by Lauren Child
‘What have you got?’ asked Blacker.
Only then did Ruby look up. She was in a kind of daze and answered him as if they happened to be right in the middle of a long conversation and he had been standing there for the past several hours.
‘You see there is another poem,’ said Ruby, ‘it’s listed in the index, but when I looked for it I couldn’t find it. There should be twenty-seven poems but I could only count twenty-six. Poem fourteen seemed to be missing.’ She paused. ‘But it is there, it’s just that the poet hid it.’ She looked at Blacker to make sure he was following. ‘It’s entitled, You Are a Poem, Celeste and it’s buried in the lines of the others, through the centre of each page – in other words, line fourteen.’
‘How do you figure that?’ asked Blacker.
‘Easy, the title of the book is telling us that.’
Blacker smiled. A Line Through My Centre. Of course.
Ruby opened the book at page 3, where the poems began. She wrote down the first word of the fourteenth line (the very middle line), turned the page and wrote down the second word of the fourteenth line, turned the page and wrote down the third word of the fourteenth line and so on, until she had one continuous line of poetry stretching across the page.
you are a poem, Celeste, as you tread a barely there line, stolen in steps am I, transfixed by tiny feet that mar nothing as they go.
‘The final line of the poem works differently, it falls down the edge of page 28 which is actually the acknowledgments page, the last word of each sentence reading as one vertical sentence. Like this –’ and Ruby wrote it down for him so he could see what she meant –
What
is
it
about
their
tap
tap
tap
that
makes
me
want
to
fall?
‘Tap tap tap?’ said Blacker. ‘That has to relate to the cards.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ruby. ‘And maybe the tap shoes.’
‘The Little Yellow Shoes,’ said Blacker.
‘Uh huh,’ Ruby nodded. ‘The character in the film, Celeste, tap-dances in them, and then of course there’s the treading a barely there line which makes me think of a tightrope walker, which makes me think of the skywalker.’
Blacker whistled – he could see it all. ‘But what do the numbers on the cards have to do with this? You said you thought you’d figured them out.’
‘OK,’ said Ruby. ‘Once I figured out that the poetry book contained a hidden poem, it occurred to me that the book might also hold the key to the messages, I mean, this isn’t a random steal, right? So I tried something real simple.’ Ruby set the list of decoded number messages on the table in front of her.
‘OK, see here,’ she said, ‘these are our numbers, three for each of the four cards.’
3 14 1
10 14 8
15 14 13
17 14 15
‘I thought it was some complicated code at first, but it isn’t – it’s actually super basic. I mean, this guy’s no code freak. It was an old sign for a crossword club that made me think of it – “Two Across” the place was called. So I thought, what if these numbers just tell you how to find a word on a page?’
‘I see where you’re headed,’ said Blacker.
‘Exactly, it’s one of the simplest forms of code. The first column relates to the page number, the second to the line number and the third to the word number.’
She picked up a yellow highlighter and drew the colour over the first word in the book – page 3, line 14, word 1.
you
Then page 10, line 14, word 8.
tread
Page 15, line 14, word 13.
stolen
And finally, page 17, line 14, word 15.
steps
‘You tread stolen steps,’ said Blacker. ‘It sounds sorta like a threat.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Ruby, ‘but just who is being threatened here?’
Ruby looked again at the photograph of George Katsel and Norgaard Senior – so many of the clues seemed to involve Katsel.
‘I think it’s all about George Katsel,’ said Ruby. ‘He directed The Cat that Got the Canary; he was connected to Norgaard, the current owner of the yellow feather paperweight; and Mr Okra’s copy of the poetry book was inscribed To my darling Cat from your Celeste. Frederick Lutz told me that George Katsel was nicknamed “the Cat”. Margo Bardem played a character called Celeste in Katsel’s The Cat that Got the Canary, and I think she must have given him that book, around the time they fell in love or got married or whatever.’
‘OK,’ agreed Blacker, ‘so far your theory hangs together.’
