Chapter Twelve: Unraveling the Mystery
Two hours later, Emma sighed as she sank into the couch in their living room.
"Now that was a close one," she said, gazing across the coffee table at Jonathon and Lizzie.
"Yeah," agreed Jonathon, his leg draped over the side of his favorite overstuffed chair. "It was a shock. Was the car badly damaged?"
“It'll be in the shop for a few days,” said Emma. “But it could have been worse. The brakes were weak, but they didn't fail completely. We didn't hit that hydrant at full force."
"So it was just bad brakes?" asked Jonathon.
Emma nodded. "Which surprised me, because I just had the car checked out last week and everything seemed good then."
"I can tell you what happened," Lizzie said angrily. "That car was sabotaged and you-know-who did the sabotaging."
“Lizzie, what are you talking about?" asked Emma.
“I'm talking about Thumbs...or Felicia, or both of them. They've been messing with the car. Don't you see? They're trying to kill you, Jonathon. Or maybe...maybe...the painting really is cursed. You remember the horrible things that happened to the previous owners?"
Jonathon shrugged. “That painting isn't what you think it is, Lizzie.”
Just then, Mr. Thumbs charged into the room, Felicia following behind.
"How convenient!" he sneered. "All three of you in one place, just when I have an important announcement of great significance to us all.”
“Mr. Thumbs,” said Emma, rising quickly from the sofa. "Have you heard about the accident?"
Thumbs paused. "No. What accident? What are you talking about?"
“I think you know exactly what we’re talking about!” Lizzie exploded. “Emma’s car! You sabotaged it! You tried to kill Jonathon and Emma!”
Thumbs shook his head. “Don’t talk nonsense, child.”
Lizzie turned to face Felicia. “If it wasn’t Thumbs, it was you! You did something to their car so it would crash.”
Felicia recoiled. “The girl is hallucinating! Somebody get her a doctor!”
“Alright…alright,” said Emma calmly. “That’s enough accusations for now. We’re not going to get to the bottom of this by insulting each other.”
“Quite true,” Thumbs said. “As I’ve always said, let cooler heads prevail.”
“That’s just…” began Lizzie.
“Enough…for now,” Emma interjected. “Let it go. We’ll get it sorted out later.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Thumbs said calmly. “We have more important matters at hand, as I’ve been trying to explain.”
Thumbs then cleared his throat slowly as he pulled out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase.
“Jonathon, I've called you here, along with Elizabeth and Emma, for a reason. It's time for me—as your financial advisor representing the interests of your departed Uncle Wart— to officially evaluate your most recent business venture which, as you know, was the purchase of 'the Hand of Doom.' As you know, Jonathon, I have your best interests at heart and it gives me no pleasure to report that you have failed in this venture. In fact, your purchase of that painting must be recognized as a complete waste of the five hundred dollars that I advanced to you out of Uncle Wart's fortune.”
"Now Mr. Thumbs," said Jonathon calmly, "don't you think it's a little too early to say that?"
"I fear that it is the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn at this point,” replied Thumbs. “And, as you know, Jonathon, there will be consequences to this failure. It is clearly expressed in Uncle Wart's will that you retain control of his fortune only insofar as you continue to engage in risky but successful investments of his funds. While your investment in this instance was fairly small, the fact is that you acquired nothing of value in return for your money. That being the case, I regret to inform you that I must officially transfer the responsibility of controlling Uncle Wart's fortune from you to his daughter, Felicia, as dictated by his will."
"You know, Mr. Thumbs," said Jonathon, "I suspected you might want to do something like that, so I invited a guest here this evening who might have a few things to say about the value of my 'Hand of Doom' painting."
"This is highly irregular," blustered Thumbs. "I just don't know..."
Just then the doorbell rang and Emma went quickly to answer it.
"And I'm pretty sure that's my guest now," said Jonathon.
"What are you trying to pull?" demanded Felicia, her hands springing to her hips.
"I'm not trying to pull anything, Felicia,” replied Jonathon. “I just thought it might be nice to being in an expert to evaluate my painting. The gentleman's name is Charles Wilford. You may have heard of him. He's the head curator at the Art Institute."
"But...but," Thumbs stuttered. "I just don't see the point to this. I..."
“And I thought you might like to have the painting you bought—'The Acorn Rising'—evaluated as well,” said Jonathon. “As you can see, I've set up both paintings on easels here in the living room so that Mr. Wilford can take a closer look at them. You do want him to assess the value of your painting as well, don't you?”
"Well, perhaps...I hadn't...” began Thumbs.
"Great!” Jonathon said.” Emma, please escort Mr. Wilford into the living room. I've already told him a few things about the paintings he's going to be looking at."
As Mr. Wilford introduced himself to Mr. Thumbs, Felicia glanced over at the two paintings. "Say, Jonathon. What gives with your 'Doom' painting? Why is it covered with a sheet?"
Jonathon smiled. "Oh, I thought I'd surprise everyone with a little modification I had done to the painting by a local art restorer. I think Mr. Wilford will be particularly interested in it. But first, before he looks at my painting, he's agreed to first look at the painting that Mr. Thumbs purchased."
Mr. Wilford walked slowly over to 'The Acorn Rising" and examined it for a few seconds. He then turned to Thumbs.
"This is one of those paintings by the deceased millionaire Diggersby, isn't it?" he asked.
"Why yes, it is," Thumbs replied proudly. "I got it for a real steal—ten thousand dollars!"
Mr. Wilford shook his head. "You paid ten thousand for this thing?"
"Yes!" Thumbs said enthusiastically. "How much do you think I can get for it?"
