The Puzzler's Mansion (13 page)

Jake gritted his teeth, embarrassed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I would have invited you, but I knew you were busy. I actually thought it would be sort of mean to tell you what you were missing.”

That made an aggravating sort of sense. Winston sighed.

“But still!” Mal said. “You can't give up puzzles. That'd be like me giving up—”

“Having a big mouth,” Jake concluded for him.

“Yeah!” Mal agreed. He wasn't insulted. He knew the truth when he heard it.

Winston laughed before he even realized it, and then he laughed again. He felt a little better. He decided he didn't want to mope around all weekend. That was Zook's job.

He had to admit, though . . . something was still nibbling at him.
Something about puzzles. He'd been solving them forever, but it was hard not to notice that lately they were tripping him up, getting in his way. It was like having an untrained dog inside his head, one that was friendly but constantly demanding attention. He wondered—only briefly—what it might be like if he
did
give up puzzles. Could he even do it? He didn't know, but it spooked him a little that he'd had the thought.

One of the brats came running in, shouting, “Lollipop! Lollipop!” Their mother, Betty, followed at a run, saying, “I
told
you, not until after lunch.” But the child had already reached his mother's purse, which had been placed on a chair. He grabbed it and sent it tumbling, spilling its contents all over.

“Ugh! Ryan!” Betty shouted, and knelt down to gather her belongings. Winston wondered where Ryan's brother was. Either of these kids off by himself was bad news. And sure enough, at just that moment, he heard Norma yell from the kitchen, “Ian! Please don't touch that! No!” These kids were part human, part wrecking ball.

Betty picked up her wallet, which had unfolded itself as it hit the floor. She peered into it as she gathered it up, and did a double take. She looked around, flustered and upset. “Did you get into Mommy's wallet?” Betty asked Ryan, who had found a lollipop and was fighting with the wrapper. She looked around again, her agitation growing. Finally her eyes set on Winston and his friends, sitting on the other side of the room.

“Did you see anyone go into my bag?” she asked.

The boys all shook their heads. “No,” said Jake. “I didn't even notice it sitting there.”

“Well, somebody did,” Betty said, her puzzlement giving way to anger. “I had over three hundred dollars cash in here. And now it's gone.”

IT WAS HARD
keeping the mood light as they sat around eating the sandwiches Norma had ordered in, but Richard was determined to try. He had plenty of assistance from Larry Rossdale, who could be counted on to bellow merry laughter at just about anything. Winston could tell, though, that people were disturbed. It was getting harder to ignore the fact that one of the party guests was a thief.

At first, all attention once again turned to Zook. But under his father's questioning, Zook replied hotly, “When did I do it? I was with you the whole time, playing treasure hunt in the library. Besides, I'd have to be pretty stupid to steal money when everybody already thinks I stole this other thing. Which I
didn't.
”

Everybody grudgingly agreed that Zook had been in the library during the entire puzzle. Of course, he could have stolen the money before then, but when Gerard Deburgh brought that up, Kimberly Schmidt observed that from the end of breakfast onward, there were
always a few people in the reading room—somebody would have seen him do it. Nobody knew what to say to that, and then lunch arrived, so the whole thing was dropped, at least for the moment.

Zook was no longer glowering with anger. Sitting next to his father in a pair of wingback chairs, a paper plate on his lap, he only looked tired of being accused of every bad thing that happened around here. Winston halfway felt bad for him and halfway thought he really was the thief. Chase Worthington had even gone so far as to offer Betty McGinley the money out of his own pocket, which made Zook exhale an irritated breath. Betty turned down the money.

Winston and his friends were back at the dining room table. Derek Bibb was sitting there, and Mal—now that he had fully recovered from Derek's presence—wanted to ask the famous director questions about theater and acting. For the first time, it occurred to Winston that Mal wasn't joking about wanting to be an actor someday.

Winston tuned out of their conversation pretty quickly. He chatted in a low voice with Jake about Zook: Why would he have stolen the money, if indeed he had? His father was the star of a successful television show—surely Zook could buy anything he wanted. And yet his father mentioned how Zook had been caught shoplifting not too long before. Whatever Zook was up to, it had nothing to do with money and everything to do with being an all-around ticked-off jerk.

And, really, if Zook wasn't the thief, who was?
Everybody
around here was richer than Winston could imagine. Did Gerard Deburgh, or even Amanda, need three hundred dollars snatched from a random pocketbook? Heck, no. Deburgh was a multibazillionaire businessman. Who did that leave as a suspect? The world-famous cello player? The theater director with a play on Broadway? The weatherman who made barrels of money pitching products on television? It
was crazy to think any of them had done it.

Well, Penrose wasn't rich. But he probably wasn't poor, either—not if he traveled to other countries as frequently as he did. “Even if Penrose was dead broke,” said Jake, “no way is he the thief.” Winston agreed.
Penrose?
Rifling through somebody's wallet and stealing the cash? That was ridiculous.