George Katsel, thought Ruby.
She looked at the photograph of him and Norgaard again. What else could it tell her? His smart suit, his buttonhole of exotic flowers, his elegant tie held in place with a tie-clip. . .
‘Do you have a magnifying glass?’ asked Ruby.
‘You going all Sherlock Holmes on me?’ said Blacker rummaging in his desk. ‘Here.’ He handed her the glass and Ruby held it over the photograph.
‘He has a tie-clip engraved with the king’s crest,’ she said slowly. ‘It looks identical to Mr Thompson’s tie-clip.’
‘Well what do you know,’ marvelled Blacker, taking the magnifier and looking for himself.
Ruby began to draw a spider map, a web of lines that all now led to George Katsel.
Chapter 43.
The Celeste
BLACKER STOOD UP. ‘I’m going to have Froghorn print out all the information we have on George Katsel – newspaper stories, biographical stuff and what have you.’
He stepped out, and Ruby thought he would be gone a while, but she was underestimating the Silent G.
Miles Froghorn might be a very difficult individual but he was a very efficient and thorough research agent and before long there was a stack of paper on the desk, all relating to Katsel. Ruby and Blacker sifted through the stories and reports on the life and career of this successful director. He had been married five times, had seven children and made more than thirty successful movies and many more somewhat less glittering. He had died only two years earlier, having enjoyed a long and – it seemed – happy life.
Many of the newspaper stories were accompanied by photographs of George, his various wives, children, movie collaborators and well-known friends. He was always immaculately turned out, whether pictured on a yacht on the phone, or on a red carpet. If he wore a tie then it was always fastened with a tie-clip and if he wore a jacket he always wore an orchid flower in his buttonhole.
Ruby sat back in her chair and looked at the pictures spread out as they were, all across the table.
‘Well,’ said Blacker, ‘to begin with he’s dead so he’s clearly not our thief and whoever our thief is, he clearly isn’t trying to get Katsel’s attention – but if not Katsel’s then whose?’
Ruby thought of the cards, the TAP TAP TAP TAP, the hidden message. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘The messages are not for Katsel but I think the skywalker is trying to tell us something about him. The question is: what?’
Blacker looked at the papers and photos. ‘Beats me.’
‘One thing that strikes me about old George,’ said Ruby. ‘He seemed to have a bit of a thing for yellow and pink streaked flowers. In every single photo, he’s wearing an orchid as a buttonhole.’
‘Expensive taste, too,’ said Blacker, ‘that particular orchid is very rare.’
‘How do you happen to know that?’ asked Ruby, kind of surprised.
‘Ah, once, back when, I had to work undercover tracking down some orchid smugglers. I learned a lot about the business – you get some highly valuable orchids, I can tell you that much. This one, for example, is worth more than a few dollars.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Ruby.
‘That orchid,’ said Blacker, ‘small yel
low flowers with those vivid pink markings, it’s called a Celeste.’
‘A what?’ said Ruby. She’d heard him clearly enough but she felt the need for him to say it again.
Blacker looked at Ruby and Ruby looked back at Blacker and Ruby smiled and then Blacker smiled.
Celeste was a name that was coming up almost as often as George.
‘This Celeste orchid, could it be the next item on the skywalker’s list?’ said Ruby.
‘I think it could,’ agreed Blacker.
Froghorn took no time in calling every supplier and collector in the city – there were five who grew Celestes and within a half-hour all of them were being watched by the Twinford City Police Department.
‘Maybe we’ll actually catch this clown,’ said Blacker, as he got ready to leave Spectrum 8 and join forces with TCPD.
‘Could I, you know, tag along?’ asked Ruby.
‘Ah, I wish you could,’ said Blacker. ‘But you know how it is with this whole grounded situation. They would probably demote me right back down to coffee boy if I took you along.’ He gave her a sympathetic look. ‘You know if it were up to me. . . well, you know.’
She did know and she smiled.
