Walls within Walls (12 page)

The days of early fall passed by, and the hot apartment turned cozy and perfect in temperature. Homework was piled on and took up an enormous amount of Brid's and CJ's time. Mrs. Smithfork heard that most kids on the Upper East Side had something called a homework helper—a college student who would come by to assist the children with their studies. Soon, the Smithforks had another new person in their lives: Charlize.

Unlike the responsible Maricel, Charlize was carefree and easygoing, a New York University student who texted her boyfriend almost continuously. In fact, she was always doing more than one thing at the same time. Even her hair couldn't seem to decide on one particular color. She was tall, with long hair that she dyed fabulous
shades of blond and blonder, until it seemed white. Then she would return to some dark brown color and start all over again, bleaching, dying, making her hair a different shade of fabulous every week.

Brid liked Charlize because she French-braided Brid's hair while she quizzed her on spelling; CJ liked her because she mostly left him alone to study in the fire stairwell; and Patrick liked her because she didn't mind throwing a football back and forth while she helped him memorize math facts.

Charlize was also uninhibited enough to say things the way she saw them and to not worry what people thought of her. One Thursday night at the end of September was no different. “Why don't you kids have any friends?” she asked as Patrick hurled balls at her in the homework room. Brid sat nearby at her desk, admiring Charlize's hair, which that week hovered between chestnut and gold. “Seven plus seven.”

“We have friends. Fourteen,” said Patrick.

“I know
you
do,” she said as she aimed at him again. “Six plus eight. It's your brother and sister I'm talking about.”

“Fourteen.”

“We have friends,” Brid interjected. “They just live in Brooklyn.”

“Geez, you're picky. You only accept friends from one borough? Six plus nine.”

“Fifteen. Yeah, they say no to playdates all the time,” accused Patrick.

“We're too old for playdates,” said Brid, rolling her eyes at Patrick.

“So call it something else; call it hanging out with your friends,” said Charlize, throwing the ball down the hall and into Patrick's room, to signal him it was time to get ready for bed. “But eventually you guys have to get a life.”

CJ could hear this whole conversation from where he sat at the top of the stairwell, but he was in his private place, the place Eloise said every city person needed, and not about to join in. Since that afternoon in the castle, he was vigilant about doing his homework in the fire stairwell, a sort of indoor fire escape at the back of the apartment. He was hoping for another chance to talk to Eloise. He couldn't understand why she was so dismissive of them. As soon as they had handed her the poetry book, she had turned cold and distant. CJ needed to know why. But three weeks later, he still hadn't seen her again.

CJ thought that Charlize was wrong about one thing. They did have a life; it was just a secret one. At that moment, his thoughts were interrupted by the click of a door being unlocked. It was her door, one flight of stairs down. Should he run down and say hello? Should he sit still and make sure it was, in fact, Eloise? It was probably
Annika, her maid, taking the garbage out. He heard the door close.

Wow, he thought to himself, that garbage was thrown out in record time. But then he heard breathing, a large exhale. The person hadn't gone back in. Whoever it was was standing, listening for something. CJ didn't dare move a muscle. He looked at his homework papers spread around him. One looked as if it was about to slip off the stair below him. He stared at it, silently begging the piece of paper to hold still. And then he heard a man speak, a mysterious, gravelly voice:

“So what do you have for me?”

“I don't have anything for you,” said a woman. Eloise.

“I just wish you would share with me. We should work together.”

“How many years are you going to keep at this?” Eloise asked the man. “How long?”

“Eloise, I think you underestimate me. I cannot rest until I have solved this and gotten what is mine.”

“How on earth can you believe it's yours?”

“I keep telling you, these two things are together. You get your inheritance, and I clear Mr. Torrio's name. When one is found, the other will be, too.”

“You mean your hoodlum father's name? Why on earth do you care about him?”

“Because he wasn't a hoodlum, and I can prove that to you, once you find your inheritance. Tell me about those
kids. I know they are on to something, even though they just keep finding the same old clues we found years ago.”

“Those children don't know anything, and you must leave them alone.”

“I wish for once you would trust me; I wish we could work together.”

Bang!
At the sound of something being thrown against the wall, CJ leaped to his feet. “Sorry,” the man said. “I am just so frustrated!”

“Calm yourself,” said Eloise. “Throwing garbage pails against the wall will get you nowhere. Whatever was here must have been taken away many years ago. Sometimes I think we have wasted our lives by staying here. I know I have, and I can't imagine why you still live here, with far less to gain than I.”