Mr. Wilford shook his head. "Maybe about twenty bucks for the frame."
"That's impossible!" roared Thumbs.
"I'm afraid it's true. Diggersby was an untalented amateur and this is a horrible painting. I'm afraid your painting is worthless."
Shaking with rage, Thumbs shook his finger at Jonathon. "If my painting is worthless, then yours is worthless too! And you'll lose control of Uncle Wart’s fortune because of it."
Jonathon smiled again. "Let's see what Mr. Wilford has to say about it."
Jonathon moved quickly over to 'The Hand of Doom' and removed the sheet that covered it. Mr. Wilford walked slowly up to the painting. Then his jaw dropped.
"This...this is incredible!" he gasped.
"What? What is incredible?" Felicia demanded.
"This painting!" replied Mr. Wilford. "It's a timeless masterpiece by the nineteenth-century English artist John Constable!"
"The artist you were looking at in the Art Institute!" interjected Lizzie gleefully.
"But that's impossible" bellowed Thumbs. "It's another one of Diggersby's paintings! It's worthless…it’s cursed....it's..."
“Wait!” interrupted Felicia as she walked closer to the painting. “It looks different now!”
“Yes, it is different now,” said Jonathon calmly. "What you never noticed, Mr. Thumbs, is that the only part of the painting actually done by Mr. Diggersby was that scary-looking hand—the so-called ‘Hand of Doom.’ But the original canvas on which he painted that weird-looking hand is actually a masterpiece by Constable. Diggersby must have painted his stupid little 'Hand of Doom' over it some night when he had run out of unused canvases to work on. Since he was a billionai
re, he probably didn't even care that he was painting over a priceless masterpiece.”
“Jonathon!” gasped Emma. “I can’t believe it.”
Jonathon continued calmly. “You’ll remember that there was one painting by Constable that was supposedly part of Diggersby’s collection but which never made it to the auction. That’s because the auctioneers didn’t realize that the painting they were calling ‘The Hand of Doom’ was really the missing Constable.”
“Amazing!” said Emma.
“Yes, it was,” said Jonathon. “And after I was pretty confident about what I actually had, I simply took the painting to an art restorer and had her remove the silly looking hand that Diggersby had painted over the original. So now it's back to being the sort of pastoral scene that Constable was so famous for. And as far as the curse goes, that was always just a fairytale that the media was pushing to sell newspapers."
Thumbs was speechless. Felicia sputtered several times before finally shouting "I can't believe it! I can't believe it! Don't tell me it's worth a lot of money!"
Mr. Wilford replied. "Oh, yes! It's worth millions! And Jonathon purchased it for only five hundred dollars? It's the best investment I've ever heard of in my twenty-five years as a curator."
Chapter Thirteen: On to the Next Adventure
“You know, I almost feel sorry for Mr. Thumbs and Felicia," said Emma as they sat around the dining room table the next evening. "I mean, when Felicia fainted like that...she really could have hurt herself."
“Yeah,” agreed Lizzie, “and I thought Thumbs was going to hurt his hand when he walked over and punched a hole right in the middle of his ‘Acorn’ painting.”
“Yes, that was a little impulsive, wasn't it?" said Jonathon, between his sips of hot chocolate.
“But how about the accident in the car?” Lizzie asked. “We can’t forget about that. You two could have been killed.”
“Obviously the brake line had been partially severed,” replied Jonathon. “I noticed the brake fluid dripping from under the car.”
“But who could have done that?” Emma asked, her eyes widening.
Jonathon shrugged. "It could have been Felicia, like Lizzie said. Although I doubt that she has the technical know-how to cut the brake line herself, she might have bribed her chauffeur into doing it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Thumbs himself?” Lizzie asked.
Jonathon shook his head. “I don't think that would really be his style, although he probably hates us enough to do something like that.”
“But why” Emma asked. “And why that day? Did either of them even know where we were going with the painting?”
“No, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Felicia,” said Jonathon. “She had a chance to do us some harm and it could always be blamed on the curse of the ‘Doom’ painting.”
“You mean the nonexistent curse of the ‘Doom’ painting,” said Emma.
“Yeah, I know,” Jonathon said. “I looked the painting up in the auction sale books. ‘The Hand of Doom’ had never left Diggersby’s possession. That was just a sensationalist myth about the painting doing harm to all those other people.”
“I guess you can’t believe everything you read in the newspaper,” said Emma. “Or on the TV or internet.”
“No,” Lizzie said. “But I think Felicia believed the story completely. I think she really thought you had brought the painting home just to terrify her. Remember all of the things that she said went missing?”
Jonathon chuckled. “Things get lost sometimes. Files disappear. It just happens. There was nothing about that painting that was really spooky. And once we had that strange pointing hand taken off, it was really quite pleasant. And it certainly was worth a lot of money.”
“That it was, Jonathon,” said Emma. “It was another masterstroke on your part.”
Lizzie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Jonathon, you did great. But you know, we’re going to have to watch Felicia and Thumbs even more carefully than before. I mean, if they’re willing to try to actually harm us…”
“Sure,” said Jonathon. “We’ll be careful. But Thumbs and Felicia aren’t going to stop us—not any of us. And besides, I've got a lot of big plans for using Uncle Warts’ fortune.”
Emma put her arm around Lizzie and Jonathon and smiled. “And we'll all be with you Jonathon...every step of the way.”
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If you’ve enjoyed “Jonathon Wart and The Hand of Doom,” you might want to check out the first book in the series, “Jonathon Wart and the Risk Factor,” available from all major eBook sellers.
Jonathon Wart and The Hand of Doom Page 10