The Mastermind Plot (5 page)

Warehouses burned down to cover the tracks of a true crime of art theft … it was too flimsy. Too extreme. And it was exactly the kind of thing that got my blood pumping fast and hot.

Will took a few slow steps toward Grandmother's house without a reply. I felt bad for taking out my frustration on him, but how could he actually like Adele? After the stunt she pulled that afternoon, I wouldn't help tie her shoelace, let alone solve the art thefts or arsons or whatever they really were.

“I have to go. I'm sure my grandmother will be wondering where I am,” I said, but then remembered that she'd forgotten to send a carriage for me in the first place.

“Sure,” Will said. “But will you at least think about
talking to Adele? I don't know why she'd lock you in some attic…. Maybe if you tell her you saw me, she'll know that I told you everything, and that she can trust you. Okay?”

I muttered a weak promise that I would and then said a hasty good-bye, rushing down the street toward the brownstone. Talk to Adele? I dreaded even seeing her the next day.

I reached the front steps to Grandmother's home, still fuming. I opened the door and came face-to-face with a tall man with a crisp black hat and a long black overcoat. I screamed, and the man shot out his hand and slapped it over my mouth.

T
HE MAN DROPPED HIS SWEATY PALM FROM
my mouth and grimaced. “Great heavens, child!”

My blanched face started to color again as embarrassment settled in. This man didn't have the narrow, defined cheekbones that the stranger at the academy had. The man standing in Grandmother's foyer was about fifty pounds heavier, too, with bristly white eyebrows overdue for a good trim.

“Who are you?” I asked. He puckered up his lips.

“Who am I?
I
am Dr. Philbrick, young lady.”

Doctor?
“Has something happened? Is my grandmother sick?”

I tried to rush past him, but Dr. Philbrick held his black leather doctor's bag up in my path.

“Your grandmother is resting at the moment, and is not to be disturbed.”

“I want to know what's happened.” I lifted my chin and attempted to look indomitable.

He huffed with impatience, but his arm couldn't hold up the bulky leather bag any longer and it flopped to his side in defeat.

“Your grandmother has had one of her attacks.” Dr. Philbrick sounded put out by having to speak to me.

“An attack? What kind of attack?”

Attack
was such a brutal word. It made me think of strangulation and bloody hammerheads and all sorts of terrible things normal girls my age probably never thought about.

“An attack of the nervous system,” the doctor answered.

I sighed in relief, which only seemed to irritate him further.

“It's quite serious for a woman of her age and constitution, I assure you.” He pushed back his shoulders and sniffed. “Mrs. Snow hasn't suffered from one of these attacks for quite some time. When she has one, it hinders her ability to breathe.”

I suddenly felt guilty. Here I'd thought she'd simply forgotten to send the carriage for me — even got aggravated with her for it — and she'd been having an attack the whole time.

“I take it you are her visiting granddaughter?” Dr. Philbrick didn't wait for an answer. “The servants have been instructed on the dosage of the tonic and powders that I've left. As to helping Mrs. Snow win back her health, I suggest you give her nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Stress induces the attacks.” He scoffed at me. “I wouldn't be surprised if your arrival is the very thing that brought on this episode.”

Bertie, the serving girl, appeared around the twist in the stairwell right at that moment, saving me from acting out on my impulse to kick Dr. Philbrick in the shin.

“Oh, Miss Zanna! You've arrived, thank goodness. Mrs. Snow is asking for you.” Bertie's voice had the sweet, high pitch of a songbird.

The doctor lifted both of his bushy brows. “No. Stress.” He opened the front door and left without another remark.

I went straight to the stairs without taking off my cloak. “That man is wretched!”

Bertie nodded, leading the way. “That he is. But he's Lawton Square's best physician. We called for him straightaway when we realized the mistress was having an episode. She hasn't had one in so long….”

I wanted to ask how long had been “so long,” but Bertie was shuffling too fast down the hallway. Electric
light poured out of each frosted-glass sconce mounted on the papered walls every few feet. Bertie rapped pertly on the door to Grandmother's room, waited until the count of three, and then opened it.

