Greenglass House (33 page)

He tucked the chart into Georgie's leather folder and tucked that into his bag. “Out for a look at the garden, like I said before. Keep an eye on things.”

“Now?” Sirin protested.
“Now?”

“Yeah,” he retorted quietly. “It'll be too dark later. Plus I told Mr. Vinge I was going to, and it'll seem weird if I don't. You want to come?”

“No, and I wish you wouldn't waste your time with it either. We have real clues to follow.” The scholiast took the Eyes of True and Aching Clarity out of her pocket and perched them on her nose. “But don't mind me.”

Negret slid off the loveseat. “I'll be right back. It's just across the lawn.” Ignoring the glare she was directing at him through her blue lenses, he headed into the kitchen, where Mrs. Caraway was slicing carrots. “I'm going for a walk outside. Will you tell my folks if they ask?”

“I don't know, Milo. You probably shouldn't go by yourself. It's freezing out there, and the snow's getting heavy again.”

“Just a short walk. I won't even leave the lawn.” Negret smiled with as much confidence as he could muster. “You'll be able to see me from the window.”

Mrs. Caraway looked dubious. Milo followed her eyes to the window and saw that, in fact, you couldn't see far across the grounds at all. “Got a watch?” Mrs. Caraway asked at last.

“No. Why?”

“Here.” She wiped her hands on her apron and unbuckled her own wristwatch. “Borrow mine and be back in ten minutes, or I'm sending Lizzie after you. Deal?”

“Deal.” He strapped it on as he headed for the foyer, then bundled up and stepped outside into the freezing afternoon.

Each footstep crunched as Negret walked, his boots sinking deep into the white. He shaded his eyes against the whirling snowflakes and tromped across the lawn toward the clearing in the trees. Just as he'd told Mrs. Caraway, it was a straight walk from the front door directly across the lawn. Through the whirling eddies of snow the clearing didn't look particularly clear at all, but it was there, a white-on-white space between two banks of snowcapped pines.

As he walked he wondered what his parents would decide to do about the customs agent. It simply couldn't be Georgie. It couldn't be.

A shadow moved somewhere off to his right. Negret glanced sharply toward the railcar pavilion as a cascade of high-piled snow slid free from one corner of the roof. He stared for a long moment, but there was nothing more to see and nothing more that moved.

He frowned, but a glance at Mrs. Caraway's watch reminded him that he didn't have time to waste on rooftop avalanches. Not only that, but it was too cold to stand still. So he turned back toward the clearing and kept on walking.

It made sense, he thought as he arrived at the foot of the little rise that led to the garden. It made perfect sense that this would once have been the entrance to the grounds; it basically lined up with the front door, unlike either the pavilion or the current road. Somewhere under the snow was a short set of three stone stairs that led up to what was now the little garden that Mrs. Pine—who was many wonderful things, but definitely not a gardener—planted every year and tried to keep alive for more than a few weeks. There were two stone benches like parentheses, one on either side of the space. Beyond those was a box hedge that had once been neatly trimmed, and on the other side of that hedge was a split-rail fence meant to keep anyone from venturing too close to the cliff.

Negret dug the seat of one of the benches mostly clear, then decided the stone was too cold to sit on. Under the bench, though, there was a shadowy space where the snow had blown and collected into drifts, leaving a neat little oblong cave just big enough for a smallish boy to climb into. It was the kind of secret, hidden place he could never resist. He climbed under the bench and discovered that not only was the space exactly his size, but it was warmer in there than it was out in the open.

If the gate had once stood here, Negret couldn't tell where. Either way, he didn't have long to stay and think about it. Mrs. Caraway's ten minutes were almost up.

He crouched there for another long moment, absent-mindedly running his fingers over a bit of old graffiti cut into the cold stone by a former owner or perhaps by some long-ago guest:
RIP AW ADDIE WE HARDLY KNEW YE
, over a badly carved picture that looked like some kind of bird with a hooked beak. An owl, maybe, although it was impossible to tell for sure.

