Authors: Tom Dolby
T
he year 1603, according to Phoebe, was the last year of the Tudor dynasty, ending with the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Phoebe was convinced that the salient piece of information in all this was one word:
Tudor
.
“Come on, Nick,” she prodded him after they had said good-bye to Patch in front of the Algonquin. “What have we seen recently that’s Tudor?”
Nick shrugged as they walked east. “Beats me.” It seemed like another one of his grandfather’s mind games, even if it had been administered from the grave.
“I can’t believe it—I was hopped up on tranquilizers and I remember the Tudor-style house that we all met at, the day after Thanksgiving. It was the day that—well, you know.”
It was the day that Jared’s death had been announced. It had been a traumatic day for everyone. Phoebe had been driven in a town car from the city after nearly having a nervous breakdown. It wasn’t a day in which Nick had been focusing on local architecture.
“I don’t know much about houses,” Phoebe continued, “but I do know what a Tudor revival looks like. We had them all over Los Angeles. It was what rich people lived in to make it look like they were descended from British royalty or something.”
Nick nodded dumbly. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? Four digits. A year. Now it seemed so obvious.
“Okay,” he said. “Then we go to Southampton.”
Phoebe, Nick, and Patch arrived at the Southampton property, which Nick said was known as Eaton House, after the
Mayflower
-era family who had farmed the land, the next day around noon. While his father had mentioned the name of the house before, none of them knew who owned the house or what went on there, only that they had been summoned to it for that Society meeting in the fall. Thankfully, Nick’s maplike memory of Southampton’s back roads had come in handy, as he remembered where the house was without even having an address. It all started coming back to him: the grand house, greeting Phoebe at the door, everything he had felt being separated from her and then seeing her again. How he knew then, without a doubt, that she was the one. He remembered leaving the house that day and spending the night at his parents’, the first night they had spent together.
Nick chided himself. This wasn’t the time for fond memories. They had a job to do.
The gate was open, and Nick drove his beat-up Jeep Cherokee up the gravel driveway. The estate was the same as Nick had remembered it, though in the dead of winter it seemed more desolate, with barely any leaves on the trees, ground cover that was frozen a dull green, and muddy portions of the sod and landscaping that would only come back to life in the spring. Nick remembered how lavish the grounds had been, though they hadn’t gotten to enjoy them: there was a croquet court, an English garden, a reflecting pool, tennis courts.
“So you’re still telling me that we have no idea who owns all this?” Phoebe asked. “I mean, it’s a house. Someone must live here, right?”
“I have no idea,” Nick said. “The Bradford Trust must own it, I guess? Far be it from them to tell us that.”
“Far be it from your father to tell us that,” Patch said sarcastically.
“Um,
our
father, bro,” Nick said.
Patch was silent for a moment. “Right,” he finally said.
The tone in Patch’s voice stung Nick. They were supposed to be friends, best friends; now they were supposed to be brothers, or half brothers, at least. And yet everything they had been through had only alienated them from each other. Nick knew it wasn’t permanent, but it felt like he and Patch were walking this delicate line between trust and betrayal. Now, after yesterday’s revelation, Nick was nervous about talking to Patch. Nick was supposed to tell his best friend everything, and once again, he had failed.
Nick turned around to look at Patch in the backseat. “You haven’t been here before, have you?”
Patch shook his head. “Nope. I mean, I’ve driven by while staying with you, but I always assumed it belonged to some banker or something.”
The three of them walked up to the front door and stood there, unsure of what to do.
“We can’t just ring the doorbell,” Nick said. “‘Um, hi, we’re here to try out a key on a few locks.’”
“Should we go to a back door or something?” Patch asked. “This house looks like it has about ten different entrances on the first floor.”
At that moment, the giant oak door opened, its knocker clattering ominously. The three of them were startled, and Phoebe grabbed Nick’s arm.
They stared in amazement. It couldn’t be, but it was.
“Horatio?”
