by Lauren Child
They burbled on like this all through the main course and part way through dessert.
‘Hey! How about we have some kind of lucky draw,’ said Sabina, ‘you know – put your name in the hat and you get the chance to look the Buddha in the eye on the stroke of midnight!’
‘Like a lottery? Buy a ticket, win eternal youth?’
‘You got it.’ Sabina could hardly contain herself.
‘I think it’s a swell idea,’ said Brant. ‘What do you think, Ruby honey? Swell idea or what?’
Ruby didn’t answer; she was miles away.
‘Ruby?’
‘Huh? What?’ said Ruby with a start.
‘Your father and I were just wondering if there should be a Jade Buddha lottery with one lucky winner.’
‘Lucky winner of what?’
‘One lucky winner to look the Jade Buddha in the eye at midnight!’
‘Why would they want to do that?’ asked Ruby, genuinely bewildered.
‘Ruby, are you quite OK?’ asked her mother. ‘You don’t seem to have heard a word we have said.’
‘Sorry,’ said Ruby, ‘just a bit distracted I guess.’
‘I’ll say,’ said her mother.
‘Well,’ said her father. ‘I think I might just go and call Marjorie and Freddie – they’re gonna love the idea.’
‘Oh yes, do, do, do!’ said Sabina. She was quiet for one split second and then exclaimed, ‘I am wondering if it isn’t time we talked about canapés – what do you think Ruby? Maybe serve ice-related canapés, on account of the Buddha being found in an iceberg?’
Ruby, desperately wanting not to get stuck at the table talking to her mother about the mind-numbing subject of iced finger food, decided to make a swift exit.
‘Mom, just gotta walk Bug.’
‘But I already walked him an hour ago,’ said Sabina.
‘Oh yeah, well, I promised him,’ called Ruby, already halfway down the stairs.
‘Who promises a dog?’ said Sabina.
On the way back from her walk Ruby made a stop at the tree on Amster Green. She wanted to see if Clancy had left something for her. He had. A coded note, folded in two.
It translated as:
‘Are you in some kind of trouble? I saw that butler guy of yours and his fancy car –
I don’t trust him.’
Ruby felt a pang of guilt as she carefully refolded the note and put it back in the tree as if she had never read it.
Back home she rather dejectedly climbed the stairs to her room. She closed the door firmly behind her and her thoughts returned to the watch. She knew it was safe inside her jacket pocket – the only thing was, where was her jacket?
Mrs Digby had woken to
the unmistakable sound of
a knife ripping through
white designer couch. . .
Luckily for her, Mrs Digby had taken to sleeping at the far end of the warehouse in the Redfort’s guestroom bed. She had always wanted to try it out – the mattress was pocket sprung.
She pulled on her robe and tip-toed silently along the far side of the warehouse, where she was hidden from sight by huge cargo crates. From here she had a goodish view of what was going on and she did not like what she saw one bit. There were several thuggish-looking men tearing at the furniture, pulling open drawers and cupboards, opening jars, ripping into feather cushions. Mrs Redfort’s jewellery boxes were simply tipped upside down and emptied onto the floor. None of the thugs seemed at all interested in the contents once they had rummaged through them, yet these jewels were worth many thousands of dollars.
Mrs Digby, who was finding it hard to restrain herself from marching right out there and giving them a piece of her mind, was relieved to hear a woman’s voice shout out, ‘Just what do you numbskulls think you are doing?’
About time someone saw sense, thought Mrs Digby.
The woman continued. ‘We are looking for something very small and highly valuable, how are we supposed to find it if you have turned the whole place on its head!’
Silence from the numbskulls.
Couldn’t have put it better myself, thought Mrs Digby. She couldn’t see the woman from where she hid but she guessed she must be quite a force to reckon with, since for the next eleven hours the men went painstakingly through every item of the Redforts’ home, picking it up, opening it, inspecting it and then replacing it.
What in tarnation are those creeps looking for? wondered Mrs Digby.