Maybe Clem was right and the place where the gate had stood had crumbled into the river long ago. Maybe Clem was wrong, or the shopkeeper had his facts wrong. Still . . . he leaned out and looked back at the house that faced this garden so perfectly, and up at the sky toward the invisible sun that could have made the gate look like a stained-glass window to someone looking up from below, andNegret felt certain that even if he couldn't prove it, Clem was right.

Then: “Milo!” Mrs. Caraway's voice pierced the cold from somewhere on the lawn. Negret checked the watch and discovered that he was late by two minutes. He crept out of the cave under the bench and sprinted for the house and the figure standing before it with her hands on her hips.

Fortified with a mug of hot cider after being chastised for not following instructions and (to hear her tell it) practically dying of hypothermia right before Mrs. Caraway's eyes, Negret found Sirin in the living room, waving from the glimmery cave behind the Christmas tree.

He retrieved his rucksack from the loveseat and crawled in beside her. “Well?” she demanded. “Was it everything you hoped?”

Negret shrugged. “I couldn't tell if Clem was right or not, but I believe her.”

Sirin narrowed her eyes. “What else?”

“Nothing else. I just wanted to see if that could be the place. You're the one who said it was a bad idea to skip searching places that could be important.”

“But you didn't
learn
anything else,” she pointed out.

“Fine. You were right and it was pointless,” he said, exasperated. “Why are you hounding me about it?”

“I'm not hounding you.”

“You are.” In a bit of a huff, Negret got his notepad out of the rucksack. “Fine. Let's get back to real clues. Did
you
learn anything while I was gone?”

“All right, I'm sorry. And no, I didn't.”

“Then we both wasted ten—twelve minutes, and we're even. Let's get back to it.”

“Okay.” Sirin sat back and drew her knees up under the cloak. “Is the customs agent connected to the thefts, Negret? Are we looking for one person or two?”

“I think they're the same person, but I'm not positive.” Negret flipped the spiral pad open. “So let's pretend they're separate people. First, the thief. Either it's Clem, because she's the only one who wasn't stolen from, or one of the others faked being robbed to throw off suspicion.”

Sirin took the notepad and fished a pen from her pocket. “Argument for it being Clem—we already know she's a thief.”

“Sure. Clem's the simplest answer, definitely.”

“So I guess let's move on to the complicated one.” She began listing the names of the thief's victims, and next to them what was taken. “What's the complicated one, Negret?”

The pen stilled. He looked at what she'd written.

 

Georgie – Notebook with Lansdegown research in it

Mrs. Hereward – Ditty bag with Greenglass House on it

Mr. Vinge – Gold watch with engraving in it

Dr. Gowervine – Satchel with Skellansen / Doc Holystone research in it

 

“I'm not sure yet,” Negret admitted. “Other than it's one of those four.”

“Fair enough.” Sirin turned the page. “Now the customs agent. The simplest answer is it's Georgie, since the paper was in her room.”

“And the complicated answer: someone hid it in her room so that he or she wouldn't be connected to it. Misdirection.”

And then, all at once, Negret saw it. There was only one way the complicated answer worked here, and boy, did it
work.
He reached across Sirin and turned the page back to the list of stolen things. Yes.
Yes.
One of those things was not like the others. He grabbed the notepad and turned more pages until he found a note from the day before. Then he sat back, stunned. Not only was one of those things not like the others; one of those things contained the clue that proved Negret right.

“They're the same person,” he whispered. “And I know who it is.”

“Well, don't keep me in suspense,” Sirin hissed. “Who is it?”

But just as Negret opened his mouth to answer, Mr. and Mrs. Pine came into the living room with Brandon and Fenster in tow. Brandon looked casual enough, but Negret could see a sharpness in his eyes and a slight difference in how he was moving. Apart from being the Belowground Transit conductor, Brandon was a professional fighter, and it looked as though he was holding himself at the ready in case he had to throw down.

Fenster was a different story. His eyes darted around the room, like those of a wild animal caught in a corner. He stumbled on the rag rug before the fire, and Brandon caught him with a cautionary look and whispered something that had to be a warning to keep it together.

