The Explorer's Code, page 17
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked the others.
“No idea,” Emily said. She glanced at Anna.
“What? I had nothing to do with this,” Anna said.
“For once,” Charlie added, and Anna shoved him.
Emily’s parents passed by, and when they spotted her, they rushed over. “Where have you been?” they asked. “Why are you covered in dust?”
“Just exploring with Charlie and Anna,” Emily said. Anna noticed her quietly slide the journal behind her. “What’s happening?”
Emily’s mom and dad passed a glance between them. “Rosie and Xavier were caught stealing the antiques in the house,” she said.
“No!”
Emily’s mom nodded. “They took an old dictionary, one of the dragon statues from the lobby, and lots of smaller items. Garrett and his mother are handling the police and putting the antiques back where they belong.”
“His mother?”
“The cook. They’re having a time of it, apparently. The Arctic Circle suite is littered with stolen things. Garrett said they found a crystal clock tucked under the stuffed penguin like an egg.”
Emily snorted. “A penguin in the Arctic? That doesn’t fit. I bet they stole that, too.”
“Perhaps. But now everyone is throwing accusations left and right, and we’re all supposed to open our doors and be ready to be searched. No one is allowed to go out onto the grounds.”
Rosie and Xavier? They didn’t seem like thieves, but then, who did? It wasn’t like Anna had been around, watching the guests the whole weekend.
But if they’d been secret thieves, and the Shaughnessys secret historians, who else might have come here with a secret motive? Suitcase Man had been holding a metal detector. The Sunglasses Couple ran off as often as Anna did, and sometimes, they smelled a little musty. Who was the treasure hunter who had stolen Emily’s and Charlie’s codes?
Emily’s dad looked at the kids. “If I were you, I’d stay out of everyone’s way. Tensions are high enough as it is right now.”
Charlie nodded, as did Emily. Anna just smiled. “That’s the plan,” she said.
Emily’s parents left, heading back upstairs, apparently to participate in the search. Anna turned to Emily. “Why didn’t you show them the journal?”
“Not now! Not when everyone is freaking out about thieves stealing from the house. And we’re not done yet. We don’t know why the codes were left. So,” Emily said. “The door?”
“Second floor,” Anna repeated. “Come on.”
The three went upstairs as quickly and quietly as they could as Anna led them into the heart of the ongoing search for thieves.
* * *
On the second floor they passed angry adults slamming doors and nervous adults welcoming in Mr. Llewellyn, big-eared and big-mouthed Garrett, and the sharp-faced cook. Emily pulled her hair in front of her face, playing the shy, invisible kid once again.
But who was she kidding? She was following public enemy number one (who also had bright red hair) down the line of suites, and stopping in front of one.
Its door was closed. Anna reached out to open it but hesitated.
“Why are you stopping?” Emily asked.
“This is where I got caught earlier,” Anna said. “You know, Emily, you don’t need to keep coming with me. Show your parents the upstairs rooms and the journal. That will be enough to prove there’s more to this house.”
Emily had considered that. But she couldn’t stop now. They were neck-deep in a mystery, history in the making, and she was part of it! Stopping now would be worse than walking out of a movie halfway through. Emily needed to be there when this story ended.
But what if it already had? Why was the door closed? Could whoever had stolen Charlie’s book and Emily’s numbers already be inside, opening the door to the treasure? What if they’d already found it? Emily couldn’t let that happen.
Pushing past Anna, she knocked on the door. “Open up! We have to search everyone!” She twisted the doorknob.
It turned easily. The door was unlocked, and when the kids stepped inside, it was empty.
“Hello?” Emily called. “Anyone home?”
“Could you keep it down?” Charlie asked. “What if Mr. Llewellyn hears us?”
“No one’s here,” Emily said, ignoring him. She looked around the room. “Wow.”
“I know,” Anna said.
Emily hadn’t been able to see this room. The guests here had been out whenever she thought about stopping by. But it was fascinating. Painted gray like the metal of an airplane, a cockpit of sorts filled one corner. In the walls were painted windows showing the ocean beneath the fake plane, and painted on the back wall was the airplane’s door.
“That’s it,” Emily and Anna said at the same time. They approached the door.
Charlie hung back. “I’ll be lookout,” he said. “Tell me if you find anything.”
“Lookout?” Emily asked as Charlie pushed up his glasses and turned his attention to the hall.
“Makes sense. Where are the guests?” Anna responded.
“Mr. Haskell’s in the entry hall. I don’t know about his wife,” Emily said. “I think … I think I’ve seen her around.”
“Where?”
Frowning, Emily thought back to when she and Charlie had been talking. “I might be wrong, but … I saw this woman examining the lock at the carved door downstairs.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t one of the women staying in the Egypt room?”
Emily shook her head. “Not at first. But then I saw her today with Mr. Haskell, and she dropped her key. She’s … rather short when she hunches over.”
Charlie peeked into the room. “The lady with the curly gray hair?”
“And the big quilted bag?” Anna said.
“That’s her!” Emily had the picture in her head: Mrs. Haskell. Tall, but sometimes short. Gray-haired. Carried a quilted bag. All of them, the same person.
