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

“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?”

“I do,” George Marsh said. “There’s some good trouble in you, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Not at all, not at all. I appreciate it. I went to her school, spoke with her principal. I could tell he was both happy to be rid of her and heartbroken at the same time. You don’t get students like that every day. I remember the joy on her face when she arrived at the academy—when she went to my library and found out she could have any book she wanted. . . . George, I’m a rich man. I own a lot. But I’ll tell you something—the best money I ever spent was on Dottie Epstein’s books. I was feeding a mind. She was a tremendous kid.”

“What happened to her was terrible,” George Marsh said, nodding solemnly.

“Beyond terrible. Beyond terrible. So much was lost that day. That mind of hers. And you know, in the dome, when they found her, there was a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. She had been reading it when it happened. So strange . . .”

Albert Ellingham paused, pulling the rope tight around his fingers for a moment before tying it off. The boat spun gently and rocked in position.

“You know,” Albert Ellingham said after a moment, “in that copy I saw she made a mark under a famous quote: ‘I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic.’ I got to thinking about this line she underlined. It wasn’t neat—it was scratched in, in pencil. Rough. Uneven. No other marks in the book. But who thinks about a mark in a student’s book? And I was so caught up with Iris and Alice. I was looking, like Watson, but I failed to observe. But something must have lodged in my mind. You know how your mind works on a problem? It ticks away in the background. That mark under that line. It bothered me.”