can begin, I need to understand whether you are here as a single group hoping to qualify for the fund together, or whether you are each making a separate claim for the fund I have the honor to administer.” He looked over them all, his black eyes bright and curious.
Before anyone else could speak, the man in the respectable grey suit protested, “These people have nothing to do with me, sir. They must be imposters hoping to take advantage of my knowledge to claim the fund for themselves. I can only say that I have confidence that such double-dealing persons will always regret their dishonesty in the end.” Here he glared at them meaningfully.
The lanky, rumpled man raised his eyebrows and said mildly, “Actually, we’re here to help you, Mr Blank. We came to tell you the password, since I believe you don’t have that piece of information yet.”
“You came to help me?” Blank repeated, voice heavy with sarcasm.
The others all nodded, and the girl said with a glare just as fierce as Blank’s, “We’d do anything for our friends, remember?”
Mr Rajagopal watched this exchange curiously. Now he said, “Interesting. Well, perhaps we should begin and see where this leads. Shall we?
“So, the first requirement is that you should ask for the Manager of the Affairs of M. Joseph Charles, which both parties have now done. The second requirement is that you should produce the key to the strongbox in which the deeds to the Franklin fund are kept.” He looked up at them questioningly.
“Mr Blank has the key,” Polly said helpfully, as Ammon Blank pulled it from his pocket and placed it on Mr Rajagopal’s polished desk.
The manager picked it up, examined it closely, referred back to the papers on his desk, and examined the key again before setting it down in front of him. “Very good, that seems to be in order. If it is not the correct key, of course, that will become evident when we proceed to the safe.”
At the word “safe,” Polly looked distraught again, and Chen put his hand on her shoulder awkwardly. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, but right now he was too concerned about Polly and her mom’s assistant and the Franklin fund to worry about whether anyone would think he was weird for patting a girl’s shoulder so much.
Mr Rajagopal looked up from his folder, fixed Mr Blank with a beady stare, and continued, “Thirdly, I must ask how you discovered the clues left by Mr Franklin.”
“I found the clues in Franklin’s copy of The Extraordinary Book of Doors, of course. I went to each of the locations indicated by Franklin and just followed the clues.”
“And how did you discover The Extraordinary Book of Doors?”
With a pleasant smile Ammon Blank replied blandly, “I borrowed the book from this young lady’s mother.”
Tobal had to place his hand firmly on Polly’s other shoulder to restrain her outraged squawk. She turned her sputtered protest into a cough, and said with false cheerfulness, “Fun art fact brought to you by Goggin Antiques: keys in ancient Rome were often shaped into rings. People wore their keys as jewelry because they wanted everyone to see they were rich enough to have something worth locking up.”
Mr Blank shot back, “You’d better think hard about how much you value what I locked up.”
Mr Rajagopal looked sharply back and forth between Polly and Ammon Blank. “Interesting,” he said again. “And next I must ask how you intend to use the fund?”
Mr Blank’s ingratiating smile didn’t falter. “This money will be such a wonderful opportunity, sir. I have a younger brother who, but for this fund, would be unable to continue his education. He shows such promise, Mr Rajagopal, and yet to have his promise denied for lack of money has been a cruel, cruel thing f
or my dear mother and me to watch. But now he’ll be able to go back to graduate school, and then I hope to set him up as my partner.” Ammon Blank hesitated a moment, seeming to feel that the last bit sounded self-serving. He added, “And of course I intend to set up a scholarship to educate and enable other underprivileged youth, and fund schools and libraries, and so on...”
“That sounds very noble indeed,” Mr Rajagopal commented dryly, looking at his folder of papers once again. “And now, the watchword, if you please?”
Blank opened his mouth. “Well, ah…”
“Fortunate Richard,” supplied Tobal, “The password is Fortunate Richard.”
Mr Rajagopal nodded briskly. “That seems to be in order. But I do have one more question for you, Mr Blank. Why is it that he is the one with the watchword, while you are the one applying to receive the Fortunate Richard Fund?”
“I have the key,” Ammon Blank declared, “And we made a deal.”
“May I ask the nature of this deal?”
“That’s not the bank’s business. I’ve given you the password and the key, and that ought to be enough.”
“I see.” The bank manager turned his sharp gaze questioningly on the others.
After a moment’s hesitation Polly said earnestly, “We just want Mr Blank to get the money as soon as possible. It’s very important to us that he get it without delay.”
“Interesting.” Mr Rajagopal looked back down at his papers one more time, then picked them up and straightened them with a brisk tap on the desk. He laid the folder neatly centered in front of him before looking once more at each of the people crowded into his office. “The next step is to proceed to the safe, remove the deposit box entrusted to us by Dr Franklin’s trustee, and confirm that your key is indeed the one Dr Franklin cached. Unfortunately, it is already 4:46 PM. I’m afraid that we close at five o’clock and our safe is always secured fifteen minutes before closing time. I’m sorry to say that you’ll have to come back tomorrow morning.”