The Clockwork Three (8 page)

Hannah reached the edge of the gardens and came up against the tangled barrier. “Alice?” she called out.

“Go away, please!”

“Alice, it’s Hannah. I need to ask you some questions!” She reached into her pockets. “I brought you almond pastries!”

Silence.

“Alice?”

“Hello, dear.”

Hannah jumped. The voice came from her left, out of nowhere, and
then Alice emerged from the bushes. She was short, but Hannah had never been able to tell if that was simply because her back was so bent. She wore a checkered apron, and had hair that was white and see-through like a dandelion puff.

Hannah pulled out the pastries. “Here you are. Baked fresh today.”

Alice’s eyes widened. She clapped some of the dirt from her hands in a cloud, but her fingers were still filthy as she reached for the sweets. She took them gingerly, as if they were still hot. As she bit into the first she paused, and then grinned with stuffed cheeks. She swallowed and said, “This tastes like François’s handiwork.”

“François?”

“The head chef.” Another bite, and the pastry was gone.

“The head chef’s name is Charles.”

“Charles the dishwasher?” She started on the second pastry.

“I heard he used to be a dishwasher. Years ago.”

Alice scratched her head, and a few pine needles fell from her hair. “Is that so? Time flies, I must say.” And she took another bite.

“Alice?”

“What, dear?” The second pastry vanished, followed by the third. How could such a small woman eat so much so fast?

Hannah tried to sound casual. “Could I ask you a few questions?”

Alice shrugged. She stuck the last pastry in her mouth whole. She chewed, chipmunkish, and swallowed. “Fair is fair,” she said. “You brought me four almond pastries, so you may ask me four questions.” She turned away and plunged into the shrubs. “Come along, dear!” she called.

Hannah took a breath, wondered what she would see on the other side, and pushed her way into the brush. A branch immediately whipped her in the face, scratching her cheek.

“Ow!” she cried.

“Watch yourself,” Alice called over her shoulder. “And go ahead and ask your first question.”

Hannah labored to keep up with the old woman, who seemed to know some nature magic that let her slip through the bushes unimpeded.

“Well,” Hannah said, grunting. “I was wondering. Were there ever two suites on the top floor of the hotel?”

“Yes,” Alice said. “You know how Mister Twine is, always changing things. From boiler room to attic, that hotel’s a different building than the one Mister Twine built back when he was a fiery young man.”

Mister Twine, a young man?

Alice continued walking. “Not like my garden. The only change I allow is growth, and I forbid anything to be dug up until it dies. Three questions left.”

Hannah’s skirt snagged and she wrenched it free, tearing it, and then tumbled through the last stretch of bramble into a clearing. There, in a perfect patch of sunlight, Alice’s weathered gardener’s shed slouched toward several makeshift worktables. Pots of all shapes, sizes, and colors lined the tables, and each pot held a seedling. Beyond them, a wooden trellis arched over a wrought-iron bench, and a hydrangea bloomed behind it, pale blossoms as big as soup tureens. Hannah thought it a charming sitting area, but felt sad when she pictured Alice there alone.

The old woman walked over between two of the tables and motioned for Hannah to join her. “Look at these flowers,” she said, clucking and fussing over her plants like a nursemaid. “These are just for me. Aren’t they glorious?”

“They are wonderful,” Hannah said, although she could not tell one start from another. They all just looked green and tender.

“This one is a snapdragon. Oh, but don’t worry, dear, it doesn’t really bite. These are pansies, my shy country debutantes come to the big city for the ball. And these are hyacinths. They’re haughty with everyone, so don’t you pay them any mind.”

“Um, I won’t.” Hannah noticed a table off by itself against the shed, bearing plants that were mature. “What about those?”

Alice looked and then leaned in. “Those are my herbs, dear. They’re wise, you know, and they guard their secrets well, but I am clever, too. I’m figuring out their uses. Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t count that as your second question.”

That turned Hannah’s thoughts back to the reason she had come. “Alice, why did Mister Twine change the top floor?”

“I can’t really say, dear, any more than I can say why he ripped up the carpets time and again, or why he knocked down those columns out front. Oh, but weren’t they majestic?”

“I never saw them.”

