Ada led the way, having the least to lose if discovered. But the coast was momentarily clear, and Ada, then Mary, then Jane, then Allegra filed into the upstairs kitchen and headed for the back door to the garden. After some shushing and silent smiles, Mary placed her hand on the doorknob.
A squeak from the stairway to the servants’ floor halted them, and they turned in unison.
There framed in the doorway stood Mrs. Chowser, although a very transformed Mrs. Chowser. Her face was painted with white powder, and round red circles were drawn upon her cheeks. Lines of greasepaint had been inscribed upon her wrists and every joint of her fingers, and one ugly-looking line ran across her throat, like her head could be popped off at any moment.
But what alarmed Ada the most was a fresh, angry-looking tattoo upon the cook’s right inner forearm: the letters S O B Q J M V, inscribed upon Mrs. Chowser’s still-stinging skin.
“Tick,” said the puppet–Mrs. Chowser. “Tock.”
The Wollstonecraft girls stood aghast.
Ada was certain that the tick-tock puppet couple had been working for Nora Radel, and here was another of her accomplices. But to find that her latest accomplice was a trusted member of Ada’s own household…Ada felt some shame in only just having remembered the woman’s name after so many years, but such guilt was diminished by the cook’s obvious betrayal.
Suddenly it all made sense. It was Mrs. Chowser who had kept Ada’s mother informed of the goings-on at the Marylebone house. It was she who had betrayed the presence and real identity of Peebs, when he first arrived under a clandestine name. And it was Mrs. Chowser who had allowed the entry of the tick-tock pair into the parlor for the attempted dognapping of Charlemagne.
Ada turned to the other girls, who were clearly frightened by Mrs. Chowser’s comical yet nightmarish appearance. Ada leaned closer to her (former, she supposed) cook, to see the details of the greasepaint, and of the painful-looking tattoo.
The look in Mrs. Chowser’s eyes was distant and unfocused. As though she were dreaming. As though, in fact, she were under some kind of uncanny influence.
Uncanny influence. Mesmerism.
Ada reached out curiously, slowly, carefully, and snapped her fingers.
Nothing. Mrs. Chowser’s expression remained expressionless.
“Tick,” said the cook again.
“Tock,” came a voice behind the girls. Two voices, in fact.
They all turned completely around to face the door to the kitchen garden. It was now flanked by two of Gran’s footmen, both painted as dolls to match Mrs. Chowser, and both with the identical distant expression.
Jane shrieked in horror.
“Up!” shouted Ada, pointing at the stairs. As the gaggle of girls reversed their course and went back up the servants’ stairway, Ada remembered something. She darted back down, between the two approaching footmen, who were lurching oddly as though sleepwalking, and bolted to the distillery closet. She knew precisely what she was looking for, so it took her only a heartbeat to locate it and snatch it off the shelf. Holding a small jar of white powder, she again wove between the doll-painted footmen and tore up the stairs after her friends.
Allegra was first at the top, and almost matched Jane’s scream when she came face to face with Anna.
Allegra scanned the maid’s countenance for any change, but there was no paint upon her face, no disconcerting lines around her joints, and no fresh tattoo upon her arm. Just a look of concern, no doubt instigated by Jane’s outburst downstairs. Behind Anna loomed a perfectly ordinary-looking (for him) Mr. Franklin. The girls all piled up on the landing in the hallway, the footmen and Mrs. Chowser in pursuit.
Looking over the railing, Ada could see the original puppet-couple standing by the open front door, making their way toward the stairs.
“Room!” shouted Ada, scrambling past the other girls with her prized jar. They all followed, grateful for Mr. Franklin’s protective immensity guarding the rear.
The six of them poured into Ada’s bedroom and latched the door.
“Lady Ada?” asked a frightened Anna. “Whatever is going on?”
“Puppets! Mesmerism! Uncanny influence!” Ada panted. “It’s marvelous, and it explains everything! It was never the acorn necklace—the one that could supposedly mesmerize people from our first case, you remember. It never made sense! I can finally take it out of the intractables book! Nora Radel must have some other way to mesmerize people. Though—maybe how she does it should go back in the intractables book.”