“Mrs. Snow, your granddaughter,” Bertie announced. I entered with hesitation. What did one look like after an attack of the nervous system? I half expected Grandmother to be splayed out in her bed like an invalid, her hair a mess around her shoulders, her eyes sunken in and rimmed by dark circles.

But that wasn't the scene that greeted me at all. Grandmother was sitting upright in a regal-looking chair in front of her fireplace. Other than a few silver curls framing her face, her hair was done up into a perfectly knotted bun. Her cheeks were slightly pink, but her ice blue eyes were just as bright and clear as ever.

“Zanna, darling, come in and sit with me.” She gestured to the matching chair beside her. I crossed the carpeted floor to her side.

“Oh, Grandmother, the doctor told me about the attack, and how you'd stopped breathing.” I took her hand and felt its dry warmth.

“Jeremiah Philbrick exaggerates,” Grandmother said with a wry grin. “If he had his way, I'd never do anything but sit in this chair and watch the logs in the fireplace burn and crumble.”

She let go of my hand and I sat opposite her. “He and Bertie said you haven't had one of these attacks lately.” I watched Grandmother play with the colored glass beads on her necklace. “Do you think that it's because … because I've come here to live with you? That it's too much stress?”

I thought I saw her hand tremble, but she returned it to her lap too soon to be sure.

“Heavens, no! Why, you silly goose, you're no stress at all, so put that out of your head! No, today … well, today I exerted myself by helping Margaret Mary with the silver, among other preparations. She can cook a roast to perfection, but give her a cloth and polish and she's useless.”

I'd met the Irish cook that morning at breakfast. She looked like she'd cooked — and sampled — plenty of perfect roasts in her lifetime, and her eggs and bacon and poached pear rivaled Nellie's.

“You worked yourself up over tarnished silverware?” I asked.

Grandmother took out a lace hankie from up her sleeve and shook it at me.

“Of course! I can't have our dinner guests on Saturday sit down to eat and pick up a spotty spoon or blackened fork. I'd be mortified!”

“You didn't say anything about a dinner party,” I
said, though dinner itself did sound very tempting right then. I'd hardly had a bite of the meal served at school.

“How else am I to introduce my granddaughter to Lawton Square society? After the dinner party, I'm sure we'll receive enough invitations to salons and parties to last you through your stay,” Grandmother said. I could tell this made her happy, and not at all stressed.

I indulged her with a wide smile while clenching my teeth in fear. Grandmother would expect me to be social, and proper, and … 4 and … a
lady
. I was undoubtedly going to disappoint her. And that, of course, would bring on stress.

“That sounds wonderful!” I said, though the gusto was a bit extreme.

Grandmother didn't notice. Her train of thought switched tracks and her contented smile was replaced by a look of horror.

“Oh, the florist!” she cried. “I completely forgot, he's coming to see what arrangements will suit the rooms for this Saturday. I must remind Bertie.”

She started to lift herself from her chair. I leaped up.

“No, let me. I'll tell Bertie.”

Grandmother wobbled and it didn't take much of a nudge to guide her back to her seat. She ran a delicate hand over her eyes, rubbing them slightly. “Perhaps you're right, darling. Yes, you can remind Bertie.”

I started for the door.

“Oh, and, Zanna, can you …” She cleared her throat with a few dainty coughs. “Can you ask Margaret Mary to bring me Dr. Philbrick's powders?”

It seemed to pain her to admit to needing them. My father had a stubborn streak, too, and seeing Grandmother's made me miss him. But I wouldn't have time for homesickness now, not with a finishing school to fear, dinner parties to attend, and my dreaded assignment from Will to speak to Adele about the Horne fires.

By the third day of school, I still hadn't found the strength to speak to Adele about the fires or her art theft theory. It seemed the more the other girls surrounded and badgered me with questions about Maddie's case and my uncle Bruce, the more withdrawn and cold Adele became. Every time she speared me with one of her foul glares, I remembered her wicked laughter through the attic door right after she'd locked me inside. It never failed to make me steam.

On the fourth day, Miss Doucette decided to take the fourteen of us to the Boston Public Garden for a morning of sketching. It was a warm day, a holdover from the summer, the sun bright and the sky clear. We
sat on stools spread out among the maze of paths through dying late-summer blooms.