“No? What a pity. Like a pagan temple in Roman times. But I do remember he changed those suites around the time that guest died.”

Hannah thought about the floor plans. “A guest named Stroop?”

“Why, yes! How did you know?”

“I’ve read his name.”

“Stroop was a very wealthy man. He had a great big mansion that burned right to the ground up on the Heights.” She giggled. “After that, Mister Stroop moved into the hotel so they could rebuild his house. It was only supposed to be temporary, but he never left, and he never rebuilt. He just lived out the rest of his days all alone up there. I’ll tell you, he had quite a reputation as a recluse.” She shook her head and tsk-tsked. “I just don’t understand people like that. He had no wife, nor
children. They buried him all by himself in the cemetery of the Old Rock Church. Now that I think about it, I suppose Mister Twine wanted to wall off that room in which poor Mister Stroop expired. Who would want to stay in a room where someone had died? You have one question left.”

Hannah paused to consider. A wealthy guest who died in the hotel. A hidden treasure on the top floor. But what about the map of the park? She turned to Alice. “Was there a connection between Mister Stroop and Grover’s Pond?”

Alice rubbed her chin, leaving a dirt smear. “Hmm. In McCauley Park? None I can think of, dear. I don’t remember him having any degree of fondness for nature. He never even came down to walk in my gardens! He loved only his money. Well, he can keep it. Dirt and manure are my gold, and these flowers are my jewelry. I’m wealthier than all these lords of industry.”

Hannah took one last look at the nursery and the gardener’s shed. “I’d better be going.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I have work to do.”

“Very well. I did enjoy the company. Do bring me some more almond pastries sometime, won’t you?”

“I’ll try. Good-bye.” Hannah turned away, took a step, and then changed her mind. “Alice, could I sit with you for a while under your trellis?”

“That would be lovely, dear. But no more questions. Let’s just admire the hydrangeas, shall we?”

“I’d love to,” Hannah said.

They sat together for some time, but said very little. Eventually Alice dozed off, and Hannah got up from the bench without waking her. She fought her way back through the bushes and decided she had a little
time left before Madame Pomeroy awoke from her nap. So, she left the hotel and walked to the Old Rock Church to have a look at Mister Stroop’s grave.

It was a charming place, not so intimidating as the cathedral with its ugly gargoyles and windows like daggers. The Old Rock Church looked humble and solid, the watertight kind of place that offered shelter in a storm. Large trees scattered shade over the building, and a low stone wall surrounded the church’s cemetery. Hannah approached, wondering where Mister Stroop might be buried.

She stepped through the gate and then spotted a very small boy nearby. He looked like a street musician, and he hunkered down behind a headstone, peering over it as if spying. Hannah followed his gaze and saw another boy kneeling in the grass before a tomb in a far corner of the churchyard, but she could not tell what he was doing.

She cleared her throat, and the little boy looked up. His eyes went round, he gasped, and then he bolted from the cemetery. Hannah watched him race down the street.

The one he had been spying on did not appear to have noticed any of it. A moment later he stood up and turned away from the tomb. He saw Hannah.

She acknowledged him with a smile.

He came toward her, a fiddle on his back, and tipped his cap. “Afternoon, miss.”

“Good afternoon.”

He appeared to be a year or two younger than her, and there was something scruffy and wild and restless about him. Even though he was standing still, he had the presence of a hound pup testing the limits of its chain. “Peaceful place, eh?” he said.

“It is.”

He nodded. “Come to pay respects?”

“You might say that.”

He glanced around, as if he were reluctant to leave. “Yeah, me too. Paying respects.”

The two of them stood there. Hannah looked down and smoothed her apron. “Well, have a nice evening.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You too.”

“I will.”

He waited a moment longer, and then turned away. He began to whistle a tune that sounded familiar. Before Hannah could place it, he had left through the gate and was gone. She glanced at a few of the gravestones nearby, read over the names and epitaphs but saw no Stroop among them. She surveyed the churchyard trying to figure the most orderly way to check them all, but decided to satisfy her curiosity first. She crossed to the corner where the street musician had been kneeling. Why had he been so reluctant to leave?

