The Heist at Niagara Falls
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GROSSET & DUNLAP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Original Title: Furto alle Cascate del Niagara
Text by Sir Steve Stevenson
Original cover and illustrations by Stefano Turconi
English language edition copyright © 2013 Penguin Group (USA). Original edition published by Istituto Geografico De Agostini S.p.A., Italy, © 2011 Atlantyca Dreamfarm s.r.l., Italy
International Rights © Atlantyca S.p.A.—via Leopardi 8, 20123 Milano, Italia
foreignrights@atlantyca.it—www.atlantyca.com
Published in 2013 by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA). Printed in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-698-15986-0
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CONTENTS
MAP
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
FOURTH MISSION AGENTS
DESTINATION
OBJECTIVE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PRELUDE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
EPILOGUE
SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM THE EIFFEL TOWER INCIDENT
FOURTH MISSION
AGENTS
Agatha
Twelve years old, an aspiring mystery writer; has a formidable memory
Dash
Agatha’s cousin and student at the private school Eye International Detective Academy
Chandler
Butler and former boxer with impeccable British style
Watson
Obnoxious Siberian cat with the nose of a bloodhound
Scarlett
An investigative journalist who’s always traveling to remote and unusual places
DESTINATION
Niagara Falls, Canada
OBJECTIVE
Search the dense and mysterious Canadian forests for a mastermind jewel thief, the notorious Ratmusqué.
For my friend Ermanna
With thanks to the Muskoka Tourism board and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the famous “Canadian Mounties”) for their reference material, to Gianfranco Calvitti and Davide Morosinotto for their advice on constructing the plot, and to Frida Bifolchetti for her patience (I swear we’ll go on vacation next summer!)
PRELUDE
The Investigation Begins . . .
High above the streets of London, the orange rays of a spectacular sunset blazed through a tangle of high-tech wires and houseplants into Dashiell Mistery’s penthouse atop Baker Palace. The blinding light hid the mess in the living room as its sole occupant dedicated himself to doing what he did best: making an even bigger mess.
Tall and lanky, with dark hair that always flopped over his forehead, fourteen-year-old Dash was multitasking on seven computers at once: rock music blaring from iTunes, friends on chat, a dozen web pages open simultaneously, and—most important of all—installing new software for his EyeNet, the state-of-the-art device given to students at the detective school he attended.
Nearly hidden by pizza boxes and socks, the precious titanium instrument vibrated with high-speed downloads. Every so often, Dash checked to make sure it was updating smoothly. The new programs would allow him to view microfilm from anywhere in the world, connect wirelessly to other EyeNets, and track the movement of satellites in real time. The aspiring detective couldn’t wait to try out these exciting new features on an investigation.
“Watch your back, Sherlock Holmes,” he said with a snicker. “Soon I’ll be the most famous detective in all of London!”
Satisfied, he put his feet up on the desk and leaned way back, balancing on the rear wheels of his chair. This proved to be a risky move. A moment later, the chair’s plastic joints gave way with a crack! and Dash fell backward onto the dusty carpet, dragging a mess of cables, computers, and monitors with him. “What a wipeout!” he groaned, struggling to free himself from the tangle of wires. Fortunately his mother was out, so there were no witnesses . . . He didn’t exactly look like the best detective in London!
At that very moment, Dash spotted a silhouette hidden behind the jasmine plants on the terrace. Squinting into the sunset, he could make out a man with a brown peaked cap and a digital camera hiding his face.
The camera flashed ten times in rapid succession, and the mysterious man took off at high speed.
“Hey! Cut it out!” Dash yelled. “Who gave you permission to . . . to—oh no!” His voice caught in his throat. Who would want to immortalize such an embarrassing moment?
There was only one possibility, and it was a doozy: His school must have him under surveillance. And Eye International was staffed by the most elite experts in the field!
Dash jumped up, grabbed his EyeNet, and raced onto the terrace. He looked down the emergency stairs. The man in the brown hat was already a full flight below. There was no time to lose!
“Stay calm,” he told himself. “Follow procedure.”
Last month, he’d participated in a Tracking and Diversion course taught by Agent MP37, and had learned the three fundamental rules of shadowing someone:
First rule: Never attract attention.
Second rule: Never lose sight of your target.
Third rule . . .
Um . . . Dash couldn’t remember it. “I need to study the manual more,” he groaned. “My cousin Agatha can store every detail in her famous memory drawers!”
He raced down the stairs to the floor below, just in time to see the elevator door close. The glowing numbers indicated that it was heading straight to the ground floor.
Dash bit his lip. What was he going to do now?
“The stairs!” he exclaimed.
