Alex and the Ironic Gentleman

by Adrienne Kress

  Alex knew exactly what to do next. She took her toothbrush holder, opened it, and took out her damp toothbrush. Looking around the room, Alex decided to hide it under the pillow on the bed. She then carefully folded the fan up again and, with fingers crossed, placed it in the toothbrush container. It fit, just barely, but it fit. Alex sighed with relief. She put the holder back into her pocket and left to go back downstairs.

  As she reached the top of the staircase, Alex paused. When she went back down the stairs to rejoin Gladys, she would soon find herself in that room again with all the Daughters. And who knew when they would let her back out? If there was going to be a time for Alex to try to escape, this would be it.

  She tiptoed back into the lady’s boudoir, and took stock of the room. She was too high up to go through a window. And of course all the exits were soldered shut downstairs by a very vigilant Rose. There must be a way, she thought. Come on, Alex! She needed more time.

  “Gladys, you there?” she called out, trying to make her voice shake a bit.

  “Oh, my goodness! Yes, are you all right?”

  “Well, the boudoir window was open, so I’m going to take a look around up here, just to make sure the axe murderer isn’t hiding in a closet or anything.”

  A sound like “eep” floated up in response.

  “Won’t be a minute!”

  Alex crossed the hall into the dark library. She looked out the window—again a steep drop down. She could see the town twinkling in the distance. It was infuriating how close she was to escaping, and yet so far! There must be a way. There was always a solution to any problem, you just had to find it. Alex turned and shivered. The moonlight lit the portrait of Mr. Steele’s wife in such a way that the eyes seemed to glow as they stared right at her. Alex held the toothbrush holder tight to her chest.

  And then it occurred to her.

  There was one exit that possibly Rose had missed.

  THE TENTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex is rather impressive.

  I think it is rather impressive that, in her delicate emotional state, Alex was able to remember the secret door used by Mr. Steele’s mistress in the secret room. Equally impressive was the fact that she was able to make her way down those extremely dark stairs hidden behind the bookshelf, without a flashlight, mind, and that although she was standing in the middle of a pitch-black room, she was not remotely frightened of what might be in there. Except, of course, the potential of a sixth Daughter of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society. Which seemed quite possible, especially if this particular daughter was being punished by Poppy. What a terrifying thought.

  Alex stuck her arms out ahead of her and felt her way to the door. She felt for the padlock; it was dusty and rough to the touch and not at all like a soldered lock would feel. So far so good, she thought. Alex grabbed and pulled. The rusted padlock made a slight cracking sound, but stayed firmly in place. Trying to stay calm, Alex thought hard. The key thing was not to panic. She remembered a story of a friend of her uncle’s who had managed to get his head stuck between the rungs of a ladder underwater, and, instead of panicking, he had thought for a moment and then calmly turned his head to the side and slipped out. She needed to stay just as collected in order to save herself. She had to look at this problem logically.

  The lock was old and had given way slightly. This meant she was on the right track with trying to break it. What she needed was something to hit it with. Well, what was in the room that she could use?

  In school there are certain games that seem really useless. There is a game, for example, in which you have all these objects on a table, and then you have to close your eyes and try to remember them all. Now when on earth are you ever going to be in a situation where you will need to remember all the objects on a table? Well, let this be proof to you that even the most useless-seeming games can actually be excellent life lessons. Because Alex remembered a table in the room with objects on it. And now she needed to remember what they were. Her future depended on it.

  It was set as if for a dinner party, she thought, with plates and knives and forks. Maybe she could pick the lock with a fork. But that was a silly thought because she hadn’t the foggiest idea how to pick a lock. And . . . there . . . was . . . what else was there? There was . . . there were candlesticks! Alex stumbled over to the table and felt around for a bit and grabbed a candlestick. To her joy the candlestick was heavy, really heavy. Now the question was whether she was strong enough to break the lock.

