The Case of the Perilous Palace (The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, Book 4)

by Jordan Stratford

  “Must?”

  “You were about to say you must be getting home.”

  “You’re right, I imagine I was,” agreed Mary.

  “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow evening. I have plans to make.”

  “Ah yes, breaking into a royal palace with armed guards about. Any ideas?” Mary asked.

  “That,” said Ada, still without looking up, “is what the plan-making is for.”

  Mary nodded, carefully stepping over the snoring pug that had fallen asleep in the doorway.

  Mary returned home, climbing the stairs to her apartment to find no one in the parlor at all. The entire family was in the kitchen, engulfed in much laughter and the scent of raisins and brandy.

  “Mary!” said Jane. “You’ve been gone for ages. We’ve already had our turn, now you have a go.” She gestured to the pot on the counter, lined with a linen bag, inside of which was a delicious concoction of currants, dried apples, and pears; eggs, milk, and flour; butter and suet; and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. It was the smell of Christmas, and in the pot was a massive wooden spoon that reminded Mary of one of Ada’s wrenches.

  “No plums?” Mary asked—this was a bit of a family joke.

  “No plums in plum pudding, and that’s the secret of it,” said Mr. Godwin with a wink. “Go on, Mary, have at it! Give it a proper stir now, or your wish won’t come true. Clockwise, mind you, with your eyes closed.”

  Mary grinned at her family as she took the spoon in her hand and shut her eyes tight.

  “Stir, stir!” they chanted, and Mary laughed so hard she couldn’t remember what her wish should be, and settled on a happy Christmas for everyone, though she dared not say it aloud lest she spoil it.

  “Well done, well done, my darling,” Mr. Godwin said. “Now, I’ll just have a taste of that…”

  “You won’t, you silly man,” insisted Mrs. Godwin, her French accent poking through the words. “This will take at least five hours to boil. Not a crumb before Christmas Eve.”

  “This will be a proper cannonball,” Mr. Godwin declared, and thus satisfied, scooped up the baby and left the kitchen in search of a book.

  * * *

  The next morning, Mary discovered that plans, apparently, had been made.

  A hastily scrawled note and enclosed shillings had been delivered to her door. Jane had intercepted the message, and sensing that clandestine work was afoot, concocted a cover story that Mary was invited to spend the night with Ada. This meant that Mary could avoid lying to her parents. Jane’s story was not strictly untrue, but Mary still felt guilty for it.

  And yet she was, in the snow, on the edge of Kensington Palace Green. The trees were lit from the glow of the moon reflecting on the snow, and the stars were bright and sharp against a velvet sky. It was enchanting. Like a painting.

  All was still. Eerily so. Without a wind, and only the gentlest falling of flakes, all sound was swallowed by the trees.

  All sound, that is, save a single psst.

  Mary looked around, blinking the snowflakes from her eyelashes.

  “Psst,” repeated the wood. “Mary,” it whispered, but in a raspy, loud sort of whisper. Briefly she wondered how the trees knew her name, before she remembered that even if they did, it would be extremely unusual for them to be whispering it, however loudly.

  “Hello?” asked Mary of Kensington Palace Green.

  “Over here.”

  Despite her better judgment, and probably because the scene was so pleasant, Mary strode toward the voice.

  Suddenly her imagination raced. It was, she was sure, some kind of faerie creature, come to lure her to her fate, lulling her to sleep for a hundred years. Or brigands, perhaps, pirates who would stuff her in some sort of sack and she would awaken in the hold of one of those very ships she had seen the day before, bound for the West Indies, a kidnapped captive.

  In the end, however, it was neither faeries nor pirates, just a particularly bendy nine-year-old girl. Ada’s little sister, Allegra.

  “Sorry for all the psst-ing,” said Allegra, her normal voice sounding like cannon fire in the quiet wood. “I was trying to be…whatsit…sneaky. Only, the word you and Ada use.”

  “Clandestine,” supplied Mary, embracing her friend. Some snow from Allegra’s cape brushed Mary’s cheek, but she didn’t mind.