CJ sucked in his breath. He wanted to run, but his legs were shivering.

“Don't you dare tangle with those children,” Eloise continued. “They are innocent and don't know a thing. They thought they were just trying to help out a little old lady. You must let them be and stay out of that apartment. It's theirs now. Let it go.”

CJ heard retreating footsteps and a door open and close, then complete silence. He had been right, he realized. Eloise had acted so odd when they gave her the book because she was trying to protect them. But from what?

CJ inched onto the stairs, lowering himself slowly, step by step, until he could lean forward and peek over the banister. Eloise was sitting on the lowest step with her head in her hands, and she appeared to be crying. It was the first time CJ thought she looked truly old. He wished Brid was with him. She would know what to say. He walked slowly down the steps and awkwardly put his hand on her back.

“Young man,” Eloise said, lifting her head, “how dare you see me like this?” She gave him a little wink that he could see through her tears.

They both sat there for a while, saying nothing.

CJ knew now she had been trying to protect them. The man was probably the one the librarian had said was looking for the package, and he might have been the man who came into Pat's room.

“Miss Post?” he said.

“Yes, my boy?” she said, smoothing back her hair with her hands.

“Can we talk about stuff?”

“I do believe the time has come for me to be straight with you.”

“Yes,” he said, feeling relieved and a little nervous.

“This is quite a long story, and you know I do not like to repeat myself.”

CJ felt better now that she was back to her usual, formal self.

“Do you want me to get Brid?” he asked.

“I'm not certain it's safe here, and now you know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

“I will meet you in our spot tomorrow at four o'clock.”

CJ nodded, feeling happy and a little nervous. He was happy that the mystery was back on, that Eloise thought they had a usual spot. He was happy that Eloise was as nice as he'd thought she was, but he was nervous that he and Brid were into something more dark and dangerous than either had bargained for. He was nervous because he knew there really was a mystery in the place he now called home.

Eloise Post was out on the castle turret by the time the Smithforks got there at exactly four the next day. She had two thick wool blankets, leather gloves, and a dark, brimmed hat pulled down on her head. The weather was much cooler than the last time they had come. Central Park looked like an artist's palette, with colorful fall leaves swirling in the cold wind. But the stone wall protected them from the breeze, and with the blankets they were perfectly warm.

When everyone was settled, Brid took out her notebook. “Please,” she implored, “please begin at the very beginning.”

Eloise smiled. “To really start this story, I need to set the scene. Do you know what New York City was like
in the 1920s and 30s, when I was growing up?”

CJ answered, “Well, it was the biggest time of growth this city had ever seen. There was a lot of wealth and a lot of new buildings.”

“We know that part,” Brid said, “and it ended with the stock market crash in 1929. Many people lost their savings, and there were no jobs. That part was called the Great Depression. We studied it in school last year.”

“That's all true, but I want to tell you what New York
felt
like then. I was just a baby in the twenties, so these are stories my father used to tell me as we walked around the city, looking at architecture. It was our favorite thing to do,” said Eloise dreamily.

“Okay,” said Brid. “Tell us what it felt like.”

Eloise closed her eyes and began. “The immigrants built this town at a time when the city felt so hopeful and positive. They built the skyscrapers; they built Grand Central Terminal, the subway system, and many of the tall buildings you see along both sides of Central Park.” She waved her hands, pointing toward the skyline. “The style was predominantly art deco.”

“What kind of art is that?” interrupted Brid.

“It refers to an architectural and decorating style that used a lot of geometric designs, bold colors, and glass. It was a style copied from the French, and my mother loved anything French!” Eloise laughed. “The Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were built in that time
period, and they are both art deco buildings. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge was president, and by the middle of the 1920s an immigration act slowed the number of Europeans immigrating to this city. It became harder to enter the country.”

“Kind of like now?” asked Brid.

“Exactly, but then an amazing thing happened: many African Americans from the South began to move up here, to bring Harlem to life.”

“The Harlem Renaissance,” said CJ.

“Young man, you astound me with your knowledge,” said Eloise. “Yes, it was a reawakening uptown, and my father became a big fan of the music of that community.

“Meanwhile,” she continued, “in our part of town lived the families of many men who had built successful businesses. There were railroad families, and oil families, even packaged-food families like mine. And because taxes were low or nonexistent, they became tremendously rich, beyond anyone's imagination. These families became very friendly with one another. There were the Fricks, the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, my family, and about a dozen others. We all became great collectors.”