He raced down fifteen flights at breakneck speed and arrived in the lobby of Baker Palace, panting and sweating. “Did a man with a brown hat and camera go out this way?” he gasped to the doorman.
The elderly man seemed surprised. “Do you mean Mr. Marlowe?” he replied in a quavering voice. “Well, now, I think he just left . . .”
Dash rolled his eyes and shot out the front door like lightning.
He couldn’t believe it!
Mr. Marlowe was his whiny neighbor . . . Who would ever have suspected he could be a spy from Eye International? Dash figured he’d better catch up with him fast, tell him his cover was blown, and beg him to delete the embarrassing photos!
Remembering his moves from the tracking class, he scanned the street like a bird of prey and spied a brown hat near a sign for the Underground. Mr. Marlowe walked briskly, checking his watch as though he were late for an appointment. Apparently he had not realized that Dash was hot on his trail.
“I’ll get you
, you nosy meddler!” growled the boy.
They turned one corner after another, heading toward deserted back streets. Finally Mr. Marlowe slipped into The King’s Head, one of the most popular pubs in central London.
Dash stopped to consider his next move. What was that third rule of shadowing? Was he supposed to sneak inside or wait for his target to reemerge?
After a brief hesitation, he decided to stroll slowly past the pub window to check out Mr. Marlowe’s whereabouts. Dash spotted him at the bar, conferring with a woman in a blond wig, a floor-length gray coat, and an oversize pair of dark glasses. The disguise made her features unrecognizable; surely she must be an Eye International agent.
“He must be passing her the camera!” Dash shuddered, remembering his disastrous fall. “I’ll be expelled for being a klutz!”
Suddenly the woman looked right at the window, and Dash ducked behind a rusty pipe to avoid being seen. At that precise moment, the third rule of shadowing popped into his mind: Be careful you don’t fall into a trap.
“They’ve lured me here for some reason!” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I have to get out right away!”
As he walked down the street, whistling and doing his best to look carefree, Mr. Marlowe and his accomplice came out of the pub. Dash immediately dived into a Dumpster, covering himself with disgusting garbage bags. The possibility that he’d be discovered made him shudder. “No, no, no!” he begged quietly as he peeked out from under the lid. “I don’t want to be expelled!”
Fortunately the Eye International agents disappeared around the corner. Dash gave a sigh of relief and clambered out of the Dumpster.
“Ha! I was put to the test,” he rejoiced, wiping slime off his clothes. “But I passed with flying colors!”
He barely had time to finish his sentence when his EyeNet started to beep. Dash thought it must be the Tracking and Diversion teacher calling to congratulate him, but a message lit up on the screen. His face went pale. “An urgent mission at Niagara Falls?!” he hissed. “And here I am, covered with garbage!”
He scraped a banana peel off his sleeve and almost flew down the steps to the Underground. There was just one thing he knew for certain: Without the help of his brilliant cousin Agatha Mistery, he would be lost!
CHAPTER ONE
Unexpected Arrivals and Hasty Departures
Just south of the Thames River in London sat the Mistery Estate, an ancient, lavender-roofed mansion surrounded by a large landscaped garden. Passersby often mistook it for a public park and stopped outside the palatial cast-iron gates to check the hours of operation. Not finding a sign, they would wander off, disappointed, passing between gloomy rows of dark buildings that lined the street.
There didn’t even seem to be a doorbell—there was one, of course, but it was cleverly hidden inside a stone column. Mr. and Mrs. Mistery insisted on absolute peace and quiet during their brief stays in London. They were tireless globe-trotters, always traveling somewhere for work. Now, they were in the wild taiga of Finland, studying the migrations of wild geese and reindeer, so only their twelve-year-old daughter, Agatha, their trusty butler, Chandler, and Watson, the pampered Siberian cat, were at home.
On that cool October day, Agatha had decided to catalog all the books in the family library. She’d started early in the morning and was still roaming around the enormous room with her indispensable notebook. For generations, no one had made a complete inventory of the encyclopedias, novels, and scholarly magazines piled on the shelves.
Agatha was a tireless reader, and every piece of information she found in books was filed away inside her famous memory drawers as something that might be useful to know in an investigation. She got down on her hands and knees, jotting down titles on a low shelf.
Watson glanced at her curiously while playing with a ball of wool, rolling around happily on the Persian carpet.
“It’s getting dark in here. Could you please turn on the lights?” the girl asked the butler.
Silent as a shadow, Chandler adjusted the bow tie of his tuxedo and headed toward the door. He flicked a series of switches, and opulent Bohemian crystal chandeliers flooded the room with light. “Miss Agatha, may I leave to prepare dinner?” he asked, gazing around the library. The grandfather clock ticked past seven. By this time, he was usually standing at the stove in his checkered apron, cooking up something sensational.
