The Castle on Deadman's Island (3 page)

“But Henrietta absolutely cannot stand either of those two men,” Graham's mother said. “And that Barbara Snyder's even worse than her husband, Carson. She seems to think the castle is all hers, Henrietta says.

“It's not funny either, Alex,” she added. For Graham's father couldn't help chuckling.

“Well, Henrietta doesn't
have
to go there, does she?” he said. “If she just stays away, then she'll never have to deal with those two devious rascals, as she calls them.”

“It's not that simple, Alex. There's upkeep and staff to deal with. You can't just leave a castle worth millions to go to ruin.”

“Then let the other two handle it.”

“And do what they want with it? Those two? You know Henrietta would never allow that.”

“No, I suppose not. But I wouldn't worry. Your sister can look after herself. Henrietta isn't called the tiny dynamo for nothing.”

Mrs. Graham sighed. “I know, but I don't trust those two men.”

The following week was the best of times for the students of Kingsport High – the start of the summer holidays.

For Neil, the end of school also brought his girlfriend, Crescent, home from Havergal College, a private school in Toronto. Now, however, Crescent was into sailing and spent most of her days at the Kingsport Yacht Club, where she raced her family's sailing dinghy. They often got together in the evenings – not often enough for Neil, though.

In the meantime, he and Graham were thinking about finding summer jobs to make some pocket money. It was Neil's idea, for Graham would have
been quite content to spend most of his summer at the library.

“I want a job where I can make some real money,” Neil said.

“You've got your paper route,” Graham reminded him.

“That's peanuts,” Neil said. He felt a little guilty, remembering how excited he'd been to get the paper route a few years back, when jobs of any kind were scarce. Now, in the third year of the war, jobs were easy to come by as so many men left to join up.

They were in Graham's room, Neil searching the
HELP WANTED
ads in the
Evening Standard.
“‘Pin boys wanted for bowling alley'” he read out.

Graham shuddered. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“‘Thirty-five cents a hour!'”

Graham wasn't impressed. “Danger pay. You're down there in a pit, dodging flying pins and hurtling balls, with potbellied bowlers shouting at you to hurry up.”

“Well, how about this then? ‘Delivery boys. Must have bicycle with carrier.' Or this: ‘Grocery store helpers, bag packing and carry out, twenty-five cents an hour plus tips.'”

“I suppose,” Graham said. “Monetarily rewarding, but not very stimulating.”

“It's the best we can do, Graham. If we were a few years older, we could make sixty cents an hour working shifts at the aluminum plant. Imagine, sixty cents an hour!” Neil pictured the money piling up in his bank account – it would make him feel good and safe. He'd seen too many hoboes begging at the door for a meal during the Great Depression. He never wanted to find himself in a fix like that.

But Graham, he knew, was different. Science, physics, math – these mattered more to Graham than money. Neil knew he'd have trouble interesting him in a job, but he needed Graham with him. For Graham had confidence and the gift of the gab – things Neil himself lacked.

“I think I'll try for one of those helper jobs at Wheatley's grocery tomorrow,” Neil said. “Coming with me?”

Graham looked up from the pad he'd been doodling numbers on, solving quadratic equations just for fun. “Where?”

“To Wheatley's, of course. Why not give it a try-what have you got to lose? If you don't like it, you can always leave. We'll go see them in the morning, okay?”

Graham sighed. “I suppose.”

They turned onto the main street, passing a row of old office buildings with alleyways in between. Ahead, in the next block, sat Wheatley's, Purveyors of Fine Groceries. Neil hitched up his pants and ran a finger around under his shirt collar, where it pinched. He hadn't worn a tie since the class picture, and it felt like he was choking. Graham, he noticed, hadn't bothered with a tie, but at least his pants had a crease of sorts, as if he'd put them under the mattress the night before.

Beside him, Graham stopped suddenly. “Hey,” he said. “There it is!”

“Yeah, Wheatley's. Up ahead. I know.”