  “That’s it. Now, help me with this bag.” Allegra shouldered one strap of a heavy canvas sack. Mary took the other, and wobbled a bit to catch her balance.

  “Good heavens, what’s all this?” Mary asked.

  “Rigging,” answered Allegra. “All my breaking-into-palace tools.”

  “You have breaking-into-palace tools?”

  “I’ve been saving them for a special occasion. Isn’t that fantastic?” Allegra beamed.

  Slowly the two made their way amongst the trees. It didn’t feel like trespassing, just a sort of magic.

  Every so often, Allegra would suddenly crouch and make a zzt zzt! noise, urging Mary to shush, and the girls would hear their weight crunch the snow underfoot, impossibly loudly. Then, with their hearts banging about their ears, they would proceed again.

  “What have we been doing?” whispered Mary.

  “Timing. Guards,” said Allegra. “They don’t do much but walk funny.”

  “It’s called marching.”

  “That. Past that window,” said Allegra, pointing to one side of the palace. “Every few minutes or so.”

  “Where is Ada?” Mary asked, surprised she hadn’t done so earlier.

  Allegra simply shrugged, and made another series of crunching steps. After a moment, they were close enough to the palace wall they could reach out from behind a convenient bush to touch it. And Mary leaned out to do precisely that.

  Allegra grabbed Mary’s arm and pulled it back into the bush just as two guards stepped crisply around the corner. Clearly, the guards were no longer visible from the front of the palace, as one began scratching his nose, and the two slowed a little, adjusting their uniforms and dusting snow off their lapels.

  Mary’s eyes were wide in the moonlight, and Allegra smiled at the thrill of it. They waited for the guards to pass, Mary’s blood hammering in her ears.

  “Where is Ada?” Mary dared to whisper.

  “There’s a plan,” answered Allegra.

  “What plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Allegra admitted. “Just that there is one. Help me with the bag.”

  They dragged the weighty canvas to the base of the brick wall, and unfastened it. From within, Allegra expertly hoisted ropes, tackle, blocks: all the sort of equipment Mary had seen earlier on the ships at the docks of the Isle of Dogs. Coiling the great ropes around her waist and shoulders, with a soft grunt Allegra pushed herself off the ground, fingers and toes finding tiny, frozen holds in the layers of palace brick.

  Up and up she went, at first effortless-seeming, but Mary knew the girl well enough to see the strain, the concentration, and even the fear. Regardless, Allegra pressed on, weighted by her burden of ship’s gear, up even beyond the window to the slight overhang of the roof and the timbers there, which Mary knew had a name, even if she didn’t know what it was.

  And that’s when Allegra really got impressive.

  Toes in the tiny lines between bricks, she bent over backward, grabbing the roof beams, and wove the heavy rope in and out and through little holes in the block of wood she’d hoisted all the way up there. Once the rigging was expertly in place, Allegra wrapped one rope around her foot, held the other in her hand, and descended to the ground lightly as the snowflakes fell all around them.

  Mary clapped silently with her gloved hands, and Allegra took a bow.

  “That was amazing!” Mary whispered, proud of her friend. “You could join a pirate ship, if you don’t find a circus.”

&n
bsp; “Come on,” said Allegra, beaming. “You’re next.” And in a trice she’d made a loop for Mary’s foot and showed her how to hang on. Then Allegra pulled downward on the rope in her hands, and Mary soared up a good two yards in a heartbeat.

  “How?” asked Mary.

  “Block and tackle,” said Allegra, pointing upward. “Ada can explain it. It’s in the plan. Anyway, it’s brilliant. Look.” And with another tug, Mary soared her full height and then some, up the brick wall. So the two proceeded, tugging and soaring, so that Mary could stretch out her hand and barely touch her fingertips on the windowsill above. A few tugs more, and she was looking in the window at the princess’s sitting room, where they’d been the day before. Remarkable!