“I saw her in the parlor, searching under the sofa.” Charlie made a face. “It’s weird. I keep seeing her in this hallway. I saw her right before my book went missing.”
Emily stiffened. She’d seen the woman leave and come back during the old-fashioned night, grinning like a well-fed cat and clutching that big quilted bag. What could fit in that bag under all the candy she was always passing out to the kids? An old book? A set of code numbers?
Anna was eyeing them. “You think Mrs. Haskell is the one who stole your stuff?”
It sounded weird, saying it out loud, so Emily started to shake her head but then said, “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“She was in the maze,” Charlie said. “When I was talking about book codes. She could have heard me.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Anna said, raising her hands. “The Haskells were talking with my parents, and it sounds like they travel a lot. They said they win trips, but no one can be that lucky, right? You’re different,” she added, as Charlie was about to pipe up.
Emily realized she was clenching her fists. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Every time she saw Mrs. Haskell, she was poking around the house. Just like Emily had been.
“And she was looking at a lock,” Emily said through gritted teeth. “Someone snuck into my family’s suite and yours to steal our things. Maybe someone with experience picking locks?”
It made sense. It all made sense.
“Anyway,” Anna continued, “didn’t her husband say she was on the grounds? We were just out there. High up there. How come we didn’t see her?” She gestured around. “Plus, this is the Haskells’ room. If Mrs. Haskell is our thief, and she’s searching for whatever Elaine left behind, and the door is in here—”
“Right. Let’s get to work.” Charlie turned back to watch the hall.
Anna was right. Mrs. Haskell could be there already, taking the treasure or message or whatever it was and leaving Emily with nothing to prove that the codes had any real meaning.
Emily touched the painted airplane door with shaking fingers. “This wasn’t here in the old days,” she said.
“The room? Or the door?” Anna had dropped to her knees and was feeling around the baseboard.
“Both. The rooms were decorated like this for the guests by order of Elaine Gardner, using items left in Idlewood by the family. The family didn’t live in themed suites, after all. These painted walls could have a clue hidden in them, like the ones in Rome and China. And if this is the door—”
“Between the dragon’s wings,” Anna finished. “It must be. I just don’t know what we’re looking for around it.”
She had a point. Emily couldn’t see any letters, numbers, or patterns, nothing that screamed “CODE!” to her. It made sense that this would be the most difficult code yet, but she couldn’t even determine where to start.
“Charlie might know,” Emily said. “Hey, Charlie! Get in here!”
Charlie poked his head in. “Just a moment!” he hissed, and a second later, Emily heard him say, loudly, “Hi, Mr. Llewellyn!”
“Drop!” Anna said, and both girls crouched, breathing heavily.
Outside the door, Mr. Llewellyn and Charlie were talking. Anna was pressed against the painted door. Emily squeezed her nails into her palms. Don’t come in, don’t come in.
After what seemed like hours, Charlie whispered, “All clear.”
Emily slumped. “Whew. I thought it was over.”
“Not yet,” Charlie said. “But the hall is packed. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here when we’re done.”
“We’ll go out through here.” Anna was running one hand up and down along the edge of the airplane door. “There’s a seam in the wall.”
Charlie rushed in. “Let me see!”
Emily and Charlie pushed Anna aside to feel the wall. She’d been right. Beneath Emily’s fingertips was a thin, but very real, crack in the wall. It went all around the painted door’s edge.
“So it is a door,” Emily said. “It’s not a code. It’s a real door!”
“Yeah, but how do we open it?” Anna asked.
“How did you open the door to the upstairs?”
“No idea. It just opened. Wait.” Anna fumbled in her pocket and fished out the tarnished key. Emily reached for it, and Anna pulled it away. “I found this near the house,” she said. “Maybe it unlocks the door.”
“I don’t see a keyhole,” Emily said. “Maybe it’s hidden?”
Without a word, Anna started feeling the wall, and Emily did the same. The secret had to be here somewhere.
* * *
As the girls searched the wall, Charlie dropped to the ground. The baseboard was interesting, with painted dragons swirling around each other. Maybe they spelled out a code or message on how to open the door?
Charlie glanced at the front door to the suite, now closed. Where were the Haskells? If Mrs. Haskell was the one who’d taken his book, then she (and maybe her husband, too) could have solved the puzzle and were ahead of them. And either of them could walk in at any second and see three kids fiddling with their wall—one of whom (Anna) was doing her level best to physically pull it apart at the seams.
Who would have thought Anna would be the one to find the answer to the code? This room and this door? Charlie had always thought she didn’t care about anything cerebral, but clearly, in Anna’s exploring, there was more going on under that mass of red hair than he’d thought.
He examined the dragon paintings. They were small, thin images, swirling and dancing around each other like dragons in flight. Very pretty. But was there a pattern?
Not one Charlie could see. Three would be pointed right, then two left, then one up and one down, but the pattern didn’t repeat itself. Then Charlie noticed, leaning closer to the space just to the right of the door, that there was a segment where three rows of three dragons faced right, one swirled, chasing its own tail, and three sets of three faced left.
