Time at the Top

by Edward Ormondroyd

  10. Quest for a Map

  Susan could not see what effect this announcement had on Robert and Victoria, but she could imagine it from the state of her own feelings. She could not have been more shocked if her own father had announced his ruin.

  Robert, as befitted a soldier and the man of the family, was the first to recover. “Don’t worry, Mama,” he quavered. “I’ll go to work. I can be an office boy, or work for a newspaper, or something …”

  “That’s my brave Bobbie.”

  There was a confused moment of sobbing and murmuring and back-patting, which, as it turned out, was fortunate; because at that very moment Susan said “Oh!” rather loudly, without being able to help herself, and she would have been heard if the Walkers had not been so occupied. It was Robert’s mention of the word “newspaper” that did it. Newspaper! She had been looking at one just before getting on the elevator …

  When Mrs. Walker had regained some measure of control over her voice, she said, “It’s far from hopeless, children. We’ll — we’ll sell the house. Mr. Branscomb says it will be hard to find a buyer, it’s so far from town, but we’ll be able to borrow something on it meanwhile. I’m going to write to Cousin Jane; she’ll be willing to take us in for a while, and then we can — we can look about us and see what’s to be done. Vicky, dear, you’re so pale! I’m sorry I frightened you, but the thing has to be faced. We’ll just have to be brave, that’s all. The Walkers may be down but they’ve never been out!”

  “I’m not out,” said Robert.

  “You’re being wonderful, dear. But then I knew you would be. Well! Come along, we’ll all have some hot tea. Remember what your Papa always said: ‘Never make an important decision without drinking a cup of tea and having a good night’s sleep.’ We’ll just pretend that he’s still with us, and behave as he’d expect us to; and everything will turn out all right, I’m sure.”

  “We’ll be down in a minute, Mama. I want to talk to Vic — privately, please.”

  “All right, dear. Come as soon as you can. I’ll have Maggie put the kettle on.”

  The door had no sooner closed than Susan was scrambling out from under the bed. “Listen!” she hissed excitedly. “Listen, I —”

  “Gosh, Sue, did you hear that?” Robert said. “We’ve lost all our money — really lost it!”

  “Listen, don’t worry! I know where —!”

  “It’s a judgment on us!” Victoria whispered. Her face was very pinched and white. “We told a big lie, and it’s coming true, to punish us. Oh!” she cried, throwing herself across the bed and bursting into tears, “why didn’t I listen to you, Bobbie? You said it was wrong. Now it’s coming true, it’s coming true! Oh, if Mama gets smallpox now, I’ll just kill myself!”

  “Don’t talk that way, Vic. It couldn’t be our doing. Mama said it’s been coming for a long time.”

  “Oh, listen, both of you!” Susan cried, dancing up and down. “Listen. You don’t have to worry about a thing! I know where a treasure is buried!”

  “What?” said Robert, turning to her with a stupefied air.

  “Treasure! Thousands and thousands of dollars, just up the street from here!”

  “But how do you — how do you —?”

  “Oh! Whew, let me catch my breath!” She sat down on the bed beside Victoria, who was gaping at her incredulously. “I read about it in the paper, it was all over the front page —”

  “But if it was in the paper that means it’s been found already,” Robert said. “Anyway, I didn’t read anything about —”

  “No! Will you please just listen? It was in a 1960 paper. I read about it just before I came here. It hasn’t been found, it won’t be found for years and years! It’s there right now, waiting for us to find it first. The paper even had a map showing where it is!”

  “Great Caesar! How much did you say it was?”

  “Oh, I forget exactly, but it was thousands. Enough to save you and your Mama, anyway. We’re going to find it — I’m going right down the elevator as soon as I can and bring back the map. So don’t let your Mama do anything yet. Don’t let her sell the house or write to Cousin Jane —”

  “Children?” came faintly from below.

  “Coming, Mama!” Robert shouted. “What are we going to tell her, Sue?”

  “I don’t know, you’ll have to think of something. Just try to get her to put everything off until we can find the treasure.”

  “Susan Shaw,” Victoria whispered, “I think you came from heaven!”