The tomb rested over a tranquil spot, tucked away on its own from the others. It was a simple rectangle of weathered marble. There was nothing obvious about it to suggest why the boy was over here. Nothing in the grass around it. She read the inscription and sucked in a sharp breath. Chiseled into the stone were these words:

HERE LIES

PHINEAS STROOP

MCCAULEY HELD THE KEY

TO HIS HAPPINESS

Hannah had found the place where Mister Stroop was buried, and she felt exhilarated at having touched the mystery in some way. She wondered about the words written there, and what they meant. It must have something to do with Grover’s Pond. And then she wondered about the street boy’s connection to the crypt and the man buried inside it. She was about to sit down in the shade to think on it all when the Opera House clock tolled, resonating over the city, and she jumped.

Madame Pomeroy would be waking up, and she would expect Hannah to be there. The tomb would have to wait for another day. Hannah lifted her skirts and raced from the cemetery, down the streets, across the square, all the way back to the hotel.

Betrayed

G
IUSEPPE HID BEHIND THE CHURCHYARD’S ROCK WALL, WATCHING
the maid. She stood in front of Mister Stroop’s tomb, staring at it, and made no sign that she had seen him stash his money and the violin. Then the Opera House clock pealed and the girl nearly leaped in the air. She darted from the cemetery, and before he could move or hide she flew past him not five feet away. But she did not seem to notice him. He watched her run off, and she never looked back.

Giuseppe let out a sigh. His instrument and treasure seemed to be safe. He had nineteen dollars in there now. Almost halfway to a boat ticket. He figured he would have the rest within another two weeks, sooner if Pietro could start paying his own way.

He straightened his jacket and set off to find a corner where he could play for the night’s remainder, the more public the better. Maybe on the square. He wanted to be seen playing his old fiddle.

The night came on warm and still. Without a breeze, the city’s black breath churned from the smokestacks and settled in drifts, turning everything dark and hazy. Familiar landmarks became indistinct, and the diffused light from the Opera House and the Gilbert Hotel backlit the pedestrians milling across the square.

He took up a spot on a corner and drew his bow over the catgut strings. The old fiddle squealed and yowled. Giuseppe winced at the familiar sound and wondered how he had ever made any money with the thing. But he had made money, and made it even now. Not much, but some. The instrument was like an irritating but endearing friend. For the last several years it had served him as best it could and kept him fed. It was ridiculous, he knew, but there was loyalty there, and affection, and a little bit of guilt over abandoning it for the green violin.

After a few hours, Giuseppe decided he had played for long enough and made enough, too. He headed for Crosby Street, where he met up with Pietro.

“How much did you make?” Giuseppe asked.

Pietro beamed. “I make thirty-seven cents!”

“Still not enough, kid.” Giuseppe grumbled a bit and pulled out a few extra coins. “Here you go,” he said. “But I can’t keep doing this forever. I need my money.”

Pietro frowned. “Your money? Is Stephano’s money, no?”

“Uh, that’s true. But the more I bring in, the better I get treated. So, anyway, you gotta start pulling your own load.”

Pietro looked at the money Giuseppe had just given him.

“Come on.” Giuseppe put his arm over the boy’s shoulder. “You’re doing fine.”

They penetrated the dank street and came up to Stephano’s lair. Inside, the padrone took their money without a word and kicked Pietro’s rump on the way back to the kitchen, where a feeble fire glowed in the hearth. On the table there was a bucket next to the usual loaves of bread. Were they getting milk tonight? Giuseppe and Pietro got in line. Behind
the table, one of Stephano’s girls rationed out portions of food. Every other week the padrone had someone different on his arm, but they always left soon after he put them to work.

She was scowling when Giuseppe came up. She handed him a hunk of hard, dry bread and scooped a ladle into the bucket. It
was
milk. Rich, white, frothy milk that she poured into a tin cup.

“You two share,” she said, and nodded toward Pietro. “We’re running out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Giuseppe took the milk.

Pietro got his bread, and they went to find a spot to eat.

They ended up settled in a corner on the second floor. Giuseppe licked his lips and smelled the milk. He wrinkled his nose. “It’s sour,” he said. But it was better than nothing. They dipped their bread to soften it, and when the bread was gone Giuseppe gave the last swig of milk, swimming with crumbs, to Pietro. They both wiped their mouths on their sleeves.