“No, not the store, the car.” Graham was staring at a new, dark green Studebaker parked in front of the building they were passing. “Same grille – looks like a shark's snout. I remember looking up and seeing it coming right at me.”

“That's the car that almost hit you?”

Graham nodded. “Unless there's two new, dark green Studebakers in town.”

The car was parked in front of a building that was three stories high and made of limestone blocks with their characteristic rough-textured look. Like the dour Scottish stonemasons who had constructed many of Kingsport's buildings, it was plain with no fancy trimmings, but rock solid.

“Maybe the guy who owns the car has an office in there,” Neil said.

“Could be. Wait here, I'll take a look. If Jake Grimsby's office is there, I'll know for sure he was the one who tried to run me down.”

Inside the door, a glass-fronted board listed the building's occupants. Graham ran down the list of names, stopping at one.
J.K. Grimsby,
it read.
Suite 303.

The door from the street opened and someone brushed past him. Footsteps hurried up the stairs, then paused partway up. Graham averted his face and the footsteps continued, until the sound of them died away. Somewhere above, a door slammed.

“His office is in there, all right,” Graham said, when he was back on the pavement. “Third floor.”

Neil automatically looked up. A face appeared at a third-floor window, screened by a pot of red geraniums on the windowsill. “The guy who just went in might have been Grimsby,” he said. “I'm pretty sure he was at the waterfront last week. Think he could have recognized you?”

“Cripes, I hope not.”

“Hey we'd better get going, or we'll be late for the interview at Wheatley's,” Neil said. He started to move away.

But Graham was staring at the car again.

“The man said to be there at ten,” Neil insisted. “C'mon.”

Graham sighed. “Nothing I can do here, I guess.” He took one step forward, just as a heavy flowerpot hurtled downward, crashing to the sidewalk behind him.

“What?”
Graham turned and stared at the jumble of clay, black earth, and broken red geraniums, inches from his back foot. “Where the devil did
that
come from?”

Neil turned. “Holy hell, Graham! If you hadn't moved when you did …”

“Precisely. And I'll bet it wasn't any accident.” His head back, Graham eyed the windows above. “I'd estimate from its trajectory that it came from the third window from the left on the top floor.”

“Hey where you going? Our job interview –”

Graham yanked open the door of the building. “You go for the interview. I want to find out if that window belongs to suite number 303. If it does, then this is serious.”

“Wait. What if Grimsby sees you?”

“So? You think he's going to pull a gun and shoot me down in cold blood? No, not our friend Grimsby. His modus operandi, I see now, is to make it look like an accident. First the car, then this.” He disappeared inside.

Neil was torn – go now, or stay in case Graham needed help and be late for the job interview. He stayed.
As the minutes ticked by, he became increasingly uneasy. Finally he went inside and mounted the stairs.

Reaching the third floor, Neil found the hallway empty. The sound of voices and the clackety-clack of typewriters came and went as he passed each door, noting the names on the glass:
301, Lloyd Woods, Attorney-at-Law; 302, Fred E. Pennyfeather, Tax Account ant; 303, J.S. Grimsby, Property Management.

He stopped and listened at the door of 303. He heard a man's voice, but couldn't make out what he was saying. Just then Graham popped out of the next office. He motioned silently to Neil, then he ducked back in. Neil joined him.

The office was empty, except for cans of paint, brushes, and drop cloths scattered about. Graham was leaning against the wall separating the office from the adjoining one, which was Grimsby's. He was holding one end of a drinking glass, with his ear pressed to the other end. He signaled to Neil, putting his finger to his lips.

Neil waited. He heard a door shut at the far end of the hall. He pushed the office door closed as footsteps approached, passed, and faded away.

When Graham touched his arm, he jumped. “Time to vamoose,” Graham whispered, “before the painters come back from their break.”

“Could you hear what Grimsby was saying?” Neil asked, when they were on the sidewalk again.

Graham nodded. “Some of it – once I found the glass in the washroom. An empty glass, as you may know, amplifies the sounds coming through a wall. Sound waves are conducted by –”

“Never mind the physics lesson,” Neil interrupted. “What was he saying?”