“Who's hungry?” asked Mrs. Pine with painfully fake cheer. “Late lunch? Early-afternoon tea?”

Negret grabbed the notepad from Sirin, slid out from behind the tree and made his way as casually as possible toward the kitchen. Fenster winked at him. Brandon elbowed Fenster. “Cut it out with the signals!” he muttered. “Honestly.”

Mr. and Mrs. Pine had gone into the kitchen and were exchanging a few hurried words with Mrs. Caraway and Lizzie when Milo reached them. “Mom,” he whispered. “Dad, can I talk to you guys? It's important.”

He didn't wait for an answer, just grabbed his mother's sleeve and pulled her toward the big pantry under the stairs, motioning for Mr. Pine to follow.

“Milo, what on earth—”

“I know who it is,” he interrupted when they were more or less alone.

Mr. Pine frowned. “You mean you think it's not Georgie?”

“I'm
sure
it's not.” He lowered his voice. “The thief and the customs agent are the same person.”

“Milo, I know you don't like the idea,” Mrs. Pine said gently, “but Georgie could be the thief too. She could just have
pretended
to be robbed.”

“That's exactly what the thief
did,
but it wasn't Georgie.”

“Then why was the affidavit—the paper you found—in her room?” Mr. Pine asked.

“It was just like you said, Dad. To keep it from being found in the real agent's room. Misdirection, just like with the stolen things. Only it wasn't Georgie.”

“You think someone was trying to throw suspicion on her, then?”

“No, I think when the agent put the paper there, he thought he was hiding it in an empty room.” He looked at his mother. “Remember how I dropped Georgie's bag on the floor and broke her perfume because the luggage rack wasn't where it was supposed to be? That's because the customs agent had
already hidden the paper under the carpet
and moved the rack for a little extra cover.”

“But then . . .” Mrs. Pine frowned and looked at her husband. “That would make it . . .”

“Yes!” Milo nodded feverishly and held up his notepad. “And look. Here's what was stolen. Everything has to do with the house and why people came here, except for one thing.”

One thing: the only thing that was both an obvious item to steal and completely out of place on a list of objects having to do with Greenglass House and what had brought the guests there.

The thing that belonged to the only person who could've thought Georgie's room was just another empty room: the person who'd arrived before her. The very first guest of all.

Mr. Vinge.

He watched his parents figure it out too. Time for the last clue, the ultimate proof. He turned the page again. “You never saw the stolen things close-up, like I did. Look. This is what was engraved inside the watch.”

 

To D.C.V., with high esteem and
thanks for a job well done,
from D. & M.

 

“D. and M. stands for Deacon and Morvengarde, doesn't it? Is it true, what Dr. Gowervine said yesterday, that Deacon and Morvengarde are in league with the customs people?”

“Well, it's true that about the only thing that's harmed by Nagspeake smuggling is Deacon and Morvengarde's business,” Mr. Pine said quietly, looking back into the kitchen to be sure nobody was listening in. “Without the smugglers, D. and M. would practically have a monopoly on goods coming into the city. Whether they and the customs agency are actually in league together—nobody's been able to prove it, but yes, everyone suspects it.”

“So you believe me?” Milo demanded.

“Once all the others showed up, he must've decided to investigate who they all were and their connections to the house.” Mrs. Pine nodded slowly. “You just might have hit the nail on the head, kiddo.”

“Well, then, what do we do about it?”

“That's a tougher question.” She looked at her husband. “Apart from helping Fenster keep a low profile until we can get him back on the Belowground and out of here, I don't much know what we can do. If Mr. Vinge is with customs—and if he's here on a job—he may be looking for confirmation of illegal activity.”

“Well, we don't do anything illegal, do we?”

“No, but we also don't call the authorities and turn in evidence. We aren't smugglers, but we might be considered
accessories
to smuggling.” She squeezed his hand. “But I don't want you to worry about that. I just need you to try and keep it together and not get in trouble and”—she laughed a little—“try and enjoy Christmas Eve. Can you manage that, and let your dad and me worry about the other stuff?”