“So you know him,” Evangeline said, relieved and a bit amazed that the name corresponded to a
real person.
“Everyone knows Mr. Carroll,” the man said, walking out from behind the desk and leading them to
the street. “He lives across from the museum.” He pointed to an elegant prewar apartment building,
slightly slouched with age. A copper mansard roof punctuated with great porthole windows topped
the building, a wash of patina streaking the bronze green. “But he’s hanging around here all the time.
He’s one of the old guard of the museum.”
Bruno and Evangeline hurried across the street to the apartment building. Once inside the entryway,
Bruno and Evangeline found the name CARROLL written on a brass mailbox: apartment nine, floor
five. They called a rickety elevator, the wooden cab filled with a floral powder essence, as if it had
recently released old ladies on their way to church. Evangeline pressed a black knob stamped with a
white 5. The elevator door creaked closed as the car lurched, grinding slowly upward. Bruno took
Abigail Rockefeller’s card from his pocket and held it.
On the fifth floor, there were two apartments, both equally quiet. Bruno checked the number and,
finding the correct door—a brass number 9 screwed on it—he knocked.
The door opened a crack, and an old man peered at them, his large blue eyes glistening with
curiosity. “Yes?” the man whispered, his voice barely audible. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Carroll?” Bruno said, personable and polite, as if he had knocked on a hundred such doors.
“Very sorry to disturb you, but we have been given your name and address by—”
“Abby,” he said, his eyes fixed on the card in Bruno’s hand. He opened the door wide and waved
them inside. “Please, come in. I have been expecting you.”
A pair of Yorkshire terriers with red ribbons tied into the fur over their eyes jumped off a couch
and bounded to the door as Bruno and Evangeline stepped into the apartment, barking as if to frighten
away intruders.
“Oh, you silly girls,” Alistair Carroll said. He swooped them up, tucking one dog under each arm,
and carried them down a hallway.
The apartment was spacious, the antique furniture simple. Each object appeared both treasured and
neglected, as if the decor had been painstakingly chosen with the intent that it would be ignored.
Evangeline sat on the couch, its cushions still warm from the dogs. A marble fireplace held a small,
intense fire that sent heat through the room. A polished Chippendale coffee table sat before her, a
crystal bowl of hard candies at its center. Except for a Sunday Times folded discreetly on an end
table, it appeared as though nothing had been touched in fifty years. A framed color lithograph sat
upon the mantel of the fireplace, a portrait of a woman, stout and pink, with the features of a wary
bird. Evangeline had never had reason or desire to seek out a likeness of Mrs. Abigail Rockefeller,
but she knew in an instant that this was the woman herself.
Alistair Carroll returned without the dogs. He had short, precisely clipped gray hair. He wore
brown corduroy trousers, a tweed jacket, and had a comforting manner that put Evangeline at ease.
“You must forgive my girls,” he said, sitting in an armchair near the fire. “They are unused to
company. We have very few guests these days. They were simply overjoyed to see you.” He clasped
his hands in his lap. “But enough of that,” he said. “You haven’t come here for pleasantries.”
“Maybe you can tell us why we are here,” Bruno said, joining Evangeline on the couch and placing
the Rockefeller card on the table. “There was no explanation—only your name and the Museum of
Modern Art.”
Alistair Carroll unfolded a pair of spectacles and put them on. Picking up the envelope, he
examined it closely. “Abby wrote out that card in my presence,” he said. “But you have only one
card. Where are the others?”
“There are six of us working together,” Evangeline said. “We split into groups, to save time. My
grandmother has two envelopes.”
“Tell me,” Alistair said, “is your grandmother named Celestine Clochette?”
Evangeline was surprised to here Celestine’s name, especially from a man who could not possibly
have known her. “No,” she said. “Celestine Clochette is dead.”
“I am very sorry to hear that,” Alistair said, shaking his head in dismay. “And I am also sorry to
hear that the recovery effort is being done in a piecemeal fashion. Abby made specific requirements
that the recovery would be accomplished by one person, either Mother Innocenta or, if time went by,