Legend of the Gilded Saber Page 4

  I was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring toward the window.

  "Ralphy's asleep now," Mike said. "Lisa's in her room. I wanted to talk to you about this without anyone else knowing."

  "About Devon, right?"

  "He lied," Mike said. "To the police."

  "I know."

  "You do?"

  "Yeah. Why didn't you say anything to the police, then?"

  "His word against mine," Mike answered. "Plus, he must have had a good reason for lying. I mean, I know he didn't start the fire himself."

  Mike paused. "Why didn't you tell the police?"

  "Same reason."

  Mike moved to the window and looked down on where the garage had been. "How did you know he was lying?"

  "His toes were pointing up," I said. "If someone had hit him on the back of the head, he would have fallen face forward. He wouldn't have landed on his back. How did you know?"

  Mike faced me again. "The reason I came here to wake you up. Remember I said I heard Devon walking down the hallway and I was going to talk with him?"

  I nodded.

  "He got to the back door and kept walking. I was standing in the doorway and I watched him walk to the garage. I could see a glow of light through one of the garage windows. That's probably why he was going there. To check out the light."

  "The light was on in the garage? Then he would have seen who was in there."

  Mike shook his head. "I didn't say a light was on. I said there was a glow of light. Like from a flashlight. But it wasn't."

  "Make sense, will you?"

  "As Devon opened the side door to the garage, the glow of light quit, and I heard a slamming sound."

  "Slamming?"

  "My guess is the trunk lid of the Mercedes. When it was open, the trunk light was on. That caused the glow. When Devon opened the door, whoever was looking inside the trunk shut it hard. Which, of course, was the slam. After that, I heard a low voice. It sounded like the person was warning Devon to leave. That's when I ran up to your room to get your help."

  I thought about it for a second. "And while you were up here, that person must have attacked Devon."

  I snapped my fingers. "No. Tried to run past him. They would have wrestled in the doorway. The intruder must have won the fight, maybe punched him in the face where it's bruised. The bump on the back of Devon's head is where he landed."

  "Yup," Mike said. "Just the opposite of what he told the police. But why would he lie?"

  "You're right," I said. "That's the big question."

  I thought of the cuff link. I had noticed the initials T.S. on it, but the letters had not clicked until now. T.S.

  I mentioned it to Mike. "Thomas Stang?" I guessed. "Just another question," Mike said. "Along with why Devon would lie. One more question mixed in with a bunch of others just as big."

  Chapter 10

  We were supposed to be here on vacation. I decided to go for a walk and see Charleston that way, not through a window of a taxi or a car.

  As I moved down a quiet street, away from the river, I let my mind wander, remembering what I'd read about Charleston before getting here.

  The narrow cobblestone streets and the ancient buildings pushed together made it seem like an old city in Europe. Because there were no people around me, it was easy to imagine that I was over a hundred years back in time. I thought of pirates and of the sadness of the slaves as they arrived here, with slave traders selling them like horses nearby at the ancient wharves.

  It made me shiver, even with the quiet of the early morning streets around me.

  Then I looked up and saw St. Michael's steeple rising above the buildings around it. And I remembered what I'd read about it.

  Before the Civil War, the steeple had been painted white, like a sleek angel, wings folded, rising above the city. But during the war, the whiteness of the steeple on moonlit nights had provided an easy aiming point for Yankee soldiers. At night, then, they had used it as a target for their cannons.

  I imagined the high whistle of the cannonballs as they dropped from the sky, ripped through the roofs of houses, scattered the flames of fireplaces. I imagined the wails of frightened babies filling the night, imagined boys like me awake in their beds, staring at the ceiling, listening to the screaming whistle of the next cannonball, wondering if this was the cannonball that would snuff out their life when it landed. And all because of the great white steeple rising into the darkness.

  I shivered again, even though it was warm.

  The steeple was white now, too. But for the rest of the war, the citizens of Charleston had been forced to paint the steeple black to make it invisible in the night.

  As I stepped from shadows into the early morning sunshine, the warmth on my face reminded me that I was not back in the Civil War, part of a city under siege.

