The Secret Cellar (12 page)

“I know the place.” He eyes us suspiciously. “Why there? Why me?”

“Well, you weren’t our first choice, to be honest,” I admit. “We were going to ask Malcolm Chance, but the guy at the bookstore knows him. He was with us at the auction.”

“Auction?” He’s shaking his head with a what-have-they-gotten-themselves-into-this-time look on his face.

“Don’t worry. Margaret will explain it all later.”

“Here’s the plan,” says Margaret. “You go in the bookstore while we wait outside, out of sight. If he sees us, he’ll know something is up.”

“I’m sure you’re going to explain to me why he is so suspicious of you, right?”

Margaret ignores him. “With all your theater experience, you’re up for a little acting, aren’t you? Here’s your part: you are a rare-book collector, and you’re just browsing. After a few minutes, make your way back toward the counter. You’ll see a cabinet with glass doors—that’s where he keeps all the good stuff. Inside, there’s a copy of
The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot.” When she sees the face he makes, she pauses, remembering that Mr. Eliot’s first name is George. “Oh, right, I guess you would know that one.”

“Yes, I would,” he says.

“That book is listed on the website for twelve hundred dollars. Just say that you saw it online and might be interested. Here’s a printout of the page from his site. Then, as you hand that book back to him, something else in the cabinet is going to catch your eye. It’s a set of books called
Nine Worthy Men
, three volumes in a slipcase, in very nice condition. Are you with me so far? Good. Because next comes the tricky part. Look carefully at the first volume in the set. There’s one of those built-in bookmarks, a piece of red ribbon. We want you to … tug on that ribbon and see what happens.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but once we tell you the rest of the story, you’ll see. When the guy from the shop hands you that book, we’re going to come in and create a little distraction so you can do what you need to do.”

“What do you think is going to happen when I pull on that ribbon? Is it going to summon Charlemagne’s ghost or something equally dramatic? What if it comes all the way out? What am I supposed to do then?”

“How did you know Charlemagne was one of them?” I ask.

Mr. Eliot taps his forehead. “There’s a whole warehouse full of useless information up here, St. Pierre.”

Margaret takes an eight-inch piece of red ribbon from her bag. “I’ve got it covered.”

Mr. Eliot looks at our waiting faces. “I still want to hear the rest of this story, but fine, okay, let’s go. I reserve the right to reconsider.”

“So you’ll really do it?” Becca asks, not hiding the surprise in her voice. “I bet them you wouldn’t.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Chen.”

“We’ll see,” she says. “The opera ain’t over till it’s over.”

But he doesn’t change his mind, even after hearing the rest of the story on the subway ride to Eighty-Sixth Street. We stop a few doors down from Sturm & Drang for a quick review of the plan. Mr. Eliot checks his coat
pocket one final time for the piece of red ribbon and the folded paper with the information that Margaret printed out from Marcus Klinger’s website, and then he’s off.

Once he’s inside, we scurry down the sidewalk to the near corner of the bookstore’s front window and crouch into spying position, ready to pounce the second we see him crack open
Nine Worthy Men
.

For a used-book store in an out-of-the-way location, Sturm & Drang is strangely busy; there are three other people in the store besides Mr. Eliot, and Marcus Klinger moves from customer to customer, chatting and smiling—things he never bothered to do for us. Mr. Eliot discovers the Dickens shelf, and spends a long time leafing through a copy of
David Copperfield
.

“What is he doing?” Becca asks.

“He totally forgot why he’s in there,” groans Leigh Ann. “Look, now he’s reading that huge book. He’ll be in that shop forever. Man, he is such a dork.”

“Relax,” Margaret assures us. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“Now I’m sure we’re in trouble,” says Becca.

My legs start to cramp as Mr. Eliot continues reading. Just as I’m starting to think Becca and Leigh Ann are right, he closes
David Copperfield
—a bit reluctantly, I think—and makes his move toward the locked glass cabinet. He unfolds the paper and checks it, looks at the books, and then back at the paper.

Klinger approaches, glancing at the paper in Mr.
Eliot’s hand. We can’t hear the conversation through the glass, but everything seems to be going according to plan. Mr. Eliot shows him the paper, on which he has circled the crucial details about the other George Eliot’s masterpiece. Klinger nods enthusiastically at something Mr. Eliot says, unlocks the cabinet, and hands him
The Mill on the Floss
.

“I don’t think Klinger asked him if his hands were clean,” I whisper to Margaret.

Mr. Eliot examines the book so carefully that I start to believe he’s actually going to buy it. Klinger wanders off to help someone else for a moment and when he returns, Mr. Eliot hands him the book with a shake of his head and points at something else in the cabinet.

“Here we go,” says Margaret as Klinger reaches for the slipcased set of
Nine Worthy Men
. “Everybody ready?”

The rest of us grunt at her. “It’s about time,” Becca complains. “I can’t feel my toes. If we have to make a run for it, I’m in big trouble.”

Mr. Eliot is opening the first volume as we burst through the door, talking noisily.

“Why are we going in here again?” Becca says loudly.

“Yeah, Sophie, I thought you said you would never sell him that pen,” Leigh Ann adds.

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” I say. “Five hundred bucks would buy me a lot of books. We could buy that copy of
A Christmas Carol
.”

We walk past Mr. Eliot without a look and head for the farthest corner of the store, where we all start pulling books from the shelves willy-nilly.

