Edison's Gold (17 page)

“Mrs. McCracken.” Faber passed her a battered box of Kleenex. “I already have an APB out on the missing parties. But within the privacy of this office, I've got every reason to believe that this mystery kidnapper doesn't even exist.” And with another hard look at Noodle, she opened a binder and pulled out a photo of the same leather-bound copy of
The Alchemy Treatise
that they'd seen at the Metropolitan Museum.

“Two days ago,” she continued as the photo made its way around the room, “this book was stolen from the Keller exhibit at the Met. It's valued at a quarter million dollars.”

“Hold up!” Noodle popped up from his chair. “We didn't have anything to do with that—”

“The very same book,” interrupted Faber, “that Mrs. Edison found in her son's bedroom this morning.”

Noodle turned toward Tom's mom, whose unhappy face confirmed it.

“Mrs. E! We're being framed here!”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Bernard.”

“I'm telling you, it was the kidnapper from the pet shop. He probably planted it or something.”

At the word
kidnapper
, Colby's grandmother burst into a new round of fresh tears.

“Detective Faber, my son's not a thief,” protested Tom's father, shifting uneasily in his chair. “We're not sure how the book—”

“I'm sure he's not,” Faber answered calmly. “Which is probably why he ran away. Have there been any big changes at home? Some reason he'd be acting out?”

“His father just took a job in Kansas,” said Mrs. Edison. “Tom isn't taking the news very well.” Lieutenant Faber nodded, as if that were exactly the kind of information she'd expected.

“You guys aren't listening! We're being framed!” Noodle was shouting now, and had to sit on his hands to keep from hopping out of his seat again. But no one was paying him much attention. All the adults seemed to be on Team Faber.

“Sometimes difficult situations cause people—especially young people—to make rash decisions,” the lieutenant continued, undaunted. “I think Tom and Colby have realized the nature of their crime and are hiding.”

“Noodle, please tell us where Colby and Tom are,” Colby's grandmother pleaded. “I promise, we won't get angry.”

“For the last time”—Noodle tried to speak evenly, but it was hard to keep his voice from cracking with emotion—“they were kidnapped.”

“Enough already with the theatrics, young man,” Noodle's mother scolded. “You're in hot enough water as it is.”

Amid all of the others' commotion and emotion, Tom's father remained strangely silent.

“Right now, the important thing is to stay calm.” Faber folded her hands together. “We've got a lot of our officers out there, but I'm certain your kids will resurface soon.”

The adults nodded. Noodle clenched his fists. He'd find his friends, without their help. He had to.

J
ust after ten a.m. and here Noodle was, standing hunched on the Edison family's front porch, his finger pressed to their doorbell. He had decided to disguise himself in a trench coat and sunglasses, but now in the light of the new day, the idea felt extremely ridiculous. He probably just looked like a freak.

Thankfully, the only passerby so far had been Anders, the neighborhood's eleven-year-old paperboy, and Noodle didn't care what that twerp thought about anything.

He pressed the doorbell again, then ducked his head deeper into his coat collar as an old couple came speedwalking past the house in their matching purple tracksuits. Noodle thought he saw them shoot him a sidelong, disapproving glance. Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

Finally, the door jumped open. “Noodle!” Tom's dad's eyes widened. “What's with the Inspector Gadget outfit?”

“I'm under house arrest,” he responded. “So I had to sneak out. Though I don't think you're in a position to make comments about anyone's wardrobe, Mr. E.” As usual, Tom's dad's shirt was untucked, his glasses crooked, his pants stained, and his hair a bird's nest.

With a wave, Mr. Edison beckoned Noodle to follow him into the house, where he was startled to see that the entire living room interior was gone, replaced by brown packing boxes. A hundred memories shot through him: Tom's house at Thanksgiving; Tom's house when he and Noodle had held an Erector Set competition, and half the class had come over; Tom's house during the ice storm a couple of winters ago, when they'd built the best indoor fort, ever, right on this very living room carpet, the only item that had not been packed yet.

“Noodle?” Tom's dad peered at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. Not the moment for nostalgia. “I need to show you something. I'll need a table, though.” Which was not happening in this room.

“Kitchen. Let's go.”

At the kitchen table, he pulled from out of his backpack the metal box they'd found under the mile-nine marker.

“What is this?” Mr. Edison adjusted his glasses and knelt down to inspect the dented box. Noodle lifted the lid to reveal the strange machine inside. In his opinion, it looked like a souped-up toilet paper dispenser—a mess of wires, wheels, and gadgets propping up a ten-inch-wide spool of brittle, yellowy paper.

“My current theory is it's some kind of telegraph machine,” said Noodle, though he didn't really know what to make of it.

“No … it's … Where'd you find this?”

“So you know what it is?” asked Noodle, sidestepping the question. Down at the police station, everyone had been pretty annoyed about his recount of the midnight field trip into Hoboken, so Noodle'd decided to go with the “less is less” strategy. The less information he gave Tom's dad, the less mad he'd be.

