At last I crossed the yard to the big house, to the main entrance on the
west side, where white columns supported a domed porch. Without giving myself time to think it over, I ran the last twenty feet, jumped and grabbed the crossbar between the column capitals. The sore muscle in my shoulder protested, but I moved fast, bending my arms, pulling my body up, hooking my legs around one of the columns so my thighs were bearing my weight. I stuck an arm up to the edge of the dome, found a stone knob that I could hang on to, and heaved myself up, landing like a dying fish on the curved surface.
When I’d caught my breath, I scooted backward until I was leaning against the wall. From my vantage point, I could see more of the grounds. The only movement I could make out, besides the wind rustling the dead grasses, was of the deer, returning to the pond. Through the bare tree branches I looked at the night sky. Wisps of clouds floated across the moon, but the stars were bright and crisp and close, the way they never are in the city. My burst of alert energy was fading; I started to doze off.
Get up and get your head in the game, Warshawski. I could hear my high school basketball coach’s deep bark almost as if she’d been standing next to me. I forced myself to my feet and looked at the window behind me. It led into an upper hallway, but it held the telltale markers of the security system. Which meant going up another layer. There was no easy access to the third story, no columns to shinny up, but gaps in the old mortar left finger-and toeholds here and there. I started up.
I’ve always thought wall climbing was a stupid sport. Fumbling about for purchase, testing each hole where I stuck my fingers, pulling myself up half a foot at a time with throbbing muscles and trembling legs, going cheek to cheek with rough bricks, so that when I slipped I had a raw spot from forehead to chin-none of that made me change my mind.
I was very aware of how clear a target my dark clothes presented against the whitewashed brick. And that if I lost my grip and fell, I’d bounce off the domed roof underneath and break … well, a lot of bones. And that anyone lurking inside would have enough advance warning of my approach to be waiting for me with lead. A bullet or a pipe, or maybe molten in a pot, the way they did it in the Middle Ages. By now I was sweating freely, and not merely from exertion: imagination is not a gift for a detective.
The third-floor windows had narrow ledges, not wide enough to kneel
on, barely wide enough for me to stand splay-legged like a graceless ballerina. I hung to the top of the frame, gasping for breath, soothing my raw face against the cool glass.
Before adding to my racket by breaking the glass, I tested whether the window was even locked. The sash was stiff, but it moved-the security system on the first two floors had made Julius Arnoff and the titleholder complacent. When I had a wide enough gap to stick my arm through, I pulled up on the inside sash to lift the bottom half. I had to move along the narrow ledge like an Egyptian figurine, but I managed to slide my right leg through the gap, to ease down to a sitting position, one leg inside, one dangling outside, and finally push the window far enough open to duck into the house.
I pulled the headlamp from my day pack and switched it on. I was in one of the thirteen bedrooms described in the 1903 newspaper. No one had thought it worth redecorating, or even cleaning, for years. Dust was thick on the floor. A water leak was sending brown fingers down the faded wallpaper.
I tiptoed through the dust and opened the door onto a long uncarpeted hall. I -moved as quietly as I could, opening each door, looking in closets, in bathrooms, not seeing anything. Stairs rose from the lower floor halfway along the hall. I peered down. This was the top end of the main staircaseon the floor below me, the bannisters grew large and elaborate; presumably, by the time they reached the ground, they would be equal to what I’d seen at the Bayards’ yesterday morning.
On the far side of the main staircase, tracks appeared in the dust. Catherine Bayard, I had to believe. I followed her steps to a door at the end of the hall. I opened it quickly, crouching low behind it in case someone started shooting. No lead came pouring down at me. Instead, a scared little voice called, “Catterine, it is you?”
CHAPTER 26
The Jaws of a Giant Clam
I straightened up and turned on my headlamp. I was looking up a flight of narrow stairs at a youth in sweatshirt and jeans. His dark eyes were wide with fear. Far from trying to attack me, he seemed too frightened to move.
I stood still and spoke in a calm, slow voice. “I’m sorry, but Catherine can’t come tonight: her grandmother won’t let her out of the house.”
He didn’t say anything. He looked very young and vulnerable, like a fawn frozen in a clearing. He was gripping the handrail so tightly his knuckles showed white through his dark skin.