Our little plan works perfectly. The mere sight of four street urchins with their grubby little fingers all over his precious books sends Marcus Klinger into an absolute tizzy. He rushes to the back of the store to deal with us, leaving Mr. Eliot alone with
Nine Worthy Men
.

“Young ladies!” he cries. “Please, be gentle! This is not a thrift shop! These are valuable antiques, and must be handled properly. If you want to see something, I would greatly prefer that you ask me to show it to you. Please.”

I know he’s only being nice to us because there are other customers in the shop and because he wants my dad’s fountain pen. The soupçon of hope that I may be reconsidering has worked a small miracle on his disposition.

As he’s showing Becca the proper way to turn the pages in an old book, I glide a few feet down the aisle until I can see Mr. Eliot. He glances around the shop, looking very nervous and trying to determine where Klinger is. When he’s finally satisfied that Klinger is occupied with helping us, he closes his eyes and gives the red ribbon a healthy tug. His eyes open wide as a few more inches of ribbon come out from somewhere inside the binding. He pulls again, and even more ribbon appears. The look in his eyes tells me that he’s starting to panic as he’s suddenly holding on to two feet of ribbon.

“Keep pulling!” I hiss at him.

So he pulls. And pulls. And pulls some more. I have to cover my mouth to prevent myself from laughing at the look on his face as the red ribbon simply keeps coming: he looks like a magician who has just realized he really can perform magic. As one hand keeps yanking yards and yards of ribbon from the binding, the other is busy scooping and wrapping and cramming long loops of the stuff into his coat pocket.

Behind me, I hear Klinger making noises like he’s finished lecturing Margaret, Leigh Ann, and Becca, and is about to return to the front counter.

“Hey, mister, how much is this book?” I shout, waving a copy of
Sense and Sensibility
. And then, in Mr. Eliot’s direction, I hiss, “Hurry!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Klinger says, exasperated. “Really, you girls need to learn some proper etiquette
if you’re going to continue to come in my store. Now, what do you want to know?”

He starts talking about the book while I look past him at Mr. Eliot, who has pulled out a good twenty feet of ribbon and looks like he might drop dead any second.

And then … abracadabra, presto chango! He reaches the end of the ribbon, and something truly miraculous occurs! As he pulls the final few inches free and they drop to the floor, a perfect replacement ribbon is left in place, attached to the binding just as the original had been. He won’t even need Margaret’s piece of ribbon!

Mr. Eliot stuffs the last few feet into his pocket, and takes a much-needed deep breath. Gently, he slides the volume into place in the slipcase and takes one step back from the counter just as Klinger reappears.

“It’s quite a set,” says Mr. Eliot. “I’ve, uh, never seen anything like it. You’re sure it’s not for sale?”

Klinger rubs his chin. “Not right now, anyway. Maybe one day. Keep your eye on the website after the first of the year. If I change my mind, I’ll list it there.”

“Fair enough,” says Mr. Eliot, shaking his hand and making his way toward the door. “Nice little place you have here. Pity about those … little hooligans.” He pulls the door closed behind him.

Hooligans!

According to our plan, we’re supposed to wait in the store five minutes after Mr. Eliot leaves, so it doesn’t look too suspicious. Well, let me tell you, it is the longest five minutes of my life—keeping quiet about what I have just witnessed.

When the door clangs shut behind us, I run until I’m several doors down from Sturm & Drang, where I collapse onto the frozen ground in a fit of laughter. Margaret, Becca, and Leigh Ann look on, not at all sure what to think of their friend, who, it appears, has lost her mind.

Becca, naturally, is first to comment. “I knew this day would come. She’s completely cracked. Around the bend. Checked out. Bonkers. Loony.”

“You didn’t see his face,” I say, pulling myself together. “It just kept coming and coming. Like one of those magician’s handkerchiefs.”

“What kept coming? The ribbon?” Margaret asks. “How much came out?”

“Miles,” I say. “Miles and miles. He’s pulling and pulling and trying to stuff it in his pockets, and—” I completely lose it again.

“She’s mental,” says Leigh Ann, checking her watch. “And we’d better get moving or Mr. Eliot is going to ditch us.”

Margaret and Leigh Ann pull me to my feet, and we find Mr. Eliot waiting inside the bodega at the corner, just as we had arranged.

“Remind me,” he says, calmly pouring himself a cup of coffee, “never to listen to you girls again. I almost had a heart attack in there! And you, Miss St. Pierre—fat lot of help you were. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ you say. What if he had come back and seen me with half a mile of ribbon wrapped around me?”

“We’re sorry, really,” says Margaret, trying to hold in a smile. “We didn’t know. Honest. That’s why we needed the diversion. Now, can we see this ribbon?”

Mr. Eliot hands me the end of the ribbon. “Show them what they missed.”

I re-create the moment, doing my best imitation of Mr. Eliot freaking out. It’s a wasted performance, though, because they’ve discovered that there’s writing on the ribbon and are desperately trying to read it as I yank it out of Mr. Eliot’s pocket.

“What does it say?” Mr. Eliot asks.

“I’ll bet it’s secret plans for building nukes,” says Becca, who sees conspiracies everywhere. (She’s convinced that the long-awaited and still-ongoing Second Avenue subway project is a cover story while the government digs up an alien race of pod people before they have a chance to take over the planet.)

“It’s just a string of hundreds of letters, on both sides. I can’t make out any words at all. It’s got to be a code.” As Margaret runs her fingers the length of the ribbon, she is getting that go-ahead-and-try-to-outsmart-me-old-man look in her eyes. “Well, I think it’s also safe to say that we are pretty darn good at cracking codes.”