The Case of the Girl in Grey

by Jordan Stratford

  “Lady Ada, there’s a Mary Somerville to see you.”

  Ada froze. “That’s impossible,” said Ada. “It can’t be.”

  “You were expecting her. She sent a note.”

  “A note?”

  “You read it at breakfast, Lady Ada.”

  “I don’t remember it. I would have remembered it.”

  “You were reading something else at the same time,” added Anna.

  “I can do that! I can read two things at the same time and remember them.”

  “I’m sure you can, Lady Ada.”

  “I would have remembered a note from Mrs. Somerville!”

  “No doubt, Lady Ada.”

  “Mary Somerville. The smartest person in England. The smartest, cleverest person in the whole world. Wrote me a note. I would have remembered.”

  “As you say, Lady Ada,” said a patient Anna.

  Allegra. The sister had entered Ada’s brain like a mosquito in a summer night’s bedroom. She was sure she would have remembered everything if her sister hadn’t simply…

  Allegra trotted into the parlor like a spaniel, not caring a bit who Mrs. Somerville might be or that she wasn’t there to visit the younger sister.

  Ada, in something of a shock, followed on.

  A kindly-looking woman in a coffee-brown dress rose and extended her hand. She was perhaps forty-five or so, with a prominent nose and slightly slanted eyes. Her plain façade could not mask a ferocious intelligence, which Ada recognized at once.

  “Lady Ada,” said the woman. “Delighted to meet you at last.”

  Ada froze once more, star-struck. She blinked forcefully, and as this didn’t help, she blinked again. The woman continued.

  “I’m—”

  “Mary Somerville.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I understand we have a mutual friend in—”

  “Mr. Babbage,” Ada interrupted again.

  Mrs. Somerville smiled, and her eyes motioned to the furniture in the subtlest reminder that they might all wish to sit down.

  “Trithemius,” Ada added, blinking yet again.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Mrs. Somerville.

  “Steganographia. Fourteen ninety-nine. I have your—I mean—Mr. Babbage left—gave me—I—you—”

  “Have I startled you, Lady Ada?” asked Mrs. Somerville, concerned.

  Ada continued to stare at Mrs. Somerville, and Allegra stared at Ada, trying not to laugh.

  Ada panicked and bolted from the room, leaving Allegra to hurl herself at the couch and begin chatting away at the now-captive Mrs. Somerville.

  Ada shot to the library, found her quarry, and flew back down the stairs to find Mary Godwin, looking soggy and pale, in the foyer with the curly-haired and perfectly dry Jane in tow.

  “What’s wrong?” asked both Ada and Mary of each other at once.

  “I’m fine,” said Mary. “Our carriage had a bit of a start. Well, a stop would be more accurate. But what about you? You look a shambles. How did you get so sooty?”

  Ada was still wide-eyed and flustered.

  “Mary Somerville. In my house. Behind that door. Trapped, with Allegra.”

  Mary knew that when Ada began to chop up her sentences, she was feeling overwhelmed.

  “Dear Ada, do calm down. Now, are you saying that Allegra has trapped some woman behind the door, and we are to set her free?”

  “No, no. It’s Mary Somerville. She’s the smartest person in England. She’s the smartest person in the whole world.” Ada’s words were racing. “Honestly, she’s so clever, they had to invent a new word for it.”

  “What word?” asked Mary.

  “Scientist!” Ada babbled excitedly. “They used to say ‘men of science’ until she came along. And I have her book—well, I have several of her books. The ones she’s written. But I mean Mr. Babbage’s book, well, he didn’t write it—Trithemius wrote it three hundred twenty-seven years ago. But Mary Somerville wrote in it! And I read her notes! And there are things I don’t understand! It’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened.”

  “Oh, well then. That’s good. I must say, you don’t look like it’s the best thing that ever happened.”

  “Good grief,” said Ada, remembering. “Mary Somerville is stranded in that room with my sister.”

  “Well,” replied Mary, “Allegra is very…entertaining. Come now, there’s no need to keep Mrs.—”

  “Somerville.”

  “—Mrs. Somerville waiting. I’ll be in shortly. You’ll be perfectly fine, I promise.” Mary gave Ada the slightest push as the door opened, then returned to the task of removing her cape and bonnet and trying to dry off.

  Ada stepped through the parlor doorway to see Mrs. Somerville patiently nodding as Allegra prattled on about her various circus talents.

  “I do apologize, Mrs. Somerville—” Ada began.

  “My dear girl, think nothing of it. I know this is your house, but please do come sit down,” said Mrs. Somerville kindly.

  Ada sat beside Allegra, and this caused the younger girl to bend herself into a more ladylike position.

  “It’s just that Mr. Babbage lent me this book,” continued Ada, handing the small brown volume to Mrs. Somerville, noting that it matched her dress. “You wrote in the margins.”

  “Steganographia by Johannes Trithemius, fourteen ninety-nine. An old favorite. Yes, Mr. Babbage lent me this years ago, after I’d misplaced my copy, and I’m afraid I went a bit mad with annotations.” She looked toward the door as Mary and Jane entered, and she rose to greet them.

  “Mrs. Somerville, hello. I am Mary Godwin, and please allow me to introduce to you my stepsister Jane. Lady Ada speaks most highly of you.”

  “Why, you rise like a gentleman!” exclaimed Jane, as though civilization were at stake.

  “Miss Jane, I find that at a certain age, one may adopt one’s own manner,” Mrs. Somerville stated plainly.