  “Oh, don’t be mushy, for goodness sake! Go on, go on. I have to think.”

  As soon as she was alone she kicked off her shoes and padded silently up and down the room, chewing her knuckle. It was all very well to put up a confident front for Robert and Victoria, but now that they were gone doubts began to creep in. She could get the map, all right — but would it be of any use? There was a vast difference between the city streets of 1960 and the open country of 1881. The whole thing depended on where the Walker’s house stood — that was the only point of reference they had to start from. Was the house standing on the same spot that the apartment building would some day occupy?

  ‘Well, it just has to be,’ she thought. ‘The elevator didn’t go sideways or back and forth — it felt as if it went straight up, anyway. Ward Lane out there does look a little farther off than it should be, but then they could have widened it toward the house when they made Ward Street out of it. It just has to be in the same place, that’s all …’

  Early in the evening Robert returned to the room. With an expression of studious innocence he came up to the bedside stand, and proceeded to unload from his pockets a large quantity of bread-and-butter sandwiches, cold lamb chops, cold boiled potatoes, cookies, and nuts.

  “I usually can’t do this well,” he said modestly, “but Mama and Vic couldn’t eat much at supper. I can always eat. I guess if tomorrow were Judgment Day I could still eat. As a matter of fact …” he added delicately, staring at a cookie.

  “Help yourself,” Susan said. “I couldn’t possibly eat all this. Thanks for bringing it up.”

  “Welcome … Sue?”

  “Mm?”

  “Do you really think it’ll work?”

  “Sure it will,” she said, with more conviction than she felt. “Why not?”

  “Well … there’s something wrong somewhere. I can’t put my finger on it, but it bothers me.”

  “Look. The money was buried sometime around the Civil War. Nobody’s dug it up yet. So it’s still there. What’s wrong about that? All we have to do is find the place.”

  “Well … When are you going down in the elevator?”

  “Soon as it’s dark.”

  “That’s an odd thing. I should think you’d go up in the elevator. You know, you sort of think of old time on the bottom and new time piled on top, like a — like a —” He waved his cookie helplessly, swallowed it, and selected another. “I don’t know. It’s awfully strange any way you think of it. Can I watch?”

  “Of … course,” she said, yawning until her ears cracked. The late conversation of last night, this afternoon’s performance for Mr. Sweeney, the strain of worrying about finding the treasure, and now all this food … She crawled into the four-poster, numb with fatigue.

  “Wake me up when it’s dark?” she mumbled.

  “Sure, Sue. Don’t you want this chop?”

  “Mm-mm …”

  Robert happily fell to. Susan slept.

  “Sue. Sue. Susan!”

  “Urrmmf?” she said. Victoria was an indistinct shape bending over her in the dark. “Time is it?”

  “Shh! It’s after twelve, I think. I was going to wake you much earlier, but I didn’t dare till Mama fell asleep, and then I dropped off myself. Here, while you’re waking up I’ll go get Bobbie, he’ll be furious if he misses it.”

  Susan stretched and scrubbed her face until she was awake. Victoria returned with Robert, who glimmered ghost-like in his nightshirt.

 
“We have to be extra quiet,” he whispered. “Mama’s still tossing around. Hey, Vic, don’t light the candle yet.”

  “Please don’t say ‘hey,’ Bobbie,” Victoria sighed.

  Robert, as foraging expert, took the lead. They crept down the back stairs, paused to light their candle in the kitchen, and proceeded more quickly to the hallway. The clock said twenty to one.

  “It was right here,” said Susan, pointing to the wainscotting. “But I don’t know where the button is. Do you see one?”

  “Button?” Robert said. “What’s the button for?”

  “You push it and the elevator comes up.”

  “Oh. Is it like a shirt button or a shoe button?”

  “Neither — it’s a black knob. Help me find it, will you?”

  They searched the paneling inch by inch, holding the candle close, but could find nothing.

  “What if I can’t go back?” Susan said in a small voice.

  “Nonsense!” said Victoria. “The old woman gave you three trips, didn’t she? Try pushing the place where the button should be.”