‘You know Ruby, you’re one darned superkid,’ said Blacker, shaking her by the hand, then he turned and made for the door.
Now alone, Ruby considered the Escape Watch messages. How did they fit into all of this? She took them out and studied the three coded transmissions, searching for a pattern that might lead her to make sense of them but she couldn’t and her mind wandered back to George Katsel. Her eyes moved over the desk still strewn with papers and photographs all to do with him.
There was something that hadn’t quite clicked into place, but she couldn’t seem to put her finger on it. She sifted through the pile of interviews and articles and two caught her attention, both feature pieces on George Katsel and his gardener. One piece pictured Katsel smiling, a Celeste orchid in his hand. The other showed him standing in a rather ornate-looking greenhouse. She picked up both articles; if nothing else they would occupy her on her bus ride home.
It was while Ruby was riding westbound on the crosstown bus that it all finally snapped into place.
She was reading the article she had found in a recent issue of Garden and Gazebo magazine, which mentioned the recent sad demise of Enrico Fernandez, George Katsel’s greenhouse gardener and cut-flower specialist. The article was illustrated with photos of his famous orchids, and included quotes from various interviews he had given over the years.
‘I grew every flower that Mr Katsel wore in his buttonhole,’ said a proud Mr Fernandez. ‘I still have the rare Celeste orchid from which so many of his famous buttonhole flowers came.’
Ruby’s heart began to beat faster. It seemed that, following Enrico’s death, all the flowers in the old orchid-grower’s collection were going to be auctioned off. There was a picture of his ornate-looking greenhouse – it was situated in a pretty spectacular position on the roof of the Acer Street Building.
At the end of the article was a short paragraph listing the date when all the most valuable plants would be auctioned; that date was tomorrow. Ruby pulled the emergency cord and the bus screeched to a halt. She pushed through the doors and ran, barely aware of the angry shouts from the driver and many of the passengers. She ran until she reached a payphone, felt in her pocket for coins, dialled the number and it rang and rang, without answer.
She dialled again. ‘Pick up!’ she said.
‘Hitch,’ said the voice.
RUBY: ‘Where have you been?’
HITCH: ‘Can’t a butler take a shower?’
RUBY: ‘You’re not a butler, and I gotta tell you something.’
HITCH: ‘OK.’
RUBY: ‘Can you meet me?’
HITCH: ‘You in trouble?’
RUBY: ‘Not yet.’
HITCH: ‘I’ll be there in ten.’
RUBY: ‘You need to know where I am?’
HITCH: ‘I know where you are.’
Sure enough, ten minutes later the silver convertible drew up alongside her, the door opened, Ruby got in, the door closed, and the car shot off into the traffic.
‘Drive east,’ said Ruby, ‘we’re looking for where 72nd meets Acer Street.’
Hitch took the next right and headed in the direction of old Twinford.
‘You want to explain?’ Hitch said. ‘Because Blacker already updated me about a half-hour ago and he said the cops have all the possible targets staked out.’
‘But that’s just the problem,’ said Ruby. ‘I read this piece about Katsel’s orchid grower and it suddenly clicked – our skywalker thief isn’t gonna be stealing just any Celeste orchid; he’s gonna want the plant most closely connected to George.’
‘He is?’ said Hitch swerving to avoid a man on crutches.
‘Think about it,’ said Ruby. ‘Everything about these thefts has been very very personal, all things that were once actually in the possession of Katsel – the paperweight he used to keep on his desk but later gave to his scriptwriter, the shoes from his best-known movie, the poetry book – not just any edition, but the copy signed to him, the tie-clip he wore. . . There’s a whole article about Katsel’s greenhouse gardener, I don’t have time to actually go into it, but trust me, the important thing is – he still had the actual Celeste orchid that George’s flowers were taken from. Don’t you see? The plant will be stolen from the greenhouse where George Katsel’s orchid grew.’
‘The orchid is still alive?’
‘Under proper care,’ said Ruby, ‘an orchid can live indefinitely.’