  While it was exhilarating, it was not entirely comfortable. The higher she got off the ground, the chillier the wind, which got inside her cloak in ways unexpected. The rope began to tighten around her foot and was now biting. As she tried to adjust, the rope slipped—just an inch, but it was enough to get her heart beating in unpleasant ways.

  And suddenly she wished for the unpleasantness in her heart to return, for it ceased beating altogether when Mary spied the return of the two guards. Allegra had her back to them and so didn’t see their approach as she secured the two ropes together in some kind of sailor’s knot.

  “Allegra! Behind you!” Mary cried. But her voice was lost in the wind, and the guards didn’t even glance in her direction as they approached the strange sight of a little girl outside the palace walls, knotting a rope.

  “Hello there,” began one guard. “What’s this, then?”

  The two palace guards loomed over Allegra.

  “Oh, hello. I’m just breaking into the palace,” said Allegra.

  “Are you, now?” said the other guard. “How old would you be, then? Ten? You don’t look much older than ten, I reckon.”

  “Aye,” the first guard confirmed. “Ten, I reckon.”

  “Nine, actually,” said Allegra with a smile.

  “Nine.” Both guards nodded, until the first added, “Bit young for a life of crime, now, don’t you think?”

  “Haven’t given it much thought,” mused Allegra, finishing her ropework. “Is it crime?”

  “Well, it would be, if you broke into the palace,” said the second guard, after some consideration.

  “Good thing you caught me, then,” said Allegra. “Before I could commit any crime, that is.”

  “Aye, before,” said the first guard, a bit confused at this point. “Still, can’t have you about to be committing crimes either, eh? Leaving you here with all your criminal intent.”

  “No,” agreed Allegra. “Best we should all get out of here before any sort of crime occurs.”

  “Well, I think we’re quite safe from all that,” said the first guard. “I mean, that is to say, we are here for the prevention of such activities. So we should stay.”

  “All right,” Allegra piped in cheerfully. “I’ll just go, then, and that’s the problem solved.”

  “Aye, all right,” said the first guard, uncertain.

  “Hang on a minute,” interrupted the second guard.

  “Why?” asked the other guard. “She didn’t do anything criminal.”

  “Well, that’s because we stopped her,” said the second guard.

  “But that’s your job, isn’t it?” asked Allegra. “Stopping crimes? Before they begin, I mean.”

  “But did you begin?” asked the second guard, even more confused now.

  “Only just,” admitted Allegra. “But now you’ve stopped me, so that’s a job well done for you fine gentlemen.”

  “No, no, no,” said the second guard. “We’ve done caught you right and proper, we have. It’s not just the stopping; it’s the catching.” He was quite proud of himself for remembering that part.

  “Hmm,” Allegra agreed, sounding to Mary very much like her sister. “In that case, you should probably clap me in irons or some such.”

  “You’re only nine,” said the first guard. “I don’t think we have to do all that.”

  “Oh, go on, then,” said Allegra, sticking her arms forward. “Let’s have the irons. Did you bring them?”

  “We did, miss,” acknowledged the guard.

  “Well, on with it, man. It’s positively freezing out here.”

  The guards looked at one another, and seemed to nod with great reluctance. The two worked together to place the heavy shackles about Allegra’s tiny wrists, and gestured the way forward to the guardhouse.

  Mary was horrified, but Allegra would not cease grinning. Then suddenly Allegra let out a huge sneeze, and dropped to her knees in the snow.

  “Cor, bless you, miss,” said the first guard, helping her to her feet. “Let’s get you out of here before you catch your death.”

  And with that, the three of them marched off into the snow, around the bush behind which the girls had been hiding moments before. But just as the three were disappearing, Allegra looked up to Mary with a wink.

  Then Mary realized she was alone, in the December night, which no longer seemed like a painting of a fairyland but a cold world of ice and hard brick, of perilous heights and creaking ropes and hands and feet quickly going numb.

  She reached out to the other rope, in hopes that she could either raise or lower herself, but the knot Allegra tied seemed to have done something, and the whole contraption was stuck fast.

