The Vanishing Stair

by Maureen Johnson

Albert Ellingham sat in his office, listening to the ticking of the green marble clock on the mantelpiece. This clock had once belonged to Marie-Thérèse Louise, the princesse de Lamballe, and was said to have been a gift from her dear friend, Queen Marie-Antoinette. It was a fine clock, made of deep green Swedish marble run through with gold. While the woman who had gifted it and the woman who had owned it were both beheaded in the French Revolution, the clock lived on, keeping perfect time. He had purchased it in Switzerland around the time Alice was born. The antique dealer had told Albert Ellingham the clock’s history, how some of the princess’s belongings were removed from her house before the people raided it, how carriages full of art came over the border into Switzerland as the aristocracy in France were dying. He told tales of blood and heads on spikes and superior workmanship.

  Albert Ellingham had paid a small fortune for the clock. It pleased him to look at it, so solid, so storied, the green the color of pine.

  The wall of French doors that led out onto the patio and down to the garden was heavily curtained. Albert had been keeping the curtains closed since he had drained the lake. He could not bear to look at the hole in the ground, the one that looked like a grave. Today, though, he opened all of them wide, and the view rewarded his courage. The Vermont sky was a particularly perfect blue, and the trees all around painted in golds and reds. The fine days of the season would soon be over, and the snow would come to the mountain. There would not be many days like this.

  Today was the day it had to happen.

  There was much to be done. There were several objects on his desk, and they all required his attention: a pile of legal documents, a Western Union telegram slip, a copy of the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes, and a spool of wire.

  The documents first.

  He picked up one, freshly printed on legal parchment. He scanned it until he found the part that concerned him:

  In addition to all other bequests, the amount of ten million dollars shall be held in trust for my daughter, Alice Madeline Ellingham. Should my daughter no longer be among the living, any person, persons, or organization that locates her earthly remains—provided it is established that they were in no way connected to her disappearance—shall receive this sum. If she is not located by her ninetieth birthday, these funds shall be released to be used for the Ellingham Academy in any way the board sees fit.

  This bit had been finalized yesterday, and Robert Mackenzie had not been happy with it. Mackenzie brought it in, fresh from the lawyer, and then sat down opposite Albert and stared.

  “What is it, Mackenzie?” he finally had to say. “Out with it.”

  “I don’t like it. And you know why.”

  “I do.”

  “They’ll come out of the woodwork,” Mackenzie went on. “Every kind of two-bit scam artist in the world will descend on this place like a plague of locusts.”

  “One of those locusts may know where my daughter is,” Albert Ellingham said.

  “It’s unlikely. And how would we ever know which one?”

  “Because I know something about my daughter that no one else knows,” he said. “I will know the truth.”

  Mackenzie sank back into his chair and sighed.

  “You think I’m an old fool,” Albert Ellingham said.

  “You are neither old nor a fool. You are a father in grief and a very rich man. People will want to take advantage of you.”

  “I have handled much more than that, Robert.”

  “I know . . .”

  “You are trying to protect me, because you have always kept my best interests at heart. But it is my money to do with as I see fit. And this is what is fit. It is your duty to get the statement written up, and I will print it in my paper starting next week.”

  Albert Ellingham looked at the passage again. Mackenzie had a point, of course. By making this offer, he was opening himself up to every kind of flimflammery the world had on offer. Ten million dollars would have the greatest con artists on the planet beating a path to his door.

  But it would also turn the entire world into his private detectives.

  It was a risk, and Albert Ellingham was comfortable with risk. He had created himself from nothing, and he would take himself back to nothing quite happily if it meant seeing Alice again.

  He put the documents back into the large folder, and placed it in his desk drawer.