  Alex returned to the door and found the lock again. She took the candlestick and hit it. It made a dull thud. She did it again, and again. Her adrenaline was pumping, and if she had to she could keep hitting that lock all night. But fortunately she didn’t have to, because after her seventh hit, there was a sudden crack and shatter, and the lock fell, smashing onto the floor. Alex pulled the chain out from the door handle and tugged on the door. And it opened. Slowly and only a crack, but it opened. She pulled again, and she felt a gust of fresh air on her face. Light flooded the room, which is funny because it was dark outside, it being nighttime and all, but it was still lighter outside than inside. Being small for her age, Alex did not need to open the door any further. She slipped outside into the parking lot, and, without looking back, hurried down the hill away from the house.

  It was the best feeling in the world running away from the Steele Estate, seeing the large, grand home get smaller and smaller, and as she found herself back in the familiar, deserted streets of her town, a smile crossed her face. She would soon be home in her own bed. She would soon be telling her uncle of the horrible way she had been treated and presenting Mr. Underwood with the treasure map. The only thing that disappointed her slightly was that she wouldn’t get to see the look on Poppy’s face when she realized she was gone. That thought made her laugh out loud and she turned her run into a sprint.

  Because Alex wasn’t there to see it, I thought I’d tell you exactly what Poppy’s look looked like. It looked like one of those pug dogs about to bite the mailman. Which is a very funny expression, especially on the face of a Daughter of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society. Of course, none of her fellow Daughters laughed. Especially not Gladys. They were all busy ducking furniture and tea mugs being thrown in their general direction. When she had finally exhausted herself, Poppy sat in her chair and reached for the telephone.

  My dear friend, let this be a warning to you. In life, you will find there are certain things you are able to get away with, like, for example, not washing your socks for a week, if you have tolerant friends. But there are other things, far more serious things, that I am afraid, no matter how carefully you plan, no matter who is on your side, you simply do not get away with. You do not get away with robbing a bank, that’s a good one. Another one is murder, you do not get away with that. You also do not get away with not calling your mother, so just don’t try not to. And, my friend, above all things, you most definitely, definitely, do not get away with stepping over the red rope.

  THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

  In which a very unpleasant discovery is made.

  What is a bad sign? Perhaps one that has mud all over it so you can’t read how far it is until the next highway service center. Or perhaps one that is so rebellious that, no matter how many times you write “Danger: Falling Rocks Ahead,” it insists on saying “Do Come Over Here and Stand Under this Precariously Teetering Boulder.” Or maybe one written in a nonexistent language, like Flurbit.

  I am sure you have seen such a sign, but the bad sign I am about to talk about isn’t a piece of cardboard, or metal, or synthetic material with writing or a picture on it. In this case, it is a broken window. And a door. If you just saw a broken window and a door on the side of the road, you probably would have thought someone was renovating their house, and not have taken it as anything you needed to think about. But when Alex saw the broken window and the door, she thought, “Something isn’t right.” Because these bad signs were still very much attached to her hous
e.

  You see, when she had left the house that morning, as far as she could recall, the window in the front of her uncle’s shop hadn’t been broken. And also, while they had always had a door, it usually was on both its hinges and not just dangling off one. And this made Alex suspicious.

  The next thing that concerned her was that all the lights were out. Certainly it was the middle of the night, and unless you are scared of the dark or have a great love for the electric company, you turn your lights off in the middle of the night. But Alex knew her uncle would definitely not be able to sleep without knowing she was safe, and thus would probably have had at least one light on.

  So this was why Alex had a knot in her stomach as she crossed the bridge and approached the door. Now sometimes, and I don’t know how it knows, the weather decides it wants to help with a certain situation by creating Atmosphere. At this moment, it decided to blow a gust of wind that rattled all the nonbroken windows and properly attached doors of the buildings along the bridge. This made the knot in Alex’s stomach tighten more, because it was scary. It also made her feel extra cold as she passed through the doorway into the shop. Even though it was her home, Alex felt like a stranger.