“Ada!” Mary brought the excited girl back to the present moment.
“Sorry, it’s just tremendously interesting,” Ada apologized.
“And scary! They’re everywhere!” shouted Allegra.
“Ada?” asked Mary. “What are we to do?”
Ada glanced about the room, and then seemed to notice the jar in her hand.
“Ah,” she said quite casually. “Bomb.”
“You said you were making muffins, Lady Ada,” noted Anna.
“Lied,” said Ada, hauling the cast-iron pot from beneath her bed. As she righted the concoction, they could all see the large wrench embedded in the brown sugary cement. Ada struggled with the jar lid for a moment and then handed the thing over her shoulder without looking. Elegantly Mr. Franklin stepped around the girls, took the jar from Ada’s hand, effortlessly opened the lid, and handed the jar back to Ada, who sprinkled the shimmering white contents on top of the brown goo.
“You can’t set off a bomb in the house, Lady Ada!” said Anna. “You’ll burn down the whole place!”
“That’s what we want them to think,” said Ada.
“Ada,” said Mary, attempting to remain calm. “We trust you. We shall do as you say. But please do tell us the plan, and please do tell us it does not involve burning down the house.”
“Uncanny influence. Mesmerism. We’ve seen it before,” said Ada.
Mary nodded. They hadn’t actually seen it, but they’d been aware of it, from their first case.
“Right, well,” Ada continued. “This will either shock them out of it or at least get them out of the house, and give us time to think. Match,” she asked of Mr. Franklin.
“Ada,” Jane said. “That’s a bomb. Bombs explode. You can’t light that in here.”
“Counterfeit,” said Ada. “Counterfeit bones, counterfeit letters, a counterfeit case, with counterfeit clues. Counterfeit criminals—or real criminals with counterfeit cleverness—and counterfeit dolls. This,” she said, smiling, “is a counterfeit bomb. Match!” she demanded, and Anna handed her one from the fireplace box.
“Now,” said Ada, hauling the pot to her door, “Mr. Franklin, when I give the signal, you open the door.”
“But there are scary people ticking and tocking out there,” said Allegra nervously.
“Not for long,” said Ada. “Everybody, close your eyes. On three. One. Two. Three!”
With that, Mr. Franklin opened the door, and Ada struck the match. Even through their closed eyes, they could all see that the flash of the flame meeting the magnesium powder on top of the counterfeit bomb was brilliant, and would momentarily blind anyone who looked at it unprepared. As they all blinked and their eyes adjusted, they could see a thick black smoke pouring out of the pot and roiling down the hallway, almost like a syrup.
“Fire!” shouted Ada. “Fire, fire, fire!” And with this cry she tipped the pot on its side and rolled it toward the main stairs, where it bounced and continued to spew a choking black billow of smoke in all directions, the wrench thudding menacingly as it went.
At first, the tick-tock people did nothing, but after a brief pause they looked at one another and panicked.
“Fire!” they shouted, as though they had awoken from a dream only to find themselves in a nightmare, surrounded by strangely painted people and a house on fire. “Fire!”
Ada could barely see through the smoke but could make out a footman ushering her grandmother through the open door, a yapping Charlemagn
e tucked safely under her arm.
Coughing, Ada shut the door after the household, painted or otherwise, fled the building. Only the four girls, Anna, and Mr. Franklin remained. Anna had opened the flue for air as Mr. Franklin worked at the stubborn windows.
“All smoke, no fire. Counterfeit bomb,” said Ada, pleased with herself.
“And you kept that under the bed?” asked Jane.
“Well, I was going to use it before. To sneak out of the house. But Mary had a better idea.”
Allegra was still absorbing the idea that Ada had been sleeping with a bomb under her bed, just in case.
“Where did they come from?” asked Jane.
“Nora Radel,” answered Ada. “The so-called cleverest girl in England. Criminal mastermind and my archnemesis. She got in the middle of our case somehow and, using what I can only assume to be some kind of mesmerism, makes people dress like puppets and do her bidding. Quite practical, really.”
