Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Evangeline pressed her hand to the brick wall running alongside West Fifty-fourth Street, the icy wind searing her skin. Above, sheets of glass reflected the Sculpture Garden, simultaneously opening the intricate workings of the museum and presenting the garden’s image back upon itself The lights inside had been dimmed. Patrons and museum employees moved through the interior of the galleries, visible at the outer edge of Evangeline’s vision. A darkened reflection of the garden appeared in the glass as warped, distorted, unreal.
“It looks like they’re closing soon,” Bruno said, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his ski jacket and walking to the entrance. “We’d better hurry.”
At the door Bruno swept through the crowds and made his way to the ticket desk, where a tall, thin man with a goatee and horn-rimmed glasses was reading a novel by Wilkie Collins. He looked up, glanced from Evangeline to Bruno, and said, “We’re closing in half an hour. We’re closed tomorrow for Christmas, but open again on the twenty-sixth.” With that he returned to his book, as if Bruno and Evangeline were no longer there.
Bruno leaned on the counter and said, “We’re looking for someone who might work here.”
“We are not allowed to disclose personal information about employees,” the man said, without looking up from his novel.
Bruno slid two one-hundred-dollar bills over the counter. “We don’t need personal information. Just where we can find him.”
Peering over his horn-rimmed glasses, the man placed his palm on the counter and slid the money into his pocket. “What’s the name?”
“Alistair Carroll,” Bruno said, giving him the card included in Abigail Rockefeller’s sixth letter. “Ever heard of him?”
He looked over the card. “Mr. Carroll is not an employee.”
“So you know him,” Evangeline said, relieved and a bit amazed that the name corresponded to a real person.
“Everyone knows Mr. Carroll,” the man said, walking out from behind the desk and leading them to the street. “He lives across from the museum.” He pointed to an elegant prewar apartment building, slightly slouched with age. A copper mansard roof punctuated with great porthole windows topped the building, a wash of patina streaking the bronze green. “But he’s hanging around here all the time. He’s one of the old guard of the museum.”
Bruno and Evangeline hurried across the street to the apartment building. Once inside the entryway, Bruno and Evangeline found the name CARROLL written on a brass mailbox: apartment nine, floor five. They called a rickety elevator, the wooden cab filled with a floral powder essence, as if it had recently released old ladies on their way to church. Evangeline pressed a black knob stamped with a white 5. The elevator door creaked closed as the car lurched, grinding slowly upward. Bruno took Abigail Rockefeller’s card from his pocket and held it.
On the fifth floor, there were two apartments, both equally quiet. Bruno checked the number and, finding the correct door—a brass number 9 screwed on it—he knocked.
The door opened a crack, and an old man peered at them, his large blue eyes glistening with curiosity. “Yes?” the man whispered, his voice barely audible. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Carroll?” Bruno said, personable and polite, as if he had knocked on a hundred such doors. “Very sorry to disturb you, but we have been given your name and address by—”
“Abby,” he said, his eyes fixed on the card in Bruno’s hand. He opened the door wide and waved them inside. “Please, come in. I have been expecting you.”
A pair of Yorkshire terriers with red ribbons tied into the fur over their eyes jumped off a couch and bounded to the door as Bruno and Evangeline stepped into the apartment, barking as if to frighten away intruders.
“Oh, you silly girls,” Alistair Carroll said. He swooped them up, tucking one dog under each arm, and carried them down a hallway.
The apartment was spacious, the antique furniture simple. Each object appeared both treasured and neglected, as if the decor had been painstakingly chosen with the intent that it would be ignored. Evangeline sat on the couch, its cushions still warm from the dogs. A marble fireplace held a small, intense fire that sent heat through the room. A polished Chippendale coffee table sat before her, a crystal bowl of hard candies at its center. Except for a Sunday Times folded discreetly on an end table, it appeared as though nothing had been touched in fifty years. A framed color lithograph sat upon the mantel of the fireplace, a portrait of a woman, stout and pink, with the features of a wary bird. Evangeline had never had reason or desire to seek out a likeness of Mrs. Abigail Rockefeller, but she knew in an instant that this was the woman herself.
Alistair Carroll returned without the dogs. He had short, precisely clipped gray hair. He wore brown corduroy trousers, a tweed jacket, and had a comforting manner that put Evangeline at ease. “You must forgive my girls,” he said, sitting in an armchair near the fire. “They are unused to company. We have very few guests these days. They were simply overjoyed to see you.” He clasped his hands in his lap. “But enough of that,” he said. “You haven’t come here for pleasantries.”
“Maybe you can tell us why we are here,” Bruno said, joining Evangeline on the couch and placing the Rockefeller card on the table. “There was no explanation—only your name and the Museum of Modern Art.”
Alistair Carroll unfolded a pair of spectacles and put them on. Picking up the envelope, he examined it closely. “Abby wrote out that card in my presence,” he said. “But you have only one card. Where are the others?”
“There are six of us working together,” Evangeline said. “We split into groups, to save time. My grandmother has two envelopes.”
“Tell me,” Alistair said, “is your grandmother named Celestine Clochette?”