Whatever it was, it seemed they didn’t find it.
Chapter 15.
Strictly confidential
RUBY GOT HERSELF UP AND READY nice and early. She was looking forward to going back to Spectrum and finding out more of its secrets. But first she had to find the escape watch, which meant locating her jacket. She was pretty sure that she must have left it in Hitch’s car, in which case it was safe but what if he had found the jacket and been through her pockets? She wouldn’t put it past him – in which case she was in big trouble.
But when she got downstairs Hitch was in the kitchen quietly studying a piece of toast.
‘Is that piece of toast private or can anyone eat it?’ she said.
He looked up. ‘Strictly confidential,’ he replied, hurriedly biting into it. ‘So, you excited about your first day as a code breaker?’
Ruby gave him a withering look.
He winked at her, ‘Just pulling your leg kid, I know you’re far too cool to get excited about things.’
She gave him another withering look and started for the back door.
‘Where you going?’
‘To get my bike – I might as well leave now, I can pick up breakfast at the Diner.’
‘No, that’s not how it’s going to be kid. Strict instructions from the top, I’m going to drive you in to the Spectrum office each day and I’m going collect you when you’re done.’
‘Oh man!’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t need you driving me around – I’ll take my bike, OK?’
‘Not OK, said Hitch firmly. ‘I gotta make sure no one tails you and I need to make sure you are all present and correct in one piece – if I’m not available then someone else will drive you home.’
Ruby opened her mouth to argue but Hitch simply held up his hand. ‘This is non-negotiable.’
Ruby said nothing.
‘Get yourself in the vehicle pronto, we need to get going.’
‘But I haven’t had breakfast!’ protested Ruby. ‘Most important meal of the day and all that.’
‘We’ll pick something up on the way, OK? Now scram. I’ll be with you in a split second.’
Ruby got into the car and was relieved to see her jacket crumpled on the floor behind the passenger seat. She felt around in the pocket until her fingers closed around the cold metal of the watch – got you, you weasel.
She looked at it. Of all the things she’d ever owned this was certainly the best – only thing was, she didn’t own it and sooner or later someone was bound to discover it was missing, along with the whistle and the keyring. It wouldn’t take a master sleuth to figure out who the culprit was. What was happening to her? This was the kind of thing that happened to Red Monroe – not to Ruby Redfort.
She slipped the watch back into her jacket. The keyring was already clipped securely to her jeans and was safely hidden in her back pocket – the whistle was still around her neck, concealed under her T-shirt. She just had to find a way to put them back before anyone noticed they were gone.
On the way to Spectrum, while stopped at lights, who should cross the street but Clancy Crew, Del Lasco and Elliot Finch, stuffing donuts into their mouths. Ruby slid down in her seat.
‘Don’t worry kid, they can’t see you, only me.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Ruby
‘Special glass,’ said Hitch, knocking on the windshield. ‘If this switch is flicked down,’ he said pointing to a little silver lever, ‘then on the passenger side it just shows a blank space, as if you aren’t there.’ To prove
his point he wound down his window, stuck his head out and called, ‘Hey kids, don’t suppose I could persuade you to let me have one of those donuts?’
‘No way man,’ said Del through a mouthful of donut, ‘I only have two left .’
Clancy said nothing but he certainly wasn’t going to let that butler guy have anything of his, not for free anyway. He didn’t like him and he didn’t trust him either.
Elliot looked thoughtfully at the remaining donut in its paper bag. ‘How much you offering?’ he asked.
‘How about I guess what flavour donut you got – I’m right, I get it for free; I’m wrong, I give you ten bucks for it.’
Elliot couldn’t believe his luck – the guy was never going to guess what flavour donut he had; this meant a big profit. ‘Sure,’ said Elliot, ‘I don’t mind taking ten bucks off ya.’