  I shook off the sad and terrible feelings and kept walking forward, whistling like a cheerful tourist.

  I enjoyed the rest of my sightseeing, but if I had known what would later happen to me in St. Michael's steeple, I would have tried catching the next flight out of Charleston.

  Chapter 11

  "Ralphy, did you put glue in those eggs?"

  The question came from Mike, who leaned over Ralphy's shoulder. Ralphy stood at the stove, stirring eggs in a frying pan to scramble them.

  "No, Michael," Ralphy said, vexed at Mike's suspicion. "That is cream. Just enough to keep the eggs moist."

  "What about the red stuff?"

  "Curry. You'll appreciate the flavor and—"

  Ralphy slapped Mike's hand as Mike tried to scoop some out with his fingers. "Not till it's ready."

  Mike licked the moist egg off his index finger. "Not bad."

  I was kneeling on the kitchen counter, taping a piece of cardboard across one of the broken windows. Most of the kitchen windows were covered. I'd been busy for half an hour already.

  "Come on," I groaned to Mike. "I have to eat from that. Like I want your dirty fingerprints in my eggs."

  It was eight in the morning and there was no wind and no cloud cover. A beautiful stillness hung over the courtyard. But the tranquility was ruined by the wisps of smoke still coming up from the burned-down garage.

  I wondered why Devon hadn't come down yet from his bedroom. Mike had already swept the kitchen floor clean of broken glass. Ralphy had been clattering with pots and pans as he began breakfast. Lisa was upstairs getting ready for the day.

  "You watch the cooking channel, Ralphy?" Mike asked.

  "I'm not telling."

  "Hah! That means you do."

  "I'm a well-rounded individual," Ralphy said, lowering a cover on the frying pan. "Which means your scrambled eggs will be perfect. Any complaints?"

  "None," Mike said happily. "I could be a bachelor forever. Hang out with you guys. Eat your food. Only problem is I'll need someone to do my laundry. Think Devon will help?"

  "If he ever gets out of bed," I answered. I taped the last corner of the cardboard in place, then saw movement in the courtyard through one of the windows that wasn't broken. "Correction. Looks like Devon has been up for a while."

  Devon probably didn't see me on the counter inside the mansion, because he stopped at a small birdbath in the middle of the courtyard. He tilted it, spilling water out of the top. With his back toward me, he squatted, as if he were placing something beneath the base of the birdbath. Then he stood and walked to the back door.

  He stepped inside and drew a deep breath.

  "Smells like breakfast," he said. "What a great idea."

  But he didn't get a chance to eat.

  Three minutes later the police showed up again. To do the same thing they'd done to his father about twenty-four hours earlier. With them was Thomas Stang, the skinny middle-aged man who was Theodore Emmett's business partner.

  And the first thing Stang did was grab Devon by the collar of his shirt and threaten to kill him.

  Chapter 12

  "Where is it?" Stang demanded as he pulled
Devon up from his chair in the dining room. Devon's napkin fell to the floor, and his hand shot outward, knocking his plate off the table.

  "Tell me, you hoodlum. Now. Before I strangle you bare-handed."

  I was surprised at Stang's strength. And at his temper. He wore a dark blue business suit and, with his wispy graying hair, seemed much more like an accountant than the savage caveman that he was imitating.

  "Sir!" This was from the smaller of the two police officers. It was the same pair that had grilled Devon after the firemen left, only hours earlier. "We're here to handle this. Sir!"

  Stang didn't let go. The heels of his flat dress shoes squashed the eggs and toast that had fallen onto the floor from Devon's plate. He shook Devon like a terrier trying to snap a rat's neck. "I want the disk!"

  Surprised as I was that Stang was so strong and so violent, I was more surprised that Devon didn't fight back. Devon was taller and bigger and younger. But he simply flopped back and forth each time that Stang shook him, not lifting his arms to protect himself.

  "Sir!" Again the smaller officer tried uselessly to control Stang. "We promise you that we will arrest him!"

