Walls within Walls (7 page)

They nodded, and she began to recite three words.

“What does that mean?” Patrick asked, looking at the three words Brid had written down, one for each of the hearths. Even if he could read them himself, they made no sense.

Tavinogus Servants Dumbwaiter

“I don't know,” said Brid. “Maybe the company that installed the fireplaces did it for fun.”

“Oh,” said Patrick, unconvinced. “So what's fun about those words?”

“C'mon, Pat, I'm trying to figure this out!” She kept moving the letters around, her pencil scratches the only noise in the room.

Patrick was getting restless. He ripped open a bag of fried edamame chips, the only semigood thing he found
in the cupboard. “So we're looking for a message?” he asked, munching loudly. CJ and Brid ignored him. Pat continued, “A message about the stupid guy in the servants' quarters?” He leaned over the notes, and sweat from his forehead began to drip onto the pages.

“Gross,” said Brid, putting her notebook away. “What do you mean, a stupid guy?”

CJ laughed. “I think he means a dumb waiter. Pat, a dumbwaiter isn't a stupid guy. It's like a miniature elevator, used to bring things from one floor to another, usually from the kitchen to the dining room. I bet there used to be one in this apartment. Since one of the words is
servants
, I think we should look for it in the servants' quarters. But that first word?
Tavinogus?
Never heard of it.”

Patrick kept staring at it. “But, since it's written in a circle, how do you know where the word begins and ends?”

Brid replied, “I've written down all the possibilities by moving the first letter to the back of the word until we try every possible starting point. If I move the starting place over to the
V
, then the word is
vinogusta
, whatever that is. Still, none of these words make sense to me. Look at this list!” Brid held out her paper, which read:

“I can't believe I didn't think of that,” said CJ. “Let me do an internet search; maybe one of these will mean something in another language. I mean, it sort of sounds like Greek or Italian to me if you say it with an exclamation at the end.
Ustavinog
to you!”

Pat and Brid giggled. “
Nogustavi
, Patrick,” Brid said. “
Nogustavi
, and you're welcome.”

In their father's office, CJ typed
dumbwaiter
and
servant
, while Pat and Brid sat on either side of him, watching. “Hey, what's this?” said Pat, lightly touching the second computer. The screen came to life with the same swirling purple cyclone that CJ had seen the night before. Music blared, like something from a James Bond movie. The designs swirled into exploding fireworks, and the lights joined together to form the words:

As the dancing words and the music evaporated, the three Smithforks sat there in silence. The keyboard was
practically begging them to hit
return
, to enter whatever fabulous world Mr. Smithfork was creating these days. They were tempted to open the game, but none had the courage.

“Now, that's interesting,” said Patrick.

“Did you know Dad was working on a spy game?” Brid asked CJ.

“Dad hasn't been talking about work as much as he used to,” said CJ. “I don't even know what that game does.”

“Can we try it?” asked Brid.

“We should leave it alone,” said CJ. “If we mess something up, he'll be mad. Let's stick to one mystery at a time.”

“I thought you tested his games for him,” Brid said to CJ.

“I used to,” said CJ with a little catch in his voice. “Now he hires people to do it.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever.”

Patrick was a little relieved not to be peeking at the spy game, because he was usually the one who touched things and ended up in trouble. Now, he wanted to focus on the mystery, but neither CJ nor Brid was telling him much.

Brid and CJ knew the trick to using Pat to help them was not telling him exactly why they had him do certain things. He loved to talk and to tell secrets, and CJ and
Brid had gotten in trouble more than once when he'd told their mom something the kids were up to. But the older he got, the harder it was to fool him. Now that he had gotten information from a wall and a fireplace, he was too excited to simply go away.

“Why don't you go play basketball?” Brid said to him.

“Where? In the backyard we don't have?”

“How about the hallway? Maricel and Mom are out, so you can go crazy, and we won't tell.”

“What if that old lady downstairs complains?”

“She won't,” Brid said. “I have the feeling she sort of understands us.”

“Oh, okay, I guess you're sick of me,” Pat said, stomping out of the room. A few seconds later they could hear him pounding on the floorboards.

“He's actually been really helpful, at least more than he used to be. I almost wish we could include him,” said Brid.

“Yeah, so he could blab to everyone that our house is sitting on a gold mine?” CJ snapped.

“No. He's not a baby anymore, and I think he can keep secrets. If we only give him half the information, it won't be long until he's mad, and he won't help us anymore,” Brid answered.

“Whatever.” CJ continued to type.

“CJ, are you nervous about school?”

“Nervous? I never get nervous. What school, anyway?”
CJ said, knowing full well what Brid was talking about. He stopped typing and closed the laptop, too agitated to continue.

“Hello? First day of a new school?”

