The Case of the Missing Moonstone

by Jordan Stratford

  “The fact remains,” stated Ada calmly, “that you have no warrant for our arrest, and as you have us imprisoned here, I am afraid we will have to call the constabulary.”

  “But I am the constabulary, miss.”

  “Very well. Then I shall ask you to consider yourself under arrest and place yourself in prison.”

  The guard was quite surprised and quite confused. “Under arrest? Myself? What for?”

  “Kidnapping, clearly,” said Ada. “Here you are, keeping two impoverished orphans locked up, without so much as a warrant. That’s a crime, and you’re a constable. You’re supposed to arrest criminals, so you’d best get to it.”

  “Steady on,” said the poor guard. “That doesn’t seem quite—”

  “You’re IMPOSSIBLE!” shouted Ada, getting truly angry. “There’s a KIDNAPPING going on and you’re just STANDING there! Aren’t you going to stop it? You’re supposed to be a constable!”

  “I—I don’t quite know how, exactly,” stammered the man.

  Ada rolled her eyes and stomped her foot, and she was very, very good at it. “You let us go, is how, exactly,” she said curtly.

  “Ah, yes, well, that does seem to make sense,” admitted the guard, grateful for a way out of this hopelessly confusing situation.

  Ada glared at the man, and then at his hand on the door ring, and back at him, her eyes flashing menace. With an “Erm,” he opened the door wider, allowing the young detectives to escape the prison and inhale deeply the air of the wonderful, filthy, soggy London street.

  Outside was most definitely, perfectly better than inside.

  Across the road, the waiting coach seemed a refuge. Mary resisted the urge to run for it.

  She walked sedately, holding Ada’s hand, even pausing politely to let a cluster of nuns scurry by. Then a curious shape caught her eye. In fact, it was three curious shapes, or one curious shape repeated three times. Three red fezzes, like upturned flowerpots, worn by men not looking at each other, and whistling.

  “Don’t look,” cautioned Mary, entering the carriage.

  “Don’t look at what?” asked Ada.

  “Three men, trying to look inconspicuous.” She cast an inquisitive look at Ada and regretted it instantly.

  “I know what ‘inconspicuous’ means. You see three men trying hard not to be seen. They’re obviously not very good at being inconspicuous.”

  “I’m sorry, I forget that you know everything. Except your maid’s name.”

  “Chuzzlewit?” offered Ada.

  “Cumberland. Honestly, Ada, nobody is named Chuzzlewit.”

  “And mesmerism. I don’t know what that is.”

  “Not yet.” After a pause, Mary added, “I’ve seen them before.”

  “Who?”

  “Whom,” corrected Mary.

  “Whom?”

  “The three men in red fezzes, trying to be inconspicuous. They were watching us outside the Verdigris mansion.”

  “Did they look like criminals?” asked Ada.

  “I don’t think so—they were very well dressed.”

  Ada didn’t know much about men’s fashion, and left it to Mary to decide if the men in red fezzes really were well dressed or not. Ada dared a glance out the rear carriage window as they drove off, and indeed there they were: three finely turned-out gentlemen in red fezzes. One wore a sort of lapel pin or medal that flashed a sunburst as best as it was able in the autumn gloom. She turned back to Mary, hoping they hadn’t seen her looking.

  “They might be well-dressed criminals,” Ada suggested.

  “I’m sure that’s possible. But do you think they’re our criminals?” Mary asked.

  “I doubt it. Rosie has already told us that Beau is the criminal. Besides, if the three men in red fezzes had the acorn, I can’t imagine why they would be following us. They must want it and are hoping we’ll find it.”

  “You read the book. Is it valuable?”

  “The book?” asked Ada.

  “No, silly, the acorn.”

  “Oh. I don’t know. It’s not a diamond or anything. It’s a moonstone. Sodium potassium aluminium silicate. It is extremely ancient, from Ankara in Turkey, and aside from its powers of mesmerism—and we don’t even know what that means—it’s just …”

  “Just what?”

  “Pretty,” decided Ada.

