The House of Puzzles (24 page)

He took in a deep breath then looked through the water-filled decanter. The smudged
stain on the canvas refracted into a clear impression of the grid of black boxes.
But this time a different hole was marked. Gerald’s heart raced—the square on the
grid three up from the bottom and seven in from the left contained an egg-shaped
symbol, ringed with a band of dots: the mark of the perpetual motion machine. Gerald
grabbed the edge of the table with both hands to steady himself. He swallowed hard.

Alex had taken the wrong casket.

Gerald’s eyes darted across to the wall of boxes.

Three up. Seven across from the left.

He hauled the box out and marvelled at the heft of it in his hands. He ran a finger
over the lock at the front. Alex had pocketed the key, but Gerald was not worried—he
could keep it. Gerald had the box that Mason Green desired. And that was all that
counted.

Gerald scooped up his backpack and tucked the box under his arm. He didn’t spare
the Billionaires’ Club a second glance as he climbed out the window into the frosty
morning. He clambered down the fire-escape
stairs. It was only as he neared the footpath
that Gerald realised he had no way of contacting Mason Green. After all he had been
through with Alex Baranov, he was left with the wooden box but still no way of freeing
the professor. Gerald paused midway between steps and catapulted a curse-strewn tirade
into the air to join the thrum of traffic noise rising from the street.

He was answered by an unexpected voice.

‘That’s no way to speak to your friends.’

Gerald leaned over the railing and stared to the street below. His gaze was met by
the upturned faces of Felicity Upham and Ruby and Sam Valentine.

‘You really should see someone about that anger problem of yours,’ Sam continued.
‘It’s really unattractive.’

A huge smile lit Gerald’s face. He scampered down the last few flights, his boots
knocking snow from the iron steps and creating a mini blizzard that chased him all
the way to the street. He leapt over the final three stairs and landed in the tangled
embrace of his friends.

‘What are you all doing here?’ Gerald asked amid a flurry of questions about his
adventures during the night. ‘How did you know to come?’

Ruby pushed herself free of Gerald’s arms and looked at him with mild confusion.
‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘We got your message at the Plaza. We came
straight away.’

‘I was halfway through a dusk-to-dawn zombie movie marathon and a cheeseburger the
size of my head,’
Sam said, exposing a sliver of gherkin between his front teeth,
‘so this better be important.’

It was Gerald’s turn to look confused. ‘I never sent you any message,’ he said, shifting
the wooden box from one hip to the other. ‘I was lucky to get out of this stupid
place in one piece. I didn’t have time to send a message to anyone.’

A frown creased Felicity’s brow. ‘The note was quite specific,’ she said. ‘Someone
slipped it under the door to our suite. We were to meet you here at the foot of the
fire escape straight away.’

Gerald looked around them. The zigzag of iron stairs had deposited him in a narrow
alley that ran along the side of the building, just off the bustle of Fifth Avenue.

‘If you didn’t send the message,’ Ruby said, ‘who did?’

Her words were barely out when a large metal grate in the footpath beneath their
feet gave way, swallowing them like a midnight snack.

Gerald opened his mouth to scream, but the sudden drop seemed to wedge his stomach
into his throat, blocking any chance of noise escaping. The combination of no ground
at his feet together with the pull of gravity sent terror into his heart and a chill
wind up his trouser legs that caused instant clenching of eyes, teeth and buttocks.

He landed awkwardly, his knees buckling under him. He sensed a body dropping close
to his left, then two more to his right. Gerald opened his eyes to find himself buried
to the armpits in a giant nest of shredded newspaper.

For a moment, no one spoke. Gerald still clutched the black box to his chest, as
if cradling a small child.

‘What just happened?’ Sam’s voice filled the dimly lit space.

Gerald looked around. They appeared to have fallen into a cavernous cellar and landed
in an industrial vat the size of a backyard swimming pool. Above him, Gerald could
make out a tangle of grey metal pipes and rusted steel girders that disappeared into
the gloom up towards the street. To their right, in a storage cage against a brown
brick wall, were a large red boiler and an assortment of junk. And to their left
was—

‘Well hail, hail! The gang’s all here.’

