The Future Door (7 page)

“Good boy,” Rupert murmured. “That's a good boy.”

Griffin was about to join his uncle in petting Toby when a familiar gasp made him stop. From somewhere behind him, he heard his mother's gentle voice. It sounded uncertain and worried as she called her brother by her affectionate, childhood nickname for him.

“Snoops?”

And then Griffin watched as his uncle rose from where he crouched, locking eyes with the sister he hadn't spoken to in twenty years. The two siblings stared at each other for a long time, their bodies casting long shadows in the fading sunlight. After a few moments the awkward silence grew unbearable to Griffin.

Say something
, he urged silently.

Then Griffin's mother, whom he'd always known to be a reserved sort of person, let loose a loud shriek and ran toward Rupert with her arms extended.

Rupert's eyes widened as she grabbed him in a crushing embrace. To his credit, he didn't bellow with pain. But Griffin couldn't tell for sure if the tears in his eyes were because he'd been reunited with his sister or because of his injured ribs.

“Oh, Snoops, I'm sorry,” his mother sobbed, her downcast eyes focused on his injured arm. “Are you hurt?”

Rupert looked at his sister. Then he lifted her chin gently and replied, “It's but a trifle. I'm all right, Cynthia.”

And even though it sounded as though they were talking about his physical injury, Griffin knew that the forgiveness was meant to cover their unspoken quarrel too.

Then Griffin's mother turned to her son and wrapped him in a hug so tight that he felt almost smothered. Her scent, from a particular kind of lavender soap, which he'd known since he was a baby, brought him immense comfort.

“Oh, Griffin, I'm so glad you're home!” she said. And Griffin felt her warm tears dropping onto his head. His heart swelled with love for his mother, and he hugged her back as hard as he could.

All is right in the world
, he thought.
Right here, right now
.

No matter what terrible things Professor Moriarty and his cousin were planning, they couldn't take away what he had. The love of his family. Maybe he and his uncle were a little beaten up and worse for the wear, but they were all together.

And there was nothing better than that.

9
QUESTIONS

G
riffin had been lulled to sleep the previous night by the lilting sound of quiet conversation between his parents and his uncle. Hearing the peaceful drone of the adult voices and being able to snuggle beneath his own familiar bedcovers helped him sleep better than he had in ages.

But when he awoke the next morning, he was surprised to hear that they were still talking. After pausing to wash his face and comb his hair, he grabbed his walking stick and peered out into the living room.

His mother, father, and uncle were still sitting where they'd been the night before, and he could tell right away that they hadn't slept. They all wore the same clothes as the previous day and had that tired, disheveled look of people who had been up all night.

The morning sun cast long, mote-filled rays upon the three of them, illuminating them in a way that reminded Griffin of the stained glass pictures in his father's church. His heart swelled at the sight, for they were the people he loved best in the world.

They turned as he entered and offered him tired smiles.

“Sleep well?” Griffin's mother asked.

“Better than ever,” Griffin replied happily. Then his curious gaze traveled over their concerned features. His mother indicated a pot of tea and a pile of warm teacakes on the coffee table.

“Sit down and have something to eat. They're your favorite. The lemon ones with vanilla frosting.”

Griffin's mouth watered at the sight of his favorite dessert. But even as he picked up one of the wonderful pastries and took a huge bite, he couldn't get past the troubled look in his mother's eyes.

“Wait a minute; what is it? What's wrong?”

His mother and father exchanged worried glances. Then, realizing that it was nearly impossible to keep anything from their observant son, they sighed.

“Rupert has been telling us about some of the, er . . . ‘adventures' you've been having over the summer,” Griffin's father began.

Griffin glanced at his uncle but noticed that Rupert was staring out the window, consciously avoiding his gaze.

Griffin's father cleared his throat and continued. “We've all agreed that it might be better for you not to go back to London. This detective work you've been doing is much too dangerous.”

Griffin's heart sank. He couldn't believe what he was hearing! Until this summer with Rupert, he'd never found a place to fit in and a way to use his gifts for something important. And now, after he'd finally found his calling, his parents wouldn't let him do it?

“Can't we talk this over?” Griffin asked.

He glanced again at his uncle, hoping to hear an argument in his favor, but Rupert just stared silently at the battered bowler hat on his lap.

“Darling, we don't want you to get hurt again,” his mother said gently. She glanced at the walking stick and frowned. “Thank the Lord you can still walk. But when I think about how close you came to . . . to . . .”

Her eyes welled up with tears. Griffin's father put his arm around her, stroking her shoulder. Griffin felt terrible to see his parents in such a state, but he felt equally miserable about the idea of giving up working with his uncle.

Griffin sat down next to his parents on the sofa and took his mother's hand.

“Mom, Professor Moriarty is the worst criminal in London, and his cousin, Nigel, is ruthless. He was the one who injured my leg and tried to kill me. If I can prove that he was behind this recent attack and help bring him to justice, then I can make sure that he doesn't hurt me again—or hurt the people I love.”

Mrs. Sharpe stared back at her son, her lips compressed into a thin, worried line. Then Rupert finally spoke.

“Griffin, one of the main reasons we can't return to London together is because of the invention I've been working on, the one you saw in my journal and thought was just a teapot. The Snodgrass Chrono-Teleporter.”

Griffin stared at his uncle. “I don't understand.”

Rupert sighed and flicked an imaginary piece of dust from the edge of his bowler. “Like I told you at the hospital, it's something incredibly sophisticated . . . a time-traveling device. I've been working on it for many years with the help of a friend of mine, Herbert Wells.”

