The Pirate's Coin by Marianne Malone

Author:Marianne Malone [Malone, Marianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-97719-9
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

14

TIME GONE BY

ISABELLE DIDN’T SPEAK FOR A long while. She leaned back in her big chair. Ruthie noticed a slight tremor start in this suddenly frail-looking woman. Her breathing had become fast and shallow. The sides of the chair blocked the light and deepened the shadows on her now ashen face.

“Isabelle,” Ruthie said worriedly, “are you all right?”

Jack stood up. “I can go get the butler.”

Isabelle raised a hand and gestured for Jack to sit. “Forgive me. I just need a moment.”

They anxiously waited. Ruthie hoped they hadn’t brought something into this woman’s life that she might not be able to handle. Ruthie had heard people could actually die from shock.

Finally Isabelle straightened and looked again at the ledger. “The man in the studio with me the first time I touched the key was named Eugene … Eugene Monroe.”

“Monroe! Do you know if he was related to Phoebe?” Ruthie asked.

“Yes. He was Phoebe Monroe’s son. And Mrs. Thorne’s chauffeur.”

“That’s incredible!” Jack exclaimed.

“He had told me his mother’s remarkable story, about how she’d been born into slavery,” she explained.

“And her great-great-great … however many greats-granddaughter is in our class! Kendra Connor—she gave a report about Phoebe and their family business that was stolen by the mob,” Ruthie added.

“Tell me—did you find … anything else?” Isabelle asked.

“No. What do you mean?” Ruthie responded.

“I suppose I should back up a little.” Isabelle’s hands steadied and she began. “Eugene Monroe worked for Narcissa for many years. Long before I was even born. He raised a daughter, Eugenia. She’s the one who built the business based on your Phoebe’s recipes. Eugenia wrote them all down.”

“Eugenia wrote them down?” Ruthie asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Isabelle answered. “At about the same time that I came to work in the studio, in the late 1930s, some awful men wanted to take over her business, to buy it for a fraction of its real value. When Eugenia turned these men down, they stole the formulas and copied the products. They sold them as their own original goods, saying they invented them first and that she stole them. Someone in Eugenia’s company—they never learned who—had been selling the formulas to the crooks in secret.”

“Why did you ask us if we found anything else?” Jack interrupted.

“There were two documents, a will and a letter,” Isabelle stated. “You didn’t find them in the South Carolina room?”

“No,” Jack answered. “Why were they important?”

“The mobsters took Eugenia to court and those documents were to provide proof that Eugenia had willed the formulas to her family many years before and that Phoebe had invented the formulas. What a shame you didn’t find them.”

“But why were these things in the rooms at all?” Jack asked.

“Eugene Monroe asked me to use the key to shrink these two items and hide them—temporarily—until the trial began because the mobsters had attempted to steal them from Eugenia. I put them in the cabinet, certain that no one would find them.…” Isabelle struggled to keep her composure. “But Narcissa had been preparing the rooms to go on tour.

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