The 100-Year-Old Secret (4 page)

Except for him, Xena thought as she watched the redheaded boy slip out a side door.

She didn't need to be a famous detective to know that Andrew Watson didn't like them one bit.

“When is it going to be
my
turn?” Xander asked his sister the next day. Xena was flopped onto her twin bed against the far wall and had been hogging the casebook for hours.

“Pretty soon,” she said, but she seemed in no hurry to pass the book over to him.

Xander sat on a small chair by the window and stared out at the gloomy, rainy Saturday afternoon. He sighed and watched a raindrop hurry down the pane of glass and catch up with another one. He took his eyes away from the window. “I can't believe I'm so bored that I'm watching raindrop races,” he said. “Is there anything in there we could try to solve?”

“I wish,” Xena said. “But these cases took place over a hundred years ago. There's one about a ruby that somebody lost and then some weird notes about a toeless guy. Stuff like that. It's mostly just notes and sketches. I'll tell you if I find anything. Mom said we had to do something cultural this afternoon anyway, remember? Why don't you look for an art exhibit or something?”

Xander groaned and picked up the newspaper
that was resting on a tiny wooden end table. During their first days in London their mother had made them go see the Rosetta Stone and huge landscape paintings and Greek sculptures, and Xander didn't want to go to another museum the whole rest of the year. But Xena was different. She could go to a museum every day for a week and then wake up the next day and ask to go to another one.

Xander scanned down the page. “Medieval illumination,” he read. “Wire sculptures by some guy with a name I can't pronounce, paintings by Nigel Batheson, nature photographs—”

“What?” Xena interrupted him.

“Nature photographs.”

“No, that other one,” Xena said. “Paintings by who?”

“Nigel Batheson,” Xander read again.

“Wow!” Xena said. “This is amazing! Look at this.” Xander got up to join her, and she angled the casebook toward him. He peered at the old-fashioned handwriting as Xena took the newspaper.

“Nigel Batheson,” Xander read aloud. “
Girl in a Purple Hat
. Noticed missing Thursday last.” There were some more notes, and at the bottom of the next page was a notation in the same
handwriting but a slightly different shade of ink, as though some time had elapsed between the inscriptions: “Case abandoned to pursue intriguing problem of lion's mane.”

They both sat back. “It's got to be the same guy,” Xena said. “How many artists named Nigel Batheson can there be? And look—they even mention that same painting in the newspaper.” She ran her finger down the column. “See? It says, ‘Sadly, Batheson's most important work is still missing from the collection. This painting,
Girl in a Purple Hat
, is a portrait of a little girl of about eight seated on a wicker chair in a summer garden.'”

“What?” Xander broke in. “That's the same picture as in the notebook!”

“Duh,” Xena said. “That's what I just said. Anyway, the paper says, ‘The painting was discovered missing a century ago and has never been recovered. Fortunately, a copy had previously been made.' Look, there it is.” They bent their heads over the newspaper. The grainy picture showed a pretty girl with blond curls and a bright purple hat, sitting on a chair with flowers and shrubs behind her. The contrast between the color of the hat and the girl's green eyes was striking even in the newspaper.

Xena went on reading. “‘Although it is claimed that the copy could never capture all the charm of the original, at least it gives an idea of what the missing painting looked like. Note the model's slightly sulky expression, which makes the painting stand out from the sometimes overly sweet view of childhood frequently depicted in portraits of the era.'”

Xander sat back on his heels. “Wouldn't it be awesome if we could find that painting? I mean, isn't it amazing that we saw the name of the artist in the paper? It's like it was meant to be.”

“That would be cool!” Xena said. “But it's been missing for so long. Where would we begin to look?”

“We have something that could help,” Xander pointed out. “We have this.” He gestured at the casebook. “The notes of the great Sherlock Holmes. They give us a head start. Look, here's a list of names. Wife—Marguerite; children—Abner, Cedric, Robert.”

“And what does this mean, do you think?” he pointed at the word
Taynesbury
scrawled in a corner. A little farther down was a sketch of a dragon that seemed to be curled up on itself with its tail in its mouth.

Xena took the notebook from him. “I don't
know, Xan. Those names could be anything. And it looks like the dragon is just a doodle. It says that the painting was noticed missing on a Thursday. But that's not really a big help.”

“Come
on
, Xena.” Xander was impatient. “We've watched hundreds of mystery shows on TV and we always figure out the bad guy before the detective does. And I'm always reading detective books. Besides, we have Sherlock Holmes's genes. Doesn't that mean anything?”

Xena hesitated before answering. “It could be dangerous.”

“Are you kidding?” Xander laughed. “Looking for a picture of a girl in a purple hat could be
dangerous
? How could finding the answer to a hundred-year-old secret be dangerous?”

Xena glanced down at the newspaper again. “We wouldn't have much time,” she said, and Xander held his breath, knowing she was considering it. “The exhibit opens next Friday at a museum called the Victoria and Albert, and then a few days later it leaves on a worldwide tour. This guy Batheson has gotten really popular again all of a sudden, the paper says.”

Xander nodded. “We owe it to him,” he said, rubbing his finger over the initials stamped on the cover. “Not to Batheson. We owe it to our
great-great-great-grandfather. He solved most of the mysteries he set out to solve. It's not his fault he had to leave this one before it was finished. Let's see if we can figure it out for him.”

Xena looked at her brother. From someplace deep inside of her came a sense of family pride she hadn't known she possessed. Wouldn't it be amazing if they could solve some of the great Sherlock Holmes's cases for him?