Evangeline was surprised to here Celestine’s name, especially from a man who could not possibly have known her. “No,” she said. “Celestine Clochette is dead.”
“I am very sorry to hear that,” Alistair said, shaking his head in dismay. “And I am also sorry to hear that the recovery effort is being done in a piecemeal fashion. Abby made specific requirements that the recovery would be accomplished by one person, either Mother Innocenta or, if time went by, as it most certainly has, a woman named Celestine Clochette. I remember the conditions very well: I was Mrs. Rockefeller’s assistant in this matter, and it was I who hand-delivered this card to St. Rose Convent.”
“But I thought that Mrs. Rockefeller had taken permanent possession of the lyre,” Bruno said.
“Oh, my, no,” Alistair said. “Mrs. Rockefeller and Mother Innocenta had agreed upon a set time to return the objects under our care—Abby didn’t expect to be responsible for these items forever. She intended to return them as soon as she felt that it was safe to do so—namely, at the end of the war. It was our understanding that Innocenta, or Celestine Clochette if need be, would care for the envelopes and, when the time came, follow their instructions in a particular order. The requirements were made to ensure both the safety of the objects and the safety of the person engaged in recovery.”
Bruno and Evangeline exchanged glances. Evangeline was certain that Sister Celestine had not known anything about these instructions.
“We didn’t get specific directions,” Bruno said. “Only a card that led us here.”
“Perhaps Innocenta didn’t relate the information before her death,” Evangeline said. “I’m sure that Celestine would have made certain that Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes were followed, had she known.”
“Ah, well,” Alistair said, “I see that there is some confusion. Mrs. Rockefeller was under the impression that Celestine Clochette would be leaving the convent to return to Europe. It is my recollection that Miss Clochette was a temporary guest.”
“It didn’t work out that way,” Evangeline said, remembering how frail and sickly Celestine had become in the last days of her life.
Alistair Carroll closed his eyes, as if pondering the correct path to take in the completion of the matter at hand. Standing abruptly, he said, “Well, there is nothing to do but continue. Please join me—I would like to show you my extraordinary view.”
They followed Alistair Carroll to a wall of large porthole windows, the very ones Evangeline had noticed from the street below. At their vantage, the Museum of Modern Art spread before them. Evangeline pressed her hands upon the copper frame of the porthole window and peered down. Directly below them, contained and orderly, lay the famous Sculpture Garden, its rectangular floor plated in gray marble. A narrow pool of water shimmered at the center of the garden, creating an obsidian darkness. Through wisps of snow, slabs of gray marble wept purple.
“From here I can watch the garden night and day,” Alistair Carroll said quietly. “Mrs. Rockefeller bought this apartment for that very purpose—I am the guardian of the garden. I have watched many changes take place in the years since her death. The garden has been torn up and redesigned; the collection of statuary has grown.” He turned to Evangeline and Verlaine. “We could not have foreseen that the trustees would find it necessary to change things so drastically over the years. Philip Johnson’s 1953 garden—the iconic modern garden that one thinks of when one imagines it—wiped out all traces of the original garden Abby had known. Then, for some bizarre reason, they decided to modernize Philip Johnson’s garden—a travesty, a terrible error in judgment. First they ripped up the marble—a lovely Vermont marble with a unique shade of blue-gray to it—and replaced it with an inferior variety. They later discovered that the original had been far superior, but that is another matter. Then they ripped the whole thing up again, replacing the new marble with one that was similar to the original. It would have been most distressing to watch, if I had not taken matters into my own hands.” Alistair Carroll crossed his arms over his chest, a look of satisfaction appearing upon his face. “The treasure, you see, was originally hidden in the garden.”
“And now?” Evangeline asked, breathless. “It is no longer there?”
“Abby secured it in the hollow underside of one of the statues—Aristide Maillol’s The Mediterranean, which has a great hollow space at its base. She believed that Celestine Clochette would arrive within months, perhaps a year at the most. It would have been safe for a short amount of time. But at the time of Abby’s death in 1948, Celestine had still not come. Soon after, plans were made for Philip Johnson to create his modern Sculpture Garden. I took it upon myself to move it before they tore the garden apart,” he said.
“That seems like a difficult procedure,” Bruno said. “Especially under the kind of security implemented at the MoMA.”
“I am a lifetime trustee of the museum, and my access—although not as complete as Abby’s—was considerable. It was not difficult to arrange its removal. It was simply a matter of having the statue moved for cleaning and extracting it. It was a very good thing I had the foresight to do so: The treasure would have been discovered or damaged had I left it. When Celestine Clochette did not come, I knew that I must simply hold on and wait.”
Bruno said, “There must have been safer ways of securing something so precious.”
