by R L Wagner
“No way!” Benny stopped, looked over it all, and ran through the totems, around the train, and past the statues, into the store entry.
“What?” I called, running after him. I stopped, seeing it.
Benny plopped himself in a big, leather chair at a long, wooden desk in the center of what was clearly Uncle Scott’s office. Slowly, almost reverently, he placed his hand on the computer keyboards that lie waiting before him. A single thunderous note announced the appearance of colorful fireworks and scrolling historical images that exploded across the three enormous flat screen monitors that spanned the desk. Benny was helpless.
“This is what I’m talking about!” After one silent push of a button, Benny sat lost to his first love, computer technology.
I walked through the clothing racks and shelves that lined the windows flanking the entrance to this new room. To the right, the men’s clothes, shoes, boots, hats, bags, and accessories, were representative of many cultures and time periods. At the left window, the collection continued; it included women’s and children’s clothes.
“Uncle Scott has games I’ve never even heard of before!” Benny shouted, totally stoked.
I was too. Clearly this room was the heart of Uncle Scott’s work. Rows of filing cabinets filled the left wall, and on the opposite side, bookshelves displayed catalogued objects sitting atop colored folders. The back wall was a designated photo studio with a tripod-mounted camera pointing at a gray wall. In the center of the room, a narrow black sign hung from the ceiling. On both sides in gold letters it read: “Expect the Unexpected.”
“Yeah! There! Gotcha! POW! This is totally awesome!” Benny yelled, lost in the virtual world. “Water monsters eat castle dwellers. And it looks so real!” he shrieked. Meanwhile, back in reality, my ears were throbbing in pain from his shouting.
“Benny, look around! I think this is Uncle Scott’s case-solving office! This place must hold all of his notes, all the stories, and all the evidence of the Mystery Buster cases. And look, that’s him there!” I pointed to a large framed photo of Uncle Scott in safari clothes hanging between the bookcases. “Benny! Are you even paying attention?”
“Oh yeah, sure, sorry, Sis,” Benny replied. He got up, walked to Uncle Scott’s photo, and studied it. “Sis...ah Sally, come here quick, I found this.” Next to Uncle Scott’s photo was a large manila envelope push-pinned to the wall, and addressed to Jean, Sally, and Ben DrakeMarshall.
“How did Uncle Scott know to leave us a letter here in his office?” Benny asked, turning away from the envelope and looking straight at me.
“Should we open it or wake Mom?” he asked, with a devilish grin.
Rammie appeared, jumping out of a basket near the photo studio. He ran in staring at us and answered with another enormous meow.
“It’s addressed to all of us so we c an open it.” My curiosity was clouding my judgment. Benny unpinned the envelope and handed it to me. I ripped it open and found a letter and a plastic bag of old silver coins.
“Read it, Sally,” Benny said impatiently.
Dear Jean, Sally, and Ben, Welcome to Clayton, I send you my heart’s wishes and hopes.
As far as I know, we four make up the entire Drake bloodline, unless congratulations or condolences are in order.
“I don’t get it,” Benny interrupted. “Think about it, Benny.” I rolled my eyes as I waited. Boys.
“Oh!” he said.
I kept reading.
However, I trust you are all well. Regrettably, if you are reading this, I might not be.” “Yeah, I would say dying would be considered not well.” Benny blurted. I hushed him and read on.
This letter is my precautionary insurance policy, my hopeful attempt to safeguard myself from a possible future hazard.
“And I don’t get the safeguard insurance part either,” Benny interrupted again.
“Benny, stop talking and just listen!”
I have considered many alternatives and concluded this correspondence is absolutely necessary. I send you these specific emergency instructions, and an attempt to explain this unavoidable glimpse into my life. Shockingly, in doing so, I must also reveal to you ‘my secret’.
My jaw dropped. I held my breath and froze.
“What, Sis?” Benny reacted to my surprise. “What secret is he talking about? Where he got all this stuff?” Benny asked.
My heart pounded with wild excitement. This was too much.
“No. Listen, Benny. Mom told me that once a radio talk show host interviewed Uncle Scott asking how he solved so many mysteries. Mom said he smiled and said simply ‘I have a secret.’ He never said anything like that again, not even when asked. This is huge,” I explained. “Uncle Scott is going to tell us in this letter how he’s done it, what his secret is in solving all these mysteries.” I stood there gleefully, nervous and shaking. Benny sat on the desk quietly. The letter shook in my hands as I kept reading.
I have bequeathed to you this house and its marvelous treasure, the evidence of my life’s investigative work. Indeed, these artifacts might very well be the strangest collection ever assembled by one man; artifacts and relics gathered from around the world and my spectacular journeys traveling across the millennium.
“What’s a millennium?” Benny Asked I put the letter down and looked around, astounded. “It’s the last one thousand years.” I whispered.