  She heard a sudden creak of a floorboard and she turned abruptly, her heart in her throat. At the window stood a person silhouetted in the moonlight. “Alexandra Morningside?” asked the silhouette.

  Alex took a step back. “Yes?”

  The silhouette stepped toward her so that Alex could see the face. It was a young woman dressed in a police uniform. Having a police officer waiting for her was another bad sign.

  “Alexandra, I’m afraid that there has been an Incident,” said the officer.

  Alex stood rooted to the spot. The word “Incident” frightened her to the core. This was because she knew that “Incident” didn’t mean her uncle was held up at a meeting. She knew that the officer had decided that it would be easier to hear bad news if certain words were used as opposed to others, words like “Incident,” for example. Of course, it isn’t the word itself that causes fear, but that which is being described, so changing a word doesn’t actually help that much.

  The young officer seemed to realize this and stopped in the middle of her prepared speech.

  “I am afraid that . . . your uncle is dead.”

  “I see,” said Alex. Her stomach, which had only moments ago been so tight, now vanished altogether, revealing a bottomless pit deep inside her. She clenched her fists, not out of rage, but because that was how her fists responded to the news.

  “It would seem that some burglars visited your house. As far as we could see, nothing was taken, but as they left they knocked over a bookshelf of doorknobs, and I am afraid it fell on your uncle.” The officer’s voice broke. “I am so sorry.” She moved toward Alex and hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Oh,” said Alex. Her mind was a blank. There was nothing there. Nothing. Where was everything?

  “If you wouldn’t mind coming down to the station, we could take care of you,” said the officer carefully.

  A bespectacled face floated into Alex’s consciousness. “What about Mr. Underwood?” asked Alex, looking up at the officer for the first time.

  “Who?” asked the young woman.

  “Mr. Underwood. Is he already at the station?”

  The young woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who this Mr. Underwood is.”

  “Never mind,” said Alex, thinking hard, trying to prod her mind into action. The officer guided Alex to the door. “No, wait!” Alex stopped. “Look, can I get some things and meet you there? I promise I’ll come. I know I am only ten-and-a-half, but I am very responsible. I just need some time alone,” she said. After saying this, she realized it was true.

  The officer looked concerned. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that.”

  “You could say that . . . that you waited and waited, but I never showed up so you left me a note,” offered Alex.

  The young woman bit her lip.

  “Please?”

  The officer looked at Alex, who in the moonlight appeared even smaller than usual. But she also seemed fiercely determined. “I guess I could,” she said hesitantly, “but you promise you’ll come?”

  “Of course.”

  The officer nodded and slowly walked out of the house, glancing over her shoulder at Alex as she passed through the door.

  Once she was alone, Alex sat down on the floor crossed-legged. Her grief was so overwhelming that she herself could not take it in. Her uncle. Her lovely, sweet, clever uncle. He was gone. Not to the market or a board meeting. But gone . . . forever. How could she even begin to comprehend what to do at a time like this? When her parents died, she had been too little to understand what had happened, so it wasn’t as if she was familiar with feeling this way. What was she supposed to feel, then? Alex had no idea. She didn’t even know if she should cry. She just felt numb. What she needed . . . what she needed . . . was Mr. Underwood.

  She stood up. Yes, she would not dwell on the actual horribleness of what had happened. She couldn’t afford to think about that at the moment. What she needed to do was figure out where Mr. Underwood had gotten to, find him, and then he would take care of everything else.

  With that in mind, the first thing she needed to do was pack her bag. She was heading for the stairs to climb to her room when she tripped on something small and square. Leaning down, she picked up her camera. Alex was puzzled. Her camera, along with all her other photography equipment, was kept in her room. What was it doing downstairs? She hastily ran up the stairs and turned on the light.