“Abby believed the treasure would be most safe in a populated environment. Together the Rockefellers created magnificent public spaces. Mrs. Rockefeller, always a practical woman, wanted to use them. Of course, with such priceless pieces of art inside, the museums were also the most secure locations on the island of Manhattan. The Sculpture Garden and the Cloisters are under constant scrutiny. Riverside Church was a more sentimental choice—the Rockefeller family built the church on the site of Mr. Rockefeller’s former school. And Rockefeller Center, the great symbol of Rockefeller power and influence, was a nod to the Rockefellers’ social standing in the city. It represented the range of their power. I suppose Mrs. Rockefeller could have thrown all four pieces into a bank vault and left it at that, but it wasn’t her style. The hiding places are symbolic: two museums, a church, and a commercial center. Two parts art, one part religion, and one part money—these are the exact proportions by which Mrs. Rockefeller wished herself to be remembered.”
Bruno gave Evangeline a look of amusement at Alistair Carroll’s speech, but said nothing.
Alistair Carroll left the room and returned after some moments with a long rectangular metal casket. He presented it to Evangeline and gave her a small key. “Open it.”
Evangeline inserted the key into a tiny lock and turned. The metal mechanism ground against itself, rust blocking its progress, and then clicked. Opening the lid, Evangeline saw two long thin bars, slender and golden, resting in a bed of black velvet.
“What are they?” Bruno asked, his surprise apparent.
“Why, the crossbars, of course,” Alistair said. “What did you expect?”
“We thought,” Evangeline said, “that you were keeping the lyre.”
“The lyre? No, no, we did not hide the lyre at the museum.” Alistair smiled as if he were at last allowed to tell them his secret. “At least not all of it.”
“You took the liberty of dismantling it?” Bruno asked.
“It would have been much too risky to hide it in one place,” Alistair said, shaking his head. “And so we disassembled it. It is now in four pieces.”
Evangeline stared at Alistair in disbelief. “It is thousands of years old,” she said at last. “It must be extraordinarily fragile.”
“It is a surprisingly sturdy instrument,” he said. “And we had the help of the best professionals money could buy. Now, if you don’t mind,” he said, leading them back to the fireplace and taking a seat in the armchair. “There are a number of pieces of information I have been entrusted to relate to you.
As I mentioned, Mrs. Rockefeller assumed that the pieces would be collected by one person and that they would be retrieved in a certain order. She planned the recovery in a very meticulous fashion. The Museum of Modern Art was the first location—thus she included a card with my name for you—followed by Riverside Church, the Cloisters, and then Prometheus.”
“Prometheus?” Evangeline asked.
“The statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center,” Alistair said, straightening in his chair so that he appeared suddenly taller, more patrician than before. “The order was arranged in this fashion so that I could give you specific instructions, as well as words of advice and caution. You will find a man at Riverside Church, one Mr. Gray, an employee of the Rockefeller family. Abby trusted him with the position, but frankly I don’t understand why. One cannot say if he has remained attentive to Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes after all these years—he has come to me on a number of occasions requesting money. In my book, indigence is never a good sign. In any event, if there is time, I suggest you bypass Mr. Gray altogether.” Alistair Carroll removed a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and unrolled it on the coffee table. “This shows the exact location of the lyre’s sound chest.”
Alistair Carroll gave Evangeline the paper so that she might examine the maze at its center.
“The labyrinth on the chancel of Riverside Church is similar to the one found at Chartres Cathedral in France,” Alistair explained. “Traditionally labyrinths were used as tools in contemplation. For our purposes a shallow vault was installed below the central flower of the labyrinth, a seamless compartment that can be removed and replaced without damaging the floor. Abby locked the sound chest inside. It was to be removed according to these instructions.”
“As for the strings of the lyre,” he continued, “that is another matter altogether. They are located in the Cloisters and must be removed with the assistance of the director, a woman who has been informed of Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes and will know the best approach in circumstances such as ours. The museum will be open for another half an hour or so. The director of that space has orders to allow full access. With a call from me, it shall be done. There is simply no other way to go about it without causing mayhem. You said that your associates are there now?”
“My grandmother,” Evangeline said.
“How long ago did she go there?” Alistair asked.
“She should be there now,” Bruno said, checking his watch.
Alistair’s complexion drained of color. “I am deeply distressed to hear it. With the order of things so upset, who can say what dangers await her? We must try to intervene. Please, tell me your grandmother’s name. I will place the call immediately.”
Walking to a rotary telephone, he lifted the receiver and dialed. Within seconds he was explaining the situation to another party on the line. Alistair’s familiar manner gave Evangeline the impression that he had discussed the situation with the director on previous occasions. After he hung up, he said, “I am greatly relieved—there have been no unusual occurrences at the Cloisters this afternoon. Your grandmother may be there, but she has not been anywhere near the hiding place. Thankfully, there is still time. My contact will do everything in her power to find your grandmother and assist her.”
He then opened a closet door and slid into a heavy wool overcoat, adjusting a silk opera scarf about his neck. Following his lead, Evangeline and Bruno rose from the couch. “We must go now,” Alistair said, leading them to the door. “The members of your group are not safe—indeed, now that the recovery of the instrument has begun, none of us are safe.”
“We have planned to meet at Rockefeller Center at six,” Bruno said.
“Rockefeller Center is four blocks from here,” Alistair Carroll said. “I will accompany you. I believe I can be of some assistance.”