The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(82)

In A Study in Scarlet a body is found with the word RACHE written over it in blood. Rache, German for revenge. A victim-left sign of what had transpired.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Kyoko said, leaning over the table.

“Yeah,” she said, getting up. She was almost stumbling now, catching her foot on the table leg in her haste.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah . . . fine. Definitely fine.”

She hurriedly closed the book and passed it back to Kyoko, who placed it gently in a carrying crate.

“Thanks,” she said. “I have to . . . Thanks.”

Stevie hurried through the library, past people working at tables with their headphones on. Once outside, she gulped in air that was full of gentle flurries. They floated into her nose and melted on the back of her throat. She yanked her phone out of her pocket and called Fenton.

Fenton’s phone rang five times.

“Come on,” Stevie said, bouncing on her heels. “Come on. . . .”

She paced along the path in front of the library.

“Hello?” Fenton’s voice was slurred, and loud.

“Hey,” she said. “I need to talk to you. I’ve—”

“Can’t right now, Stevie,” she said.

“No, you don’t get it,” Stevie replied, trying not to yell. “I—”

“Not now . . . ” she said, her voice lowering to a hiss. “I will call you back in a bit. The kid is there. The kid is there!”

“What?” she said.

And with that, she was gone.

Stevie stood with the phone still pressed to her ear, the glass surface getting cold and fogging with her breath. She stepped along the stone path. Sounds echoed louder in the cold. Each footfall was crisp and distinct.

How could Fenton just hang up on her? How was she alone in the dark of this mountain, with no one to share these little threads of her thoughts that were being woven together by the little mice in her brain?

How did she explain that she knew who kidnapped Alice and Iris Ellingham?





October 30, 1938, 5:00 p.m.


IT WAS AN IDYLLIC SCENE: ALBERT ELLINGHAM’S SPORTY LITTLE SPARKMAN & Stephens daysailer, Wonderland, idling on the waters of Lake Champlain. It had one red sail and one white, both stiffly at attention, though the boat was drifting ever so gently. The fine October afternoon in Vermont was oversaturated with color, like a paint box turned over on the landscape. Albert Ellingham kept one slack hand on the wheel. George Marsh sat on the padded seats that lined the boat, comfortably leaning back, his arms spread wide, enjoying the afternoon.

“Do you read much, George?” Albert asked.

“No,” George replied.

“You should, you should. Reading is one of the great pleasures of life—maybe the greatest.”

“You must never have had a Cuban cigar.”

Albert Ellingham laughed.

“It’s true. All the money, all the power—none of it compares to a good book. A book gives you everything. It gives you a window into other souls, other worlds. The world is a door. Books are the key.”

“You’ve lost me,” George said.

“What about Sherlock Holmes? Ever read A Study in Scarlet? Surely you’ve read that one?”

“Afraid not,” George said.

“You should, you really should. It introduces Sherlock Holmes. It’s a marvelous story, very instructive. You learn about how Sherlock Holmes sees the world and approaches his work. As someone in law enforcement, it would interest you. As a matter of fact, that story made me who I am. When I was a boy, growing up in the boys’ home, we had only a few books. A collection of Sherlock Holmes was among them. I opened that book and read it, oh, perhaps a hundred times or more. It taught me to look—to see the world around me. It’s one of the most instructive things ever written.”

“All right.” George Marsh laughed and pulled out a cigarette. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll get a library card.”

“I’ve done my good deed for the day, then. Oh, and apologies, George. No smoking on the boat, if you don’t mind. Fire and boats don’t mix well.”

George Marsh nodded and tucked the cigarette behind his ear.

“I’m going to drop anchor here. We’ll sit for a bit. I like it up here by Maquam Bay.”

Albert Ellingham idly unwound a line from the rope spool and spun it around his hand, lowering the anchor into the water.

“You know,” he said as he worked. “When they found Dottie Epstein, she was reading Sherlock Holmes. She’s so often forgotten in all this. That’s my fault. I focus on Iris, on Alice . . . Little Dottie Epstein from the Lower East Side gets swept aside in the shuffle. It’s not right. She deserved better.”

“That poor kid,” George Marsh said, shaking his head.

“Dolores Epstein,” Albert Ellingham said. “Dottie, that’s what she went by. Exceptional girl, truly exceptional. She was the first student I picked for the school. Did I ever tell you that?”

George Marsh shook his head.

“No?” Albert Ellingham said. “No. I suppose it never came up. I heard about her from one of the top librarians at the public library, this girl from Avenue A who read Greek and slipped into one of the rare books rooms three times. They said she was trouble, but good trouble. Good trouble. You understand me, George?”