“Well, good night, kid.” Giuseppe stood up to go find Ferro and Alfeo.

“I come?” Pietro said.

Giuseppe tried to smile. “I think tonight maybe you should go find some friends your own age.” The kid needed to start making other allies. Giuseppe did not plan on being around much longer.

Pietro looked up at him. “But you my friend.”

“Um … yeah, I am. No doubt about it.” Giuseppe looked around for someone to pass Pietro off to, but there was no one in the room he trusted. He sighed. “Let’s go, then.”

They went up another flight of creaking stairs to the floor where
Giuseppe normally slept. He scanned the piles of mildewed straw and threadbare blankets, spotting Ferro near a window. In the summertime, it was best to sleep under the windows, with a cool draft flowing over you on sweltering nights. In the wintertime the best place was in the middle of the room, with lots of bodies around you to keep you warm. Ferro was strong enough to get the best spot any time of year. Giuseppe and Pietro stepped around and over the other boys by the light coming in through the window until they reached him.

Alfeo was lying next to Ferro, his hands behind his head. “I see you brought your pet.” He and Ferro laughed.

“Shut up, Alfeo,” Giuseppe said. “He’s fine. He’s just new is all.”

“Well, tonight we only saved enough room for you.”

Which Giuseppe saw was true. He and Pietro could not both fit there next to them. Giuseppe looked the room over and noticed an open space in a corner on the far side. He pointed toward it. “Why don’t you go over there, Pietro?”

The little boy looked like he was about to cry. It seemed like he was always about to cry.

Giuseppe raised his voice. “Just go. You’ll be fine, kid.” He shooed him off as he would a stray cat.

Pietro turned away without a word, and Giuseppe plopped down on the floor. Alfeo started to tell him about a brawl he had seen between a tinker and a shopkeeper that day. Giuseppe listened, but he followed Pietro with his eyes until the little boy disappeared into the shadows.

“How much you make today?” Ferro asked after Alfeo finished his story.

Giuseppe rolled onto his back. “Not much.”

Stephano’s voice came thundering up the stairs. “Sleep now, my filthy monkeys! No more talking!”

Ferro lowered his voice to a whisper. “You gave that kid your money again?”

Giuseppe nodded.

“You’re too soft, Giu,” Alfeo said. “Trust me. You think you’re just feeding a puppy, but it could still turn around and bite you.”

Stephano roared. “Silence!”

Over the next week Giuseppe’s treasure grew. Every day he counted and daydreamed and every night felt closer to home. That maid had never been back to the churchyard as far as he knew, and his money was safe. He had thirty-two dollars in there now. By next week he would have enough, and it would be time to pay a visit to Frederick and see about his help in purchasing the ticket.

He was in high spirits today and whistled as he ambled through the streets, looking for a good corner to play. It was all about timing, really, and a familiarity with the city’s habits. It was about knowing when certain people would be in certain places, like the factory workers at lunchtime, or the rich folk on a Saturday night at the opera. The throbbing city woke and slept in parts, like blood pounding to the muscles in heavy use.

Giuseppe knew that right now most of the fishermen, their purses full, having sold their day’s catch that morning, had set a course for the Albatross Tavern near the wharves. So he headed that way. He knew some bawdy ballads that could get those sailors jigging and dropping coins.

The gray sky hung low, as if the masts on the tall ships in the harbor could scrape its canopy. Giuseppe passed the docks and took a road that ran along the beach. His steps fell into a slow rhythm with the waves, and he caught the briny scent of seaweed drying in the sun.

Seagulls hovered and dove on the small crabs that scurried over the sand, and Giuseppe saw a small boy chasing the gulls as they touched down. The kid waved his arms, and the birds flapped away screeching. From a distance Giuseppe chuckled, but then he drew closer and got a better look at the boy. It was Pietro. Pietro, who never brought in enough. Pietro, who said he played all day but no one gave him any money. Pietro, who had cost Giuseppe how many dollars and how much time?

Giuseppe stood watching him. Then he shouted, “Hey!”

Pietro skidded to a halt, spraying sand.

“Get over here. Now!”

The little boy’s shoulders slumped, and he trudged across the beach.

Giuseppe shook with anger. “You waste a lot of time down here?” He clenched his jaw and wanted to scream. “What are you doing, Pietro?”