Winston was worried that maybe someone would turn the spotlight on
him,
or Mal or Jake. Of all the guests in attendance, the three of them were the most likely to think three hundred dollars was a lot of money. And for a while they
had
been sitting in the same room as the purse. But, to Winston's relief, nobody thought to grill them about the theft. Most of the guests, taking a cue from Richard, only wanted to forget anything had happened.

Winston glanced over to see that Derek was back in lecture mode again, this time for an audience of one. Mal looked a little glassy-eyed. He glanced over to his friends, and his expression asked the question,
What have I gotten myself into?

The deck of cards was still out. While they waited for Derek to wind down, Winston found himself cutting and shuffling the deck, and then idly flipping through the cards, removing some, putting others back into the deck, arranging things in some way. Jake watched him with increasing amusement. “Yeah,” he said. “You can give up puzzles. I believe that.”

Winston looked at what he was doing, and blinked in surprise. Jake was right. Winston had been absently turning the cards into a puzzle. His brain was on puzzling autopilot.

The sun had come out, taking the edge off the morning's chill. And that was good, because the third puzzle was to be held outside, in Richard Overton's extensive garden.

“If we have to identify flowers,” Gerard Deburgh said, “I'll just stay here and read the paper.”

Richard assured him it was nothing of the kind, so Gerard and the rest of them put on their jackets, grabbed pencils and paper, and gathered outside the front door. Norma stayed behind. She had taken Richard aside and suggested—in a whisper that was nonetheless loud enough for everyone to hear—that the rest of the puzzles be canceled. Why continue with a party when one of the guests was a thief? Richard refused to listen.

He led them around to the garden that Winston had spied from a distance last evening. Like Gerard, Winston didn't know many different kinds of flowers. But there seemed to be hundreds in Richard's garden. The entrance was guarded on either side by tall, odd-looking flowers in giant ceramic pots—Winston didn't realize it was possible for a flower to look proud of itself, but these purple flowers looked ready to sing their own praises.

“Oh, these orchids are beautiful!” Kimberly exclaimed, and Richard thanked her, obviously pleased.

Next to each pot was a park bench, the wooden slats set into an ornate metal framework. In the garden itself, paths cut this way and that through the brightly colored flowers and the lush greenery, and Richard smiled as his guests oohed and aahed at the sight of it all. “I had Freddie working double time over the last few weeks, getting the garden ready for today,” Richard said. “He's done a wonderful job, don't you think?” No one could disagree.

Richard continued, “Here's another puzzle where you'll have to wander around a little. You'll need to explore my garden in search of . . . well, you'll soon find out. Then it will be up to you to figure out what to do. Make sure you follow every path. Your answer will be a six-letter word. But keep these numbers in mind as well: nine, eight, six. That's a little hint for all of you.”

“Not much of a hint,” Mal said to Winston. “Nine eight six? What does it mean?”

“I guess we'll see,” said Winston.

“Wanna stick together?” Jake asked.

“Sure thing,” Mal said. So the boys headed down one of the paths.

“Learn a lot from Derek Bibb?” Winston asked.

“Oh, man,” Mal said, looking around to see if Derek was nearby. “The guy's really smart, no doubt about that. But talking to him is like sinking in quicksand.”

“Next time we'll throw you a rope,” Jake said.

It didn't take long to discover what Richard was up to. Down the first path was a little clearing. In the center was a wooden post with a sign showing a single letter: O.

“Aha!” said Mal. “I know what to do for a change! It's a maze, and we have to spell out a message as we go along!”

“That sounds pretty good,” Winston said. “But which way are we supposed to go now?” There were four paths out of this clearing—the one they had come from, and three others, heading off at various angles into the garden.

“Hey, I'm just the idea man,” said Mal. “I'll let you take it from here.”

So they headed down a path at random, looking at different kinds of plants, until they reached another clearing and another signpost. This one displayed the letter N. Jake wrote it diligently on his notepad. Winston wasn't taking notes yet. He needed to see more before he felt confident they were on the right track.

There were three paths away from this point, and again they chose one for no particular reason. This time they found themselves in a slightly larger clearing, though still with a single signpost at the
center. Jake wrote down the letter E in his notepad. The E, Winston noticed, was larger than the other letters and painted red instead of black. It also had a red circle painted around it.

“Wow. Now what?” Jake said, looking around. There were no fewer than seven paths leading away.

“We're supposed to take every path, isn't that what he said?” Winston asked.

“Yes,” Mal agreed. “Quick. Everybody clone yourself.”

Candice Deburgh and Amanda came up from one of the other paths. Gerard wasn't with them. Winston remembered that Gerard had worked by himself during the library puzzle, too. Did he not want to solve with his wife and daughter, or did they not want to work with him?

Amanda looked around at the many paths and made an annoyed sound. “How are we supposed to know where to go next?”

“I think that's part of the puzzle,” Jake said.

“Well, it's hard to believe I'm going to solve this,” said Amanda's mother, “but this garden is certainly lovely. Oh, look!” She stepped happily over to examine a bunch of flowers that resembled lavender-colored popcorn, while Amanda stood there looking impatient.