Harleigh was really angry. Every time he thought about what Allegra had done, he got angrier. He kept reminding himself how she had started the whole dangerous mess by squeezing in the door when he was trying to push it shut. But what made him even more teeth-grindingly furious was how she had run off and hid when he’d told her to stay right there by the solarium door and wait for him to come back. And then, when the whole scary mess was almost over and they’d finally made it to a west wing exit, she’d made up a fantastic lie for no reason at all. He had no idea why she’d said what she did, except maybe to be sure he’d come looking for her as soon as he could, to find out what on Earth she’d been talking about. So he wasn’t going to do it. Even on Wednesday morning, he decided, he was just going to stay home where, when people lied to him, at least he knew why.
The thing was, he didn’t believe any part of what Allegra had said. It just wasn’t possible that Junior Weatherby could have been in Aunt Adelaide’s recital hall with a metal detector, and even if he had been there, there was no way Allegra could have known about it. She certainly hadn’t seen Junior, and as for hearing something . . . Harleigh was sure now that he hadn’t heard anything, and that meant she hadn’t either.
So when Wednesday morning arrived, Harleigh didn’t even think about going to the tree house and then, as usual, to work on the maze. For one thing, it was a dark and gloomy day. The clouds that drifted over Weatherby House hung so low that all the towers were wrapped in a drifting gray veil that formed and reformed in strangely threatening shapes, shapes that resembled dragons or huge hands with clutching fingers. The clouds were definitely threatening—rain or perhaps something even worse.
He was still brooding about what Allegra had done on his way down to breakfast. He was going over every part of it and getting even angrier when, slamming through the kitchen door, he ran into someone carrying a cup of coffee. The person wiping spilled coffee off his jacket was Harleigh J. Weatherby the Third, Harleigh Four’s father, whom he hadn’t seen for almost six months. After he got a towel and wiped himself off, Harleigh the Third put his hand on Harleigh Four’s shoulder and said, “Hello, son.”
Harleigh said hello, and then, “Here, I can do that.” While he went to get another towel to mop up the floor, his father went back to telling Aunt Adelaide and Uncle Edgar and Cousin Josephine about how bad the weather had been in New York and how the airline had lost his luggage in Chicago.
Breakfast was over before his father looked at Harleigh and said, “So, I hear you’ve moved into the central tower and that you’ve been making very good progress in your studies.” Then he put both hands on Harleigh’s shoulders and stared at him as he said, “Well done, son.” And then, after a moment, he went on, “And you have been growing. Haven’t you?”
Harleigh Four knew what his father meant when he stressed the word “have.” What “You have been growing, haven’t you?” meant was that his father had been right in urging Harleigh to have that last operation. The one that not only his father, but a lot of doctors, too, had insisted would solve the problem with his heart so that, when he recovered from the operation, he would finally start to grow. Only Harleigh Four had been sure they were lying to him again, and he’d been right. The last time he’d measured himself, which hadn’t been all that long ago, he’d been about the same as ever.
So when his father said he’d been growing, Harleigh’s only answer was, “Oh, you think so?” in a tone of voice that said he didn’t believe it for a minute. Or would have, if anyone had been listening.
It wasn’t until after Harleigh the Third had gone off with Uncle Edgar that anyone else had anything to say to Harleigh Four. This time it was Aunt Adelaide. He had just taken his dirty dishes to Matilda and was heading for the door when he heard his great-aunt’s creaky voice calling his name. Turning back, he asked, “Did you call me?”
“Yes, I did.” She rolled her chair a little bit closer, and her steely eyes got even more metallic. “I just wanted to ask if you’ve been in my room lately.”
“Lately?” He tried to think back. “Well, the last time must have been when I came in to ask about . . .” He’d gotten that far when a shocking idea occurred to him. Did she mean had he been there when she wasn’t there? And if she did, what made her think he, or at least someone, had been there? After a speechless moment, he went on, “I mean, the last time must have been when I came to ask you if I could have more days off for summer vacation.” But by then he was sure there was more to it than that. Looking right into her knife-sharp gray eyes, he asked, “Did you mean when you weren’t there?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Have you?”