  Stang didn't let go.

  It took the larger officer to quiet things down. He reached over and slapped a hand on Stang's shoulder. He squeezed hard. His massive fingers must have found a nerve, because Stang yelped. The larger officer calmly kept his grip until Stang finally released Devon's shirt collar.

  Stang rubbed his sore shoulder and glared at the big officer. The officer smiled a sleepy smile. I was beginning to understand his sleepy look meant just the opposite.

  "Tell him, then," Stang said, glaring. "That I want the disk. You both saw him on the surveillance tape. He downloaded something from my computer and stole it on a disk."

  "He wants his disk," the big officer said. "And don't try to deny you took it."

  Devon shrugged. "Since when did you guys set up video cameras in your office?"

  "None of your business," Stang snarled. "But it served its purpose, didn't it? Thought you could just waltz in and steal information from my computer, didn't you?"

  Devon's answer was very simple. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a floppy disk. He threw it at Stang.

  "Satisfied?"

  "Not until you're arrested," Stang answered.

  Stang motioned the police forward.

  They cuffed Devon and led him out of the mansion.

  Chapter 13

  "Now what?"

  I arrived on the front porch just as Ralphy asked Mike that question.

  "What do you mean, now what?"

  I sat beside them. They were in rocking chairs, and I leaned back in mine. Lisa was with us, too, gently rocking in her chair. It was a wonderful, relaxing moment in a summer in the south. Except for all the stuff that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Ted Emmett's arrest. An arson fire. And now Devon's arrest.

  "Well, your uncle Ted is in jail," Ralphy continued. "From what I understand, since he confessed, he won't be released on bail. Devon is gone now, too. Now what? Fly home?"

  "Drink lemonade," Mike answered. He took a sip from his glass. It was beaded with water that had condensed on the sides. In front of us, tourists walked quietly, gawking at the mansion. Mike waved lazily, like he owned the place.

  "Drink lemonade?" Ralphy couldn't relax. But then, he never did. "But, but..."

  "Ralphy," Mike said. "It will cost too much money to change our tickets to fly back early What else can we do except guard Uncle Ted's house?"

  Mike looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock. Later this morning we'll take a taxi and go visit Uncle Ted. We'll also meet with his attorney, who will give us advice on what to do next."

  Mike took another sip of lemonade and waved lazily.

  "I'm impressed," Ralphy said. "You're so calm about all of this."

  "That's the kind of guy I am," Mike answered, buffing his nails against his shirt.

  Lisa finally spoke. "Yup," she said. "The kind of guy who called home to ask his mother if we should fly home early. The kind of guy who listened very carefully when she told him to visit his uncle Ted and then ask the attorney any other questions."

  "Oh," Ralphy said, punching Mike's shoulder. "That kind of guy."

  Mike shrugged.

  "Speaking of money to change the flight home," Ralphy said, "what I can't figure out is why your uncle spent the money on our tickets in the first place. I mean, all we've been hearing is how his real-estate deal is putting him in so much financial trouble."

  "Good question."

  "I've got another one," I said. "Who tipped off the police to look in the trunk of the Mercedes for the saber and the other stuff stolen from the museum?"

  "Easy," Mike grunted. "Same person who stole it and put it in his trunk."

  "Mike?" Ralphy shook his head at Mike's slowness. "Mike, your uncle confessed. Why confess if he didn't do it?"

  "Which brings us back in a circle," I added. "If your uncle didn't do it, why confess? But if he did do it, who knew it was in the trunk of his car?"

  "And who knew the Mercedes was here?" Lisa asked. "Your uncle Ted was at a golf tournament. A person would think, then, that the Mercedes should have been at the country club."

  I thought of Tom Stang picking us up the morning of the tournament in his black Navigator. I thought of the cuff link with the initials T.S. I thought of Devon breaking into Stang's office. I wondered if it would be stupid to mention all of this. But Mike spoke before I could decide.

  "Uncle Ted didn't do it." Mike was no longer sitting back in his rocker as if he were the rich owner of the mansion.