“But Mrs. Chowser,” said Allegra.
“Yes,” said Ada. “It was Mrs. Chowser the cook who was the spy in our house. Well, when it wasn’t Peebs. But he was the right sort of spy.”
Allegra looked confused.
“Anyway,” Ada continued, “seeing that Mrs. Chowser was not exactly loyal, Nora Radel found a way to get to her. And no doubt that was the least she was up to. I think she helps not-so-clever criminals, like the ones we’ve encountered, by giving them ideas, information. And if she helps them a lot, in return she makes them wear her mark.”
“The tattoo?” asked Jane. “Whatever does it mean?”
“S O B Q J M V. It’s her name, the Sphinx of Black Quartz. It’s not the Sons of Bavaria at all, though the hunch got me on the right track,” said Ada, exchanging nods with Mary. “That’s why I signed the note I left at the museum using her name. So they’d be confused and contact her, which would force her hand. And it worked, so she sent the doll people to kidnap Charlemagne, to be safe. I couldn’t sort out her plan, but I could make it untidy for her.”
“Sphinx of Black Quartz? But why such an unusual—” Jane began.
“She loves word games, clearly,” Ada explained. “It’s a famous pangram. Sphinx of Black Quartz Judge My Vow.” She looked around the room at blank expressions. “A pangram is a phrase containing every letter of the alphabet, like ‘Heavy boxes perform quick waltzes and jigs.’ They’re good fun.”
“A game?” said Jane. “A cruel game.”
Just then, there was an unexpected knock on the door.
“Lady Ada? Miss Mary? Are you all right?”
Peebs.
Mr. Franklin opened the door, and in the still-smoky-but-clearing hallway stood Peebs, hat in hand. Peebs looked around the room at its harried occupants.
“I’ve locked up the house, front and back. We should all be perfectly safe for the time being,” he said.
“However did you know?” asked Mary.
“I heard the fire brigade as I was walking home, and thought it awfully close to here. So I returned out of concern.”
“The fire brigade!” Jane exclaimed. “I hope they don’t drown the place!”
“Oh, I’ve sent them home,” said Peebs. “It may surprise you that I was a boy once, and I know a classic saltpeter-and-sugar smoke bomb when I see one. Whatever was that in aid of, if I may ask?”
“Minions,” Ada answered. “Evil minions.”
“And the banishment thereof,” concluded Mary.
“Well, it seems to have worked, even if you include your grandmother amongst them. I saw her carriage flee the scene with some haste.”
“She’ll be back,” said Ada.
“I suspect they’ll all be back,” said Jane. “Good and wicked, in due course.”
“Well, for now,” said Anna, “I’m grateful we’re all safe.”
“And together,” said Mary, reaching out for Ada’s hand.
“Ada?” said Allegra, gripping Ada’s other hand. “Happy birthday.”
NOTES
The year itself is practically a character in this series. John Quincy Adams was president of the United States. The prince regent of England had become King George IV just six years before, and the future Queen Victoria was only seven years old. By 1826, the world had seen a recent flurry of inventions: Volta’s electric battery (1800), Fulton’s submarine and torpedo (1800), Winsor’s patented gas lighting (1804), Trevithick’s steam locomotive (1804), Davy’s electric arc light (1809), Bell’s steam-powered boat (1812), and Sturgeon’s electromagnet (1824). It was an exciting time of technological advancement, and it brought forth two very bright girls who changed the world through their intellect and imagination.
The lives of women—and particularly girls—were extremely limited and under constant watch. Women were not allowed to vote or practice professions, and were widely thought to be less capable than men. A girl’s value to her family was in her reputation and her service, and she was expected to obediently accept a husband of her parents’ choosing. Any threat to that reputation—like behaving unusually—was often enough to ruin a family.
However, because girls were not expected to have a career and compete with their (or anybody’s) husband, upper-class girls were free to read or study as they wished, for few took them seriously. Because of this rare freedom, the nineteenth century saw a sharp surge in the intellectual contributions of female scientists and mathematicians, with Ada foremost among them.