Gerald spun his head to see Sir Mason Green standing over them with a smug grin on
his face. ‘I am so glad you are all right,’ Green continued. ‘It was the devil’s
own job trying to calculate how much paper to shred to provide you with a comfortable
landing. It’s a good seven-metre drop from the street and I really couldn’t have
you shattering anklebones or popping knee joints. That would have been most inconvenient.
So I erred on the side of caution.’ He lowered a rope ladder into the vat and beckoned
Gerald across.

Gerald twisted his way through the mass of shredded paper, holding the wooden box
above his head. ‘Now I know how a guinea pig feels,’ he muttered. He finally made
it to the side, took hold of the ladder in one hand, tucked the box under his arm
and climbed out.

‘I could hardly afford to damage the contents of that casket,’ Green said. ‘Not after
you went to such lengths to secure it for me. It wasn’t too much trouble, I trust?’

Gerald stared at the box in his hands. Ruby, Felicity and Sam dragged themselves
to the side of the vat. ‘You have no idea,’ he said. ‘Why all the fuss over a perpetual
motion machine? Is it really that important?’

Sir Mason Green stiffened as if all the joints in his body had frozen. His eyes locked
onto the wooden casket. ‘Oh, Gerald, it is more important to me than you can possibly
imagine. I hope you have the correct one. I understand there are a few from which
to choose.’

Gerald tightened his grip on the black box. ‘There’s a couple fewer now,’ he said.
‘Alex took one as well.’

Green’s eyes seemed to glow in the dim light of the cellar. ‘I was wondering how
you fared with Baranov the younger. Did he prove as outrageously deceitful as his
father?’

Gerald ran a hand across the rough graze that Alex’s boot had burned across his throat.
‘You have your faults but you are a good judge of character,’ he said. ‘Alex pulled
a knife on me and took off with a box. It had a silver egg in it that looked just
like the symbol for the
perpetual motion machine. But I’m pretty sure it was the
wrong box.’

Green laughed with gusto. ‘I am absolutely certain he has the wrong one,’ he said.
‘Now tell me, Gerald, did that piece of the Delacroix painting prove useful?’

Gerald nodded. ‘How did you even know about that?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t. At least, not for sure,’ Green said. ‘There were rumours that Delacroix
left a hidden design on the canvas that might point to the perpetual motion machine.
But I had no idea how it might work.’

‘There’s a whole artist’s studio on the top floor,’ Gerald said. ‘Are you saying
Delacroix painted there?’

‘Apart from being a collector, Jim Kincaid was a patron of the arts,’ Green said.
‘If gossip is to be believed, he brought Delacroix to New York to get him away from
the dangers of Paris after the revolution of 1830.’

‘That makes sense,’ Ruby said. ‘I’m fairly sure Delacroix’s painting inspired the
design of the Statue of Liberty.’

‘So, while Kincaid was in his workshop trying to reinvent Drebbel’s machine, Delacroix
was upstairs working on
Liberty Leads the People
,’ Gerald said. His brain raced.
‘Kincaid was storing all his attempts at recreating the machine in those black boxes.
I bet he had one spot set aside for Drebbel’s original and Delacroix recorded the
location in a puzzle on the back of the canvas.’

‘But how do you know the box Alex took isn’t the right one?’ Sam asked.

‘Because, Mr Valentine, I have located the only key for the correct box. The fact
young Baranov was able to open his casket is all the proof I need that the poor boy
is on his way to present his father with a sad attempt at Cornelius Drebbel’s engineering
masterpiece.’ Green chuckled to himself. ‘Sergei will be livid.’

‘Why would Alex’s father want this machine so much?’ Felicity asked.

‘To protect his oil business,’ Gerald said. ‘He wants to make sure no one else can
use the machine to compete with him.’

‘You are partially correct,’ Green said. ‘If I know Sergei Baranov, he wanted to
keep the machine in a Siberian bunker until his oil supplies run low, then open the
Baranov Perpetual Motor Company and make a fortune selling the technology. Except,
of course, he doesn’t have the machine.’ Green reached out to take the box from Gerald.
‘I do.’