“You mean like stamps?” Brid asked.

Eloise smiled. “In my family, it was mostly art, jewels, ceramics, and historical papers from other countries.”

“Like legal documents?”

“Legal and religious, like ancient Bibles. People didn't
go abroad with the ease they do today, so when someone brought a tapestry home from Asia, or a golden chalice from Russia, it was really something to see and to display. My parents and their friends had enormous amounts of valuables, and collecting and showing things off was quite the rage. Have you been to the Morgan Library?” Eloise inquired. “The one on Madison Avenue?”

The children shook their heads.

“Well, you should go. It will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. My father was very good friends with J. P. Morgan's son, and often they would hold salons to discuss their travels and show off their treasures.”

“We heard about those parties,” said Brid excitedly. “That's why your apartment had a ballroom.”

“Exactly. But there were some people the auction houses and art dealers wouldn't sell to. They didn't like people who made their money in a way that seemed suspicious or illegal. New York society never embraced the criminal element the way some cities did. Despite being rich, they were never part of the ‘in' crowd, if you will. Art galleries and auction houses liked customers who they believed would eventually allow their treasures to be displayed in a museum, not some criminal's home.”

“That's not so terrible,” said Brid.

“Except,” said Eloise, taking a deep breath.

“Except what?”

“Except that they all underestimated how ruthless
some of these bad guys could be. At first, it was little things. An art gallery window would be broken in the middle of the night, or an auction would be disrupted. Then things became worse. They began to take their revenge on people like Mr. Morgan and my father. Mr. Morgan's bank downtown was bombed, and the culprit was never found. My father's business was threatened, and then—” Eloise stopped short. “Then the most terrible thing happened.”

CJ and Brid leaned forward. “Did something bad happen to your brother?” asked Brid.

Eloise sighed. “Something bad happened to my brother. After the son of Charles Lindbergh, the great aviator, was kidnapped in 1932, high-profile people worried the same thing could happen to their children. My father became crazed with worry. He hired both a nanny and a guard for me and Julian at all times. He would no longer let us go to the park to play: our bodyguard waited outside of my school to take us safely home again. We had no freedom.”

“I have an idea what that feels like,” said CJ.

“Finally, when we could not stand it any longer, my father sent me to boarding school under the alias Eloise Munn. I was older than Julian, you see, and my parents never felt I was in any real danger at all, but my brother was so young. He was only five years old when my father simply took him away one weekend and came
home without him.” Eloise's voice caught. “My father told us that Julian had gone to live with friends, but the newspapers said little Julian had been kidnapped. They said the reason my father hadn't called the police was because he was negotiating with the kidnappers on his own. But the true story, at least the story my father told me at the time, was that he left Julian in a place where he would be safe.”

“So where is your brother now?” CJ asked, remembering the photograph of the young Eloise and her parents.

“Oh dear, I seem to be able to do nothing except tell you children bad news,” she said. “Well, after my father died, Julian went away to boarding school, and then to college, and he never came home after that.”

“So he never really moved back to 2 East 92nd Street?”

“Yes, and worse, he never wanted to see me again. I think he was jealous that I got to live with our family, and he didn't. The whole thing just broke my mother's heart.”

Dusk was coming quickly to Central Park, and the cool air ran a chill up Brid's back. “Where is Julian now?” she repeated.

“I'm not certain, children. Many years after I last saw him, after my mother died, I hired a detective to find him. I know he lived on Long Island on a horse farm. But when I went to the address that the detective found, I was told that Julian had died in a riding accident. Even
though my father had said that the family he'd left Julian with, the Torrios, were his friends, I still wondered if Torrio had a role in his disappearance when my father was still alive, if there had been some sort of kidnapping after all, as all the newspapers had claimed.”

“And your parents?” asked Brid.

“It's very hard to recover from so much loss. They were unwilling to discuss Julian very much in my presence, and remember that I was in boarding school and rarely home. My father died of a heart attack in 1937, and it seemed he did so in the middle of writing his very complicated will.”

“You mean the will that described your and Julian's inheritance?” Brid asked.

“The very one. You see, my mother had her own income, so he left all his artifacts and treasures to Julian and me, but he didn't trust banks to hold them. Instead of leaving them in a bank vault, he hid everything. He had always hinted at one last, grand treasure hunt, with clues that had been created at the time the apartment was built. But he probably didn't have time to hide all the clues before his death.”