  Second, the Western Union slip. He had written it out earlier in the morning. The riddle had come to him several days before, but he had not yet been able to bring himself to commit it to paper until now, because that meant confronting the truth. How long had he known? Probably since he’d first read the copy of the book. He stared at the riddle for a moment and shoved it into his pocket. Then he drew The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes toward him. This particular copy belonged to the school library, and he had found it in the dome when he came to on that fateful evening of the kidnapping. At first, he thought nothing of it—there were too many other things going on that night. Surely, a guest of his had borrowed the book and read it; all of his guests were invited to use the school library for their pleasure reading. But then, as time went on and his thoughts cleared, he made inquiries into the book. No, no guests of his had taken out the book. Dolores Epstein had had possession of it almost exclusively.

  Which is how he came to understand that Dolores had been coming to his little hideaway to read, and she had brought one of her favorite volumes that day.

  Albert Ellingham had grown up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of New York City himself; perhaps that was why he felt such affection for little Dolores Epstein. He had worked as a news seller from the age of eight, collecting his pennies and nickels. More than once, he had spent a cold night sleeping in a doorway. He sometimes found shelter in the New York Public Library, where he had read Sherlock Holmes—read all the stories, committed many lines to heart.

  He opened the book and searched for one that often figured into his thoughts. It was from a story called “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”: “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

  Indeed. This was so.

  He had kept this book in his office, and it was by chance that he noticed the mark on the page. It was quite early in the volume, in A Study in Scarlet. This had been the thing that set his thoughts in motion. Dolores Epstein, that marvelous, brilliant girl, thinking until the end. To have her sharpness, her presence of mind . . .

  Finally, he reached for the wire. He would need to listen one more time, just to be absolutely sure. He stood and went across the room, to a collection of cabinets. He opened one, which contained a Webster-Chicago wire recorder. This machine had been outfitted with a pair of listening headphones. He inserted the wire on the reel, then sat down, put the headphones over his ears, and played the recording.

  After several minutes, he switched the machine off and removed the headphones. Everything was there, all falling perfectly into place. When he added in what Margo Fields had revealed . . .

  It was all very complete. It was time.

  He pressed the buzzer on his desk that summoned Robert Mackenzie. Mackenzie appeared within a minute, notebook in hand. He saw Mackenzie note the open curtains.

  “I am going to the yacht club,” he said. “The weather is fine and clear. I’ve asked Marsh to come with me. We could both use some time in the air. We’ve been in dark places too long.”

  Albert was moved by the look of genuine pleasure that passed over his secretary’s face. Mackenzie cared for him. He was perhaps the last person who did.

  “That’s a very good idea,” Mackenzie said. “Would you like me to arrange for a picnic basket for the trip?”

  Albert Ellingham shook his head.

  “No need, no need. Here. I wrote a riddle this morning. What do you think?”

  He surprised himself with this action. The riddle was a private one, but he shared all his riddles with Mackenzie. This one, perhaps most of all, deserved his consideration. Mackenzie snatched it up, obvio
usly happy that he was returning to his old ways.

  “Where do you look for someone who’s never really there?” Mackenzie read. “Always on a staircase, but never on a stair.”

  Albert watched Mackenzie very closely. Would he know the answer? Was it visible to all?

  “It may be the best riddle I’ve ever written,” he said. “It’s my Riddle of the Sphinx. Those who solve it pass. Those who don’t . . .”

  He reached over and took the slip of paper back, setting it neatly on the middle of his desk. Mackenzie was turning the riddle over in his mind, but Albert could see that his attention was not on it. Mackenzie was studying his demeanor for clues. Mackenzie himself was looking much older than his thirty years. He needed to get out in the world and live.

  “I have something very important for you to do today, Robert,” he said, putting a paperweight over the riddle for protection. “Get out in the air. Enjoy yourself. That’s an order.”

  “I’m going to,” Mackenzie said. “I have about ten pounds’ worth of correspondence to get through first.”

  “I mean it, Robert.” And he did mean it. Suddenly, telling Robert Mackenzie to care for himself was the most important thing in the world. “The winter will be here soon and you’ll wish you took more advantage of days like this.”

