13 Hangmen (28 page)

Tony asked the board where the treasure was hidden. Angelo spelled out
A-T-T-I-C
. Tony asked where. Angelo spelled
S-E-C-R-E-T-R-O-O-M
. Where?
P-A-N-N-E-L-I-N-G
.

“‘Panneling'?” Angey said.

“It must be behind that paneled wall over there,” Tony said, “even though Zio Angelo spelled it wrong.”

“Oops,” Angelo said. “Spelling's my worst subject.”

“Maybe we can pry it up somehow,” Tony said. “Go see if there's a crowbar in the toolbox on the workbench down in the basement.”

“I'm on it!” Angey said, dashing out of the room—

Just as Jack materialized at the door and strode in, smiling.

“Finn was right,” he said. “I'm no longer a slave. I was just set free!”

“I told you,” Finn said.

“How did that happen?” Solly said.

As it turned out Jack never got the chance to turn himself in. In fact, he didn't even make it to the front door. Because William Lloyd Garrison himself had suddenly arrived on the scene. Jack had hung back at the coffin corner while Garrison
informed the slave catchers there was no need to search the house for a one-eyed slave named Jack. When they demanded to know why not, Garrison said, “Because the boy is no longer a runaway. I own him.”

Garrison had also seen the morning papers. He had immediately gone calling on the members of the Anti-Slavery Society to collect enough money to buy Jack. As the slave catchers could plainly see, he held a thousand dollars cash in his hand, which he planned to send by an express rider to Jack's master in North Carolina.

Horatio Hagmann objected, of course. The sale couldn't possibly be official without Master O'Connor's consent. Garrison calmly pointed out that the going rate for prime field hands was half that sum—and Jack was, after all, a half-blind child—so there should be no reason to assume O'Connor would dispute the sale, and every logical reason to consider Garrison as Jack's new owner. Garrison gave the slave catchers his word as a gentleman that he would immediately contact the constable should he hear otherwise from O'Connor. Neither the slave catchers nor the constable was about to take on William Lloyd Garrison. They merely bade Garrison, Tobias, and Hagmann a good day and strolled off. Hagmann stormed into his own house and slammed the door. Garrison and Tobias burst into laughter. Garrison told Tobias he would now like to see his new “property.”

Jack bounded down the remaining stairs and thanked Garrison, his new master, for saving his life. Master O'Connor would surely have hanged him back in North Carolina as an example. “A fair trade, I think,” Garrison said, “since you saved mine last night. I guess that makes us even. So I hereby grant you your freedom.”

Garrison then invited Jack to stay in his home—as his guest—until Jack could find a more permanent situation. Tobias cleared his throat. It just so happened he was still looking to take on an apprentice in his silversmithing business. If Jack was keen to learn a trade, he could stay on at No. 13 for as long as he liked. Jack nodded happily. “Well then, it's settled,” Garrison said, smiling. “Jack, you should start thinking about which last name you would like to appear on your manumission—your certificate of freedom. Tobias, you should tell the local stationmaster to start looking for a new safe house. And I must get over to the express delivery office. After which I will be taking Jack's new friend, Freddy, out to breakfast.”

Whereupon Jack had raced back upstairs.

“Mr. Garrison said Freddy has a fine career as an orator ahead of him,” Jack concluded to the others. “He said the world hasn't heard the last of young Frederick Douglass.”

“Frederick Douglass?” Tony said. “Are you kidding? He turns
out to be one of the most famous men in American history!”

“I guess I'll be taking Douglass for my last name after all,” Jack said. “Anyway, now I can show you how to get into that secret room!”

“Not until my brother gets back with a crowbar,” Tony said. He explained how Angey had turned up with a Ouija board, how Angelo had come up with the genius idea of posing as his own ghost to ask for Angey's help to rip out the paneling in front of the fireplace, and how he had just sent Angey down to the basement for the tools.