She stood up. “Okay. Let's find that painting before the art show opens,” she said. “Or at least before the exhibit goes on tour around the world. Let's make sure it's included this time, just as though Sherlock himself had found it.”

Xander stood too and held out his hand. Xena took it and they shook on the deal.

“Now,” said Xander. “Where do we start?”

G
ood question, Xena thought. Maybe it was too tough a case. Maybe that was the real reason their great-great-great-grandfather had dropped it—not because a more urgent problem had popped up. What could two kids do where Sherlock Holmes had failed?

Xander didn't seem troubled by these doubts. “Okay,” he said. “Let's make a plan. Go on, you know you're dying to make a list!”

Xena pulled out a piece of paper and ignored his tease about how much she liked to make lists. “First, let's find out everything we can about Batheson and his family,” she said as she wrote, “1. Family.”

Xander nodded. “Maybe we can find out where he kept his paintings and who could have taken one. And let's find out the model's name,” he said. “Maybe she left a diary or letters or something that would help.”

Xena wrote down, “2. Model's identity.” She tapped the end of her pencil on the paper. “Let's see if we can take a look at any of his other paintings and drawings,” she said. “Maybe we can find some clues.”

“Good idea,” Xander said. “And then what?”

“We'll just have to see what we turn up,” Xena said.

There were some advantages to working in the modern day. One of them was the Internet. Xander tried to look over Xena's shoulder as she typed, and he accidentally jiggled her arm.

“Whoa, cowboy,” Xena said as she pressed Print.

“Quit calling me that,” Xander said, but she ignored him, as usual.

“First you have to listen to this stuff about Batheson,” she said. “It's mostly about his paintings and not a lot about his life, but there's some pretty interesting information.” The printer stopped whirring, and Xena took out the sheets and smacked them on the desk to even them up. “Okay,” she said, settling on her bed, her long legs crossed in front of her.

“Number one. Nigel Batheson married a lady named Marguerite Sawyer. They had three sons. The family lived in the country, in
Hertfordshire, wherever that is, and they hardly ever had any visitors because Batheson was really shy. I think he had agoraphobia.”

“Ah.” Xander nodded. He'd seen the word in the dictionary. The definition popped into his mind. “Agoraphobia. Fear of open spaces, from the Greek words
agora
, meaning ‘marketplace,' and
phobia
, meaning ‘fear.' Now generally intended to mean fear of traveling away from familiar surroundings.”

“Showoff,” Xena said. “Okay, number two. When he died, his family was really poor, so his wife decided to sell some of his paintings. But when she went to get
Girl in a Purple Hat
out of storage in their home to send to a gallery in London where more buyers could see it, the painting was gone.”

“Was anybody arrested?”

Xena riffled through the pages. “It doesn't say, so I bet not. Number three. The actual date of the theft remained uncertain because Mrs. Batheson said the picture was put into storage soon after it was finished and she hadn't gone looking for it until years later. The police questioned all the servants, but everyone denied knowing anything. One of the boys had grown up and gotten married, and the other two were
away at boarding school. The police asked them all about it, but didn't learn anything there either.”

Xander reached for the papers. He leafed through them and looked up. “No wonder this case was so tough. The painting could have been stolen long before anyone noticed it was missing.” He dropped the papers back on the bed.

“True,” Xena said. “That does make it harder.”

“So now what?” Xander asked.

Instead of answering, Xena reached for the phone book and looked up
Batheson
. It was a long shot, but at least it was a place to start. She dialed the first number in the column. No answer. She dialed another number. This time it rang only a few times before a man picked up. Xander leaned in and Xena angled the phone so that he could listen too.

“Hello, Mr. Batheson?” she said.

“Speaking,” a brisk male voice replied.

“Um, you don't know me, but my name is Xena Holmes.”

“You're an American, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I'm—”

“I could tell from your accent,” he interrupted.

Accent? she thought. I don't have an accent! He's the one with the accent! “I'm here with my
family, and I was interested in finding out more about the painter Nigel Batheson. Are you related to him?”

“Yes, dear,” the man said. “I am indeed. He was my great-great-great-grandfather. I never knew him, of course.”

“Yes!” Xander whispered, pumping his fist in the air.

“I was wondering,” Xena said, and then paused. She hadn't thought of what to ask next. Her eyes telegraphed a “Help!” to Xander.

“Ask him what his favorite painting is,” he whispered.

“What's your favorite Batheson painting?” she asked.

“Oh, that's easy,” he said. “
Abner at the Fair
. Abner was Nigel's son and my great-great-grandfather. Batheson didn't complete many paintings, and that's the only large oil of my ancestor. It's always nice to feel connected to a bit of history. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do,” Xena replied, thinking of the casebook.

The man went on. “Nigel was a very withdrawn man, you know. In fact, a historian once said that the way the fair is painted in Abner's portrait is wrong for the time period. It would
have looked old-fashioned even then. So Batheson must have painted his son in the garden and then added a fair he remembered from his own childhood as background.” He chuckled. “People say we English people are eccentric. I don't know if that's true, but Nigel Batheson certainly was!”

This is good, Xena thought. Very good. She took a deep breath and tried to sound casual. “And the one with the girl—the missing painting?”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “
Girl in a Purple Hat
. A lovely thing, if the copies can be believed.”

“Do you have any guesses about what happened to it?”

“Afraid not, my dear. Why, I can't even imagine who might have been the model!”

Now, that was interesting. If Nigel Batheson didn't have any daughters and if he didn't like meeting new people, who could the girl in the painting have been? Xena wondered.