  Mackenzie shuffled awkwardly.

  “You’re a good man, Robert,” he went on. “I wish you had the happiness in your life that I’ve had in mine. Remember to play. Remember the game. Always remember the game.”

  This was all sounding a bit much, so Albert Ellingham put on the broadest smile he could muster.

  “I promise I will go outside,” Mackenzie said, in a way that indicated the exact opposite.

  “There is one other thing,” Albert said. “All the paperwork for the codicil and the trust is in my desk. Make sure that you get everything ready for the printer. I want to start running the ads tomorrow.”

  “You’re really going through with it?” Mackenzie said. “And there’s nothing that I can say to stop you?”

  “Nothing. Big, bold type, above the fold. ‘Ellingham offers ten million for daughter.’ I want people in passing airplanes to be able to read the headline.”

  “This is a mistake.”

  “That is mine to make. When you have ten million dollars, you can do with it what you wish.”

  This was a bit harsh, but the point had to be made. It was time to go. No more moving commentary about the nature of the day. Now that the moment was upon him, he felt the edge of hesitation. Perhaps he should explain. Robert Mackenzie could be trusted.

  “It was on the wire,” he added as Mackenzie reached the door.

  “What?” Mackenzie turned.

  No. Robert could not know.

  “Nothing. Nothing. As you were.”

  Mackenzie returned to his office.

  Everything was now in place. The other preparations were already made. The materials were in the trunk of the car. The mechanism was an easy matter that he had constructed by the fire the evening before. Albert Ellingham looked around his office once more, to see if there was anything he had forgotten. He reached down and opened the lowest desk drawer. This drawer contained only a few small personal items—a bottle of aspirin, a spare pair of glasses, a deck of cards. He reached back farther and pulled out a revolver. He held it for a moment, heavy in his palm, considered it fully.

  The green marble clock ticked away. When had the murdered princess last looked at it? Did she know it was the last time? The cool glass eye had watched as she had been taken from her house. It had been spared the sight of her death, her head put on a spike and paraded through the streets of Paris. The head had even been displayed at her friend the queen’s prison window, a ghastly puppet. A sign of what was to come.

  It was just a clock. It did not know or understand. But it did know the time, and it was telling Albert Ellingham that it had come. Choose.

  No. It was best to do it without the gun. The plan was well-balanced. He returned it to the drawer and got up for his coat before he could second-guess himself.

  It was time to play the game.

  20

  THE SCHOOL, HAVING JUST RELEASED LARRY FROM DUTY, WAS NOT inclined to let him drive Stevie to Burlington. However, in accordance with the “we will do anything to make you feel better” initiative, there was no objection to her going to Burlington to work with Dr. Fenton. She was given a ride with a security officer named Jerry who was going off duty in a half hour. Someone else would come pick her up. Jerry drove Stevie to Burlington in his old Acura and didn’t care that she was listening to her earbuds the entire time. She needed to play some music. Things were thrumming in her head and she needed them all to get into the same rhythm.

  They pulled up at Fenton’s door, and Stevie sprang out, gave a quick thanks, and hurried down the cracked concrete path. She had not texted Hunter, because what she was about to do required an element of surprise and a bit of recon. First, she listened. The house was quiet. There were no lights on downstairs. She had checked Fenton’s schedule, so Stevie knew she had a class to teach in forty-five minutes. She paced awhile, keeping out of sight and away from the direction that Fenton would walk. She waited almost forty minutes, before Fenton blew out of her door and started furiously clog-walking in the direction of her classroom building.

  She texted Hunter now:

  Are you home?

  After a moment, came the reply. Yeah why.

  Come downstairs and outside.

  Stevie waited on the screened porch, with the piles of garbage and recycling waiting in bins. After a moment, the inner door opened and Hunter poked his head out.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure?” he said, opening the door.

  The house had a bad odor that day. Clearly Fenton had made no jokes about not having a sense of smell. Even the cats seemed to have abandoned ship.