Agatha, however, was stroking her small, upturned nose, a sure sign that she was deep in thought.
The jack-of-all-trades at the Mistery Estate cleared his throat and added, “Would you care for smoked salmon?”
Agatha shook her blond curls as though waking up from a daydream. “Excellent choice, Chandler! With your famous lemon-butter sauce, I hope!” she added, smiling. “But before you go . . .”
“Before I go?”
The girl pointed to a high shelf lined with parchment-colored books. To get to them, she would need a ladder. Agatha took off her slippers, gazing at the massive butler. “Could you lift me up there on your shoulders?” she asked.
Without batting an eyelid, Chandler boosted his young mistress up on his rock-hard shoulders.It was a piece of cake for a former champion heavyweight boxer!
“Are you comfortable, Miss Agatha?” he asked politely.
Instead of responding, she raised herself up on tiptoes to grab the books. “Amazing!” she said, flipping through the pages of a medical text. “This will be just the thing for my new story!”
This declaration didn’t surprise Chandler in the least.
Like everyone else in the Mistery family, Agatha had chosen an unusual craft. She wanted to be the world’s greatest mystery writer!
She passed the medical textbook down to the butler, who stared dumbfounded at its cover. “Um . . . excuse me, miss . . . ,” he said hesitantly.
“What is it, Chandler?”
“Begging your pardon, I wonder just how you intend to read this strange language . . .”
“You mean ancient German?”
Chandler clenched his square jaw and said nothing. Agatha’s prodigious talents no longer amazed him, having seen them in use every day: a memory like a steel trap, stunning intuition, attention to detail . . .
“I’m not really fluent,” Agatha admitted. “But it doesn’t look too hard to learn, once one knows the Latin!”
“I should think not,” Chandler said tersely.
Just then, Dash skidded into the library with a jingling of house keys.
“Wh-what’s up?” he sputtered when he spotted the human mountain that was Chandler and Agatha.
“Research and documentation,” his cousin replied calmly. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
Dash strode across the carpet, trailing an odor of rotting fish.
As if pulled by a powerful magnet, Watson jumped up and started to sniff him.
The young detective yelped, clutching Chandler’s leg in a panic.
Now the mountain was composed of three people and one persistent white cat!
“Call off that beast!” shouted Dash, who lived in terror of Watson’s ambushes.
Agatha climbed down and stroked Watson’s soft fur. “Dash, you stink!” she exclaimed, holding her nose. “Did you stop for a swim in a garbage dump?”
Dash gave an awkward cough. “Something like that. I hid in a Dumpster . . . Do I really smell that bad?”
“Worse! You need to get into the tub with a whole bottle of scented bubble bath.” Agatha laughed. “Let me guess. We’re about to go someplace far away, right?”
“You’re a mind reader.”
“When is our flight?”
“Three hours.”
“And where are we going?”
“Niagara Falls.”
Agatha flashed a radiant smile. “Perfect! We’ve never been there!” She nodded at Chan
dler. “Warm sweaters and raincoats. And we’ll have to skip that smoked salmon, I’m afraid.”
He nodded in reply and went to pack their suitcases.
“Niagara Falls, you say?” Agatha mused as she and Dash headed into the study. “The American or the Canadian side?”
“I don’t really know,” confessed Dash.
“If my memory serves me correctly,” Agatha said pensively, “the Niagara River flows along the border between the two countries; the western shore is Canadian land, and the eastern is the United States.”
“Let me check.” Dash consulted the mission data on his high-tech gadget. “Nonstop from London to New York’s JFK Airport, then we’ll take a domestic flight to Buffalo, an American city not far from the falls . . .” He raised his eyes. “Your memory drawers are always right,” he marveled. “The hotel where we’ll stay is in Canada!”
“Excellent,” Agatha said, sounding satisfied. “Now we just need to contact a relative in the vicinity.”
Without another word, she went to check the family tree, which listed the location, occupation, and relationship of every member of the Mistery family.
“Okay . . . in the Great Lakes region, we have a third cousin named Scarlett Mistery,” said Agatha, pointing at the name. “And look, she’s a journalist. I bet she’ll be really helpful!” She grabbed her phone and quickly punched in the number.
Dash perched on an ottoman, trying to follow the conversation, but Agatha spoke a mile a minute, and he could hear only her.
Moments later, she hung up, looking ecstatic. “Scarlett Mistery writes for a magazine called Off the Map Tours, specializing in adventure travel!”
“Another weirdo in the family,” sighed the detective-in-training. “Just like you and me.”