by Bill Doyle
The silence of the house filled my ears until it was almost unbearably loud.
I was just starting to think that I had imagined the click when I heard a very quiet scuffle, like the soles of someone’s shoes rubbing against the marble of the front hall.
There was definitely someone in the house.
Silently rubbing the clay off my hands, I thought about calling out to see if it was Dad … but why would he be sneaking around? I glanced at the videophone. It was at the far side of the office away from the door.
If I darted for the phone, I’d be cornered up against the old garage door. I wouldn’t be able to escape if someone came into the office.
Better to sprint out of the office and try to make it to the kitchen phone. There was a backdoor in the kitchen, so I wouldn’t be trapped. Taking a deep breath, I bolted through the office door and sprinted toward the kitchen.
Heavy footsteps pounded down the hall behind me. I was being chased! Suddenly I felt my legs being swept out from under me. It was an expert move—but I managed to stick out my hand and catch myself on the wall. I kept my balance.
But it was clear I wasn’t going to get away from the intruder. It was time to put some of Judge’s training to work. I executed a quick turn and took a defensive stance.
And found Maura, the pilot, looking at me with that same stony expression.
“Hey!” I shouted. “What are you doing creeping around my house?”
“You left the front door open.”
I felt myself flush. She was right. I had made a stupid mistake, especially since I had just come back from three weeks of detective training. “What? Do you go around tripping everyone who leaves a door open?” I demanded.
She calmly crossed her arms. “Judge Pinkerton told me to return and said that there might be trouble. I wasn’t sure who you were or if you might be armed. I’m here to take charge of the situation.”
MAURA PLANNED TO “TAKE CHARGE”!
“If by ‘take charge’ you mean ‘stay out of my way so I can find my dad,’ then sure, I guess that would work.”
“Whatever you say,” she said coolly.
“Come on,” I retorted. “I have to get back to work.”
THE RECONSTRUCTED FACE LOOKED FAMILIAR—BUT WHY?
June 2, 2007
7:30 PM
For the next three hours, I worked on reconstructing the face over the skull. Maura had made a sweep through the house—checking to make sure that there were no intruders or a ransom note that I had missed. But, like me, she had come up empty–handed. There were no concrete clues as to what had happened to my dad.
Now she was perched on the edge of Dad’s desk, watching me work. “I think you might be wasting your time. Your dad’s probably just at the store or the movies,” Maura said. “He wasn’t expecting you to be home for another week. Maybe he went out of town.”
“I hope so,” I said, gently pushing a piece of clay onto the skull. “But Judge spoke with him this morning. She told him I’d be home today.”
Finally, the head was done. I took a step back and looked at my work: It was a man. And he had a face that looked familiar to me.
“Does this look like anyone you know?” I asked Maura. “Or knew?”
She stood and moved closer to examine the head. “I can’t put my finger on it,” Maura said thoughtfully, “but his face is ringing a bell.”
I nodded in agreement. Bells were definitely ringing. But who was he?
I grabbed my digital camera, snapped a quick pic, and downloaded it to my computer.
“What are you doing?” Maura asked.
“My dad got us this cool facial recognition software,” I told her. “You just put in a photograph of someone’s face. The program looks at skin texture and facial characteristics, like the distance between the eye sockets or the point of a nose. Then it tries to match the face you put in to others in the database. It’s not as good as a fingerprint. But since the skull is all we have to work with …”
“I didn’t think there was a central database with everyone’s faces” Maura observed.
“There isn’t,” I agreed. “So I just told my computer to check with the different databases around the world that do—including those in museums. It’s going to take a while to go through all those photos.”
JUST THE FACTS
In the early 1990s, researchers developed EIGENFACES, a facial recognition program that zeroes in on 128 different points on a person’s face (from photos, video, or sketches). It compares those points to other people’s faces and looks for a match.
The United States Marshals Service recently used the Illinois facial reconstruction database to track down info on one of their 15 Most Wanted fugitives. After entering the booking photo of Daniel Escobedo, the system scanned over eight million driver’s license images in the database. The man’s license popped up first within seconds.
I USE A VERSION OF THIS SOFTWARE
With my computer working away, I examined the face again. “How do I know you?” I asked it.
In a flash, something popped into my head. “My dad always says, ‘Nick, you can tell a lot about a person by where they look when you’re talking to them.”
Maura looked at her watch, as if she wasn’t sure how long she’d have to be here. “That’s a nice saying.” Her tone was one you would use with a little kid.
“How about the mystery wan?” I wondered out loud. “Where is he looking?”
I grabbed a tape measure. I hooked one end to the top of the face and extended the tape, following the face’s gaze across the room as if it were a straight arrow. The face’s line of “vision” traveled over the mess on the floor to the bookshelf.
On a whim, I removed one of the books from the general area in which the skull was looking. It was a book about trains in 1906. I flipped quickly through the pages and then gave the book a shake. No secret note fell out. I took another book down from the same area and got the same results. Nothing.