‘So?’ whispered Hitch out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Well the one he was just eating was banana flavour, which means the one in the bag is chocolate raspberry with strawberry frosting and rainbow sprinkles.’ hissed Ruby
‘OK,’ said Hitch holding his finger to his temple as if he was channelling the information. ‘I’m guessing… chocolate raspberry, strawberry frosting, rainbow sprinkles – am I right?’
Elliot, speechless, handed over the donut.
‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ said Hitch as he pulled away from the lights.
‘Who is that guy?’ whispered Del.
‘Some bozo who works for the Redforts’ muttered Clancy.
‘They got a magician working for them?’ said Elliot.
‘Pretty cool,’ said Ruby as they sped along towards Twinford Bridge.
‘I aim to please,’ said Hitch handing Ruby the donut.
When they arrived at Spectrum Ruby was told to sit in the waiting area. She was kind of fidgety. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting Agent Blacker – so far everyone she had encountered at HQ had not exactly been “Mickey Mouse” friendly.
But when Agent Blacker turned up he actually smiled.
‘If you don’t mind my saying, you look kinda youthful,’ he said.
‘I drink a lot of banana milk – keeps you young looking,’ said Ruby.
‘Is that so? How many pints do you drink exactly?’
He was a dishevelled looking man and his badge was upside down, and his hair didn’t look like it had been combed since Christmas. He had a nice voice though. It had warmth – she could tell this from just a few words.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You gonna solve this Lopez code for us?’ He ruffled her hair and added, ‘You know what? I think you just might.’
Messing with Ruby Redfort’s hair would not ordinarily have been a good idea, but for some reason, today, Ruby didn’t mind. Perhaps she was just relieved that someone was finally on her side.
‘Thanks, but I’m not sure anyone else around here would agree with you – I feel about as popular as a person infected with the Black Death.’
‘Nah, they wouldn’t talk to you at all if you had the Black Death,’ said Blacker.
Ruby was surprised when she was ushered through a door and found herself outside in an alley, facing a dumpster and an old van that looked like a dumpster. ‘There’s our ride,’ said Blacker, walking towards the van.
‘You’re kidding right?’ said Ruby.
But he wasn’t.
‘Where we going – the wrecking yard?’
‘Yeah, I hear what you’re saying Ruby – she is a bit of an old lady but she goes OK. Inconspicuous too.’
‘Only if we are going to a real dump of a neighbourhood,’ said Ruby.
Blacker laughed awkwardly. ‘Yeah.’
Twenty minutes later Ruby understood why. They had pulled up in front of an old office building on Maverick Street on the east side of town in the area known as Trashford. It was a dump.
‘Here we are – the file office,’ said Agent Blacker. ‘Lopez worked from here because it made for a good cover, and it was safe.’
Ruby looked up at the derelict-looking building that was sandwiched between an ancient-looking Laundromat and a boarded up convenience store. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it doesn’t look very safe.’
Blacker pointed at the door. ‘Try drilling through this baby in a hurry – it will take you upwards of eighteen hours.’
If that was true then it was disguised well.
He unlocked the door. It was brown – at least the top layer was – large flakes of ancient paint were peeling off to reveal many past colour choices, all the colours of the rainbow. Ruby stepped inside. The small room was lined floor to ceiling with files, brown ones.
‘If anyone did ever happen to tail Lopez, we wanted them to find some dusty old office. Lopez told everyone she was a bookkeeper – no one outside Spectrum knew what she really did.’
‘So, what, she never got to go out on any missions or adventures?’ asked Ruby.
Blacker shook his head. ‘She never ever did anything for Spectrum which involved any danger – LB doesn’t like losing her code breakers, not after… well she just doesn’t. She likes to keep her great minds safe and sound.’
Ruby looked around at the dismal office. She couldn’t help feeling it was capable of depressing a person to death.
‘So every day she sat looking at these drab old walls? What did she do for kicks?’ asked Ruby.
‘Rock climbing,’ replied Blacker.
‘She probably enjoyed the scenery,’ said Ruby, glancing at the window, almost black with dirt.
