The Case of the Missing Deed (9 page)

He grabbed the three other recipes.

The keystone is the key.

What was a keystone? Sébastien knew he’d heard of it before, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He started pacing. He could hear Grandpa’s voice in his memory, explaining. “And the keystone is …” What?
Think!

More pacing.

“And the keystone is the focal point at the center of the design …”

Agh! What was it?

“All the other stones radiate out from the keystone …”

Grandma’s herb garden! That was it!

Sébastien ran outside. Sure enough, beneath Grandma’s herb pots was the circle of flagstones. And the rosy one in the center, he now remembered Grandpa telling him, was called the keystone, because it was the one that all the others fitted around.

The keystone is the key
.

What was Grandpa saying? It sounded like they were supposed to find a key – but where?

Moving all the herb pots aside, he noticed something odd. Although all the other flagstones were cemented together, the keystone was not. There was a thin space all around it. Sandy soil showed through from below.

Sébastien fetched a crowbar, levered up one end of the keystone, and peered beneath it. At first, all he could see were shadows and dirt. But then … something silver. Was that a box? Twisting, he grabbed the thing and placed it to the side. Carefully, he lowered the keystone back into place.

He lifted the box. It was about the size of a bar of soap. The outside was completely covered in duct tape. Heart pounding, he stared at it. Then he ran inside. He cut away the duct tape to find a plastic box. Inside that was another, smaller, box, and inside that were several layers of plastic bags, each sealed with duct tape. Finally, he came to one more very small plastic box. He opened it and parted a mound of lambswool. Something nestled inside the wool gave off a goldish glint. Reaching into the mound, Seb pulled out –

“A key!” he shouted.

Just like with the knitting needle, there was a length of fishing line looped through the hole. The tag that dangled from the line said 7.

He shrieked with laughter.
Leave it to Grandpa. A key under the keystone!

Sébastien stopped dead. This key must unlock the place where the deed was hidden! “The key, the key, the key!” he yelled, laughing, jumping up and down.

Just then the others came home.

“Sébastien!” Alex said. “What on earth are you–”

“The key! The keystone! The knitting needle! The recipes!”

“Are you cracked? What are you talking about?”

Stumbling over his words, Sébastien told them what he’d figured out, how the knitting needle had led him to
Muriel’s Berry Pandowdy
, and how he’d then realized that the other notes must be linked to other objects, and how he’d remembered about the keystone and dug up the box and – “Here it is!”

“Here what is?” Claire asked.

“The key that must unlock the place where the deed is!” Geneviève said, understanding flashing over her face. “Let’s find it!”

They ran from room to room, trying the key in every lock they could find. But it didn’t fit into the front door or the back door of the cottage. Nor did it unlock the drawer in Grandpa’s desk, or Grandma’s jewelry box, or Grandpa’s toolbox, or the old trunk in the living room where Grandma kept spare blankets. It didn’t unlock the cabinet in Grandma’s studio, where she kept her cans of turpentine. It didn’t fit a padlock Alex found in a kitchen drawer or the door to the pantry or an old bike lock lying on the deck or the door to an antique cupboard in the living room.

It didn’t unlock anything.

Dejected, they headed back to the kitchen.

“Now what?” Claire said, flopping onto a chair.

“I’m sure that’s the key to where the deed is hidden,” Geneviève said. “We just have to find the right door.”

Sébastien shook his head. “That might be the right key, but I have a feeling Grandpa wanted us to keep looking for something else. After all, the tag says number 7. There must be other things that come first.”

“Like the knitting needle. That’s number 6,” Olivia said.

“Right,” Sébastien said. “Grandpa wrote notes on other recipes. I think that’s what we have to figure out – what the notes mean.”

“Why bother?” Geneviève said. “We’ve got the key. Looking for other clues is a waste of time. Everything isn’t a detective game, Seb.”

“It’s not a game. I want to find the deed as much as you do. I just think–”

Geneviève stood up. “I’m going to search for the door.”

“Where?” Alex said.

“On the property. Around the island. Anywhere I can think of. Who’s coming with me?”

Claire and Alex jumped up. Sébastien and Olivia stayed where they were.

Marching down the deck steps with the key in hand and Claire and Alex trailing behind her, Geneviève was sure she’d find the lock and prove Sébastien wrong. He always thought he knew everything. Not this time.

“Let’s try the boat shed,” she said cheerfully. “You know how Grandpa loved boating.”

Claire, full of new energy, bounded ahead. “Race you!” she called to Alex, then laughed as he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. They arrived together in a spray of sand.

The key didn’t fit the boat-shed lock.

It didn’t fit Grandpa’s tackle box, which, as Claire pointed out, he never locked anyway.

It didn’t fit a padlock fastened to a rusting bike that no one could remember anyone ever riding.

“Okay,” Geneviève said, her confidence dampening. “Um … the garden shed?”

No.

“The mailbox!”

No.

“This is no fun,” Claire grumbled.

Geneviève agreed, though she didn’t say so.

