“Okay, Alfred, let’s go.”
We got into the elevator and Uncle Farrell pulled out the key for the executive suite. He was sweating pretty bad by that point. I was sweating too, and my tongue felt very thick in my mouth. We didn’t say anything. Secretly I was hoping our quest would come up a big fat zero. That way we could tell Mr. Myers we couldn’t find it and be half a million dollars richer without actually taking anything that wasn’t ours and that might not even be his.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped out. I could feel my heart slamming in my chest and it actually hurt to breathe. I inhaled shallower and shallower, to lessen the pain.
The double doors leading into Mr. Samson’s office suite were directly ahead of us. Uncle Farrell looked at his watch. I had already checked mine.
“Okay, four minutes down; we’re fine,” he said.
He slipped the key into the lock and the doors opened silently. I felt for the light switch.
“No lights,” Uncle Farrell hissed. He pulled the flashlight from his belt.
“Somebody could see that too,” I said.
“Well, gee, Alfred, I left my infrared night-vision goggles at home, so I guess we don’t have much choice.”
He clicked on the flashlight and the beam of light glanced off the dark mahogany of the secretary’s desk.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“But I don’t think it would be out here.”
He pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket.
“Aren’t those for washing dishes?” I asked.
“I got ’em from the janitor’s closet. Here, put them on.”
“Where are yours?” I asked.
“I work here, Al,” he reminded me. “My fingerprints won’t mean anything.”
“But won’t the cops wonder why your fingerprints are all over Mr. Samson’s things?”
He stared at me for a second. “We only got one pair.”
I pulled off the left glove and handed it to him.
“I’m right-handed,” he said.
“So am I,” I said.
We stared at each other for a second.
“What?” he asked. “I can’t be expected to think of everything.”
I sighed, and put the glove back on. He swung his flashlight toward the left, where it glinted on the gold-plated doorknob of the door leading to Samson’s office.
“If it’s anywhere in this place,” he breathed, “it would be in there. Hold the light, Al.”
I shone the flashlight on Uncle Farrell’s key ring as his shaking fingers searched for the right key. I tried to check my watch, but it was too dark and Uncle Farrell needed the light.
He found a key he thought was the right one, but it wasn’t. He cursed and started over.
He tried another key. This one slid right in and we stepped into Mr. Samson’s inner office. There was a massive desk facing the door, a leather sofa along the wall beside it, and bookcases lining three sides of the room. The place was huge, about twice the size of Uncle Farrell’s apartment. Against the far wall, to the left of the desk, was another door.
“Okay,” Farrell said. “Where would it be?”
I thought about it. “Well, it’s a sword, and it must be pretty big. He can’t just hide it anywhere.”
“Maybe those bookcases open to a secret chamber or somethin’,” Uncle Farrell said. “Saw that on Scooby-Doo.”
“You watch Scooby-Doo?”
“When I was a kid. Al, that show’s been around forever.”
“If this was Scooby-Doo, you’d be the bad guy,” I said. “The bad guy was always the janitor or the night watchman.”
“What a relief it is, Al, that it’s not.”
The far wall was one big window, all glass, commanding a view of the downtown below. Just enough light came through that Uncle Farrell could switch off the flashlight and still see. He went to the other door and disappeared inside. I heard him gasp. “Jeez Louise!” He stepped back into the room.
“Bathroom. I think the faucet’s made of solid gold.”
I looked at my watch. “Nine minutes into the window. We got to hurry.”
I didn’t know where to look in the big, sparse office. All I could see were bookcases, filled mostly with knickknacks and pictures, a potted palm tree, a sofa, a coffee table, the desk and chair, and that was about it. I pulled on a drawer handle in the desk, but it was locked. Of course, he couldn’t fit a full-length sword into a desk drawer. Maybe Uncle Farrell was right, and we should look for a secret hiding place somewhere. Maybe a safe behind that big watercolor over the sofa. You saw that all the time in the movies. Uncle Farrell stood by the door leading to the reception area, his cool completely gone.
“Why are you just standing there?” Uncle Farrell snapped at me.
“I don’t know where to look,” I admitted. “Maybe Mr. Myers was wrong. Maybe it isn’t here.”
“It’s here,” he insisted.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know.”
“You don’t know but you just know?”
“Shut up, Alfred. I’m trying to think.”
I sat down in Mr. Samson’s leather chair. I had never sat in a more comfortable chair in my whole life. It felt like the chair was hugging me. I wondered how much a chair like this cost.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m thinking,” I said.
“Alfred, we don’t got that kinda time.”
Bernard Samson kept a clean desk. His blotter was bare. On one corner sat a framed photograph of a man with a big white dog that looked like a cross between a wolf and a Saint Bernard. I wondered if the man was Mr. Samson—maybe he got that kind of dog because his name was Bernard too. Other than the picture, there was a penholder and a nameplate, in case somebody forgot when they walked in who was sitting in the big fat hugging chair. I looked at the picture again. The man was broad-shouldered, with a large head and a mass of golden brown hair that he wore swept back from his high forehead, like a lion’s mane.
I lifted the blotter an inch or two, which isn’t an easy thing to do when you’re wearing Playtex rubber gloves; sometimes guys hid things under their blotters.