Simon took a deep breath and dashed. He reached the wall and leaned against it gasping for breath, looking and listening. Not a sound. Not a soul.
Simon strained his eyes through the darkness. Now he was glad for that moon. He needed to locate the head of the figure of Neptune with its spiky crown that would be his guide to the gate; it was about forty feet away around a bend in the wall, rearing up blackly in the moonlight.
Simon grinned to himself as he crept along in the shadows. He was thinking of the many times he’d stood in the garden and droned, “This fourteen-foot iron sculpture of the god of the sea was acquired by Dorothea Fox-Nugent on a trip to Italy in 1920. She had it shipped to Florida and placed at this gate, appropriately in view of the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.” Thanks, Dorothea, he thought. It’s a great guide. The gate was a cinch to climb, and he dropped into the sweet-smelling garden.
The door he wanted was at the foot of a loading ramp at the rear of the château. Simon ran across the garden, leaping flower beds and feeling in his pocket for the key. It better fit. The locksmith had called the original an “old timer” and said he hadn’t seen one like it in years. Simon had told him it came from his grandmother’s attic in Georgia. He walked down the ramp and put the key in the lock. It turned.
He stood for a few seconds, telling himself to calm down or take it easy or whatever you’re supposed to do when your heart is racing. Then he opened the door and beamed his pocket flashlight around the pitch-dark storeroom. There was an elevator on one side and cement stairs on the other. He started up the stairs, his sneakers seeming to squeak loudly in the utter stillness, and went through the door to the main hall of the museum.
Moonlight streaming through the casement windows made all the familiar furniture and tapestries look ghostly and different. Simon stood still, listening. Faintly, from across the great hall and down a corridor, came the sound of Mr. O’Malley’s TV. Simon looked around, feeling like the intruder he knew he was. He shouldn’t be here alone. He should be saying to fifteen or twenty people, “This was the grand hall of the château, where families gathered and from where they mounted the stone staircase on your right to the bedchambers above. Mrs. Fox-Nugent had those rooms designated as galleries. Now, if you will follow me...”
He roused himself. The heck with “follow me.” There was no one to follow him as he took the stone steps two at a time. He didn’t need his flashlight here, he knew every inch of the hall, and he waved to the paintings and patted the marble behind of a Venus as he ran by. Now he turned a corner and reached a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. It took only a minute to get the gear from his locker, then he was back down the hall to Her Place, as the staff called the room where Dorothea Fox-Nugent’s portrait hung. He beamed his light around the room and almost laughed out loud. He’d made it!
Quickly, Simon moved to the one big window across which heavy velvet draperies were always drawn to keep out the damaging sun. He made sure there wasn’t a chink, then reached for the wall switch. The room lit up and he drew a deep breath of satisfaction and got to work.
First he unfolded his easel and set it before the Van Zeller Nativity, then unrolled a canvas and thumbtacked it to its wooden frame. Next he pulled forward a wrought-iron table from which he lifted a porcelain shepherdess — careful here, it was immensely valuable — and set it on the floor at a safe distance. A Florentine stool proved just the right height, and Simon opened his paints and sat down. He was alone with one of the most beautiful paintings in the world and about to make the best copy of it ever. He scanned his canvas — the light wasn’t great — and found the pencil sketch he’d made. Then he looked over his shoulder at the portrait of Dorothea, blew it a kiss, and said aloud, “I know you don’t approve of liquid paints in the galleries, honey, but please don’t snitch, and Merry Christmas.” He began to mix his paints.
“Snitch? I shall have you arrested.”
Simon sat still, petrified. He forced himself to look around the room at the empty shadows and the dark of the door. No one. Then a rustling sound from the portrait drew his eyes. Dorothea was stepping out of the frame, satin dress shimmering, diamonds sparkling as she descended to the floor, leaving a faded image on the canvas behind her. She was surrounded by an odd, pale light.
Dazed, Simon heard himself say, “A ghost. A real see-through ghost...”
“You aren’t afraid?”
Sure he was terrified, but he tried to shore up his courage with a little joke. “I guess... better a ghost than the guard.” Not funny. He could only swallow and keep staring.
Dorothea drifted nearer. “You realize that I could touch the alarm and the police would be here in three minutes.”
This made him say, “Well, not really three, and I could be out of here in two. I know the joint. I work here.”
She swirled back from him, her eyes flashing almost like her jewels. “Don’t you know enough to stand up when a lady comes in the room?”
Shakily, Simon stood up. “I guess the way you came in was so weird I forgot to.” He faced her, slowly beginning to realize that he had nothing to fear from this spook except the possibility of being thrown out. She returned his look with an icy stare and said, “I once had a little stableboy who was a Negro.”
“Figures.”
“He was also a thief.”
Simon shrugged. “Maybe he thought that if he belonged to you, then what you had belonged to him.”
“He didn’t belong to me!” The light around her flared. “He was a servant, not a slave. Good heavens, how old do you think I am?”
Simon said in his tour guide voice, “She was born in 1895 in New York City of Irish immigrant parents. Self trained, she became secretary to the millionaire banker Everett Fox-Nugent and married his son, Everett Jr., in 1915, et cetera, et cetera. I probably know everything about you there is to know.” He looked longingly at his easel.
“Then you know that I left strict provisions in my will regarding this museum. Visitors may be allowed to dry sketch but no liquid paints are permitted in any of the galleries.” She pointed indignantly at his paints, then gasped. “The shepherdess! Where is it? That is one of the most valuable—”
“—items in the collection.” Simon was getting impatient. “Executed in 1710 by Henri Duvivier, blah, blah, blah, and there it is safe and sound. Look, lady, I’m not hurting anything, so just listen to me for a minute, will you?”
She glared at him but was silent. Simon went on in the most polite voice he could muster. “My name is Simon Judson and I’m an artist; that is, I want to be one. I took a job here as a tour guide because I love this stuff. I go to the Ringling School of Art and our assignment over the Christmas vacation is to make a copy of a famous Nativity. That Van Zeller,” his eyes went to it lovingly, “is one of my favorite paintings.”
“There are postcards of it in the gift shop.”
“I don’t want to copy any dumb postcard!” He bit his lip, not wanting to sound rude. “I want to sit here with it, just Van Zeller and me.”
“Oh, you are to be given special privileges, are you?” she said sarcastically. “You are to be allowed to splash your paints—”
“I’m not splashing!” Simon was getting mad. “I’m being real careful and I only have three nights. The day after Christmas they’re starting to make more storage space in the basement and the door I stole a key to will be boarded up so when...”