“Come on,” she called, “we can’t give up. Maybe it’s somewhere else on the island. Let’s try Mrs. Hedberg’s.”

Dragging along behind, Claire and Alex followed her down the road to Grandma’s next-door neighbor’s house. They explained about the deed, and, with Mrs. Hedberg’s permission, tried the key in various locks.

But it didn’t fit Mrs. Hedberg’s front door. Or her back door. Or her barn door. Or her garden shed door or her tool shed door or her buffet or her desk.

Standing outside Mrs. Hedberg’s house, Geneviève slumped. All they’d managed to accomplish for their trouble was to get dusty and tired and thirsty.

The three of them trudged home.

eneviève, Claire, and Alex found Sébastien and Olivia at the kitchen table, giggling and talking excitedly.

Sébastien looked up. Seeing Geneviève’s face, he didn’t ask if they’d had any luck.

Olivia said, “Look! Seb and I figured out the next clue. It’s a paintbrush!” She pushed forward the
Painterman Eggs
recipe. “Grandpa’s clue,
Are you feeling artistic this morning?
, was talking about a paintbrush.” She held up one of Grandma’s paintbrushes. Tied around the handle was a length of fishing line, with a tag labeled 2.

“Cool!” Alex said. “Good work.”

Geneviève sat down heavily and put the key on the table. “So now we have a key, a knitting needle, and a paintbrush. What on earth are we supposed to do with them?”

“No idea,” Sébastien said cheerfully. “But I’m pretty sure they have something to do with finding the deed.”

“That’s crazy,” Geneviève said. “Now I’m not even sure if the key has anything to do with the deed. It seems like a dead end. Maybe these things are just clues from some old scavenger hunt Grandpa dreamed up one time. We could be totally wasting our time.”

“I don’t think so. I think the notes have a purpose. Why else would the objects be numbered?”

“So you would know when you had found all the things in the scavenger hunt and could win a prize,” Geneviève said sarcastically.

“Look, Gen, if you don’t want to help, don’t,” Sébastien said. “But Olivia and I are trying to figure out what the note on the
Emergency Fudge
recipe means.”

Geneviève flushed, but she didn’t leave.

Sébastien pushed the recipe into the middle of the table.

“A strong beacon in an emergency,”
he read. “Any ideas?”

“Well, a beacon is like a signal,” Alex said.

“Or a light,” Olivia added. “Like in a lighthouse.”

“We can hardly collect a lighthouse,” Geneviève said.

“How about ‘emergency’?” Sébastien asked.

Olivia started sketching. Looking over her shoulder, Sébastien watched as she drew a rectangle that turned into an ambulance. She drew the light on top, with lines twirling out from it to suggest flashing beams of light.

Picking up on Olivia’s thought, Sébastien brainstormed. “Ambulance … hospital … doctor … accident …” His voice trailed off. He huffed in frustration.

“Forget the ambulance,” Alex said. “Where would you go if you had an emergency?”

“The Emergency Station,” Sébastien and Geneviève said at once.

“I said it first,” Gen said.

“I did,” Seb said.

“Guys!” Alex said. “All right, let’s go to the Emergency Station and see if there’s a clue hidden there for us.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Geneviève said.

Laughing, Claire said, “He left us a knitting needle at Muriel’s. How ridiculous is that?”

They laid their bikes on the grass next to a small building on a spit of land that formed one side of Otter Bay. A sign over the door said
OTTER ISLAND EMERGENCY STATION
. Next door to the station, on the other side of a hedge of flowering bushes, was Wilensky Air, the float-plane company owned by “the mayor.” Part of the Wilensky Air office now sported a sign saying
TANTALUS MINING
. On the other side of the Emergency Station was the First Aid Clinic, and then a row of shops, ending in the ferry dock, which formed the other end of Otter Bay.

The cousins went into the Emergency Station. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held everything needed to respond to a boating emergency: lifejackets, lanterns, coils of rope, first aid kits, flashlights, water bottles, blankets. A rowboat with oars was suspended on a frame near the rear double doors. Out those doors, a short path led to the lighthouse, where a light twirled continuously.

Kevin was sitting behind a desk. He looked surprised to see them. “Hi, kids. What can I do for you?”

“Um … we’re looking for something,” Sébastien asked.

Kevin looked expectant, as if waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, Kevin said, “Anything in particular?”

The cousins exchanged glances. “We think so …” Alex said carefully, “… but we don’t know what it is.”

“Huh?”

“Did you know our grandpa?” Sébastien said.

“Sam?” Kevin broke into a grin. “Of course. Good man.”

“Do you know if he … um … left something here for us?”

Kevin cast his eyes aside as if trying to think. “Not that I know of,” he said finally. “But I do remember he was in here one day helping me do inventory, and he was fussing around over there.” He pointed to a stack of shelves that held blankets, bottles of water, and flashlights.

“Thanks!” Geneviève said, and they hurried over. She stood on a chair and started unfolding and refolding blankets. Claire and Olivia peered between the rows of water bottles on the bottom shelf. Sébastien and Alex started examining each flashlight.