“Who cares? It'll be fine,” said CJ, as his stomach flopped. He changed the subject, talking rapidly. “You know what our problem is? Every time we have a question, it gets answered with more questions. Our list of clues grows, but not as fast as our list of questions. We know two of the words are
dumbwaiter
and
servants
. We need to find the dumbwaiter in this apartment, and my guess is it's been taken out. I'm going down into the servants' quarters to check, and besides, it's too hot in here!” With an angry slam of the desk drawer, CJ stood up and went to summon the elevator. Brid sat, puzzled and a little sad about the way her brother was acting.

Ray didn't say much as he and CJ descended to the lobby. The temperature in the elevator was oppressive. Despite that, Ray had on his full uniform: gray suit, white shirt, tie, gold brocade shoulder epaulets, cap, and white gloves. The silence felt a little uncomfortable, so CJ tried to strike up some idle chatter.

“Where is everyone?” asked CJ as they stopped in the lobby.

“This building is mostly empty during the summer,” said Ray.

“But it's September.”

“The whole neighborhood is empty until the night before school starts. Everyone has a summer house in the Hamptons, or they go to Europe, or out west. There are twenty-four apartments in this building, but only yours and two others are lived in this time of year.”

“What about that older lady who lives beneath us? Is she new, too?”

“Whatareyoukiddinme?” Ray laughed out loud. “Yeah, about eighty years new—she moved into the building as a kid.” He looked at CJ's face and added, “Don't feel bad, kid, things pick up real soon around here.”

“Not sure I want it to pick up,” said CJ.

“Kinda like it quiet like this, too,” Ray said. “I catch up on my reading.”

“So you've worked here a long time?”

“Ahhhfortyyearsorso,” he said, smiling so that his giant eyebrows merged into one. “Seenalot.”

“Do you know much about our apartment?”

“No. Wasemptyforsolong. After they split the original apartment into four separate ones, the Posts donated the one you're living in to a museum. Later, when the museum tried to sell it, there were no buyers. It was after the Great Depression, and some people were still in a bad way financially. Nobody really lived there. Yuz got that wall problem, too. Yaknowaboutthat, right?”

“Yes, I know. That was the rule of sale, that the walls stayed put.”

“Yeah. In the last few years, all the apartments were selling for big bucks, all but those Post ones. Not too many people wanted a place with restrictions and crazy rules. So the apartment just sat until your family found it.”

“Yeah. My parents didn't mind that. My mom is into restoration and stuff.”

“Yeahdatsnice. Your mom's working? I never see her around.”

“Yeah. Sorta, volunteer stuff, you know,” said CJ, not wanting to talk about how his mother used to be around all the time, but now she always had meetings about things like furniture or buying just the right light fixture. “So you didn't know the Posts?”

“Nah, just the daughter. They were gone before my time.”

“You knew the daughter?”

“Yeah, you will, too. It's too bad about her.”

“What do you mean, I will, too? Is she some sort of celebrity?”

“Yeahright. She lives on the twelfth floor.”

“What? Eloise Post still lives here?” CJ felt dizzy.

“Yeah, well, her life is quiet, ya know? She was tired of people asking about her family all the time, so sometimes she uses a fake name—Eloise Munn. People don't know about her or her family anymore; it's like they all vanished. Poof.”

“Hard to believe she lived in all that splendor,” CJ said,
thinking of the Post family photo. “And it's just her?”

“Her and that bossy maid, Annika. Lady had some bad luck in her life, never married. After her mother died, she moved back here. I guess she likes hanging around all these old memories. I can't tell you why.”

“Did you ever hear rumors of the Post family treasure being left in our apartment?” CJ asked.

“DidIhear? Kid, it was all over the papers. The dad kicked off and never explained to the Post kids how to actually get their inheritance. The guy didn't trust banks anymore after the stock market crash. So he hid it himself, somewhere so safe that nobody, not even his kids, could ever get to it. Not very thoughtful, if you ask me. They took that apartment apart, found bits of clues here and there, but I think the guy was playing with people's minds.”

“Yes, but he had to have left it somewhere, right? I mean, a lot of things they owned never showed up again.”

“Yeah it's somewhere, but it ain't here. This place was under a microscope for years. Still, that guy had country houses and a place in Europe, even though those were sold by his widow. I think they all got the wrong joint, if you know what I mean.”

CJ's mind was spinning. He was sure that he and Brid and Patrick had been able to get a little further in solving this mystery—because they had carried out Mr. Post's
wishes. He thought of the older lady who lived below them: Was she really Eloise Post, the solemn girl in the portrait? Had she really come about the noise upstairs, or did she just want to see her old place, now that people were living there? He tried not to appear too excited, but some strange expression must have come across his face, because Ray's next comment was, “Don't worry, kid, it'll be freezing before ya know it.”

