Stealing Magic (17 page)

To describe different color schemes, Dora pulled from her tote bag swatches of fabrics and samples of tile and wood. She held them up to the light and compared them to pieces of furniture in the room. Then she pulled a green apple from the bag! Dr. Bell didn’t flinch, but Ruthie did. They heard her say something about the color of accent pillows on the sofa. But then the apple went back into her bag. Had they been terribly wrong about Dora? Of course an interior decorator might use apples simply for their color—that was a logical explanation. Ruthie had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

After ten minutes, Jack nodded to Ruthie, who lifted
her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed. Seconds later, Dr. Bell’s office phone rang.

“Forgive me,” Dr. Bell said to Dora, “I’m on call this weekend; I’ll have to take this.” She walked into her office to take the call. Dr. Bell talked into her phone, asking questions about fever and swelling.

Ruthie and Jack listened and silently watched the computer screen. Dora walked around the room, picking up objects, taking notes, and snapping digital pictures. A couple of times she held something in her hands for an extra-long moment, and Ruthie was sure she would put the item in her bag. But she didn’t. Then she walked to the other side of the room, coming closer to the camera—really close—reading book titles. Ruthie squelched a gasp and instead whispered into the phone for Dr. Bell to hang up now and go back into the room. Just as she seemed to be about to look directly into the camera, Dr. Bell ended her pretend conversation and reentered the living room. Dora turned to face her, just in time.

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” Dr. Bell said.

“No problem. I see we have similar taste in books.”

“She didn’t take anything!” Ruthie whispered.

“I know. And I’m worried she saw the camera.”

The two women talked for a while about some of their favorite books, Dr. Bell having no idea whether or not Dora had pocketed anything. Dora glided around the room as she spoke, moving objects here and there, showing Dr. Bell different possible combinations.

“I’m going to call again,” Ruthie whispered as she pushed the redial button. Dr. Bell’s office phone rang.

“Excuse me once more,” Dr. Bell apologized, and went into her office to take the call.

Ruthie whispered into her phone, “She didn’t take anything yet. Stay on the phone longer.”

“Yes, of course,” Dr. Bell replied, playing along.

“I’ll let you know when to hang up,” Ruthie said softly.

They listened to Dr. Bell faking a consultation and watched Dora roaming the room again. Her expression looked just as it had when she’d stolen the key from Jack’s room: supremely confident. She came to the table next to the sofa, where Ruthie had placed the three objects she thought most likely to tempt her.

Dora picked up the little bronze geometric sculpture, inspected it, and made some notes on her pad. She then picked up the African statue, looked at it with her head tilted slightly, and put it down. Last, she picked up the silver box. She held it in her palm, lifting it to eye level. Then she turned it over, carefully examining the markings.

Ruthie held her breath as Dora walked calmly to her leather bag, slipped the box in, and pulled out a green apple. She put the apple on the table. It looked just like it belonged there. Then she took out a measuring tape and began measuring the room.

Stunned but relieved, Ruthie whispered into the phone, “Okay, Dr. Bell.” Dr. Bell pretended to wrap up the conversation and then rejoined Dora in the living
room. “I hope it won’t be like this all day!” she said. “So what do you think? Can I count on you to work your magic?”

“That’s why people call me,” Dora said.

As soon as they heard the front door close behind Dora, they spilled out of the closet. Dr. Bell hurried into her office.

“We got her!” Jack whooped, waving the disk that had recorded everything. “I’m just going to burn a couple of copies now.”

“What did she steal?” Dr. Bell asked.

“The silver box,” Ruthie said. “Just what I had a hunch she’d take.”

“Do you think she knew it was from the rooms?” Dr. Bell wanted to know.

“I don’t think so,” Ruthie answered. “It’s been missing from the rooms for such a long time that I don’t think it’s in the catalogue photos. But she looked at the markings, so she knows it’s really old.”

Ruthie and Dr. Bell walked into the living room. “And look,” Ruthie added, pointing to the table where the box had been. “A green apple.”

“Better not touch it,” Dr. Bell suggested. “The police might want to dust it for fingerprints.”

“Why do you think she does this—leaves green apples?” Ruthie asked.

“In the psychology classes I took in med school, I learned that some criminals are so proud of their cleverness that
they want to own the crime. The apple is sort of like her signature, but without giving herself away.”

“I’m amazed no one noticed the apples in place of the missing objects,” Ruthie said.

“I see how that could happen,” Dr. Bell began. “She comes into your home and starts to pick things up and rearrange them, like a con artist’s shell game. It confuses you a bit; nothing is in the same place as when she started. And she counts on the fact that most people aren’t actually very observant. Then she shows you the apple as part of her color samples, and you assume she has left it inadvertently. But leaving it gives her some perverse satisfaction. Sometimes thieves even have a secret desire to get caught, because deep down they feel guilty.”

“But why apples?” Ruthie said.

“That, I can’t answer.”

Jack, who could hear them from the office, came back into the living room. “The police won’t care about her motives when we show them the disk.”

“Do you want me to come with you to the police?” Dr. Bell offered.

“We can’t do that yet,” Ruthie said. “We have to get the key back first.”

“And all the stuff she stole from the rooms,” Jack added.

“How will you do that?” she asked.

“We’re still working on it,” Jack admitted.

“But we’ll get it all back, don’t worry,” Ruthie assured her.