  “Well, that might do it. About here, I guess.” She pressed her thumb against the wood. “Doesn’t feel like —” she muttered. “Wait a minute.” She put her ear against the wainscotting. Ah! Faintly, as if from the depths of a canyon, came the sound of mechanisms stirring to life.

  “It’s all right!” she said. “Whew! It may take a while, though, it’s the slowest old elevator in the world.”

  “Shall we wait here for you, Sue?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to explain to Daddy, that’ll take some time; and then I’ll have to persuade him to let me come up again, that’ll take a while —”

  “Hey!” Robert said faintly. “It’s making a noise!”

  “Of course it’s making a noise, it always does. Here it comes.”

  “Sighhh!” said the wainscotting. “Rummmble.” It split into two sections that folded back to the right.

  “Great Caesar!” The candle in Robert’s hand made a wild dip as he clutched his sister’s arm. “It’s — it’s deep in there,” he whispered.

  “Same old elevator,” said Susan, getting into it. “Now listen, I’ll come back as soon as I can. You don’t have to wait if you don’t want to, I can find my way up to Vicky’s room by now. Don’t worry about me, it’s perfectly safe. Bye.”

  She pressed the third-floor button. The wainscotting sighed and began to close.

  A scrabbling noise suddenly made itself heard in the shadows of the hallway. “Oooh!” Victoria squeaked, jumping into the air as something black hurtled past her legs and into the elevator.

  “Stop that!” Susan cried. “Get out of here!” But it was too late — the door closed, the elevator began to groan its way downward.

  “Here, you — stop that — oh, poor mousie! Drop it! Drop it!” She slapped with all her strength.

  “Mrrowr!” said Toby, flattening his ears. The mouse shot from his jaws and took refuge in a corner.

  “Come here, you nasty old cat, let it alone! Now I’ll have to take you back—no, I can’t, it’ll waste a trip. Here, behave yourself! Ouch!”

  Toby had suddenly discovered that his world was not only too small, but disconcertingly in motion. “Wow!” he said, using his claws.

  “Stop it!” she panted. “You’re tearing my dress! Oh, I still have Victoria’s clothes on! What if anybody sees me? I’ll just have to pretend not to see them — hold still! No, I’ll pretend I’m rehearsing a part in a play. Ouch, you —”

  She and Toby battled all the way to the third floor, both of them becoming considerably disheveled in the process. Toby could draw blood, but Susan had size and strength on her side, and was determined to save the mouse from destruction. By the time the door opened again she had managed to get an arm-lock on the cat and one hand clamped around his chops.

  How strange the hallway looked, with its rows of doors and the dim night lights! And how strange it smelled — as if the air, tinctured with cigarette smoke and Mr. Bodoni’s carpet shampoo, had not been in circulation for a long time. She had only been away since Wednesday, and yet it felt like years. ‘Well, it has been years, in a way,’ she thought; ‘almost a century!’ What was that odd voice vibrating in the stillness? It was tiny and metallic, wailing behind one of the closed doors:

  Yew broke mah hear-r-r-rt

  When yew went uh-way-y-y …

  A television set! But of course there were television sets—she was in the twentieth century again.

  Toby had calmed down now that his horizon had expanded and the floor was steady again. She kept her grip on him, however, just in case, and peered out cautiously. No one in the hallway! Swiftly she tiptoed to her apartment door and opened it.

  ‘Oh oh!’

  The table lamp was lit. There was a policeman sitting in the armchair. His blouse was loosened, his chin rested on his chest, and he wheezed faintly in his sleep. Mrs. Clutchett, mummied in blankets, snored on the sofa.

  ‘What …?’ she thought, closing the door again with exquisite care. ‘What’s going on here? A policeman in the apartment? Has there been a burglary? But why should Mrs. Clutchett —? Oh! It must be me! They probably think I’ve been kidnapped! Or that I ran away! Oh, poor Daddy. I’ll have to tell him at once —’

  ‘But I can’t,’ she thought, arresting her hand on the knob. ‘Maybe I could explain to Daddy, but the policeman will never believe me. And if they think I ran away once they won’t let me go again — and if I don’t get back soon Mrs. Walker will start selling the house and writing to Cousin Jane, and Bobbie and Vicky’ll think that I’ve deserted them just when they need me most … What to do, what to do?’