The boy kept his eyes down. He shrugged.

Giuseppe lost control. “Look at me, you little runt!” He grabbed Pietro’s face and forced it up. “I’ve been giving you money from my own pocket! I’ve gone without supper for you! He threw me in the rat cellar! For what? So you can spend your days chasing birds?”

Pietro started to cry.

“Stop that! Stop it right now.”

“I sorry, Giuseppe. I sorry.”

Giuseppe pushed him to the ground. “No, you’re not. I’m finished with you. You hear me? No more money. You get nothing from me.”

Pietro burst into a full wail.

“Shut your mouth,” Giuseppe said, and walked away.

He did not feel like playing for fishermen anymore. He did not feel like playing at all. He left Pietro sobbing on the beach and could still hear him two streets over. A part of him felt bad for being so harsh, but the other part counted up the money he had wasted on the kid, money that could have gone toward a ticket home. That part of him was not satisfied at all. That part of him wanted to go back and pummel Pietro into the sand.

Giuseppe glowered and paced the city for hours, up and down the streets, ignoring traffic and pedestrians. He finally stormed into the cemetery of the Old Rock Church. He was about to charge over to Mister Stroop’s tomb when he noticed Reverend Grey planting a flower over somebody’s grave. Giuseppe tried to back away before the old man saw him.

But the reverend looked up. “Ah, Giuseppe!”

“Hello, Reverend.”

The old man labored to his feet, his knees and ankles cracking like bending tree branches. “It’s so good to see you, my boy. I’ve been wondering about you. Why haven’t you been coming ’round?”

“I have been, Reverend,” Giuseppe said in a mumble.

“What’s that? Then you must be coming when I’m not looking.”

Giuseppe folded his arms.

The reverend pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Is that brute Stephano treating you any better?”

“Same as always.”

The reverend shook his head. “I’ve said it before, but there should be laws against it. One day, there will be. I promise you.”

Stephano ignored laws.

“Well then, how are the other boys? Your friends?”

“They’re all right.”

“Come,” the old man said. “Sit with me. Tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”

Giuseppe paused a moment, and then he realized that he wanted to talk with the reverend. The way they had before. So they sat down together on a shaded bench against the church, and Giuseppe told him all about Pietro and about helping him with his own money. He told of the boy’s actions, but he was honest about how he had treated Pietro earlier that day. He left out any mention of the green violin or the money he had saved and hidden in the tomb just a few feet away.

“Well, I’d be angry, too,” the reverend concluded. “It sounds like you put yourself at great risk for his sake, and it turned out to be for nothing. And it has cost you.”

“That’s right,” Giuseppe said, and pounded his fist on his leg.

“Of course, if I were this Pietro boy, I’d rather be chasing gulls, too.”

“What?”

“Don’t mistake my meaning. The boy was in the wrong. But if you think back to your first years here in the city, what was it like for you?”

Giuseppe frowned. In those first years all he had wanted was to have someone rescue him. Back then he thought about his parents all the time and dreamed that they were still alive. It had all been a mistake, and they would come for him and take him home. All he had wanted back then was for everything to be how it had been. Perhaps chasing gulls on the beach was how Pietro had found that comfort, if only for a few short moments.

“When you say it that way, Reverend, I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on him.”

The old man smiled with such kindness in his eyes. “You’re a good boy, Giuseppe. I wish there was something I could do. You deserve a better life.”

“I’m going to have a better life. Real soon.”

“I pray that you will.” The reverend wiped under his eye with one finger. “I’d better be getting inside.”

Giuseppe thanked him and they said good-bye. The old man shuffled away, and Giuseppe waited until he had disappeared around a corner of the church. Then he went to Mister Stroop’s tomb. He had squandered the day in anger and earned nothing, and he cursed himself for having to dig into his stash, something he had never let himself do. But he needed it for Pietro. He replaced the flagstone and left the churchyard with his old fiddle.

Night fell as Giuseppe crossed town. He lingered at the entrance to Crosby Street, hoping to catch Pietro. The boy never showed. No surprise after the way Giuseppe had yelled at him, but the little boy’s absence set him pacing and turned his stomach in shame and worry. He waited an hour, and then Giuseppe went in.