I was just turning away from the bookshelf, when something caught my eye.
BAM!
The polished metal corner of some kind of door shone through the space I had made in the bookshelf. There was something hidden behind the other volumes. Maura noticed it, too. Together, we removed the rest of the books from that shelf.
Soon we were looking at the door of a hidden safe.
My heartbeat kicked up a notch.
“You didn’t know this safe was back there?” Maura asked.
I shook my head. “Dad must have known that I would put the skull in the same place I always do—and that when I reconstructed the face, it would be looking at this spot!”
I yanked on the safe door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked tight. I looked more closely—the safe had a small microphone.
SPY SHOP
Congratulations on your purchase of the Sez-U 2200 Safe! Key locks have been replaced by biometrics. The safe will only open for people with authorized “voiceprints” and the correct password. Why is this better? You can forget your keys—but you can’t forget your voice!
THIS IS THE SAFE MY DAD BOUGHT
Oh, no, I thought. That meant it had a voice recognition lock.
There were tons of biometric systems in our house—like the locks on the doors, the lights, and even the TV remote. The systems were able to read different human characteristics, like the shape of the face, fingerprints, and voice patterns. For example, if you didn’t have the right retina, the front door wouldn’t unlock for you.
“My dad set all the biometrics systems in the house to accept voice commands from him and me,” I told Maura. “But this safe is different. To open it, you not only need the right voice—which I have—but also the correct password—which I don’t have.”
Maura tapped a finger against her lips, clearly trying to think of a way into the safe. I was glad she didn’t suggest that I just “safecrack” it.
TALK ABOUT WORKING UNDER PRESSURE…
Safecr
acking Down Under
In the early twentieth century, Charles Courtney had two loves: mechanical things (especially locks) and undersea diving. He decided to combine his two loves and went to work as a safecracker on sunken ships. The first person to crack a safe 400 feet underwater, he recovered millions of dollars during his career!
Thanks to Hollywood, lots of people think it’s easy for a detective or a safecracker to unlock a safe. But most safecrackers don’t use stethoscopes to listen to clicking lock tumblers like in the movies. That would take much too long and might not even lead to success. Instead, they drill through the casing, smash the safe open, or just blow the door off.
I didn’t have the equipment for any of that. I started trying passwords. “Unlock,” I said. The safe made a harsh BUZZ! Sound and stayed locked. I had guessed wrong.
Hmmm … any good investigator knows that most people use their birthdays or names of relatives as passwords. I tried my dad’s birthday and then my own, and the safe buzzed twice. I spoke my name “Nick”—BUZZ!—and my dad’s “Henry”—BUZZ!
Maura calmly raised an eyebrow, as if to say, What are you doing?
For some reason, her calm only frustrated me more and I yelled, “I don’t know!”
BUZZ!
Suddenly, a woman’s pleasant voice came from the safe. “Due to six unsuccessful password attempts, security measure 865 is now in place. If you fail twice more, the contents of the safe will be destroyed to protect them from wrongful possession.”
I forced my mouth closed. I had been about to make another guess at the password—but now every guess counted.
I ONLY HAD TWO MORE CHANCES TO FIGURE OUT THE PASSWORD!
I gestured for Maura to follow me away from the safe, so that it wouldn’t overhear our conversation and think that we were trying out passwords.
“I need you to help me brainstorm,” I said to her when we were huddled in the corner.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes focused intently on me. “You’ve tried all the types of words I would have tried. I have the feeling that it is something only you would know. Has your father said anything to you lately that was only between the two of you?”
My mind started working. Dad and I shared a lot of stuff, but I couldn’t think of anything that could be boiled down into a password. I shook my head.
But Maura wasn’t giving up. “So he hasn’t said anything to you lately that struck you as a little strange?”
“No,” I answered. “But someone else has.”
I reminded Maura that the strange guy at the door had uttered some kind of nutty phrase before running off.
“Could that be it?” Maura looked doubtful.
“The skull that the man gave me led us to the safe, so maybe what he said will open it.” Without waiting for her to respond, I rushed across the room. “Wonefas nepo!” I shouted.
There wasn’t even time for me to get my hopes up—BUZZ!
We had one more chance. Slow down, Nick, and think! I told myself.
I entered the words “Wonefas nepo” into my universal translator on my handheld PC, and it came up with nothing. Was I on the wrong track? Did I have the whole thing backward?
That’s it! I had the whole phrase backward!
I reversed the order of the phrase, letter for letter, and spoke with confidence: “Open safe now!”
There was a soothing BINS! and the door to the safe popped open.
THERE WAS A MESSAGE IN THE SAFE!
June 2, 2007
9:30 PM
For a second, I wondered why my dad hadn’t creaked a more complicated code to open the safe—like something he might have learned from my Uncle Zeke. Then the answer came to me: My dad couldn’t make the code too tricky or I might not have been able to crack it.
But I had!