Gerald whipped the casket away and shoved it into Sam’s hands. ‘Not until we know
Professor McElderry is safe,’ Gerald said. ‘That was the deal.’

Green stared at Gerald for a moment, then crossed to a wooden bench and picked up
the handset of an old rotary telephone. He dialled a single number and waited.

‘Professor?’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘Can you show your face, please?’ He put
the receiver back in its
cradle and turned to Gerald. ‘I will keep my end of the
bargain,’ he said. His eyes locked onto the box in Sam’s hands. ‘I hope for all your
sakes that you have managed to do the same.’

Gerald felt something brush against his fingers. Ruby was rubbing the back of his
hand. ‘What happened in the club?’ she asked.

‘Let’s get the professor out of here and I’ll tell you all about it over a mountain
of pancakes, whipped butter and maple syrup,’ Gerald said.

Sam placed the black box at his feet and nudged it with his boot. ‘If Sergei Baranov
wants to dominate global energy with this thing, what’s your scheme?’ he asked Green.
‘Why do you want it?’

Sir Mason arched his fingers. ‘Nothing as mundane as that,’ he said. ‘I have a far
more creative plan for my little machine.’

Gerald glanced at his watch. ‘What’s taking the professor so long?’ He stared hard
at the silver-haired billionaire. ‘What are you up to?’

Green raised an eyebrow in mock indignation. ‘Up to?’ he asked. ‘Why ever would you
think I was up to something? The cellars under the Billionaires’ Club are vast. The
building above us is twelve storeys. From my cursory investigations down here, the
complex may have as many levels beneath the street. It has a labyrinthine quality
about it—so many criss-crossing corridors and stairways. The cellars are a puzzle
in themselves. Another
of Diamond Jim Kincaid’s eccentric touches.’ Green extended
his arms wide and turned a slow circle. His jacket billowed open, and Gerald started
at the handgun tucked into Green’s waistband. ‘It’s draughty and dank and be it ever
so humble, it is certainly no place like home, but it will do for my time in the
city,’ Green said. ‘A handy bolthole to keep tabs on you while you retrieved my treasure
box.’

‘You’re welcome to it,’ Gerald said. ‘As long as it buys the professor’s freedom.’

Sir Mason smiled coolly. ‘Once I have the box, the professor is free to do whatever
he pleases.’

Then, from a shadowed doorway at the rear of the cellar, a figure shuffled into the
room. Professor Knox McElderry of the British Museum—his red beard combed and trimmed,
his brown herringbone suit shambolic as usual but neat enough—stood blinking in the
soft light. He had the air of a large brown bear that had just emerged from a long
winter’s sleep, not certain which way to turn first.

‘Professor McElderry?’ Ruby said softly, not wanting to startle him. ‘Are you all
right?’

McElderry blinked again, his shaggy eyebrows knitting into a single auburn hedge
across his forehead. He looked at Ruby for a moment before a glimmer of recognition
showed in his eyes. A gruff rumble rolled from his throat.

‘Miss Valentine?’

Ruby’s face lit up. ‘Oh, you remember!’

Mason Green held up a hand, gesturing for the professor to stay where he was. ‘Your
friend has been off the Voynich juice, as it were, for a few weeks now,’ Green said.
‘He was only on it for the trip to Scotland so he wouldn’t make a fuss. I should
bottle the stuff and sell it to new parents. But as you can see, he is fit and well.’
Before Gerald could say anything, Sir Mason tuned to the professor and said, ‘Can
you excuse us now, McElderry? I have some business to transact. If you would be so
kind as to return to your quarters until I summon you again.’

The professor blinked once more and shuffled back into the shadows.

Gerald looked after the disappearing form, aghast. ‘Where’s he going? What’s wrong
with him?’

‘He will be free to leave at the appropriate time,’ Green said. ‘I’ve waited long
enough. Let me open my little treasure chest.’