“It's a universal stock ticker,” Tom's dad answered after a moment. “Probably one of the first Edison ever designed.” He ran a slow, reverent hand across the machine's chrome base. “See the type-wheel shift mechanism there?” Pointing now to a skinny metal pin running
along the inside of the machine: “And the screw thread unison. He designed that specifically so the printing operator could keep all the different machines in line.” He leaned close to the machine, touching a few of its gears. “This little gem here gave birth to the stock exchange as we know it today.” Tom's dad knotted his hands behind his back as he bent forward, preferring to observe rather than tinker.

“Mr. E, I think this machine's the key to getting Tom and Colby back.”

“Does this have to do with your kidnapper story?” Mr. E removed his glasses and zoomed his full attention onto Noodle. “I need you to tell me the truth.”

Noodle knew Tom would die if he found out his dad was about to get involved in the treasure hunt, but Tom wasn't here now, and Noodle didn't know what else to do.

“All right, Mr. E. I'm about to lay some knowledge on you right now that you might not want to hear. But I need you to take off your grown-up hat for a second and hear me out.”

“All ears.” Tom's dad took a seat and placed his hands on the kitchen table, waiting for Noodle to begin.

“Remember that photo from the camera?”

Tom's dad nodded warily.

“Well, thanks to some Sherlock-style skills from yours truly, we realized it was actually a clue. To where this really old record and movie film were hidden.”

“And where were they hidden?”

“Some crazy lady's pet store in Brooklyn, but that's a whole other nightmare. The point is, the record and movie led us to the train tracks. Where we found this!”

Tom's father leaned back in his chair. His mouth hung open slightly, but his face was impossible to read.

“But that's when the kidnapper dude showed up and took Tom and Colby.”

“Okay, Noodle.” Mr. E looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes a moment. “What if I told you that I believe every single thing that you just told me?”

“No way! You do? Then you also think Colby was kidnapped? But then why aren't you—”

Mr. E held a finger to his lips. “We have to stay calm. That's the first rule. If this really is about what I think it's about, then you're right. My great-grandfather and the Sub Rosa have hidden something very, very precious, and other people want it. And if this clue is the answer, or if it puts us closer to the answer, then that's our best leverage
for getting Tom and Colby back. We're dealing with some less-than-respectable people, and we need to proceed with caution.”

“Then … you think you can make this work?”

“What choice do we have?”

“We could go to the police,” Noodle offered, but Tom's dad shook his head no.

“If you're telling the truth, that means someone else planted the book. So going to the police with this might only make things worse.” The wheels and cranks of Mr. E's mind turned carefully as he worked through their options. “Finding the next clue's our best shot.” He went pensive for a long moment, studying the ticker.

“Sometimes it's hard for me to believe you and Tom are related,” said Noodle. “He'd have ripped this thing apart by now.”

“In this case, that wouldn't be a bad idea. The gears and wires are all misaligned, not to mention rusted. And there's a missing part, right here.” He picked up the machine gingerly by its base, as if it were a tea tray. “Come on. Let's take this downstairs.”

T
wo hours later, and the stock ticker had been dismantled, then slowly reassembled. New radio wires were spliced with ancient rubber cables, and each rusty screw and pin had been methodically replaced.

Before reattaching each part or realigning any cog, Tom's dad would study the machine for several minutes, then search his pristinely organized shelf space for a labeled box of dissected appliances, light switches, springs, or whatever he happened to be looking for. At one point, he'd even stripped apart an old blender motor to extract one perfectly sized spring.

“The device is more rudimentary than anything we use today,” Tom's dad muttered, wiping his brow with his
sleeve. “And it runs on a completely different voltage. But the principle's basically the same, see?”

“Kinda.”

Finally, Mr. Edison produced an eight-volt battery that had been buried near the back of a cluttered shelf.

“Let's pray she's still got some juice left,” he said, tearing off a length of electrical tape and using it to attach the stock ticker's wires to either side of the battery.

Finally, Tom's dad stepped back from the table to assess the revamped machine. “That should do it.”

Noodle checked for some sort of clue or sign, but the stock ticker didn't seem to be doing much of anything. “That does what? What does this beast do?”

“Nothing. But technically it could.”

“So how do we know if it works?”

“Well, what I mean is that it's ready to receive information.” He pointed to the roll of tape. “But someone needs to be feeding it from somewhere else. Through a telegraph or phone line,” he explained. “Which, as you can see, is a null point because it's not hooked up to—”

Tick, tick, tick
. So faint. Hardly any sound at all.

Tom's dad stopped speaking.

Ticktickticktick
. Faster now. He and Noodle stared at the machine as if it were from another planet.

A section of paper, only slightly wider than a bubble gum wrapper, spat from the front of it.

“No way.” Noodle could hardly breathe.

“Must be some kind of stored electrical pulse,” whispered Mr. E. “Amazing.”

“Or it's a member of the Sub Rosa trying to communicate with us from the grave.”

Once the ticking had stopped, Tom's dad delicately tore off the sheet of paper and held it close to his glasses as if it were a snowflake.

Printed on the paper, in two lines of wavering type, was a message.

“ ‘Through Mercury's gate, you'll reach the backward horse. The circled rose will light your course,' ” Tom's dad read. “That mean anything to you?” He turned toward Noodle, his eyes brimming with hope.