The Secret Cellar (13 page)

Sleepover night at my apartment means two things when the RBGDA is on a case: we’re going to stuff ourselves on Dad’s latest culinary creation and then stay awake until we solve whatever problem we’re facing.

Imagine our disappointment, then, when we learn that Dad forgot to cook for us. No
poulet au vinaigre
. No macaroni
et fromage
. Not even a box of day-old pastries.

Leigh Ann is taking it hardest. She sits at our table, gazing forlornly at the oven that has brought her so much happiness over the past few months.

“Bummer,” says Becca.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” says Leigh Ann. “All week.”

“Sorry. Look, we’ll just order something. I even have
a coupon for this new pizza place—Crazy Ray’s. Buy one, get one free. How can you go wrong with a deal like that?”

“I’m not so sure, Sophie,” Margaret cautions. “Let’s stick with something we know, like Trantonno’s? Or Famous Ray’s? Or Luciano’s, where your blue-eyed boyfriend works. Maybe he’ll even deliver it. At least with one of those, we’ll know what we’re getting.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say as I call the number on the coupon.

Turns out there’s a good reason Crazy Ray’s pizza is so cheap: it is just plain awful.

“This is worse than school cafeteria pizza,” Becca declares, prying her third slice loose from the box. “I can’t tell where the crust ends and the cardboard begins.”

Leigh Ann sighs heavily. “I think the crust
is
cardboard.”

“It doesn’t seem to be slowing Rebecca down,” notes Margaret.

Becca shrugs. “Bad pizza is still pizza.”

“Well, there’s a whole pie left, and I don’t think anyone is going to fight you for it,” I say.

Dad comes into the kitchen with his coat on, ready to leave for the restaurant, and instantly that noble schnoz of his starts sniffing like mad. “What is that terrible smell?” He opens the lid of the second pizza box. “Yeeouughhh. What is this? This is not pizza.
Quelle horreur!
This is a … disgrace to the good name of pizza.
Sophie! Do not tell me that you bought this horrible stuff for your friends! This is how you treat your guests?”

My so-called friends turn and glare at me.

“See?” says Leigh Ann. “It doesn’t even smell like good pizza.”

“It’s your fault,” I say, pointing at Dad, who is shocked by my pronouncement.

“
Excusez-moi?
My fault, you say?”

“It’s not your fault,” Leigh Ann explains. “It’s just that usually, when we come over to spend the night with Sophie, you cook something amazing for us.”

“Ahhh. Now I see. I’m sorry, girls, but I promise—I will make it up to you. A true feast.”

“Yay!” shouts Leigh Ann.

“Now, please make that go away,” he says, giving the leftover pizza a dismissive wave on his way out the kitchen door.

“Wait! Dad, don’t leave!” I shout. “I have a question for you. Just a second, it’s in my backpack.” I run to my room and return with the empty wine bottle from Mr. Dedmann’s, which I hold up for Dad to see.

“Mon Dieu,”
he whispers. “
Château Latour. Quarante-neuf
. Where did you get this?”

Well, this is awkward. Dad doesn’t know about Shelley or Mr. Dedmann, and the explanation would take too long.

“Um, from this woman we met who is, um, trying to sort out this collection of stuff she inherited. Kind of a
long story. Boring, really. So, what’s the deal with this wine? Is it any good?”

Hoo-boy, was that the wrong question to ask.

“Is it any good?” he repeats, flabbergasted by my ignorance. “One might as well ask if the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is pretty. Or if Mozart’s music is nice. Sophie, this is not merely wine; this is poetry in a bottle. Château Latour isn’t good; it is … sublime. And that is in a bad year. But 1949 was one of the best vintages in history.” He sniffs the inside of the bottle and smiles.
“Très magnifique.”

“So, what’s this stuff worth?” Becca asks.

Dad purses his lips and considers the question. “A bottle of ‘this stuff,’ as you say, would sell for six to eight thousand dollars. Possibly a bit more.”

That sound you just heard? Four chins hitting the floor.

“Eight thousand dollars! For one bottle of wine!” Becca exclaims. “No way. Nobody would pay that. It’s ridiculous. You’re kidding, right?”

Becca, Becca, Becca. Dad doesn’t kid about wine. He gives her his special version of “the stink-eye” and assures her that he is quite serious.

“B-b-but why?” she blubbers.

“Some people demand the very best,” he answers. “And this—this is the best. Also, as you can imagine, there are very few bottles left from 1949.”

“Doesn’t it, you know, go bad after all that time?” Leigh Ann asks.

“Not if it is stored properly,” Dad says.

“Like in a wine cellar?” Margaret asks.

“
Oui
. A wine cellar. Does your … friend have more bottles like this? With the wine still inside, perhaps?”

“We’ll have to get back to you on that,” I say.

Margaret takes out her notebook and shows Dad the note she copied from inside the one on Dedmann’s desk:

“Just out of curiosity, does this mean anything to you?” she asks. “Maybe something to do with wine?”

Dad stares at the paper for a few seconds. “No, it—Wait, yes, it makes sense. Except for the first line. The rest, though, is easy. The first two aren’t letters, they’re numbers. The five looks like an ‘S.’ ‘Fifty-one Roth,’ that’s a 1951 Rothschild. And a fifty-five Vougeot. The last one is a 2005 Figeac. These are all very good wines.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “Good, like the stuff you and Mom drink, or good, like eight thousand dollars?”