Nick finally asked. “What on earth are you doing here?”
T
en minutes later, they were sitting in the library of Eaton House, which was almost cozy, considering that it was an estate with no personal effects in it whatsoever. The room they were in was filled with books, objects, and paintings, but it lacked any specific touches: no family photos, no albums, no libraries of worn-out paperbacks. Horatio had lit a fire and was serving the three of them hot apple cider.
“There was a stipulation in your grandfather’s will,” he explained. “A private agreement that he and I had together. Not something the lawyers would have read to you yesterday.”
Nick was amazed at how much of the Bell family business Horatio was aware of. He warned himself to be on guard. As they sat there drinking cider, Nick was reminded for a moment of their time at the Great Cottage on Isis Island. He and all the other Initiates were dulled into submission with a steady dose of mouthwatering food, the best drinks, music, and good conversation. It had all concealed the fact that the Society was responsible for some truly evil deeds.
Was Horatio a member? An employee of the Bradford Trust Association? Nick had no idea.
“The stipulation was that your grandfather asked that if you did not reach your goal by the time of his death, I was to help you. I was about to visit you in Manhattan and bring you here, but I was informed this morning that you had already left. I think your grandfather would have been very pleased.”
“What is this goal exactly?” Nick asked. “It would help if you could be a bit more specific.”
“I can’t be any more specific than your grandfather was,” Horatio said. “I am an employee of his estate.”
“Come on, can’t you just give it up and tell us what’s going on?” Patch said.
Horatio looked at them blankly. “Gentlemen, my life’s purpose was to serve your grandfather. I can’t leave him now, particularly when he has no say in the matter.”
“But that’s exactly the point!” Nick said. “He has no say in the matter. Can you at least tell us what we’re looking for? What’s he going to do? Fire you from the grave?”
“Master Bell, I can’t bear to hear your grandfather spoken of that way. I am sorry if my vocation doesn’t agree with you. I am only here to serve.”
Nick sighed. The guy was like a robot.
Phoebe stepped in, and Nick was grateful.
“Horatio, why don’t you show us what Mr. Bell wanted us to see? I think that’s what he would have liked, right?”
Horatio pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. He unfolded it carefully, and read it as if declaiming poetry: “‘You must go to the beach, you must go down below. Below the surface of things.’”
“That’s what my grandfather told us,” Nick said.
“Wait a second,” Phoebe said. “It’s obvious.”
“What’s obvious?” Nick asked. “Do we have to start digging or something?”
“No,” Phoebe said. “The key will open up a door in the basement.”
H
oratio led the three of them to the basement. They walked down a narrow staircase and through a series of rooms that were partially finished with brick walls and exposed timbers and had a dank, musty smell. It was an old-school basement, with a no-frills wine cellar, a root cellar for vegetables, and storage for furniture and odds and ends. All the clutter must have come with the house, Phoebe figured, since no one lived here, or so it seemed.
This was the type of basement where secrets were buried.
“I am to leave you here,” Horatio said, a little too smoothly.
“Wait a second,” Phoebe said. “I don’t think so. Patch, you go with him.” Phoebe had seen enough of the Society’s maneuvers to know that she wasn’t going to step into a strange basement without anyone aboveground knowing where she was.
“As you wish,” Horatio said.
Patch followed him. “This was all getting a bit too Edgar Allan Poe for me anyway,” Patch said. He was right. It was very “Cask of Amontillado,” the story where one man leaves another to die in a catacomb. Phoebe shivered.
“If you don’t hear from us in twenty minutes, call the police,” Phoebe said.
Nick laughed at her, though she wondered if it was for Horatio’s benefit. “We’ll be fine. Pheeb, your imagination is far too vivid.”
Phoebe glared at Nick. How could he be so nonchalant about all this? Maybe it was merely a front for the terror he was feeling. Horatio and Patch were soon upstairs again; she could hear their footsteps above her.
After going through several more doors, all of which were unlocked with nothing behind them, they approached an old steel door.