“He was on the phone to someone – Snyder, I suspect. I only heard the end of it, but it didn't sound good. I'm afraid they're out to get her all right.”

“Your aunt? How?”

“He didn't go into that. But they're definitely going to the castle.”

“When?”

“I didn't hear that either. Not soon, I hope. Some how I've got to get to the island ahead of them and warn Aunt Etta.”

“We,” Neil said.
“We
have to get there.”

“I thought you were going for that job at Wheatley's.”

“Someone's got to keep you out of trouble. I'll go see the man at Wheatley's now and tell him I can't start right away.”

“Great. Two heads are better than one. Now all we have to do is figure out some way to get there.”

“I have an idea about that.”

“Shoot.”

“Crescent's family has rented a cottage down the river. We could hitchhike that far and ask her to take us to Deadman's Island in their boat.”

“You mean row all the way?”

“No, no, it's a sailboat. It's at the yacht club now, but her family is going to trailer it to the cottage. Crescent's a good sailor, maybe she'll take us to the island. I can ask her anyway. I'll go see her today.”

“That would be our answer all right, if Crescent's willing. Good thing she's nuts about you.”

“I wish,” Neil said.

Crescent Savage headed her dinghy straight at the dock and hauled in the mainsail. The boat forged ahead and a high-speed collision seemed imminent. She waited coolly until the bow was within a few feet of the dock, then shoved the tiller sharply to starboard.

The dinghy swung into the wind, the jib and mainsail flapped noisily, and
Discovery
glided smoothly alongside the dock, where Neil was shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

He'd been there only once before, when Crescent had taken him sailing. His family wasn't part of the
yacht club set and he felt out of place, like a hobo at a garden party.

Neil reached down to grab the bow line while Crescent dropped the sails. The mad luffing of the sails ceased, and again it was a quiet summer afternoon at the Kingsport Yacht Club.

“Hi, Neil,” Crescent said. “Saw you waving. What's up?”

“Didn't mean to spoil your sail,” he said. “You were really going out there.” Now that he was here, he wondered if asking her to take them to the castle wouldn't be too much. He had no idea how far away it was – he just knew that the castle was down the river from her family's cottage. They might even have to camp somewhere overnight, if they couldn't make it there and back in a day.

He pictured sitting around a campfire with Crescent, listening to waves breaking on a rocky shore and the whispering of wind in the pines, and gazing up at a million stars. Of course Graham would be there too, talking nonstop, so they probably wouldn't hear waves or wind in the pines. Still …

“I wanted to ask you a favor,” he said. “A big favor –”

“Hey Crescent, nice breeze out there today,” a voice called. Neil turned and saw a tanned blond guy, in a bathing suit and T-shirt, rigging a brightly varnished
dinghy in a nearby slip. He looked about his age, but Neil didn't recognize him.

The guy sauntered over and looked down at Crescent, who was holding onto the dock to keep the dinghy from banging. “Race you around the buoys,” he said.

Neil felt a surge of jealousy.

“Not right now, Tom – maybe later,” Crescent said. “You two know each other?”

Neil forced a smile and stuck out his hand. “Neil Graves,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

“Tom Snyder,” the guy said, giving him the onceover. Ignoring Neil's extended hand, he turned and strolled back to his boat.

Neil burned. Tom Snyder had managed to make him feel like an awkward outsider.
You don't belong here,
Tom's look had said.

“We can talk later if you like,” Neil said to Crescent.

“Oh, Tom can wait. He's always after me to race. His father bought that new dinghy this year because their old one wasn't fast enough for him.”

Suddenly the last name struck Neil –
Snyder.
“Is Tom's father Carson Snyder?”

“That's him. I met Tom last winter. He's at Upper Canada, which isn't far from Havergal.”

Neil's face fell. He pictured Tom and Crescent together at school dances, dancing cheek to cheek. All
he wanted to do now was get away from this place, where he, unlike Crescent and Tom Snyder, didn't belong.