  “I need you to help me,” Stevie said.

  “With what?”

  Stevie could have lied. She had lied before. But the lies had all backfired. Sneaking into Fenton’s house was not like sneaking into someone’s room, either. In the real world they called that breaking and entering. This required transparency, and a bit of luck.

  “I need to go into her office. I need to look at the manuscript.”

  Hunter’s face sagged.

  “I can’t . . .”

  “I’m not stealing anything,” she said. “I just need to see her notes about what Mackenzie said.”

  “I told you . . .”

  “Look,” Stevie said, moving around the room to find a spot that didn’t smell quite as bad. “I may not have forever to do this. I need to show you something.”

  She found a somewhat clear space on one of the tables and set her bag down. She unzipped it, reached in, and produced the tin.

  “This,” she said, “contains proof that the Truly Devious letter was written by two students on campus. It was a joke, a prank. Or something.”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  She pulled open the tin and produced the photos.

  “These two,” she said, holding up a photo, “were two rich students. The guy was a poet. The girl was really into true-crime magazines. They were cosplaying Bonnie and Clyde. Here’s a poem they wrote.”

  She showed him the poem.

  “And here,” she said, showing Hunter the stuck-together photos with the cut-out letters. “Proof, or close to proof. I have actual evidence about this case. And if your aunt does as well, I need to see it. Because I feel like she is playing some kind of game with me. And something is going on at my school. Two people have died.”

  “Accidentally,” he said.

  “Yeah, but something is happening. If this money theory is something Mackenzie really said, I need to see the notes.”

  Hunter inhaled deeply and looked at the office door.

  “I’m the real deal,” Stevie said. “I’m not here for the money. I’m here to find the answers. Please.” />
  Hunter’s gaze drifted along the floor, then up to Stevie’s face.

  “She’ll be back in less than an hour,” he said. “She never teaches the full forty-five minutes. Come on.”

  He went through the French doors, and Stevie followed. Once inside, he walked toward a file cabinet. But instead of opening it, he knocked a stack of magazines on the floor out of the way with the tip of his crutch.

  “She’s paranoid,” he said, leaning the crutch against the cabinet and getting down on the ground. He pushed the magazines off and revealed a pizza box underneath. This, he opened. The pizza box was unused, and inside it contained several manila folders. He thumbed through them, then selected one. He sat back on his heels for a moment.

  “I think when she talked to Mackenzie, he was sick,” he said. “He was old. They had him on a lot of medication. He told her things that he had always kept quiet, because he was vulnerable. But, I guess, it had to come out.”

  He considered, and then passed the folder up to Stevie.

  The tab read: MACKENZIE. It was a thin folder, with only a few papers inside, handwritten on torn-out pieces of yellow legal paper. A lot of the notes seemed to concern whens and wheres of meeting. Then, there was one page with just two points:

  * Ellingham left house on night of kidnapping for approx. 45 minutes around 2 a.m., did not go through front door. Seemed to leave from office. Mackenzie seemed sure that there was a tunnel leading from the Great House out, and possibly another that went from Minerva, where Ellingham would house his mistress, to a location on the opposite side of the property.

  “Gertie von Coevorden my ass,” Stevie said. “So this is how she knew there was a tunnel.”

  There was one other point, and it seemed important.

  *** Last thing Albert Ellingham said was “It was on the wire”***

  “On the wire?” Stevie repeated.

  “Yeah,” Hunter said. “She read that to me. She thinks it means on the wireless? The night Albert Ellingham died, there was a big radio show . . .”

  “The War of the Worlds,” Stevie said.

  This was something that came up in every book about the case. On the night Albert Ellingham died, there was a radio broadcast by Orson Welles called The War of the Worlds. It was a play about an alien invasion landing in New Jersey, told in the style of a news broadcast. Except people in the 1930s weren’t used to that kind of meta story, and thousands of people freaked out thinking there was a real alien invasion going on and the world was ending.