“Sis, is he saying that he’s…?” Benny stopped short. Rammie jumped in his lap, purring, and begging for another petting. Rammie rubbed his forehead on Benny’s chin. “He’s head-butting me!”
“I don’t understand this. Let’s see.” I kept reading. “Mystery Buster” is a flattering nickname, given to me by the press as an honorary title in recognition o f my nearly 100 successfully solved cases. Many were complex, some simple, and a few quite harrowing to be sure, but as clever as I might consider myself to be, with most investigations I used my secret to crack the case.
“Here it comes!” In my excitemen t, I started to scan the page quickly. No, I thought. Calm down. Read it line for line. You may miss something important!
Forty years ago, my biggest, yet unsolved mystery came to me in an unmarked crate, delivered anonymously to my home in San Francisco. Inside the crate were two satchels. Each contained a camera.
Pay close attention here - each camera has two gold keys with a stone set into the top of each key. One stone is green, and one stone is red. Each key has two words engraved under it - Off and There. Perhaps now would be an excellent time for you to look around in this office for these two cameras.
“Well there’s a camera right there.” Benny pointed and stood up dumping Rammie off his lap. He ran to the camera mounted on the wooden tripod in the back corner of the office. “This thing looks old. It looks like something out of a cowboy movie.” Rammie and I joined him.
“Yeah!” I agreed. “This camera has two keys with the red and green stones. The red one is set on Off. The green one is turned to There,” I said.
A gray fabric background and a white X painted on the floor lay in front of the camera.
“But what’s this cord with a button on the end?” Benny picked up the shutter release cable. A sudden, blinding burst of green light projected out of the camera lens, instantly filling the entire floor and stairwell. A low, rattling hum
accompanied the pulsating light. We nearly jumped out of our skins. It lasted maybe five long seconds then shut off. We both rubbed our eyes.
“This camera must have been the source of the light we saw up stairs,” I said.
“But I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” Benny shrieked.
“Did you take a picture, Benny?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I never pushed the button. That light just really gives me the creeps,” Benny said, talking with his hands behind his head.
“We were upstairs when we first saw the light,” I said slowly. “So it must go off on its own, that’s the only explanation. I don’t think it’s dangerous though,
Benny. Uncle Scott would have said something if it was.”
“Yeah, let’s hope so,” Benny said.
I noticed above the gray drape, there was a small rectangular glass and wire vent. I looked around the room. There were a lot of them near the ceiling, but with some kind of cover over the glass. This vent’s cover was on the floor however. Because they must be above ground level, this exposed vent must be how the green light escaped and washed over the magnolia tree outside.
“Help me find the second camera,” I said.
“This cat is looking guilty to me, Sis.” Rammie was sitting on a knocked over table. An over turned tea cup was on the floor.
Benny picked up Rammie. “I bet you messed up the table, didn’t you?” he accused politely through a cheesy smile.
“I didn’t know you liked cats, Benny.”
“I guess I like this one.” Rammie meowed and head-butted Benny again.
“And, look! What do we have here?” I said, speaking in my best Sherlock Holmes voice. “A satchel tucked against the side of the table!” I picked it up and hurried back to the desk to examine it.
Benny carried Rammie as he trailed behind me. “What’s a satchel?”
“This bag is a satchel and a really old one. I bet there’s a camera in it.”
“Look, Sis! It’s the one in Uncle Scott’s safari photograph on the wall,” Benny said, pointing. He was right. There in the photo, next to Uncle Scott’s big smile, was the very same bag slung over his left shoulder by its long strap.
The clasp took me a second to open. It had a turn dial on it and a squeeze release. This was pretty high tech for such an old satchel. I opened the flap and I pulled it out. BINGO!
We both said it: “The other camera.”
“Jinx, you owe me a soda!” Benny said.
We shoved each other and laughed. He always gets me with that! We weren’t so scared anymore. This creepy nightmare had turned into a daring adventure. It was like a treasure hunt or the beginning of an elaborate mystery, and that was way okay with me.
I held the camera up to get a good look at it. “There are the two gold keys with the stones turned to Off.” I handed the camera to Benny.
“What else is in the bag, Sis?
“Well, in a plastic bag there’s a cloth napkin that smells surprisingly of vanilla. Also, there’s a travel kit, a ring with some keys and other strange things, a tooth brush, razor, first aid stuff, extra socks and shorts, utility knife, ooh, a gun, some bullets in a plastic bag, a journal with pens, and these,” I said puzzled. I held one in each hand. “Two sharp rounded bones?” I said slowly with a raised eyebrow.
“Sis, we saw these, remember in the books on the upstairs dining table? The dinosaur book was open. Those bones in your hands look like dinosaur teeth.”