He stared at her.
‘I read that in the magazine,’ she admitted, ‘and yeah, I’m sure he had more than one during his life, but the point is, this thief will steal from the greenhouse where Katsel’s Celeste was kept.’
‘So have you called this gardener?’ asked Hitch.
‘He’s dead, he died two months ago, natural causes, but the thing is, the orchid is still there, the auctioning-off of these plants isn’t until tomorrow – the Celeste will be there, if, that is, it hasn’t been stolen already.’
Without saying another word, Hitch put his foot down and the silver car tore through town.
Chapter 44.
A ghost occurred
THEY ARRIVED AT THE OLD ACER BUILDING, and without wasting a moment, began to climb the exterior fire escape, zig-zagging up the side of the building.
They were out of breath by the time they reached the flat roof where the greenhouse sat. It was a long structure with high-arched glass and ornate fretwork, and most importantly – still full of plants, fruit trees and of course orchids. Even from outside, Ruby could smell the rich scent of earth and pollen.
Quietly, they moved closer. The door was not, as they had expected, locked, nor was the alarm armed – someone had deactivated it.
Someone had got there before them.
‘Stay here kid,’ said Hitch, as he pushed open the door. ‘We don’t know where this guy is, keep hidden, OK?’
Ruby nodded.
She did exactly as Hitch told her, crouched on the roof outside the greenhouse, until she heard the most almighty smash as plant pots cascaded off the wooden trestles and she heard Hitch shouting, ‘Kid, watch out!’
She ducked as something, or someone, crashed through the glass, leapt right over where she was crouching and sprinted over the roof, running fast – a pause, and then more footsteps, further away now.
‘He jumped the roof,’ shouted Ruby.
‘He has to be headed for the Pineapple Building,’ shouted Hitch. ‘There’s nowhere else to go rooftop-wise. I’ll call for backup. I’m going after him – you head him off at street level, make sure he doesn’t exit the building.’
Ruby did just that, using the fire-escape ladder like monkey bars, swinging herself from level to level until she reached the street. She checked to see where the guy might make his escape, but all the doors were padlocked, bars on t
he windows, no obvious exit. She ran at the high fence that had been constructed to deter intruders. With her parkour training, her momentum easily carried her up and over and she dropped down into the narrow space between fence and building. She squeezed through a broken window next to the door. A struggle even for someone as small as Ruby.
And then she was in.
The building was deserted. It had formally been the Pineapple Building, the large and grand offices of a large and wealthy company that had traded in pineapples. It was an unfriendly old structure – ugly carvings, heavy dark doors, tarnished brass and cracked marble – a monument to the man who had first imported pineapples to Twinford. He had become very rich but, like all things, pineapples had finally had their day and M R Jonson’s empire was now one more crumbling pile of bricks and mortar in a city that could use the land. Everyone still called it the Pineapple Building though, didn’t matter that no one seemed to buy pineapples any more.
Ruby moved deeper into the shadowy interior. The place was beyond neglected. Some would say spooky, though not Ruby; that word implied something otherworldly, paranormal, but she told herself this was just an abandoned building, it was bound to feel like a lonely place. One of the secrets to managing one’s fear was not to let your imagination run away with you. She was always telling Clancy this.
People always got into trouble when they let their imaginations fill in the gaps – even the most unimaginative people could create some crazy possibilities and let their minds run with them. Then they panicked – Ruby had seen it in films a thousand times. Lone person (about to be victim) enters empty house, hears a creak, sees a shadow, begins to get all creeped out. Soon they are spinning around, running headlong into suits of armour, tripping over stray cats, falling down basement steps, when clearly what they should actually do is turn around and head for the exit. Simple as that.
There was a bank of elevators but even if they were functioning, which she figured was unlikely, she wasn’t going to risk using one – the skywalker would be bound to hear the sound of an elevator car heading up and up from the depths of the building, and tipping this guy off was the last thing she wanted to do.