‘So, I guess LB filled you in on the case,’ said Blacker, pointing at the far wall. ‘All these files on this shelf here cover every little thing we found out about the planned bank heist.’
Ruby counted them – there were more than a few.
‘We want you to read through every single file, and try and spot what we missed the first time around – we know we musta missed something because old Lopez worked it out while she was on her vacation. Her mind musta been ticking over and suddenly – vavoom! – she figured something out. But that leaves us with a problem – we don’t know what it was.’
‘So what tipped you off about the robbery in the first place?’ asked Ruby.
‘We had a call from the Gotz Bank in Switzerland, that’s where the gold’s coming in from. They reported that they were sure someone had infiltrated their security and possibly got their hands on information relating to the gold bullion which is due to be transferred from Gotz Bank to the Twinford City Bank on April 22nd.’
Ruby took some bubblegum out of her pocket. ‘Mind if I chew?’
Blacker shook his head. ‘Why should I mind?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘You’d be surprised.’ She popped the pink cube into her mouth. ‘So anyway, what made them twig?’
‘The person in charge was very, you know, fastidious, she liked everything all lined up “just so”, and was the only person to have access to the documents and papers and although nothing was missing, she was certain that her papers had been disturbed.’
Ruby nodded.
‘Not long after this we intercepted a call from a new customer who claimed she wanted to make a deposit of highly valuable jewellery in the Twinford City Bank – she also wanted to visit the vault it would be kept in.’
‘That’s not unusual, I know my mom would do the same.’
‘But your mom probably wouldn’t ask quite as many questions as this woman did.’
‘Questions like what?’ said Ruby.
‘Like, was it true that the basement was designed by Jeremiah Stiles? Was there really a trick to working one’s way through the maze of passages?’
‘Maybe just interested in architecture,’ suggested Ruby.
‘Maybe,’ said Blacker. ‘According to the bank employee who showed her around, she certainly seemed interested. She actually seemed to be memorising the corridors. And there was something a little off about her. She had a strange accent – strange meaning it sounded a little fake.
Kinda staged, like she was trying to sound like she was from around here when she wasn’t. She was wearing a hat with a veil – looked like something from out of an old movie – very stylish and all, but a little over the top for a visit to the bank.’
‘So she was an eccentric – lot of strange people in Twinford,’ said Ruby.
‘I can’t disagree with you there, but when the bank checked out her ID it was discovered that she had been dead for twenty years.’
‘Ah, now that is a little strange,’ agreed Ruby, ‘even for someone from Twinford. So what about the security cameras – didn’t they get a good look at her?’
‘Something went wrong there,’ said Blacker. ‘Maybe it was her veil, but in every picture her face came out a blur as if the camera couldn’t see through it – couldn’t even make out one feature.’
‘So then what?’ said Ruby.
Blacker shook his head. ‘Nothing. No more enquiries about safes and security, no more eccentric ladies turning up at the city bank.’
‘But you didn’t think whoever it was had given up?’
‘Well that’s where we got lucky I guess, we stumbled on something.’
Agent Blacker walked over to the files, picked up a folder labelled ‘Fool’s Gold – File one’ and placed it on the desk where Lopez must have sat for all those years. It was a dated looking piece of furniture, perhaps designed in the 1950’s, and it had little coloured drawer-pulls, a built-in pencil tidy and a cool looking pale blue lamp; he switched it on and motioned for Ruby to sit down.
‘Take a look for yourself – you’ll get the idea. Might as well make yourself comfortable, you’re gonna be sitting here for a while. Don’t rush it – remember, there has to be something that Lopez missed and she was careful, so you need to be extra careful.’ He handed her a crumpled brown paper bag; inside was a donut.
‘You must be a mind reader,’ she said.
‘Who doesn’t like a jelly donut?’ shrugged Blacker.
The file was full of newspaper clippings, lots and lots of newspaper clippings.
They were all from the personals.