I looked down. They really did look like really big teeth. “I think you’re right. Maybe there’s a bit of Uncle Scott in you Benny,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah, well, just saying.” Benny was grinning from ear to ear.
I put everything back in the bag and went back to reading the letter.
I am certain you found both cameras. If you have, I predict there has been a grave accident by my own hand. So, steady yourselves family. Perhaps you should sit down.
I believe I am alive, I am in trouble, and I need your help to get home. “What? Do you think this could be real or some kind of joke? When was this letter written?” Benny asked.
I was thinking the same thing. The letter had no date.
“Uncle Scott addressed the letter to you, me, and Mom, so it can’t be more than three years old.”
“You mean he wrote it after Dad died. Now, I get it. That’s why he said we’re the only four left,” Benny said quietly.
“Yeah that!” I read faster.
You see my dear family these two cameras that came mysteriously to me years ago in San Francisco, are my guarded secret. I shall explain:
When you take your picture holding an object, say a spoon, or a knife, or a book, an object that may be the very clue and the heart of the mystery itself, if the camera’s green stone key is turned to There, the camera sends you to the place of that object’s prior location – THERE.
“Sis, this night is working on my nerves, are we hearing this right? Uncle Scott gone to another place, maybe to another time, and . . . and Sis, it’s gotta be some mystery joke that we aren’t getting.”
“But, I think that is what it says.” I reread that part a couple more times slowly aloud. “If the camera’s green stone key is turned to There, the camera sends you to the place of that object’s prior location – THERE.”
“This must be a joke.” Benny picked up Rammie.
“But if it’s a joke, how do you explain all
this stuff in Uncle Scott’s collection? Those
books are really old; some are even signed by
the authors and are first editions. The paintings,
the scrolls, the boats – they all look real. Why
would he fake all those old antiques out there
and have no one, maybe not even us, here to
know about it?”
Instead of answering, Benny started his
familiar dance. “I need to use the bathroom.” He
dropped Rammie and scurried out of the office,
running fast between the black statues.
I sat down. I decided to finish the letter
when he came back. I looked at the camera on
the desk and over to the tripod camera. I looked
at the two dinosaur teeth on top of the satchel,
examined closer the camera’s two gold red and
green keys, and stared at the big framed
photograph of Uncle Scott hanging on the wall.
He was wearing his safari outfit and the satchel.
He sported rolled-up sleeves, brown suspenders,
and a big grin. Uncle Scott had a nice smile. It
didn’t look like a joking smile. He looked like he
was genuinely happy. He was in his mid sixties
in the picture, but he looked much younger, and
happier than most aging men. The roar of a
flushing toilet broke my train of thought. “Much better!” Benny trotted back in.
“You won’t believe this, Sis. There’s a bathroom
under the stairs, and it looks really, really, really
old.”
Benny and I took a second and then burst
out laughing hard. We had the sillies, and we
needed to laugh really, really, really badly. “Keep reading,” Benny said after we
caught our breath. He sat back down on the
desk.
If my concern in this letter is correct, I have accidentally, before I was fully ready, taken my picture with an artifact in hand and traveled to that object’s last origin, THERE.
I believe I am very much alive in another place, and living in another time, but sadly, I am without my second camera and its green stone key to bring me home.
Specific details of both cameras’ operating
instructions are in my journal. There is a second copy taped to the back of the safari photograph hanging on the wall. Everything else you need is in the satchel.
So my dear family, please come for me and bring me the second camera. Together we will share an adventure and return safely home.
All my hopes,
Your Great Uncle Scott Louis Drake P.S. If you see a big black cat, he’s mine. His name is Rammie after the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. He was a kitten in Egypt when I found him, May 4, 1921.
My memory of that night and the events that followed, are wondrous and unforgettable. Uncle Scott’s unbelievable request called to us with a promise of unexpected hope and incredible adventure.
5 The Green Key
“Do you believe it, Sis? I believe it. Do you believe it?” Benny whispered excitedly and swung his hands around with every word.
“Sis, I believe it, all of it! Do you?” Benny said, whispering louder and staring at me like his eyes would pop like over-pumped balloons.
“Maybe… I probably do,” I whispered back, shutting the bookcase door.
Benny and Rammie followed me to my bedroom. They sat on the big chair and I sat on my bed, looking out at the magnolia night blooms. I was lost in thought. I took a deep breath. I opened the satchel and grabbed the journal that explained how the camera worked. Holding it, I felt closer to Uncle Scott than ever. Could he really be alive and actually needing us? I closed my eyes thinking about it, everything, and wrestling with Benny’s question. Benny remained quiet.
“I believe it all.” I stared out the window again then closed my eyes, determined. “Uncle Scott is alive, and needs our help. Now his secret is our secret too.” There. I said it.
“Well, when do we leave?” Benny pulled one of the dinosaur teeth out of the satchel, holding it up for me to see.