The Magnolia Palace(34)
The administrative offices she’d stumbled into earlier would have phones, she realized. Unfortunately, only a couple were unlocked, and neither phone had a dial tone. She hit 0 for the operator several times before finally slamming down the handset. There was no way of contacting anyone for help, not until the lines were restored.
Someone else must be here, a security guard, maybe. She walked out into the hallway. “Hello!” she yelled. “Is anyone here? I’m up on the second floor. Hello?”
Her voice echoed down the corridor, but there was no response.
The silence was unnerving. Since she’d first arrived in New York City, she’d been overwhelmed by the unceasing cacophony of horns, sirens, and people shouting. Now, between the power outage and the snowfall, everything was muffled, as if the grand Frick residence had been picked up and dropped into a thick woolen sock.
But any moment the lights would come on, the phones would be restored. They had to be. Then she’d call the police, have them come and rescue her. For now, she retreated to the bedroom, finding comfort in the familiar room.
She placed the candle on the small table next to the chaise longue and sat, hugging her knees. The clues in her pocket gave a crinkle, and she carefully drew them out and studied them in the flickering light. She might as well examine them while she waited, a way to keep from dwelling on the fact that she was trapped and all alone.
Each had a series of numbers at the top right corner, 1/20, 2/20, up to 11/20. She placed them in order on the side table and read the first line of the first clue: Get set for a quest to find the magnificent magnolia treasure.
The magnolia treasure.
The archivist had mentioned that a valuable pink diamond had gone missing way back when, but that a police report had never been filed. The Magnolia diamond, he’d called it.
What if the person who’d written the clues had hidden the diamond somewhere in the house, and then forgotten all about it, or died, and no one had been able to find it? If there were twenty clues in total, and only eleven here, it meant that the “magnificent magnolia treasure” had never been found. The clues obviously hadn’t been moved in some time, gathering dust all these years.
No, her imagination was getting ahead of her, visions of pink diamonds dancing in her head.
Still, she picked up the last clue of the series, number eleven:
A natural beauty came from naught
Yet this blushing lady was quite sought
Out. A lover of Horatio
Holding a hound
Off you go
Take a good look around.
A ghastly poem, but something in it triggered a memory of a painting of a girl holding a dog. Veronica was sure she’d seen something like that during the day’s shoot. She tucked the clues back in her sweater pocket and gathered her courage, curious to see if her memory was correct. She poked her head out of the doorway; the hallway was still and quiet.
She studied the paintings on the walls, using her candle to illuminate them, then headed downstairs to the room with the romantic panels. In one, a pretty spaniel sat at the feet of two lovers, staring back out at the viewer. The woman in the painting wasn’t holding the dog, so it couldn’t be that one. Veronica made her way from room to room along the first floor. No paintings with dogs.
The wind howled outside, but she found that staying focused on the task at hand kept her claustrophobia at bay. For the moment.
In the library, she stood in the center of the room, looking slowly around. There was a portrait of a flushed George Washington looking like he’d downed a few too many, an oil of a sailboat on rocky seas, and a series of ravishingly beautiful women wearing puffy wigs. Above the fireplace was one of a gruff-looking man with thinning gray hair looking off to the side as if he were about to bark out an order to an unseen underling. Mr. Henry Clay Frick himself, according to the nameplate.
But there, in the corner, was the painting she remembered. It was of a young woman in a simple red dress, her cheeks a maidenly pink, holding a spaniel.
This had to be it.
But then where was the next clue? When she’d constructed a scavenger hunt for Polly, the clue was always nearby, easy to spot. The Frick house had been perfectly preserved, so maybe it was still around.
Even though she knew she shouldn’t touch anything—this was a museum after all—she very carefully lifted one corner of the frame away from the wall and peered behind it, in case a clue had been tucked back there. Nothing.
The painting hung just above a small bookcase with a vase on top. There was no note inside the vase nor underneath it. She sat cross-legged on the floor, pulled out a book from the shelf, and carefully leafed through it. Nothing. Same with the volume next to it. She was about to give up until she spotted a familiar square of white tucked in the binding of the fifth book.
She’d been right.
Her thoughts raced ahead with the possibilities. Her father had always said she had a mind like a steel trap, that her memory was excellent. What if she was able to follow the rest of the clues and find the treasure? The magnificent magnolia treasure. The lost Magnolia diamond.
If she found it, there might be a reward.
Or, on the other hand, the people who ran the Frick Collection might be angry at her for nosing about where she shouldn’t. The American laws might be harsh about that sort of thing, and she’d end up in jail.
The missing diamond was never reported to the police, and no one knew for sure what had happened to it. Say she found it—who would know? A prick of mischievous delight surged through her at the possibilities, as far-fetched as they were. No one would miss it. It was the perfect crime, really. Veronica had all the right connections if, in fact, a pricey gem did one day fall into her lap. Uncle Donny ran a discreet side business handling items with dodgy provenances—it was one of the reasons her father had quit to drive a cab, as he didn’t approve. Uncle Donny would know not to ask questions, as long as he got his cut. A pink diamond, worth who knew how much, would most definitely spring Polly from Kent House.