I heard the buzz of a bee circling my head as I stared at the barely touched sketch pad in front of me. The sun reflected off the paper, my sharpened graphite pencil useless in my fingers. Unless it was a magical pencil, infused with powers of creating fine art, I was doomed. Instead, I longed to take my notebook out of my cloak pocket and jot down character sketches on all of the girls.

Two rows of withering cattails away, I saw Adele beneath the drooping branches of a crab apple tree. She concentrated on her sketch, her hand moving deftly over her paper. I looked at the few unformed lines on my paper. A two-year-old could do better. If I had to show my sketch of a sunflower to the rest of the girls, I might just keel over with an acute attack of humiliationitis.

Adele glanced up from her drawing and met my panicked eyes. She rose from her stool and wandered along the brick path, continuing to sketch as she walked. I bit the inside of my bottom lip. Adele was walking right toward me. Perfect. What would she do now?

She stopped at a fork in the garden path and took a fast, discreet look around. I knew that move — she was checking to see if anyone had taken notice of her
ambling. But from what I'd witnessed the last few days, Adele wasn't close friends with anyone at the academy, and no one took notice of her now. Even Miss Doucette had her back turned as she commented on some other girl's work near a small duck pond.

My interest piqued, I watched Adele as she turned back toward me. Her gray eyes widened and rolled toward the turn in the brick path. Twice. She then slowly started off in that direction. I couldn't believe it. Adele Horne wanted me to follow her. I sat still, suspicious. Following her might only lead me straight into another one of her traps.

But Will would want me to. He would be at Grandmother's dinner on Saturday evening and he'd want to know what Adele had said. If I didn't have anything to share with him, what use would I be? Besides, I couldn't allow Adele the pleasure of knowing she made me nervous.

A bee buzzed near my ear and I shot up from my stool, my jerky movements garnering some attention from Maud and Lucille, two of the girls who'd befriended me — if consistently begging me to introduce them to
the
Detective Bruce Snow could even be seen as real friendship.

I ignored them and attempted to sketch and walk as Adele had, but by the time I reached the bend in the path,
my drawing was beyond repair. I flipped the page and sighed lovingly at the blank white sheet. It reminded me of my notebook, and how every new sheet of paper inside had the possibility of one day holding a pivotal clue.

Adele was just a few yards ahead of me, under a short tunnel of arched trellis. Vines had climbed up the sides and woven into the roof to create natural shade from the sun. There were no other students in sight as Adele waved her hand for me to hurry.

“I wondered how long it would take you,” she hissed. “We only have a few moments before Miss Doucette notices we've wandered off.”

I crossed my arms, my sketch pad tight against my chest. “What, exactly, do you want?”

I took stock of my surroundings, trying to anticipate what Adele could use against me.

“Have you talked to Will yet?” Adele asked.

I quit looking at the thorny vines running up the trellis, having pictured them briefly as a weapon of some kind.

“Yes, I have, and I know all about your interesting theory.” Adele narrowed her eyes as she picked up on my sarcasm. “What do I have to do with any of it?”

She drew her shoulders back, hesitating. Without meeting my eyes, Adele answered, lightning quick, “Will said you might be able to help.”

She looked a little like Uncle Bruce had when he'd finally admitted I'd done well in the Maddie Cook case: queasy.

“And why would I want to?” I asked. “For some reason, you decided to make my first day at Miss Doucette's a nightmare. And now you're asking for my help?”

Adele hushed me and then craned her neck to see if anyone was coming.

“Trust me — I'd much rather not have to ask. I would love to be able to solve this on my own and not have to bother asking for help from anybody.”

I had never met anyone so stubborn in all my life!

“Then why are you?” I asked.

“Because it's not my
father's
art that's being stolen!” Adele's voice was the one rising now, and she didn't check it. “It was my mother's dream to open an art museum, not his. When she died —” Adele swallowed and tried to regain her cool composure.

“When she died, Papa took over the collecting. He wouldn't sell any of her pieces, even when we ran out of room in the house to display them. It's important
to him, and I don't want to see any more of it being taken.”