After CJ left the apartment, Brid deftly lifted the lid of her father's laptop and continued the work CJ had left unfinished. Moving each letter in turn to the back of the sequence of letters, she made new words that she could search on the internet. She learned that
Vinogusta
was a wine guide. Too modern, Brid thought, but she wrote it down anyway. She tried
ustavinog
and got the message
Do you mean ustavnog?
Brid felt her heart pounding. Did she mean
ustavnog
? She entered the alternative spelling and was led to a site for Russian newspapers. She wrote that down, too. Then she typed
gustavino
. This time she got numerous responses. The first was for a restaurant in Manhattan. Doubtful, she thought. It probably wasn't around when Mr. Post was alive. The next was a reference
to a tiling system named for a builder, Rafael Guastavino. “Guastavino, whose name has sometimes been spelled Gustavino, came from Spain and made his mark on the New York City skyline,” Brid read. Skyline? Buildings? Like structures?

Brid could hear Patrick, still pounding a basketball up and down the main gallery hall. She wanted to tell someone what she'd found. “CJ!” she yelled, before remembering he had gone downstairs. She thought about leaving Patrick and going to find CJ, but then thought better of it. She would have to wait.

She sat at the second computer, the one with the DigiSpy logo. She touched the desktop icon that repeated the introduction to the game. It looked spectacular. Then she noticed an icon for a DigiSpy tutorial on the desktop. There was no harm in reading through a tutorial, right? At least then she would know what her dad was up to. She looked over her shoulder, making sure she was really alone, and for once, she was.

Delicately, almost as if it were an accident, she brushed her pinky finger against the return key. The screen filled with a rainbow of graphics, a mesmerizing explosion of light and cacophonous sound. Patrick must have heard it, because the thumping of his basketball stopped, and he came running back to the office. When the explosions mellowed, the screen narrowed to focus on a boy about Brid's age, who was demonstrating what appeared to be
some sort of spy game. Brid and Patrick sat watching, their mouths hanging open in awe.

However, it wasn't a game. Their dad's latest invention seemed to work like a robotic spy. It featured a simple, nozzle-shaped attachment that could be moved anywhere while feeding live footage back to the user's computer. The nozzle worked like a robot, able to slide around and film at the same time, while continually sending digital images to the home computer. As the DigiSpy's different uses were demonstrated, Brid found herself lost in thought about what could be done with such a software.

“Hey,” Patrick said, “that's so cool.” Brid felt surprised that he didn't say something like, “I'm going to tell Dad on you.” Little Patrick was growing up, and Brid thought they could really trust him with their secret.

“Do you think Dad keeps the game attachment in this office somewhere?” Patrick asked, looking around the room.

Brid said, “Do you think that thing attaches to the computer's camera, and that's how it knows if it's going to bump into something?”

“No,” Patrick replied, “I think you get the robot to move around by pressing the arrow keys on your computer.”

“That's smart, Pat,” said Brid. “Where do you think the robot is?”

They bent under the desk, looking for the knobby
robotic thing they'd seen in the tutorial. There was nothing like it around.

“Looks like Dad has another winner coming soon,” Pat said.

“Pat, you know what I'm thinking?”

“No.”

“I'm thinking we could use a DigiSpy to see what else is behind the walls of this place. No need to send you upside down behind a wall again, right?”

“I like going behind the wall. I don't mind, and besides, this thing is useless without that robot thing.”

Just then, they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps, heavy ones like their dad's. “Turn it off!” said Pat. “I'll block Dad while you get that off the screen.” He ran from the room while Brid frantically hit the escape key, trying to get the tutorial to stop. Why would Mr. Smithfork be home at this time of day?

The steps the children heard were heading toward the back of the apartment, near the laundry room. Pat rounded the corner at full speed, only to come face-to-face with a strange man. He was tall but stooped a little with age. He had the look of a wizened teacher, neat but not formal. His eyes were bluish gray, and his gray hair almost touched his shoulders. He had just come out of Patrick's room.

Pat gasped, thinking the man looked pale like a vampire. The man seemed equally surprised to see someone
home. They stood still, summing each other up. The man looked more lost than scary, but even so, Patrick shook with fear.

 

 

“Can I help you?” Pat asked politely, though he was uncertain how a boy should address an intruder.

The intruder seemed to think it best to get a move on. “That's okay,” he said, brushing past Patrick into the laundry room, where he unlocked the back door and walked out onto the fire stairs, letting the door slam loudly behind him.

Just then Brid came running up behind Patrick. “Dad?” she asked uncertainly.

Pat shook his head. “No, Brid, it was some man. A creepy-looking man.” His hands were shaking, and he sank down onto the sturdy floor.