  "You want to believe that because he's your uncle."

  "No, I'm saying that because anyone smart enough to make the money it took to buy this house is not careless enough to leave stolen museum pieces in his trunk."

  "Good point," Ralphy said.

  Mike looked sheepish. "Actually, Mom pointed that out to me during our phone call."

  "Let's go with that," I said. "Your uncle is innocent."

  "And ..."

  "And we do something about it," I answered Mike. "If we don't, who else will?"

  "All right, Sherlock," he said, "where do you suggest we start?"

  I smiled. I told them my thoughts about Tom Stang.

  And I showed them why I'd taken a few minutes to join them on the front porch.

  It was the computer disk I'd found under the base of the birdbath in the courtyard.

  Chapter 14

  Lisa and I leaned over Ralphy's shoulder. We stared at the computer screen of his laptop. Mike was pacing the room behind us.

  Ralphy's fingers clicked rapidly. Seconds later numbers and names filled the screen.

  "This is weird," Ralphy said. "Very weird."

  Mike marched over and surveyed the screen.

  "Now I'm impressed," Mike said. "It took you less than a second to read all that and come up with your conclusion."

  "I've already seen this."

  "What?" I spoke as I squinted to read the screen better.

  "About an hour ago. Just before breakfast. It came to me by e-mail."

  "Let me get this straight," Mike said. "Same file?"

  "Same file."

  "I think these are accounts," I told them. "Look. Numbers. Then names of people. Then ..."

  I figured out what I was reading. "Names of stocks. If this disk came from the Stang and Emmett Stockbrokers' office, that would make sense."

  Mike snapped his fingers. "So Devon gave them a disk, knowing he had a backup anyway."

  "Must be it," I said.

  "Hang on, guys." Ralphy clicked his fingers across the keyboard again. "Let me pull up that e-mail."

  He pointed at the screen. "There's the address it came from."

  It was obvious on the screen: ts@sestockbrokers.com.

  "Tom Stang at Stang and Emmett Stockbrokers.com," I said. "For some reason, Stang is appearing in all of this again."


  "Why would Stang e-mail Ralphy the same information that Devon put on a . . ." Mike stopped himself. Smacked himself on the forehead. "Ralphy, let me guess. First chance you had, you showed off your computer to Devon, right?"

  "It is a smoking laptop," he said. "We're talking gigabytes and gigahertz."

  "I'll hertz you if you don't lay off the computer talk. Did you show it to Devon?"

  "He was interested," Ralphy said defensively.

  "Or he was just being polite," I said. "And did you trade e-mail addresses with him?"

  "I told him I'd send some JPEGs of our trip."

  "In other words," Mike said, "Devon knew about Ralphy's laptop, and Devon has his e-mail address. Right, Ralphy?"

  Ralphy nodded.

  Lisa spoke. "So not only did Devon back up this information on a second disk in case he lost the first, he made an extra backup by sending a copy to Ralphy."

  "Which still doesn't explain why Devon broke into Stang's office." I tapped my teeth as I thought about it. "Obviously the information is important. But why?"

  "If we know why the information is so valuable," Mike said, "we'll probably know why he broke in to get it."

  "Thanks," I said. "That helps."

  Mike smiled. Perhaps I needed to explain to him the concept of sarcasm.

  "Client list?" Ralphy asked, pointing at the names. "I mean, it did come from a stockbroker's office. Maybe each account number belongs to a client, and those are the stocks they own."

  "Phone book," Mike said. "Let's look up some of these names in the local phone book. If we find them there, chances are they will be clients."

  "Wow," I said. "And you didn't even call your mom about that."

  Mike grinned. Then his grin froze in place.

  "You hear that?" he said.

  Ralphy and Lisa nodded.

  I nodded.

  Downstairs, a noise came from the kitchen.

  Chapter 15

  A minute later the three of us reached Theodore Emmett's Civil War room. We'd asked Lisa to stay upstairs and call the police if we didn't return in five minutes.

  "You were right," Mike whispered to me, gesturing at all the Civil War pieces around us. "No better place."