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way to the Vanderlays, but I didn’t like to leave Arrock alone in public for long.  He has a very sensitive temperament for an Ogre.
    We stepped onto the train and threaded our way to seats.  The great machine lurched forth, belching dark, rheumy boils of coal dust and black breath.  I examined Jonas’s blackened eyes and the bruise on his jaw.  The train, the city, and the missing child all faded.  There was only my boy.

Jonas
     
    My jaw hurt like Hell, and my left arm hurt worse, but damned if I’d let Pop know it.  He’d probably wizard me back to bed.  I looked at his disguise.  I would never have recognized him.  Even that magic cane of his changed color.  I wondered if he really changed—or if it was an illusion like those phantom Redcaps I tried to fight.
    The great iron beast screeched as we came to a stop.  “This is our station,” said Pop.  I nodded and we stepped off of the train.  It was a short walk from the stop to the Vanderlay estate, that they called Riverview.  They lived in Harlem, not far from the farm where Pop spent his childhood.
    “How well do you know Vanderlay?” I asked Pop.
    “Quite well,” he said.  “I know him, his parents, and his grandparents. I’m well acquainted with the family line.”
    “And?”
    “Terrible people, every one of them.”
    Their locked iron gate looked foreboding, despite the wrought iron swirls and ripples that intertwined with the solid vertical bars.  A keeper bundled in coats sat in the nearby gatehouse, looking cold and annoyed at our presence.  “How can I help you, Officer?” he said as he looked over my uniform and badge.  I hated wearing my blues, but it got me places I didn’t belong.
    “We’re here about young Stewart.”
    The keeper nodded and unlocked the gate.  It swung open and we stepped through before it slammed and locked behind us.
    Riverview was far from the grime and smoke of the city.  The snow that covered the hilly land was lily white in the sun and cornflower blue in the shadows.  A broad path of paved stones led to the main house, which stood on the hillside like a proud king surveying his realm.
    “Not bad,” I said as we climbed the stoop.  “It’s bigger than Turtle House.”
    Pop stopped short and raised his head as if he was sniffing the wind.
    “What is it?”
    He tried to rub his beard and finding it no longer there, rubbed his double chin.  “There is a very powerful magic inside of this house.  I can’t tell what it is, but it is something very old.”
    “Older than you?”
    “Older than Methuselah.”
    “That’s old.” 
    “Yes.”  He knocked on the door.  “They know you, so you should take the lead.”
    The butler greeted us.  He looked like an older version of Hendricks, tall and thin, but his Adam’s apple wasn’t as big.  I wondered if all butlers were required to look that way.
    He led us to the entry hall, a huge room with tapestries on the walls and a crystal chandelier overhead.  In front of us was a grand staircase with a rose red carpet on the stairs.  The carpet flowed through the hall and under our feet.
    Any fool could tell that this was a house in mourning.  Black curtains hung over the windows, and a black curtain drooped over the large mirror on the wall. 
    “The Mister and Missus are in the parlour,” the butler said.  “Follow me, if it pleases you.”
    The Vanderlays sat on a pink couch in the French style.  Vanderlay was a stout man, his hair thick and black, tapering down to a clean shaven face.  Like his hair, his eyebrows were bushy and they angled toward the bridge of his nose like an elbow’s crook.  He seemed the inverse of his wife, who was thin, white with powder, and delicate.  If a lily took human form, it would look like Edna Vanderlay.  The difference was that she wore black, as a mourning mother should.
    The butler cleared his throat.  “Sir, Madam, presenting Officer Hood and…”
    “Detective Dupin,” Pop answered.