Free The Secret Cellar by Michael D. Beil Page B

of ’em) to the main entrance, where she pushes the doorbell button. A few seconds later, Shelley Gallivan answers the door; she’s dressed in jeans and a Vassar sweatshirt, with her abundant, wavy red hair pulled back into a thick knot.
    “Hi! It’s Shelley, right?” says Margaret in her most cheerful voice. “Remember us?” She pulls me forward so I’m standing right next to her.
    “Oh, from the auction the other night,” Shelley says. “And you are Margaret and … Sophie.”
    “And Leigh Ann and Rebecca,” says Margaret. “We were wondering—if you’re not too busy—if we could talk to you about something.”
    “Why, uh, yes, I suppose so. Come in out of the cold.”
    Once we’re inside, she leads us into a comfortable denlike room with dark paneling and a fireplace, in which there is a barely smoldering fire.
    “Are you cold?” she asks. “I can stoke the fire if you’d like.”
    “No, we’re fine,” I say. “Boy, this is a great old house. Mr. Dedmann lived here all by himself?”
    “I’m afraid so,” says Shelley. “It was just him and Bertie, his dog, knocking about this old place. Now, what can I do for you girls?”
    “It involves Mr. Dedmann, and his things, and this house,” Margaret explains. “There is something going on—something to do with Mr. Dedmann—and, well, right now we’re not sure who we can trust. But since you’re a St. V’s alumna, we figure you can’t be all bad.”
    “Well, you certainly have my attention,” Shelley says. “Go on.”
    “It started the night of the auction,” I say, reaching into my backpack for the rolled-up grid. “Remember, you told us that Mr. Dedmann’s last words were ‘Look inside,’ and you found that old picture in the box he was holding. Well, I found this inside the fountain pen.”
    Shelley carefully unrolls it and reads the poem. She then holds the paper up to the light to examine the twelve rectangular holes. “What is it?”
    “It all has to do with a book that Mr. Dedmann used to own, which is now owned by Marcus Klinger—”
    At the mere mention of his name, a dark shadow seems to pass across Shelley’s face.
    “We figured out that the riddle refers to Alexander the Great, one of the Nine Worthies,” Leigh Ann says. “And if you set this grid on the page where his story begins, the twelve words that show up are: ‘pull the ribbon and you’ll see the walking stick is the key.’ So, now weknow that we need to pull the marker ribbon attached to Mr. Dedmann’s own copy of the book,
Nine Worthy Men
, but—”
    “Marcus Klinger bought that copy of the book at the auction,” Margaret adds.
    “And he won’t let us touch his copy,” Becca finishes.
    “There’s no chance Mr. Dedmann has another copy lying around here, is there?” I ask.
    Shelley shakes her head. “Afraid not. I’ve been through all the books left in his study, and I’m positive it’s not there.”
    “Do you have any idea what this is all about?” Margaret asks. “Do you know much about … Mr. Dedmann’s past?”
    “To tell you the truth, no, I don’t know much about his past; I only knew him the last year of his life. It was kind of strange, to tell the truth. I was finishing up my last semester in grad school when, out of the blue, I got a call from his lawyer, Mr. Garrison Applewood. He told me that Mr. Dedmann wanted to hire me to catalog his music collection—he owns hundreds of original manuscripts from a number of different composers—and maybe even help him write a memoir. It was … Well, it was like a dream come true. A job in Manhattan, the chance to work with an amazing collection, and best of all, the position came with a place to live, so I didn’t have to go through the usual apartment-hunting nonsense.I live right here, in the garden apartment. It’s much nicer than anything I could afford on my own.”
    “You didn’t know him before that?” I ask.
    Shelley shakes her head. “I’d never even heard of