“Do you think . . .” Nick’s voice trailed off as he held up the key. It seemed like their last chance.
“Go ahead,” Phoebe said. She bit her lip as Nick removed the tiny key from around his neck. He inserted it into the brass lock and gave it a turn. To their astonishment, the door opened, as if it were controlled electronically.
The two of them stepped inside.
Nick fumbled for a light switch and finally found one. Just as the lights flickered on, the metal door closed behind them.
“Oh my God,” Phoebe said. She fumbled frantically at the door. Were they trapped?
“Relax,” Nick said. He pushed a button below the light switch, and the door opened again.
“We’d better get out of here,” Phoebe said. “This is way too creepy. What if there’s no oxygen in the room or something?”
“Come on, don’t you want to find out what this is all about?”
He was right. Phoebe blinked as she looked around. The door closed again. She noticed one difference already, as the door closed. Not only were the walls of this enormous room a clean, pure white, with properly finished surfaces, but the humidity was much lower, not the dank moisture of the basement, but an even, steady level of cool air. Not too dry, not too wet. And the lights were not too bright, not too dark.
Like a museum.
Phoebe looked around and Nick followed her. There were at least a dozen enormous wooden packing crates. She was suddenly drawn back to her time at the Schrader Gallery, when she had been allowed to browse the artist collections that were stored in the back room. She now realized that this was the same thing.
Inside all of these boxes were artworks.
Three paintings were on easels at the back of the room. She didn’t recognize the first two, but when she looked at the third, she realized it was the Pollock that belonged to Nick’s parents. She pointed it out to Nick, and he shook his head in dismay.
She looked at some of the names on the crates. Each was meticulously labeled with the name of an artist: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, Cézanne.
Phoebe gasped as she read the title of each piece. “Do you know what these are?” she asked Nick.
“No, I don’t.” He seemed frustrated with her.
“They are only some of the most famous stolen paintings in the world. I mean, holy crap, was your grandfather really part of this? Do you know how much jail time he could have done if he was ever caught?”
They looked around the room, walking by each boxed work, as well as the few that were on easels. There were more famous names: Brueghel, Watteau, Manet.
“Okay, this has got to be a joke.” Nick pointed to one box.
Phoebe read aloud. “The
Mona Lisa
.”
“You’re kidding me,” Nick said. “The
Mona Lisa
isn’t a stolen artwork.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “It’s not. But it was stolen from the Louvre in the early 1900s. My mom read a book about it. At that time, they actually made copies, and then thieves would return either the copy or the original back to the museum, depending on how they were playing it.”
“So you’re telling me that the
Mona Lisa
in the Louvre is a copy, and this is the original?”
“No,” Phoebe shook her head. “The
Mona Lisa
in the Louvre has been authenticated. Your grandfather had a copy there.”
“But he had to have known that. Why would he keep a copy?”
“I think he probably did. Maybe it thrilled him to have a little piece of the history of art. Or, rather, the history of art
theft
.”
“Okay, this is all getting too weird,” Nick said. “I say we go back up.”
Phoebe followed Nick through the door and back through the dank basement passageway.
“What do you think we should do?” Phoebe said, her voice echoing slightly in the basement. “I mean, these pieces have to be returned, don’t you think? Some of those works have been missing for decades!”
Did Nick realize the enormity of what they had uncovered? The discovery of these paintings would shake up not only the art world, but quite possibly, the global economy. It would be in the news for months. Books would be written about it, films would be made, the parties involved would be interviewed—
If the Society knew about their discovery, none of that would happen.
Nick and Phoebe reached the staircase leading up to the first floor and were grateful when they found themselves in the kitchen of the enormous house. Patch was waiting there, sitting at the antique farm table while Horatio read a copy of the
Financial Times
.
As Nick and Phoebe told Patch what they had seen, he shook his head in amazement.
“Give me your car service account number,” Patch said to Nick. “There’s only one person who can help us figure this out.”