A
T THE GALA THAT EVENING
, the museum was filled with people in all sorts of outfits: long ball gowns, tuxedos, artists wearing whatever the spirit moved them to wear. Ruthie and Jack, decked out in vintage clothes from Mrs. McVittie’s closet, had different reactions: Ruthie loved the compliments on her retro look, while Jack seemed mostly uncomfortable.

“Let’s go up there,” Jack said, pointing to the stairway. From the second-floor landing they looked down at the panorama: waiters carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, gowns in shimmering fabrics, a small jazz band in the corner enlivening the atmosphere. Ruthie was more interested in the spectacle than Jack, but then she remembered why she was wearing clothes from the 1930s: a young girl’s future depended on her action. If Louisa was going to live past that decade, she and Jack had to get busy.

“So this is what people do at a gala?” Jack asked. “Wander around and talk?”

“I guess so.”

They watched from the landing for a few more minutes. They heard snippets of conversation from people walking up and down the stairs. Lots of them were talking about the art thefts, saying how glad they were that the thief had been apprehended. For Ruthie and Jack, knowing the truth and being unable to say anything about it magnified the pressure: the man behind bars was innocent and the real thief was still on the loose!

Then Ruthie spotted Dora’s unmistakable, nearly colorless blond hair amid the crowd. She was wearing a red dress. “Look—she’s down there!”

“Let’s go before she sees us,” Jack said.

“Should we tell your mom we’re going downstairs?” Ruthie wondered.

“Nah. She said earlier that she’d text me if she can’t find me when she’s ready to leave.” They hurried down the stairs and left the main hall, heading into the old wing of the building. It was fun to be in the museum after hours. Most of the museum was open for the event, with only a few galleries off-limits, but almost everyone stayed in the main hall for the gala.

Without the sound of people talking in the galleries they passed through, it was somewhat eerie. Ruthie almost expected the paintings and sculptures to come alive and speak to them. Downstairs, Gallery 11 was empty.

“This is great!” Jack said. “It will make things so much easier.”

“You ready?” Ruthie asked.

“Ready.” Jack reached into his pocket and handed the metal square to Ruthie. In seconds they were slipping under the door. Inside, Ruthie dropped the square, they grew back to full size in the corridor and Jack picked up the square—the whole process like the steps of a dance they could do without a thought. The two of them raced down the corridor to E27, the French library that led them to Paris and, with luck, to Louisa. Jack took the climbing ladder from his other pocket and secured it to the ledge. They shrank again for the long climb.

“I really hope her family is there today,” Ruthie said, stepping off the last rung of the ladder and onto the ledge.

“We’ll find her this time,” Jack promised.

Without so much as a glance through the viewing window to watch out for people, they entered the beautiful room. And even though they were in a hurry to find Louisa, they couldn’t resist lingering a bit in the room, knowing there was no one who could see them through the glass.

Jack picked up a red leather book with gold decoration from the circular coffee table and opened it. “Hey, look at this!”

“What is it?”

He held it open for her to see: an album filled with black-and-white photos of people in a city that did not
look like the Paris of today. The clothing styles were of the period of the room and maybe earlier. It looked like a typical collection of family photos. Then Ruthie came across a photo with a face she recognized.

“Louisa!”

They turned the pages and saw more photos of Louisa and her family.

“I bet this album is what is making this room alive,” Ruthie said. “See what the last pictures are of.” Ruthie remembered Sophie’s journal and the empty pages at the end, pages that had magically been filled in after they had changed the course of Sophie’s life.

The last photos showed the family in Paris; the final one was of the Meyer family standing in front of 7, rue Le Tasse. Louisa looked no older than the day they had met her. All the pages after that were blank.

“That’s the last picture … we’ve got to find her!” Ruthie exclaimed.

Jack placed the album down exactly as he had found it and they headed out to the balcony. Ruthie led the way down the spiral staircase.

The courtyard garden was unchanged, with the fragrant roses still in full bloom. They lifted the latchkey from the hook on the wall, opened the gate and walked out onto the sidewalks of Paris.

They wasted no time and went directly to rue Le Tasse, but when they neared the corner Ruthie stopped and pointed to the street sign.

“Look,” she said. “Rue Benjamin Franklin. Remember how Sophie said they all thought he was so interesting?”

“So they named a street after him. That’s kinda cool,” Jack said.

They turned onto rue Le Tasse and walked the short distance to number 7, at the end of the block. Ruthie took a deep breath and pushed the buzzer.

Ten seconds passed, seeming like minutes. The woman at the window who had spoken to them so curtly a few days earlier peered from behind the lace curtain and then walked away from the window into the darkness of her apartment. She gave them shivers. Then they heard a voice calling from overhead. They looked up to see Louisa on the balcony waving.

“
Bonjour
, Ruthie and Jack! Please come up to the fourth floor!” They heard the click of the big door unlocking. The mean woman returned to the window and leaned out, yelling something up to Louisa. Ruthie couldn’t understand what she was saying, but they could hear its icy intent. They slipped inside before the woman could turn her attention to them.

They found themselves in a covered walkway wide enough for cars. Directly in front of them a courtyard opened to the sky, a few 1930s automobiles parked around the center. On their right was a door to what must have been the apartment of the grumpy window lady, and on the left, three steps led to an entry hall. The floor was marble and a spiral staircase wrapped around an elevator that resembled a fancy birdcage.