  “Yew broke mah hear-r-r-rt,” whined the television set.

  ‘Oh, be quiet!’ she thought. ‘What a mess … Why didn’t I think that they might —? I know, I’ll write a note. Daddy’ll recognize my writing, he won’t have to worry any more. Let’s see — paper, pencil … Basement, that’s it. I can get the map there, too.’

  She and Toby had another fight on the way down. The clawing and squirming put her in a rage; and when they reached the basement she hurled the cat out the door without even bothering to see if the coast was clear.

  Mr. Bodoni made a little extra money by collecting old newspapers from the tenants and selling them, when he had gathered a large pile, to an acquaintance of his in the junk business. Susan hurried to the pile, and searched through the top paper until she found a fashion advertisement with enough blank space to write a note on. There was a stump of pencil in the drawer of Mr. Bodoni’s workbench.

  ‘Mmm,’ she thought, chewing on it. ‘ “Dear Daddy, please don’t worry about me. I’m all right.” Now, let’s see — the policeman. “Tell the policeman he can go away,” that’s so he’ll know I’m not kidnapped.’ She thought for a moment, and added “I’m all right.” ‘I’ll say it twice in a row, just to make sure … Better tell him what I’m going to do, so he won’t —’ And she wrote rapidly, “I have to go back for a little while but please don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Love, Susie.” ‘No use saying where I have to go back, he won’t believe it anyway.’

  “Yow,” said Toby, nervously sniffing at a valve on the oil furnace.

  “Oh, stop that! You make me sick. Now, where’s the paper with the —?” She began to dig down through the stack. “Gosh, what if he hasn’t collected the new ones yet — ah!”

  FORTUNE FOUND AT CONSTRUCTION SITE

  She tore the front page off, folded it small, and thrust it in her pocket. All set!

  The elevator door sighed, and trundled shut.

  ‘Oh oh!’ she thought. ‘Why can’t people go to bed early? Now I’ll have to wait until —’

  She ran over to the elevator door to see what the arrow was doing. It crept to 1 and stopped. Then it began moving to the left, back to B.

  ‘Oh, someone’s coming down!’ Aloud she called, “Toby! Come here! P
uss puss?”

  Toby was vanishing under the oil tank. She got there just in time to seize the tip of his tail. His muscular protest quivered through her hand like an electric current.

  “Oh, come on!” she sobbed. Dragging him backwards, his claws scraping across the concrete, she rushed for shelter behind the washing machines. There she crouched in a puddle, holding the cat between her knees and stomach and squeezing his jaws shut with both hands.

  It was Mr. Bodoni who emerged from the elevator. He was holding something cradled in his palm, and staring at it with infinite bewilderment.

  A long silence.

  “Mice,” said Mr. Bodoni sorrowfully through his cigar.

  A long silence.

  “Mice,” he repeated. “After all I done.”

  A long silence.

  ‘Oh, get a move on, will you?’ Susan raged to herself. Toby’s hind claws were sinking into her thigh.

  “Traps,” said Mr. Bodoni at last, with an air of decision.

  He carefully put the dead mouse in his vest pocket, ambled over to his workbench, and began to search for mousetraps in the drawer. There were many to be found, and he had to inspect each one with minute care before putting it in his pocket.

  At last he was finished. Now he was going. No, he wasn’t. He stopped, turned around, came back to the workbench; brought the stumpy pencil out of the drawer; reached over to the calendar on the wall above the bench; and, muttering each letter aloud, laboriously wrote “Mise” under the date.

  Halfway to the elevator he stopped again, and stood a long while vaguely patting his pockets.

  “Cheese,” said Mr. Bodoni.

  He entered the elevator, and was gone.

  “Woo-oof!” said Susan, shaking the cramp out of her legs. “I never saw anybody slower in my whole life. Ow, let go of my dress! Honestly, Toby, if you weren’t the Walkers’ cat I’d just leave you here … Well, he has to go out to get the cheese, so we won’t have to worry about him any more … There, the elevator’s free. Now, if you give me any more trouble I’ll strangle you.”