  She reached out to the palace wall and could just touch the window frame. But holding on there meant not holding on to the ropes, and that wasn’t good. Her hands, now frozen in their gloves, gripped the coarse ropes so tightly that little scratchy clouds of rope dust formed and fell in her face, irritating her eyes. She could hold herself like this for a little while, she supposed. But how long? A minute. Not a minute, she realized. Seconds.

  The ground seemed even harder and farther away now. Colder too, and more cruel, taunting her. Her fingers were on fire from gripping so tightly, even as her arms complained and weakened.

  She dreaded the drop. Despite the fire of courage in her chest, her fingers surrendered, and her doom beckoned.

  The whoosh of wind she experienced, though, was not from her descent. It came from an enormous pair of scalloped wings, like those of a bat. The terrifyingly large eyes of the beast reflected like glass in the moonlight, and Mary felt its leathery grip tight around her waist.

  “Hold on!” said the horror, in a cheerful voice that sounded remarkably like Ada. Mary quickly realized that the demon from the shadows was Ada, and the two of them were sailing over Kensington Palace Green in some kind of bat-winged contraption piloted by Ada. Her frightening eyes were merely glass goggles glinting starlight, and she hugged Mary close with thick-fingered gauntlets. Mary clung for dear life.

  “Ada!” cried Mary in relief. “What have you done!”

  “Hang on, we’re aiming for the roof!”

  And with that, there was much swooping and swooshing before both bundled girls tumbled across the snowy tiles of the roof of the palace, not caring if they made too much noise. They slipped and scrambled and rattled, but quickly found purchase not far from the rigging Allegra had wrapped around the roof timbers.

  “You saved my life, Ada. With this,” said a grateful Mary, who stared with awe at the great ribbed wings on which they had just…flown?

  “I don’t think so. Broken leg at the worst. I thought Allegra would have you in the window by now. Sorry I’m late.”

  “Allegra!” Mary remembered and, hugging the roofline, scrambled to the edge, over which she could see the two guards running in obvious alarm.

  “Oi!!” said the first guard. “Where’d you go?”

  Two guards scurried around the corner, not bothering to look up.

  Allegra popped out briefly from the bush below, showing Mary and Ada the
irons now off her wrists and a beaming grin, before disappearing with a wink.

  “Ah,” said Ada as the guards ran off.

  “Remarkable,” said Mary to herself, and then aloud.

  Ada was busily collapsing the flying wings and harness, strapping them to a chimney for security. Mary marveled at the contraption, which made Ada beam with pride.

  “Mr. Franklin salvaged some of the parts from my balloon, so I built something new. I’ve been studying flyology,” Ada said.

  “I was not aware that was a thing to be studied,” admitted Mary.

  “It wasn’t until I invented it.”

  “Ada?” Mary asked.

  “Mmm?” Ada answered, removing the goggles from her head.

  “How are we to get inside?”

  “Well, I was hoping to have Allegra for this bit,” Ada said, peering over the roof. “I can’t reach that rope from here, but I bet you might.”

  Mary found she was quite reluctant to have anything to do with ropes again so soon, but Ada was right—she could reach the rope.

  “All you have to do is grab on with both hands, walk your way down the wall, and get your feet on the window ledge.”

  “Is that all?” said Mary, trying to sound braver than she felt, but apparently not succeeding very well.

  “All right, then, let me go first.” And with that, Ada braved the roof’s steep drop, grasped the rope with Mary’s assistance, and walked down the wall toward the windowsill.

  “Do be careful,” urged Mary. The fear for herself had subsided, only to be replaced with concern for her friend. All in all, though, she had to admit that the scene was once again beautiful and mysterious, the whole exercise itself daring and adventurous.

  “Got it!” hissed Ada, who had been trying the window, which apparently had no lock. Whoever had built this part of the palace did not consider anyone breaking in by way of rope and pulley, or flying bat wings, and Ada could hardly blame them. She stepped carefully around the opening window, steadying herself, and offering up a hand to Mary.