Without blinking, Harleigh said, “No, I haven’t. Why did you ask me that?”
Great-Aunt Adelaide’s famous Weatherby stare went on for a long time while Harleigh forced himself to stare back, until at last she nodded slowly. “I am asking you because the recital hall has recently had an uninvited visitor who rummaged around in my personal possessions and caused some serious damage. And it occurred to me and your Cousin Josephine as well that it must have been you.”
“No. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t,” Harleigh said, but Aunt Adelaide only turned her chair away and called to Cousin Josephine, who had been talking to Matilda.
And that was the end of it, except it wasn’t, really. Not the end of it for Harleigh, who knew he hadn’t been the one, and so was left to wonder who might have been in Aunt Adelaide’s room, and what that person had been doing there. And most of all, whether or not this new mystery had anything to do with what Allegra said she’d heard. That was the most important question—whether it meant that Allegra might have been telling the truth after all, and really had heard someone on the stage of the recital hall while Aunt Adelaide had been somewhere else in the house.
A little later, back in his tower room with the blinds pulled to shut out the damp gray ooze of fog, Harleigh tried to get his mind on the book he’d been reading and off the subject of who might have been in Aunt Adelaide’s room. He didn’t realize that he had worked himself up into a jumpy frame of mind, but when there was a sudden loud knock on his door, he jumped so hard he dropped his book.
After he’d gulped and gulped again and finally managed to ask who it was, the door opened. It turned out it to be only his father, who came in, mumbled hello, and looked around for quite a while before he said, “But there isn’t a closet.”
“I know,” Harleigh said. “I don’t mind.”
“But you should have a closet,” Harleigh the Third said. “I’ll see to it.”
“Those cabinets hold most of my stuff, and there are lots of big armoires on the third floor,” Harleigh Four said. “It would be a lot easier to move one of them up here.”
His father shook his head. “No, a real closet, I think.” He walked around the room, stepping over some piles of books and pushing other things out of his way. He stopped once or twice to squint his eyes and sight over his thumb before he said, “Yes, a closet is possible. I’ll draw up some plans.”
Harleigh Four was sure that he would. His father was very good at drawing up plans. But that probably was as far as it would go. Harleigh didn’t mind. He was used to being without a closet.
After his father left, Harleigh went back to trying to keep his mind on his book, but before long he gave up on reading and began instead to make plans of his own. Only his weren’t about things that might or might not get built. What he was planning was how he might find out who had been in Aunt Adelaide’s room, and what that person had done while he was there.
The first step might have to be a talk with Cousin Josephine, who apparently had told Aunt Adelaide that she thought he, Harleigh Four, might have done it—whatever it was.
Finding a way to talk to Cousin Josephine when she was alone might not be easy, but that definitely had to come first. It might be difficult because Cousin Josephine was almost always with Aunt Adelaide, either pushing her wheelchair or taking care of her in other ways. However, Cousin Josephine actually lived in a suite of rooms on the second floor with her husband, Cousin Alden, so she must go up there sometimes. If Harleigh could figure out when she went there, and what route she took, he might have a chance to talk to her when she was alone.
Using a Sherlock Holmes–type process of elimination, Harleigh began to rule out certain times of day, the times when Cousin Josephine was always with Aunt Adelaide—getting her up in the morning and taking her to meals. And after that there was putting her to bed at night. That left a few hours in the afternoon, which might offer a possibility. But an even better one might be in the evening after she’d put Aunt Adelaide to bed. Harleigh had heard Aunt Adelaide say that she was always in bed by nine o’clock. So that, he decided, was the best bet.
Now the time was decided on, and the place would have to be somewhere along the shortest route between Aunt Adelaide’s recital hall bedroom and Cousin Josephine’s suite.
It wasn’t difficult to pick out a likely spot. So it was that same evening around nine o’clock that Harleigh Four, book in hand, settled down on an ornate Chinese chest near the top of the first flight of the grand staircase to wait for Cousin Josephine to pass by.