  “Pretty! I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call anything that,” said Mary in surprise. “Anyway, Turkey sounds terribly exotic. I’d love to travel there someday.”

  “We should go tell Rebecca about Beau,” said Ada, changing the subject.

  “Well,” said Mary carefully, being reminded of Peebs the spy. “This is a delicate situation. The right thing to do would be to give Beau a chance to explain himself, and then we can present the facts to Rebecca.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Mary said guiltily, “sometimes you need to be careful about what you say and when you say it.”

  “That’s silly. There are just things to know, and people should know them and that’s that.”

  At this, the guilty, squishy balloon in Mary’s chest swelled to the point where she had trouble breathing.

  It was a very short carriage ride between Newgate Prison and the Marylebone house, barely two and a half miles, a fact Mary found unsettling. As large as London was, the greatest city in the world, it seemed not quite large enough, being so close to so horrible a place.

  As Ada paid the coachman, Mary suddenly remembered something. Peebs. Not the terrible secret that weighed so heavily on her heart, but Peebs the tutor, who would have been expecting the girls in the drawing room over an hour ago.

  “Peebs!” she cried. “However shall we explain ourselves?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him,” said Ada, climbing down. “I had Mr. Franklin lock him in the distillery closet again.”

  “Again? What do you mean ‘again’?” asked Mary, aghast.

  “Like yesterday.”

  “Ada! You simply cannot go around locking people in distillery closets!”

  “Fine. He can be in the pantry tomorrow. Besides, I’m sure he’s out by now.”

  As the girls were unexpected, there was no Mr. Franklin at the door to greet them, and Ada marched right in, the mud from her boots leaving marks on the gleaming white floor as she strode toward the upstairs kitchen.

  Mary followed, thinking of poor Anna Cumberland, who would have to clean up Ada’s mess once again, if “once again” meant “all the time without stopping ever.”

  Mary half expected to see Anna in the kitchen, or perhaps Mr. Franklin or even the recently released Peebs, although Mary was sure she would prefer the distillery closet to Newgate Prison.

  What she did not expect to see was Ada holding a very large and rather nasty-looking knife—the length of her arm—and pointing it at a total stranger in the kitchen.

  “Who are you?” Ada demanded. “And what are you doing in my house?”

  “Pardon me, miss. I’m just the new fishmonger.” The man kept his back to Ada and unwrapped several fresh fish—kippers and skates and one red herring—from rolls of brown paper. There was even an eel glistening wetly on the counter. He spread his hands to show they were empty, and Ada caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his forearm. The letter S, and others, though she couldn’t quite catch what they said.

  “As you can see. Fish. Sorry if I frightened you. I’ll be on my way, beggin’ your leave.” And without turning, he left his parcels on the kitchen counter and practically fled out the back door.

  “What’s a fishmonger?” asked Ada, without moving or lowering her lethal-looking knife.

  “Someone who mongs fish,” answered Mary, though she knew at once that wasn’t right. “Sells. Delivers. Delivers fish to kitchens.”

  “He left his knife here.”

  “Is that his knife?” asked Mary, looking at the one in Ada’s hand.

  “No, there, by the paper.”

  Sure enough, beside the floppy, d
ead, and moist eel on the counter was a long, skinny knife with a curving blade. It had a little hole at the end of the handle, and a short loop of leather was run through it.

  “He must have been in quite a hurry,” said Ada. “You’d think he’d need that.”

  “He probably thought you were going to chop his head off with that thing,” said Mary.

  “No, he turned around as soon as he saw me, before I picked up my knife. This knife.”

  “Can you please put it down? You’re making me terribly nervous.”

  Ada put down the long butcher’s knife. “There was something familiar about him.” She walked toward the fishmonger’s knife and gave it a sniff.

  “Well, if he’s your fishmonger, perhaps you’ve seen him before.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. He said he was the new fishmonger. Smells fishy.”

  “I can hardly follow you, Ada. What smells fishy?”

  “All of it, especially this knife.”