“Oh rats, I just realized something,” Angelo said. “The paneling's still gonna be right there in my time. I won't get to see the secret room.”

“We'll totally do a play-by-play for you,” Tony said. “Meantime, while Angey and I are tearing out that paneling, maybe Solly and Finn can have a look around the house for the other claddagh, the one that's supposed to be hanging on the chimney. Angelo can't go anywhere, in case Angey wants to ask the board more questions. And Jack may as well just hang out, since the claddagh isn't missing for him.”

Everyone dispersed. Tony weathered a moment of intense fatigue. Or hunger. He wasn't sure which. But then Angey raced back into the room. There hadn't been anything like a crowbar in the toolbox. All he could find was an old fireplace poker.

“It'll have to do,” Tony said.

“Move that junk off the shelf,” Angey said, pointing to the cap, mezuzah, claddagh ring, and heart hook.

Think quick!
“Mind if we work around that stuff?” Tony said. “They're good-luck charms. And we sort of need all the luck we can get right now.”

“Whatever.” Angey shrugged. He set to work prying up a corner of the first plank. Tony grabbed hold and pulled. Together they wrenched it from the wall.

“You're not as big a wimp as I thought,” Angey said.

“And you're not as big a jerk as
I
thought,” Tony shot back.

They attacked another plank. Tony called a time-out and pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. He set it next to the objects on the shelf, so he could keep track of the time. T minus an hour and a half before Health & Safety arrived. If he didn't find that treasure soon, he would have to hand over Hagmann's lost key. Speaking of which, he added his wallet—where the key was still stashed—to the pile so he could move more freely. Back to work. Their progress was slow, but he and Angey were determined.

“Hey,” Angey said. “There's a fireplace back here!”

Sure enough, an old brick fireplace emerged, plank by plank.

Meanwhile, Angelo and Jack sat cross-legged on the bed, watching Tony. He seemed to be very busy and, at the same time, not really
doing
anything. Eventually Solly returned to the
attic—empty-handed—and joined Angelo and Jack on the bed. “How's it going over there?” he asked Tony. Tony told him they had uncovered most of the fireplace. But the back of the hearth was a solid plate of cast iron. Angey said he didn't need a play-by-play; he could see for himself it was just a fireplace. Tony told Angey he was just trying to keep the ghost of Zio Angelo posted. He continued to muse aloud: Above the slate mantel there was a long vertical slot in the brick chimney. There were holes bored into the bricks on either side. So that must be where the missing claddagh went.

“What claddagh?” Angey said.

Think quick!
Tony pointed to the heart hook on the spiral. “That looks just like the heart from the claddagh knocker on the front door. But I found it up here in the attic when I was moving in. I'm guessing it belongs to another claddagh just like it.”

That's when Finn returned to the room. He was also empty-handed. But he was grinning from ear to ear. He had just had a word with Paddy, who had fallen asleep on the sofa down in the parlor. (It was now past midnight of Christmas Eve in their time.) Paddy knew exactly where the second fireplace knocker was. He hadn't liked the fact the heart was missing from the middle when he'd first moved into the attic. He was sure it meant bad luck. So he had taken the hands and crown down and stowed them.

“Where?” Angelo cried.

“Hang on a sec,” Tony said. He turned to Angey. “Maybe you should double-check that Mikey can't hear what we're doing up here.”

“Good idea,” Angey said. “Be right back.”

“All clear!” Tony said, as soon as Angey was gone. Finn dove beneath the bed. The other boys followed him. Finn pried up two loose floorboards. A secret compartment! In it were hidden Paddy's personal treasures—a few girlie postcards (fairly tame, Tony thought, by modern standards), some stale cigars, a half-full bottle of whiskey. Jack was disappointed he couldn't see any of it. Meanwhile, Finn pulled out a pair of wrought-iron wings and a crown.

“Better double-check we haven't missed anything,” Tony said. He reached into the compartment and fished his hand around.