“So you were left with nothing?” Brid asked.

“Not completely nothing. There was enough money for our education. I have a modest income, and my mother left the apartment I live in to me, and the apartment on the other side to Julian, even though we didn't
know where he was. I moved back here after her death. By then the estate had put walls everywhere in front of the old walls to cut our huge apartment into four family-sized apartments. Since Julian never appeared to claim his inheritance, my mother's estate rented it out to a man named Joe Torrio, from the very family some suspected of causing my brother's disappearance.”

“But the Torrios didn't really do that?”

“I honestly don't know—I have no way of knowing what really happened.”

Brid was looking at her notes. “What about your mother's jewels?”

“Before her death, my mother donated most of her jewelry to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In fact, her two-hundred-seventy-five-carat diamond ring that Napoléon I gave to Marie-Louise is on display there. But my parents' other priceless items—the Fabergé porcelains, the eighteenth-century gold boxes, their Russian Imperial art objects, the jewels from the Maximilian dynasty—all went missing. The list goes on and on, and nobody has ever seen any of it again.”

“And this is what you think is still in the apartment?” CJ asked.

“I used to think so, and so have others. But the apartment has been picked over so many times, and nobody has found anything. Still, I just cannot make myself leave 2 East 92nd Street; I feel it's the last place where I can be
close to my family. When you handed me those poems from my father, it brought my childhood back to me. He loved this city so much.”

“And he loved you,” Brid said simply.

“You know, there have been moments over the years when I doubted that, but after you handed me the note and book, I felt happier. Even if we never find the treasure, I feel better about how everything has turned out. To think, I didn't get this book just because I didn't return a library book.”

CJ interrupted. “But why was that book behind the wall on the shelf?”

“The walls were built before I had a chance to clear everything from the shelves. I suppose some things were left behind the walls. I remember now that I came back from a trip after my father died, and everything had been covered up by the new walls.”

As they thought about that, the trio watched a crow swooping to a precipice below them, picking at the remains of some unfortunate animal.

Eloise continued, “The Torrios were aware of my father's confusing will. In fact, all of New York City knew about it. It was like a pirate treasure hunt for a while, but nothing ever showed up. In time, everyone seemed to have forgotten it, except Joe Torrio and me.”

“And now us,” said Brid.

“Yes, and now the Smithforks,” said Eloise. “I do know
that Torrio would frequently go into your apartment and the Williamsons'. The two of them are connected by our old silver room, a thin hallway that opens onto a staircase.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted CJ. “Is the access from our apartment in a large closet, like in Patrick's room?”

“Yes, just push on one side of the closet where you see a seam,” Eloise said matter-of-factly. “It opens to a narrow hallway.”

“We finally know who our visitor is!” said Brid. “And I thought he was a ghost.”

“Yes, you may wish to nail that shut,” said Eloise. “He does like to snoop around, old Torrio. He may look scary, but really, he's just annoying. He keeps telling me that there is something of the treasure left for him, too, and he needs to find it. He's never held a job, you know. He says his father and grandfather left him enough money that he can afford to be a ne'er-do-well.”

“A what?” Brid asked.

“An idle, worthless person,” said CJ.

“But Eloise,” said Brid, “even if he found the treasure, he wouldn't own it, would he?”

“That is unclear. My father meant for me and Julian to inherit it, but Julian has either passed away or disappeared, and that letter you retrieved from the New York Public Library said only ‘hopefully Eloise,' meaning it was all right if someone else found it.”

“Oh, no, it didn't mean that. It couldn't have,” said CJ, even though, before he met Eloise, that was exactly what he thought it meant.

“You have no idea of the value of my father's estate,” Eloise continued.

“It's a lot, right?” CJ said.

“Like twenty thousand dollars?” Brid asked.

Eloise smiled. “Times have changed, and these were one-of-a-kind objects: real treasure from another era. I once made a list of what I knew to be hidden. I took it to an art appraiser; he told me the low bid on such items would be several hundred million dollars.”

The Smithforks gasped. Brid had thought she might be looking for a few rare books and maybe a valuable tea set and some coins, but nothing like what Miss Post described. As the sky over Central Park darkened, everything around her seemed uneasy and sinister.

“Children, after all these years and so many false starts, it is hard for me to be truly excited. I don't want to raise your hopes or mine. But I will say how much I enjoy having someone to talk to about this, someone I can trust.”