  “Well, of course it does. It’s a fish knife. From a fishmonger. If it smelled like cheese, it would be unusual.”

  “No,” said Ada. “It’s this particular fishy smell that smells fishy. I recognize it, but can’t remember from where.”

  Mary hadn’t thought of it before, but while she was certain that there were many different kinds of fish, they all simply smelled fishy to her. But she had to admit that Ada’s sense of smell was as sharp as the fishmonger’s knife, which she held up under her nose like a curving steel mustache.

  Thwap. Charles closed the heavy leather book with decision, but not without disappointment. The word “mesmerism” had not been in the dictionary, just as Ada had said. Mary was sure, but Charles thought there was no harm in checking.

  The two stood beside a long, wood-paneled counter in the gray-walled basement beneath the Times office. Light came in from a series of horizontal windows set high on the wall near the ceiling, like glass envelopes onto the gray street. Tall wooden bookshelves stood in ranks that seemed to go on and on forever below the London streets, each square shelf stacked with aging gray newspapers, folded like blankets. Mary found the sight a little sad, as though each newspaper, one kept for each day going back over forty years, were a book that would never again be read. She imagined they must be lonely.

  Mary had left the Marylebone house the previous afternoon with an assignment. As Ada had been overwhelmed by the outing to the prison and the curious encounter with the fishmonger, after which the entire house seemed to smell fishy, Mary alone would do what research she could regarding the mysterious word “mesmerism.” Ada would invent some excuse to Peebs for Mary’s lateness.

  Mary had also left with her secret still ballooning in her chest. Peebs had apparently decamped in a bit of a huff after Mr. Franklin released him from his second imprisonment in the distillery closet, so Mary hadn’t been able to talk to him about his being a spy.

  Her search for the word “mesmerism” was also a puzzle.

  The Times was an obvious choice, as the newspaper was in the business of knowing things, and knowing words in particular, but they were hardly going to allow a girl in by herself. Without an escort, Mary quickly realized, it would be impossible. She had entered the morning’s coach desperately hoping that Charles would be officially-not-there but actually-there, as usual. And he was.

  “Charles?”

  “Mmm?” he replied, nose in a book as always.

  “You know what you said earlier, about a damsel in distress?”

  “Mmm?” he repeated.

  Mary wasn’t sure what to make of that, so she pressed on. “Well, I’m not certain, but I think perhaps I may be one.”

  He put down his book immediately.

  She continued. “There is something I must do, but I cannot think of a way to do it without your help.”

  “No,” said Charles. “Not a damsel in distress technically.” He savored the word. “But a friend in need, as before. What am I doing?”

  Relieved, Mary clarified. “We. What we are doing. Together. Hunting for a word, the meaning of a word, that Miss … Ribbon says is not in the dictionary.”

  Charles shrugged. “Dr. Johnson’s dictionary is quite old,” he said. “Perhaps we’re hunting for a new word?”

  “You have it exactly!” exclaimed Mary. “I knew you’d understand. Ada suggested we go to the Times and look there.”

  “A capital plan, miss. But they won’t let you in alone.”

  “Because I’m a girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, that’s not entirely fair.”

  “No,” Charles acknowledged.

  “Which is why I was hoping you would escort me. But,” Mary rushed to say, “I don’t need you just because you’re a boy.”

  “No?”

  “No. I need you because you know the Times, and you love books, which means you know words.” Mary paused. “And I need you because you’re my friend.”

  “That settles it, then,” said Charles. “The Times it is.”

  The two rode all the way to Charles’s boot-polish factory, where Mary waited in the coach while Charles made excuses or arrangements to not be gluing labels onto boot-polish tins for the morning. After a brief word with the coachman, they turned around and headed to the impressive stony building that held the newspaper office.

  Being clandestine was almost effortless for Charles, and he spun a quick story for the clerk at the front desk about his being a messenger boy, and Mary his sister who could not be left alone, so of course she simply had to come with him, and would the clerk mind terribly pretending that she wasn’t there? It was clear to Mary that Charles had rather a lot of practice at this sort of thing, and they had proceeded to the basement, with its rows of stacks of old newspapers and its disappointing dictionary.