  Alex unscrewed the top of her film-developing tank and removed the coil inside. She got a jug of fresh developing fluid from her closet. As she had done so often before, she closed her door and switched off her lamp so that her room was pitch-black. Opening the back of the camera, she pulled out the film and wound it onto the coil. She put it back into the developing tank, switched on the light, and then poured the developing solution into the tank. After the right amount of agitation and the right amount of time, she poured the developer into her sink and replaced it with stop bath. Finally, she poured in the fixing solution. When the film was no longer sensitive to light, she opened the tank, washed the film, squeegeed off the water, and looked at the small images through her magnifying glass.

  Many people would have found this a tricky thing to do. The pictures were small and, being negatives, reversed, so that what should be have been dark was light and vice versa, but she was good at looking at negatives and scanned them easily. Most of them were shots she had taken recently on a trip around town with her uncle and Mr. Underwood. Many of them were silly, but a few had turned out really well, actually.

  And then she suddenly came across a photo she didn’t recognize at all. She examined it closely. It wasn’t a very good picture, taken at a funny angle, and the figures in it were slightly blurred. But she could see that there were four of them. One was very big with a bushy beard and hat and monocle, and another quite small, dwarfed by the coat he was wearing, and behind them, practically a shadow, was the third with what looked like a huge dog. Though he was barely more than a dark outline, Alex felt a strange wave of terror wash over her as she looked at the third man. The feeling was momentary, only really noticeable after it had passed, like when you touch something hot and only feel it after you’ve removed your hand. Alex couldn’t imagine it had meant much of anything, and so she moved on to the fourth figure.

  Which was Mr. Underwood. He was being held tightly by the first two men and seemed to be putting up a struggle. What was even stranger was the expression on his face. You would assume that when you were being attacked by three strange men you would have an expression of either fear or anger. But the look on Mr. Underwood’s face was neither. He was giving a look of warning to the camera, a look that Alex often got when she wanted to be helpful in a social situation but her uncle didn’t want her to interfere. Mr. Underwood was
telling the person taking the picture not to get involved. And the only person who could possibly have been taking the picture was her uncle. He was trying to protect her uncle.

  Protect her uncle.

  From whom?

  From . . . from . . .

  Who on earth would be interested in kidnapping a sixth-grade teacher?

  Unless . . .

  Alex gasped, then covered her mouth. It all made perfect sense. These men weren’t kidnapping a sixth-grade teacher, they were kidnapping the heir to a pirate fortune! Mr. Under-wood had been captured by Steele’s men! They had finally succeeded. Well then, there was only one thing she could do. She would just have to rescue him. Somehow, and the task struck her as virtually impossible, she would have to track down the Ironic Gentleman.

  With her heart pumping wildly, Alex printed and developed the picture. After clamping her hair drier to the back of a chair and aiming it at the still-wet print, she hastily packed a few things into her knapsack, emptied into it the contents of her piggy bank and carefully hid her toothbrush holder containing the fan between a sweater and change of socks. She then reloaded her camera with film and placed it on top, throwing in a few extra rolls for good measure.

  By then the picture was ready, though still quite damp, and Alex examined it more carefully. Two of the men looked strangely familiar. Well, she would think about that on her walk over to the police station. What a nuisance, she thought, but she had promised the nice young officer, and didn’t want to get her in trouble by not showing up.

  Alex went back downstairs and stepped out of the store onto the street once more. The wind was still doing its Atmosphere thing, and Alex wasn’t looking forward to the long walk to the station across town. Then, just as she started out, there was a loud crashing sound that made Alex jump out of her skin. She stood perfectly still for a moment, and when she felt she wasn’t going to be attacked, she looked up. Mr. Underwood’s bicycle lay to one side, the front wheel spinning slowly to a stop. The wind had blown it over. Alex set it upright. Well, she might as well ride it to the station, she reasoned. And, of course, Mr. Underwood would be wanting his bike back—he never went anywhere without it.