“I'm not sure I understand what you mean by ‘time travel,' ” Griffin stated. “Does that mean that it's some kind of portable timepiece? Like a strange-looking watch or something?”

Rupert chuckled. “No. It's a far more important discovery than that. With this device, a person can literally travel into the past or the future. At first, Herbert and I thought it was only theoretically possible. But the more we worked on it, the more real the project became.”

Rupert stood from the chair and began pacing around the living room. “Herbert convinced me that if we could speed a person's atomic particles to match the speed of light, such a machine could actually work. It took years of research, but we finally managed to create one.”

Griffin could hardly believe what he was hearing.
A time
-
traveling machine?
It sounded absolutely impossible. He looked over at his parents and could tell by their expressions that they thought the very same thing.

“We managed to send a sparrow into the future. The machine worked splendidly! But because we didn't know how to estimate how far into the past or the future we would send something each time we used the machine, I set to work to figure out a system to control it. This ‘regulating gauge' has ended up being the hardest part to figure out. I was still stumped on how to solve it when you arrived in London.”

He stopped pacing and gave Griffin a serious look. “The implications of what would happen if this machine fell into the wrong hands are too terrible to mention. What happened to us last time with Moriarty would be nothing compared to the terrible things he would do to get his hands on it. Herbert and I swore that we would keep the machine secret. But now I fear that my friend Herbert might have let the cat out of the bag. Look here.”

Rupert retrieved a copy of the previous day's newspaper from the coffee table and handed it to his nephew. The headline read, “Noted British Author H. G. Wells Missing. Authorities Fear Foul Play.”

The article went on to detail the disappearance of the famous writer. Scotland Yard didn't have a single clue. It was as if he'd vanished completely. But that couldn't be. There had to be someone or something behind it. After reading the article twice, a horrible thought suddenly occurred to Griffin. Glancing up from the newspaper, he fixed his uncle with a frightened stare.

“Oh no,” he said. “Why couldn't I see it before? It's so obvious!”

Rupert looked perplexed. “What is?”

Now it was Griffin's turn to get up and pace around the room. “I should have realized it sooner. Moriarty arranged the telegram to get us out of our apartment so he could steal your machine!”

Rupert's already pale complexion faded to a chalky white. Griffin's mind raced, putting the pieces together. The more he thought about his theory, the more sense it made. Moriarty had arranged to get them to America so he could steal Rupert's time machine. And while they were abroad, he could arrange to have them killed. It would be far more difficult to trace the incident back to him when they were so far from London.

There was a long silence. Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe stared at their son, looking frightened. Then Griffin's mother spoke to Rupert. “If this machine is as dangerous as you say, are there innocent lives at stake?”

Rupert nodded, still looking stunned. “If Moriarty gets his hands on the machine, he could use his knowledge of past or future events to change the world. I'm confident that he would use it for nefarious purposes,” he said.

He wrung his hands anxiously. “I did take precautions before we left London to make sure that the machine was carefully hidden. I'd have brought it with me, but I didn't want to risk it getting broken. But experience has taught me that Moriarty is very resourceful. I had no idea that he was planning on stealing it!”

Mrs. Sharpe paused before replying. Then she asked, “And do you honestly think that, if he has stolen it, you can't stop Moriarty without Griffin's help?”

Griffin watched as his uncle was forced into admitting something that he hadn't been able to admit before. It would have been very easy for Griffin's uncle to take the position that he always had, that he was someone completely capable of handling everything himself and that the only reason he wasn't the greatest living detective on earth was because somehow fate and circumstances had kept it from him.

But since his and Griffin's last encounter with Moriarty, changes had been working within him. And even if those changes were slow in being realized, they had affected the way Rupert looked at himself and the world.

There was an evident struggle as he forced himself to utter words that were painful for him, that in the past he never would have heard himself say.

Rupert took a deep breath and, shaking his head in resignation, said, “No. I don't believe I could do it without him.”

10
BACK AT THE BOSTON DOCKS

T
he eyes and ears of the Moriartys were everywhere, stretching from London and watching and listening in all corners of the globe. Regular reports came into the professor's many secret headquarters, and the information was passed through the shadows and alleys, traveling along twisting paths and strands until the news he needed reached the heart of his web.

And such ears and eyes were also present at the docks of Boston Harbor. In a shadowy corner near a weathered-looking sail repair shop, a pair of Professor Moriarty's ears belonged to a blind beggar named Silas, and a pair of his eyes to the beggar's monkey, Peanuts.

As the beggar turned the handle on his rusted calliope, he wasn't listening to the piping music. His task was to identify the comings and goings of everyone on the docks, and because of the absence of sight, he'd developed his hearing to an uncanny ability.

So when Silas Grunge heard the
tap-tap-tap
of Griffin's cane, his eyebrows raised in recognition. For Silas knew the exact noise that that particular cane made, having heard it on many other occasions back in London. Its hidden blade had cost him his sight, and he would never forget the particular ringing its tip made as it clinked against the cobblestones, each one sending shudders through his bony frame.

If there had been any doubt that it was the two people whom he'd been instructed to listen for, Peanuts confirmed it for him. The monkey, trained as a pickpocket, slid its dexterous paw into Griffin Sharpe's jacket as he walked up the gangplank to the ship and withdrew as evidence the pocket watch given to him by Frederick Dent.

Even with his legendary gifts of observation, Griffin Sharpe was completely unaware of the loss of the watch, his attention turned instead to maintaining control of the frenzied Toby, who wanted more than anything else to attack the chattering monkey.