  “Now what?” asked Mary when Charles had satisfied himself that Dr. Johnson’s dictionary did indeed not have the word they were looking for.

  “Now that,” said Charles, pointing to a row of identical thick books in gleaming brown leather behind the counter. “Encyclopædia Britannica. Brand-new edition. Twenty volumes.” He hopped his bottom onto the counter and swung his muddy boots over, so as not to leave a mark. “H, I, J, K, L, M,” he muttered, and plucked the M book from among its fellows. He placed it carefully on the counter in front of Mary and opened it slowly.

  “Smell that,” he said. There was something magical about the smell of oiled leather, and binding glue, and fresh paper. Mary loved books, and all hers had pages that had turned ivory, with soft edges, like childhood blankets. But this book was new, perfect, like an undiscovered country. Charles flipped through its pages methodically.

  He frowned. “No mesmerism,” he said, disappointed.

  “What’s that?” Mary asked, reading upside down.

  “Mesmer, Franz. Doctor.”

  “Maybe mesmerism is named after him?” she suggested.

  “Capital thinking!” said Charles as he read the encyclopedia entry aloud.

  Unfortunately, there was no mention of mesmerism, as far as they could tell. Dr. Mesmer was apparently a scientist who believed in something called “animal magnetism” and tried to treat patients with magnets, or with buckets of water with magnets in them. This struck both Charles and Mary as odd and a little silly. But there was nothing more.

  “He’s dead, it says here.”

  Mary had a sudden thought. “When?”

  “When?” Charles repeated.

  “Yes, when did Dr. Mesmer die?”

  He scanned the entry, back up to the top.

  “In 1815.”

  “When people die,” said Mary, “they write about them in the newspaper. It’s called an obituary.”

  “Brilliant!” exclaimed Charles, clearly excited at Mary’s thinking. “It’d be over … there,” he said, looking at the little cards with dates written on them, tacked along the bookcases. “1817 … 1816 … 1815. There we are. I’ll start with December, you start with January, and we
’ll meet in the middle.”

  And so began the dull bit, sitting on the uncomfortable floor in the not-terribly-well-lit basement reading old newspapers in search of a mention of a dead doctor. From all the ink, Mary’s thumbs were as black as the knocker on Newgate Prison before she reached the end of February.

  Time moved at a different pace here, beneath the Times, as they looked at days in moments, months in an hour. She had no idea how much real time had passed before she arrived, in late March 1815, at a notice about the death of poor, dead Dr. Mesmer.

  “Here we go,” said Mary, clearing her throat. Charles shot over to her end of the bookcase and sat on the floor beside her.

  “Much the same as what we already know,” Mary commented. “Except this bit at the end: ‘research into uncanny influence.’ What’s ‘uncanny influence’?” she wondered aloud.

  “ ‘Uncanny’ means ‘strange’ or ‘mysterious,’ and ‘influence’ means ‘control’ or ‘effect,’ ” said Charles. “So, ‘uncanny influence’ means ‘mysterious control.’ ”

  “Or ‘strange effect.’ Could that be what ‘mesmerism’ means?” she asked.

  “The whole thing might be a coincidence. Mesmerism might have nothing to do with our dead doctor and his magnets. We’re guessing.”

  “So we have nothing,” said Mary, frustrated.

  “Well, we have almost nothing. But that’s still something,” said Charles, trying to cheer her up. She smiled at him in thanks.

  As they left the newspaper building, as gray as the paper itself, Mary looked at her blackened, inky thumbs. Almost nothing is something, she thought, and wondered what Ada would make of it all.

  Inky thumbs did nothing to keep the squishy balloon in Mary’s chest quiet. Peebs is a spy, it whispered to her ribs in an oily, rubbery voice. Oh, do shut up, she told the balloon silently.

  The first thing was to find Peebs and give him a chance to explain himself. She would help Ada accept whatever reasonable explanation Peebs could provide. Then she would tell Ada what (little) she had learned at the newspaper.