Chapter 3
Dalton said nothing and the look on his face gave no indication of what he was thinking.
She continued. “October sixth, eighteen-eighty-nine, is the day the Moulin Rouge opened. Toulouse-Lautrec hung out there. I believe that your father and my sister were planning on going back in time to Paris on that day. But something went wrong. She went. He didn’t. It was probably the lightning.”
Dalton had a faraway look that Juliet didn’t know how to interpret. “If you’ll just take the time to read what’s in my sister’s sketchbook, you’ll see that it’s the only explanation.”
Though Juliet continued talking, Dalton didn’t hear her. He was in a different place, almost as if he were floating on air. He was somewhere he hadn’t been in years, since before the rift with his father. He was in his comfort zone, that satisfying place where the job of fact checking became much more than the verification of information. He was in a place where fact checking turned into an adventure.
“Dalton?” said Juliet with concern. “ Are you okay? Please tell me you don’t think I’m nuts.”
“Quite the contrary,” he said excitedly, snapping back into the moment. “It all makes sense. Everything I couldn’t understand is now perfectly clear!” He was smiling intensely. “All the pieces fall into place!”
“What pieces?”
Dalton picked up the photograph of Peter Hillyer.
“When I claimed my father’s body, they gave me the clothing he was wearing. They weren’t his normal clothes. They were old. Not tattered and faded old, but clothes that a man would’ve worn in the late nineteenth century. And he had a thousand francs in his pocket, which was the equivalent of two hundred dollars. France hasn’t used francs since two thousand-two. And the ones in his pocket were from the late eighteen-eighties. I still have them. I called the money specialist my father used who said he bought ten thousand francs from him. He specifically requested bills from the late eighteen-eighties.”
“If he only had a thousand with him, I bet he gave the rest to Eliza.”
Dalton nodded in agreement, then read the last entry in the sketchbook again. “’Peter Hillyer found the way.’” He turned to Juliet, then in a low, serious tone said, ‘To go back in time.’ The question is how?”
“Why did you keep the francs?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. My father and I weren’t on very good terms. He tried to text me something before he died. Four words. Actually, one word and a few letters. I’ve never been able to figure it out: ‘call qi mdfo lxg’.”
“What happened to the chatelaine?” asked Juliet.
“I have it.” Dalton walked to a non-descript file cabinet in the far corner of the room and opened the bottom drawer. Years before, he’d wrapped the chatelaine in a simple, yellow cloth hand towel. He removed it and held it out towards Juliet. He’d forgotten how heavy it was. “See, there’s a small knife, a timepiece, locket, magnifying glass, compass and this one thing. I don’t know what it is. How my father obtained this was another unanswered question.”
“I can answer that,” Juliet said matter-of-factly. “It belonged to my sister.”
Dalton perked up. “How did she get it?”
“There’s something Eliza wrote that explains it.” She turned to the beginning of the sketchbook. “Here. It contains the first mention of your father.” She handed it to Dalton. “Read it. It’s not very long.”
Dalton read the entry.
December 5
Charlotte Twill sent me a piece of jewelry
from Paris called a chatelaine that she found
in a flea market. She said something weird
happened. A stranger wanted to buy it.
She said no. He tried to haggle with her
and when she still refused he said people
had been looking for it for many years and
that it was valuable and powerful. I’m going
to have my friend Peter check on it for me.
He’s a professional fact checker.
“She owns a shop on the Upper East Side specializing in French antiques,” said Juliet. “She and my sister were in a French book club. Here’s her phone number.” She handed Dalton a Post-it.
“Did you call her?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”
‘Let’s see what she has to say?” He dialed Charlotte Twill’s number and put the call on speaker.
“Twill’s Space!” a high, cheery female voice said.
“Charlotte Twill, please.”
“This is she.”
“Ms. Twill, my name is Dalton Hillyer. I’m calling about a friend of yours. Eliza Kinkaid.”
“Dear Eliza,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of the fact that seven years have passed since she disappeared.”
“Lovely girl,” she said almost in a whisper.
“I’m calling on behalf of her sister, Juliet. Some months before Eliza vanished, she received a gift from you that you bought at a flea market in Paris.”
“The chatelaine.”
“Eliza wrote in her journal that someone tried to buy it from you.”
“An odd incident. I’ve tried to put it out of my mind.”
“Did Eliza ever mention the name Peter Hillyer?”
“No. Didn’t you say that your last name is Hillyer?”
“Peter was my father. According to Eliza’s journal they knew each other. We think they were together the day she disappeared. I was hoping you knew of a connection.”
There was silence for several seconds. “Nothing comes to mind. Sorry.”
Dalton was about to thank her for her time when Charlotte said, “Actually, I do remember something. The man who wanted to buy it made a peculiar comment. In a very menacing tone, he tried to intimidate me by saying, ‘There are those who will stop at nothing to obtain it.’ Is that of any help?”
“It’s hard to say.”
“I just assumed he was trying to bully me.”
“Thank you, Ms. Twill.”
He gave her his phone number, hung up, pointed his iPhone at the chatelaine, snapped a photo then said, “I need to know more about this thing. Gonna have one of my specialists check it out.”
“What’shis specialty?” asked Juliet.
“Her. Ursula Borkart. Rare gems, but she has a side interest in magic and curses.”
“Someone can specialize in curses?”
“There are specialists in everything. I have contacts throughout the world. People who hire fact checkers want things done fast. When you know the right people, you get answers quickly. A phone call, e-mail, text, a tweet. If Ursula can’t help, she’ll know someone who can.”
He then sent the photo along with a text to:
Ursula, what do you know about chatelaines?