“There
is
something else in here. It's tucked way in the back corner.” He pulled out a length of rotting rope, looped at the end. They could
all
see that.

“You think maybe it's a lasso?” Finn said.

“Looks more like a noose,” Jack said with a shudder.

“It is a noose,” Tony said. “Maybe it's, you know,
the
noose.”

“How do you think it ended up
here
?” Angelo said.

“What are you doing under the bed?” Angey said, returning to the room. Tony crawled out, leaving the noose behind. “I
thought I heard a rat,” he said. “It was just a couple of loose floorboards. But look what I found under them.” He held up the claddagh pieces. “I bet all this stuff fits into those holes and slots above the chimney. Maybe if we put it back, it'll open the fireplace grate somehow.”

“What makes you think that?” Angey said.

“I read something similar in one of my mysteries,” Tony bluffed.

“We don't have time for fiction,” Angey said. “Fire up that Ouija game. Ask Zio Angelo what to do next.”

Tony pretended to reconjure Angelo with the Ouija board. He asked how to open the back of the fireplace. Angelo shrugged and turned to Jack. “I think it's your turn to be the ghost,” he said. Jack told Tony what to do, and Tony relayed the information over to Angey at the fireplace: Place the wrought-iron hands and crown into the corresponding bore holes to form a claddagh. Turn the hands outward, so they crank the metal pulleys and gears inside the flue. Place the heart hook on the mantel in the catch of the vertical slot.

Jack vanished.

“Now what?” Angey—and all the other boys in the room—cried.

Tony tried not to panic. He took a good long look at the chimney. And he totally winged it. He told Angey to turn the
heart hook nine times to the right with the clapper. This Angey did, though it wasn't easy. Next he told Angey to pull the heart hook down through the slot. As Angey did so, there was an ear-piercing screech of metal as the iron plate at the back of the hearth slowly rose. The secret passageway! Tony gave Angey one last instruction: Put the heart hook back on the spiral.

Jack reappeared. “Follow me!” he said, leaping off the bed. He ducked through the fireplace grate, with Solly and Finn right behind him.

Tony told Angey to follow him.

The room contained just what Jack had described: a moldy old mattress laid across several casks on their sides; a chamber pot, washbasin, and ewer; three upright casks arranged like a table and two chairs; several more casks lined up against the wall, all branded with the letters
VOC
topped by a little star.

Tony made straight for a piece of parchment nailed to the wall. He read the riddle aloud:

“What's that supposed to mean?” Angey said.

“It's a riddle,” Tony said. “Maybe it tells where the treasure is.”

“But it doesn't make any sense,” Angey said.

“It's not supposed to,” Tony said. “It's a
riddle
.” He pondered it for a second. “The only stars in this room are the ones branded on all the kegs above the
V
in
VOC
,” he said. “I guess you could say a
V
is made up of two touching bars.”

“What's going on?” Angelo wailed from the other room.

“Maybe the treasure's in one of those dusty old kegs,” Tony said.

Jack piped up that looking in the casks was the first thing
he
had thought of during his long sleepless night. But they were all nailed shut, and he hadn't had anything to open them with.

“Wait, how many kegs are there?” Tony said.

The boys quickly counted them. Thirteen!

“Thirteen,” Angey confirmed.

“Four of them are lying on their sides to make the bed,” Tony said. “They aren't numbered, are they?” He pulled the mattress off. The side of each cask was indeed scratched with a slightly smudged inventory number. The fourth one was number 9! Tony stood it up while Angey grabbed the poker from the other room and pried off the lid.

“What's that?” Angey said.

Crumbly brown dirt. Like sawdust, only with an oddly
fragrant and familiar smell. Hardly the cascade of gold doubloons Tony had been imagining. Tony plunged both hands into the cask. He fished right to the bottom, causing some of whatever was in there to spill over the sides. He pulled out a handful of the gunk to show the other boys.