Like arrows, pointing at the one in the middle. Why would they do that?
As Anna and Emily debated the merits of finding a crowbar, Charlie touched the circular center dragon. It was slightly raised. He gave it a firm push.
Behind the wall, ancient machinery creaked and squealed. Both girls jumped back. And the painted door swung open as far as its rusty hinges would allow.
Anna pried the door farther open, and the three kids looked inside. There was a hall, or rather, a secret passage. Bare boards lined the walls, and support beams were clearly visible. Dust, dead bugs, and mouse droppings lined the ground.
“Oh my gosh,” Emily said. She pushed past Anna and stepped into the hall. Under her feet, the dust puffed up in a small cloud. “How long has this been here?”
“Probably since Elaine renovated the house,” Charlie said. This was way more than a couple of neatly painted letters on a wall—the foreman Silver must have been in on the scheme, to build a tunnel like this. So many years ago … had he used workers to build it? Did they tell their families?
“Think Mrs. Haskell is ahead of us?” Emily asked.
“We’d see footprints in the dust,” Anna said. She stepped into the hall after Emily.
Charlie followed them, scuffing the dust with his sneaker. Beneath his shoe, he could see another set of footprints. And another. Faint but there. The Haskells? Or old footprints, left protected by time? “Like these?” he said, pointing.
“But the door was closed,” Emily said.
“So was the door to the plane room,” Anna said. “If I were being sneaky, I wouldn’t want anyone wondering, ‘Hey, why is that door-that’s-not-supposed-to-be-a-door open?’ And,” she said, scuffing her feet and erasing a footprint, “this was an old door. Don’t you think it opened just a little too easily?”
Emily grimaced. “Let’s go,” she said, striding down the dim passage. “We are not too late. We can’t be. I won’t let us lose.”
17
THE HALL was dark, lit only by the light from the room behind them, but Emily didn’t care. She forged ahead, Anna hurrying beside her and Charlie just behind. There was no way Mrs. Haskell had found the treasure before her. No way. No way.
She had not climbed a freaking wall, borrowed an old journal (which was still under her arm), and broken into a guest’s room to find out that the ending of this story was a big fat nothing. Elaine had left a message, and Emily had solved it. The truth, the treasure, all of it … it was meant for her.
And, well, Anna and Charlie. As much as Emily had worked for this, she had to admit she could never have solved the whole mystery without Charlie’s code-solving and Anna’s discovery of the tower room and journal. The door between the dragon’s wings. Even if she’d found that clue alone, Emily might have gone to the carved door in the entry hall instead of this one.
The passage turned a corner and the light faded even more. Emily could see a set of stairs ahead, and warned the others.
“Be careful not to trip,” Anna said.
Keeping one hand on the wall, Emily climbed the stairs. So many years. Were they even safe to step on anymore?
Either way, Emily kept going, as did the Hendersons. Soon, they reached a top landing.
“I think we’re back on the third floor,” Anna whispered.
“I think you’re right,” Emily whispered back. She stepped forward and walked into a closed door, banging her forehead.
“You found it,” Charlie said, and Emily, rubbing her head, glared in the direction of his voice.
Emily reached out and felt a door beneath her hands. “I think I did.”
“Let me see.” Anna put a hand on Emily’s shoulder and reached out to the door. “I feel a knob and a keyhole,” she said. “What if…”
There was a short moment of shuffling, and then the sound of metal scratching against metal. “Doesn’t fit,” she said, stepping back.
Hmm. Well, what if … Emily grabbed the doorknob and twisted it. It opened easily.
“Not locked,” she said.
“Not good,” Charlie said. “Of course the door would be unlocked if someone beat us to the treasure.”
“Then let’s stop hanging around here.” Emily pushed the door open, and light flooded the dark hallway.
All three of them shoved their way inside the next room and stopped. Emily wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the confused frown on Charlie’s face mirrored her own feelings.
They’d stepped into a small, unfinished room, probably crammed between two of the main rooms on the third floor. One single window illuminated the scene, sending shafts of sunlight through the swirling dust.
But other than the dust, the room was empty—all but a drawer-less wooden table pushed up against the window.
“Where’s the treasure?” Charlie asked.
“We were too late,” Anna said. “Mrs. Haskell must have already come and cleared it out. Maybe she did it right after stealing your code.”
Emily just shook her head. They couldn’t have lost. Elaine had given her the clues, and they’d made it here together. Some cheating treasure hunter couldn’t have taken it all. Now Emily wouldn’t have the treasure, and she’d never know what Elaine’s message had been. She’d have to live her whole life not knowing.
Anna was shaking her head. “No, wait. It can’t be that easy.”
Charlie kicked at a lump of dust. “I missed the part where any of this was easy.”
“No, I mean … up in the tower, when I picked up the journal, it left behind a clean spot,” Anna said. “Where the dust landed on the journal but not the floor underneath. So where are the clean spots?”
Emily felt like she suddenly remembered it was her birthday. “There aren’t any. Nothing was taken from here recently!”