“Somewhere in between,” he says. “But closer to the second thing you said.”

After the excitement over the eight thousand–dollar bottle of wine wears off, Margaret unrolls all twenty-seven feet of ribbon that Mr. Eliot pulled from
Nine Worthy
Men
. She passes it through her fingers, examining it inch by inch.

“Okay, we pulled the ribbon, just like the instructions said. What does he mean, ‘the walking stick is the key’?”

“I’ll bet there’s a secret compartment in Dedmann’s walking stick, and Klinger knows about it. If it has that, and he knows that it’s the key to those floor thingies, we’re toast.”

Margaret doesn’t even hear me; she presses her fingertips into her temples and drifts off to the happy thinking place deep down in her scary brain. “The code says that the stick
is
the key, not the stick holds the key. But either way, we need that stick.”

“Well, we could ask Mr. Eliot—”

“UNLESS!” Margaret shouts, interrupting the guaranteed-to-be-profound thought I’m about to express. She leaps to her feet and runs out of my room.

Becca, Leigh Ann, and I stare at each other. “Where do you suppose she’s going?” Becca finally asks.

Before I can answer, Margaret returns with a broom.

“I knew it,” Leigh Ann says. “Margaret is a wizard, isn’t she? That explains so much! How long have you guys known?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s time you heard the truth,” I say. “I’ve known for three years now. Margaret can fly.”

Margaret is too busy wrapping the ribbon around the broomstick to listen to what we’re saying. “Sophie, come here. Put your finger right here, on the end of the ribbon.”

“What are you doing?”

“The walking stick is the key,” she repeats, continuing to wind the ribbon around the broomstick. “It’s called a scytale, an ancient system for sending messages in code. It was used by the Greeks—people like Hector, and maybe even Alexander the Great. It makes perfect sense!”

“How does it work?” Leigh Ann asks over my shoulder.

“It’s incredibly simple, really,” Margaret explains, “as long as you have a stick that’s the right diameter. If
you want to write a secret message, you take the blank ribbon and wrap it around the stick like I’m doing, then you write your message across all those wraps of ribbon. Then you just fill in all the extra space with random letters, unwrap it, and send it to somebody who has a stick just like the one you used to create the message. They wrap it around theirs, and they can read what you wrote. Obviously, Dedmann used his walking stick.”

“What if this broomstick isn’t the same size as his walking stick?” I ask.

“Then it won’t work,” Margaret says. “But I’m prepared for that, too.”

Three feet of the broomstick is completely covered by the ribbon by the time Margaret finishes wrapping. Leigh Ann holds the other loose end of ribbon as Margaret searches for the secret message.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Not yet.”

“You know, I saw that walking stick today when we were in Klinger’s shop,” says Leigh Ann, “and it’s definitely fatter than this. It looks really heavy.”

Margaret unwinds the ribbon. “That’s okay. I have a Plan B. Sophie, get me today’s newspaper. And some tape—any kind will do.”

“Aye, aye.” I’m back with the paper and a roll of Scotch tape in seconds. “What’s all this about?”

Margaret unfolds the newspaper, making a stack of single sheets of newsprint. She starts with a double thickness
of pages from the arts section and wraps it around the broomstick again and again. I tear off a piece of tape to hold the edge of the paper in place.

Margaret shows the finished product to Leigh Ann. “What do you think?”

“A little thicker. I think.”

Two more sheets of newspaper go on, and we all turn to Leigh Ann to see her reaction.

“You’re making me nervous,” she says. “I only saw it for a second. That looks pretty close to me.”

That’s good enough for Margaret, who starts winding ribbon again, and who starts smiling before she even gets to the end.

“There! Do you see it?” She reads:

Okay, future detectives, here’s another question for you. This one, however, is too easy for multiple choice:

Based on the information in this poem, whose medallion is the first of three?

Do I really need to warn you about peeking ahead?

“Julius Caesar!” Margaret, Leigh Ann, and I shout out simultaneously.

Becca just looks bewildered. “Man, you guys are geeks. How do you know that?”

“Oh, come on, Becca,” I say. “You’ve never heard ‘Beware the Ides of March’ before? March fifteenth? The day Julius Caesar was assassinated? My dad even makes me a special breakfast on that day. It’s a giant stack of pancakes with a knife stuck in the middle, and strawberry syrup oozing out of the wound. Because, you know, Julius Caesar was—”

“I get it, I get it,” says Becca. “I know how he was killed, I just didn’t know exactly when.”

“So is it the same message on the other side?” Leigh Ann asks.

Margaret looks at her, puzzled. “Other side?” And then it hits her. “The other side of the ribbon! I almost
forgot. We have to check the letters on that side, too. But, first, we have to write this message down.”

She jots it down in a notebook, double-checking every letter of every word, and then unwinds the ribbon from the broomstick. As she rewinds the ribbon with the “back” side showing, the rest of us are competing to be first to spot the secret message.

“Hey, I see it!” I shout as Margaret winds the last few inches of ribbon onto the stick. “Let me read it.”

Everyone else takes a good look to make sure I haven’t missed anything, and once that message is copied in Margaret’s notebook, she wonders aloud, “What should we do with the ribbon?”

“Keep it secret. Keep it safe,” Becca says, quoting Gandalf. “It must not fall into the enemy’s hands.”