I mentally patted myself on the back and reached eagerly into the safe, pulling out a scrap of paper. It was the only thing in the safe, and it had a message written in my dad’s handwriting.
I showed the note to Maura. Now that we had the safe open, it was okay to talk in a normal voice.
“The words are obvious,” I said. “Dad is congratulating me on getting into the safe.”
“But what about the numbers?” Maura wondered. “What do they mean?”
“Are they a date like 12/25?” I mused. “Is he talking about Christmas?”
Maura offered, “Maybe it’s a chapter and verse of something. …”
I shook my head. None of the stuff we were guessing sounded right.
“Could it be a time?”
I quickly scanned the office, searching for a clock. I didn’t see one anywhere. But I did notice something else about the room. I slapped my forehead in frustration.
“What?” Maura asked.
“I should have seen this ages ago!” I handed her the photo I’d taken of the office a few hours ago.
“I still don’t see it. …” Her eyes went wide as she understood. “Oh! Of course!”
I climbed up on a chair and looked down at the mess on the office floor. This time I really studied it. Yes, I was right. It was not just a random group of objects.
I said, “The mess was very deliberately laid out in the shape of a clock!”
REMEMBERING THESE SKETCHES HELPED ME SEE THE CLOCK IN THE MESS.
Founder of the Boy Scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941), sketched a moth on a twig while along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Baden-Powell was actually an English spy, and his drawing of a moth concealed the plan of an enemy fortress.
I grabbed a yardstick for the minute hand and a large book for the hour hand. I placed them on the shape of the clock face on the floor, so that the time read 12:25.
I wondered, “Does this mean he was kidnapped at 12.25?”
Maura shook her head. “How would he have time to set up a clock if he was being kidnapped?”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe the words on his note aren’t as obvious as I thought.”
I took another look at the note. I reread the line “Give yourself a big hand!”
“A big hand … big hand … BIG HAND! That’s it!” I cried. “My dad is talking about the big hand of the clock. He wants me to go where the big hand is pointing.”
I followed its direction to a poster that leaned against the wall. It was a picture of Mount Everest.
Just as I was reaching for the poster, my computer chimed, telling me it had identified the face I had reconstructed.
Maura and I rushed over and looked at the screen. One name flashed there: GEORGE MALLORY.
“George Mallory?” Maura asked. “The mountain climber?”
“That’s the only George Mallory I know.”
It was very strange. Mallory had died on Mount Everest more than 80 years ago. He had hoped to be the first person to ever climb the world’s highest mountain. And he may have succeeded. The only thing people know is that Mallory died at some point during the climb. No one is sure if it was before or after he made it to the top.
The man who got credit for being the first to person to summit Mount Everest is Sir Edmund Hillary. And he made his successful climb in 1953, nearly thirty years after Mallory died on the mountain.
MOUNTAIN MYSTERY?
by R. S. Grafton’
Born in England in 1886, George Mallory was an expert mountaineer who wanted to be the first to climb to the top of Mount Everest. In 1924, after two unsuccessful attempts, Mallory tried for the third time. As he neared the top, he was caught in bad weather and disappeared. His body wasn’t discovered until 1999. Did Mallory die before or after he reached the top? No one knows. Perhaps he was the first person to summit Everest, but no proof has ever been found. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary officially became the first person to reach the top.
It was one of the biggest mysteries in the past hundred years. Did Mallory make it to the top of Everest or not? Was he actually the first one there—and not Hillary?
An even bigger mystery in my mind was: W
hy did someone throw a replica of Mallory’s skull in my hands and then run off?
Maura and I stared at the flashing name on my screen for a moment longer. Then I went back to the poster of Mount Everest.
“Let’s get a better look at this under the desk light,” I said, lifting the poster up away from the wall. As I was placing it on the desk, my fingers brushed against something on the back.
I flipped the poster over and carefully set it facedown on the desk. There was a large envelope taped to the back.
“And the clues keep on coming,” I said under my breath. I slowly pulled the envelope free and opened it.
Inside was a piece of paper. Maura looked over my shoulder as I held it under the desk light to get a better look.
“That’s a copy of a page from a climbing diary,” Maura said.
“And look,” I added, pointing to the name on the page. “The diary belonged to George Mallory. It’s a list of the things he took with him on an expedition.”
I told her about the screenplay my dad was writing, and how it was about explorers from the past. “My dad likes to really feel the objects as he writes about them,” I told her. “He says it helps with his descriptions. So he gathers together the stuff he needs.”
We went to the side of my dad’s desk, and I showed Maura the large cardboard box where he’d been storing stuff for his script. Maura read the items on the list and checked them off when I found them in the box.
“Gloves,” she called out.
I dug around for a second and found them. “Check.”
“Oxygen tank.”
More rooting around and I plucked out the tank. “Check.”
Everything was in the box until Maura came to the last item on the list. “Kodak Vest Pocket camera,” she read aloud.
I did some more digging in the box, but this time I came up empty–handed. The camera wasn’t there.