AUGUSTA ADA BYRON (1815–1852) was a brilliant mathematician and the daughter of the poet Lord Byron (who died when Ada was eight). Largely abandoned by her mother, she was raised by servants (and sometimes her grandmother) at the Marylebone house and was very much cut off from the world as a child.
With her legendary temper and lack of social skills (a modern historian unkindly calls her “mad as a hatter”), Ada made few friends. Her mother insisted that young Ada have no connection to her father’s friends or even his interests, so Ada turned to mathematics. She worked with her friend Charles Babbage on the tables of numbers for Babbage’s “Analytical Engine”—a mechanical computer—which was not built in his lifetime. But Ada’s contribution to the work, as well as her idea that computers could be used not only for mathematics but also for creative works such as music, has caused many people to refer to Ada as “the world’s first computer programmer.” Babbage called her the Enchantress of Numbers.
Ada grew to control her temper and insecurities, and was married at nineteen to William King, a baron, who became the Count of Lovelace three years later. This is why Ada is more commonly known as Ada Lovelace. She had three children—Byron, Annabella, and Ralph—and died of cancer at the age of thirty-six. She continues to inspire scientists and mathematicians to this day, and many worthwhile projects are named after her.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN (1797–1851) was the daughter of the famous feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (who died ten days after giving birth) and the political philosopher William Godwin. William Godwin married Mary Jane Clairmont in 1801, and Mary grew up in a mixed household of half siblings and stepsiblings in Somers Town, in northern London. She read broadly and had an appetite for adventure and romanticism. She ran away with Percy Shelley at age sixteen, and over one very famous weekend with Shelley, Lord Byron (Ada’s father), and early vampire novelist Dr. John Polidori, Mary came up with the idea for the world’s first science-fiction novel—Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus—which she wrote at age nineteen.
In real life, Mary was eighteen years older than Ada. But I thought it would be more fun this way—to cast these two luminaries as friends.
PERCY BYSSHE (rhymes with “fish”) SHELLEY (1792–1822) was an important poet and best friend to Ada’s father, Lord Byron. Percy came from a wealthy family, and he offered to support Mary’s father and the Godwin family. At age twenty-two, he ran off with then-sixteen-year-old Mary to Switzerland, and they were married two years later. He drowned at the age of twenty-nine when his sailboat sank in a storm.
&n
bsp; While in reality, Peebs had died even before our story begins, I have extended his life so that they can be in this story together. It is Peebs, as Ada’s father’s friend and Mary’s future husband, who provides a real-life link between our two heroines.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870) is considered one of the great writers of Victorian England. He really was fourteen in 1826, and he really did work in a boot-polish factory gluing labels. He would later work for the law firm of Ellis and Blackmore—though not because of a referral from Peebs! He loved books and was a keen observer of everyday life in London. He is perhaps best known to young readers as the author of A Christmas Carol.
CLARA (“CLAIRE”) MARY JANE CLAIRMONT (1798–1879) was known as Jane as a child but later adopted the name Claire. She really was Mary’s stepsister (her mother married Mary’s father), but her real life diverges dramatically from this story. Jane was actually Allegra’s mother! I adjusted her timeline and role so that the two sets of sisters—Ada and Allegra, Mary and Jane—could work together as friends and detectives.
Lord Byron called Claire “a little fiend,” but she referred to him as a few moments of happiness and a lifetime of trouble. She was an aspiring novelist and extremely well-read. Claire traveled throughout Europe, living in Russia for a time, returning to England to care for her mother, moving to Paris, and then finally settling in Italy. She was the longest-lived of all the Shelley-Byron circle.
CLARA ALLEGRA (ALBA) BYRON (1817–1822) was the daughter of Claire Clairmont and Lord Byron. Her mother could not care for her, so she was left with her father. He, however, frequently left her in the care of strangers, eventually placing her in a convent in Italy. She died of fever at the age of five, but I have moved her timeline and brought her to life in the world of Wollstonecraft, to be a truer sister to Ada.
The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals Page 9
