A Will to Survive (14 page)

Encouraged by Tanya's discovery, the others threw themselves into the game. Frank grabbed a notepad and pen. He tried to keep track of all the suggestions. Then he sorted them into three groups—possible, unlikely, and just plain strange. Soon every creature and object in the painting had been looked at, named, and made the object of bad puns.

“Okay, what have we got?” Jack asked.

Frank studied the page. “Say we read the painting from left to right and top to bottom,” he said. “We get, ‘For diamond back, bear right under stag.' ”

“Hey, it actually makes sense,” Joe said.

“So far, yes,” Frank said. “But then we have ‘Bison sea lion.' Not very helpful.”

“Maybe we're being too exact,” Callie suggested. “Most people call bisons buffalo.”

“Sure,” Wendy said. “And they call sea lions seals, too.”

“Great,” Sal grumbled. “So instead of bison sea lion, we get buffalo seal. Whoopdedoo.”

“Tanya?” Frank said. “Where in the building is there a stag?”

Tanya thought for a moment. “We have a marble statue, life-size, in the east-wing corridor, and a
mounted head over the doorway to the third exhibit room. That room was formerly Parent's private den.”

“Let's go!” Joe cried, leading the way. The stag's head was very prominent. Joe walked under it and turned right, then stopped. “Now what?”

“Buffalo seal,” Sal repeated.

Joe looked around the room. Like the other rooms on the main floor, its walls were paneled in antique wood. This room was especially elaborate. The panels had medieval shields and coats of arms carved into them. Most of the carvings were above eye level. One, just to the right of the doorway, was barely waist-high.

“A
low seal!”
Joe muttered to himself. He raised his voice. “That's it! Buff a low seal!”

Holding his breath, he reached out and rubbed the carving. As his fingers passed over the armor helmet that topped the shield, he felt it move inward. There was a faint click. A section of the panel just below the shield swung open.

The shallow compartment behind the panel held only a shoebox and an envelope. Joe took them out and handed them to Tanya. She lifted the lid of the shoebox. It was as if someone had just turned on a floodlight. The box was half full of loose diamonds that sparkled in the light. Most were clear, but Joe noticed some with a blue, yellow, or pink tint.

At one end of the box was a stack of little brown envelopes, held together by a rubber band. Tanya
took one from the stack and shook its contents into her palm. She held up a gem the size of a marble.

Everyone gasped. Tanya put the diamond back in its little envelope and closed the shoebox. She handed the box back to Joe. “Please hold this for me,” she said.

Joe gripped it tightly. How often did he get a chance to hold fifteen million dollars?

“Well, now we know where Walter Parent's fortune went,” Frank said.

Tanya had opened the envelope and was reading through the document it contained. She glanced at Dylan.

“We also know where his fortune is to go,” she said. “This is a codicil to his will. It was not drafted by his usual law firm, and it was added after the original will was drawn up. He must have gone to someone else, someone who didn't know him, so that the document would remain secret.”

“What does it say?” Dylan asked anxiously.

Tanya cleared her throat. “First, it cancels a sealed document he left with his lawyers that would have given the diamonds to a fund to further wildlife painting. And second, it bequeaths a portion of the gems to his cousin, Elaine Silver, and her son, Dylan.”

Dylan let out a triumphant yell. He picked up Wendy by the waist and swung her around. When he finally put her down, he turned to Tanya. “Thank you! Is there any chance I could join the
internship program?” he asked. “I like it here, and I sort of feel I owe something to Uncle Walter.”

“Well . . .” Tanya said gravely. “It happens that we have two vacancies coming up. Unless, of course, Frank and Joe want to stay on for the rest of the summer.”

“No, that's okay,” Frank said hastily. “It's been very interesting, but . . .”

“There are other cases people have asked us to look into,” Joe said. “But we'd like to come back to visit.”

“Any time at all,” Tanya declared. “You will both be lifetime members of Shorewood Nature Center. And when the trustees meet, I plan to ask them to give you a token of our appreciation. The painting in the entrance hall must stay there, by the terms of Parent's will. But we have many others. If the trustees agree, you may take your choice.”

Joe looked at Frank. He could imagine what their mom and dad would say when they walked in with a gigantic painting of a badger or an aardvark.

“Um, thanks a lot,” Joe said. “We don't really need it, though. Being detectives is already enough of a
wild life!”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Aladdin Paperbacks edition October 2002

First Minstrel edition May 1999

Copyright © 1999 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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ISBN 0-671-03464-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1440-7 (eBook)