  “Have you grandchildren?” asked Allegra out of nowhere.

  The three other girls shot Allegra a look. Jane in particular was mortified. Mrs. Somerville laughed.

  “Goodness, no. Surely I’m not as ancient as all that, although I must confess I look forward to being old and crotchety.” She leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. “Then I’ll be able to get away with anything.” And she winked.

  The girls couldn’t help but laugh. Anna brought in tea, and they all had a cup and a biscuit, allowing Anna to withdraw before getting down to things.

  “Now,” said Mrs. Somerville, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here.”

  “I’m supposed to say that,” said Ada. “At the end.”

  “That is precisely the point, Lady Ada, and thank you,” said Mrs. Somerville. “I assume that you four young ladies comprise the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency?”

  “No,” said Ada and Mary, at the same time Allegra and Jane were saying “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to sort that out, but I have need of some clear thinking, and Mr. Babbage tells me you’re the second cleverest girl in all of England.”

  “Second cleverest?” began Ada. “Who—”

  “Ada’s terribly clever,” interrupted Allegra.

  “But Lady Ada tells me you’re the smartest woman in England,” queried Mary.

  “Person. World,” clarified Ada.

  “Perhaps,” interjected Jane, “if we allowed Mrs. Somerville to speak, we would gain a clearer understanding of how to be of service.”

  “Thank you, Miss Jane. This matter concerns my cousin’s family, and I fear that my emotional attachment may have clouded my judgment—which is why I’m seeking a second opinion.”

  Ada, back in the familiar territory of facts and problems, was an altogether different person. “Very well,” she said confidently. “Begin at the beginning, and let’s determine the variables, shall we?”

  The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency had its second case.

  “Well,” began Mrs. Somerville, s
etting down her saucer and discreetly brushing a crumb from her lap, “as one advances in years, one accumulates cousins. And cousins of cousins.”

  “Second and third,” offered Jane. “With degrees of remove.”

  “Quite right,” acknowledged Mrs. Somerville. “I have relations by the name of Earnshaw, specifically a Mr. George Earnshaw, a widower raising a daughter at Dedlock Hall, an estate near Kensington, perhaps an hour west of London.”

  Ada pushed her chair back ever so slightly and closed her eyes as she listened.

  “Widower,” said Ada.

  Nodding, Mrs. Somerville continued. “Indeed. Mrs. Earnshaw passed away shortly after providing Mr. Earnshaw with a daughter. In any case, some seven months ago, Mr. Earnshaw sent a missive to the family that he was in receipt of some tremendous news that made him extraordinarily happy, and that a proper announcement was to follow. However, before this good news could be shared, he was tragically killed in a carriage smash.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, madam,” said Mary at once.

  “Thank you, dear. Please allow me to state that the crash was by all accounts an accident—carriage travel can be extremely hazardous.”

  Mary and Jane shot each other a glance and a barely perceptible nod.

  “Elizabeth—Lizzie to the family—is in the care of another cousin, a more or less uncle of hers, a Mr. Thorpe. And Mr. Thorpe informs me that Lizzie is engaged to be married to a certain Sir Caleb Gulpidge.”

  Without moving or opening her eyes, Ada said, “Cousin, announcement, carriage smash, orphaned daughter, uncle, engagement. Carry on.”

  Despite the grim topic, Mrs. Somerville ventured a half smile at Ada’s eccentric but clearly impressive methods.

  “Lizzie is to inherit the entirety of the estate. Now, I do not wish to accuse this Mr. Gulpidge—I do apologize—Sir Caleb, of any wrongdoing. But given the mysterious announcement and my cousin’s tragic passing, less than a year ago, well, my suspicions are aroused.”

  Ada remained motionless.

  Mary cleared her throat, and Ada opened her eyes.

  “Mrs. Somerville,” Mary began, “it seems you are asking for us to investigate your own—if distant—family, although no crime appears to have been committed.”

  “Yes,” admitted Mrs. Somerville. “I am not one to assume the worst, but neither am I one to completely disregard intuition. I have been visiting at Dedlock Hall, and though Lizzie seems satisfied with the match, I confess I find the man…well, suspicious is putting it too strongly. But I would like the benefit of another opinion. Anything I ask of Lizzie—well, here I am, an old woman by her estimation, if not the grandmother Allegra makes me out to be—I believe she is telling me what she assumes I wish to hear. But perhaps you girls, who are closer to her own age, would see things differently.”

  “Heiress,” said Ada. “Fishiness. Fishmonger?”

  “Doubtful,” said Mary.

  “Ah,” said Ada.

  After the morning’s incident, and hearing of Mr. Earnshaw’s fatal carriage smash, Mary Godwin was reluctant to get into another coach so quickly. But Mrs. Somerville had already made arrangements, and the girls were expected at Dedlock Hall that very afternoon. This was to be a social call among young ladies, and their investigations would have to be, and Mrs. Somerville underscored this, clandestine.

  The girls’ tutor, Peebs, had arrived as Mrs. Somerville’s coach was departing, but he allowed himself to be cheerfully persuaded to excuse them from lessons so that they might follow her and pursue the case at hand. He was grateful to be asked, and to not be locked in the distillery cupboard, as he had been during their first case.

  Lost in thought, Ada scarcely looked at Peebs as he handed over that morning’s copy of the Times and handed her up into the carriage. But Mary shot Peebs an appreciative smile, and then they were away.

  “A baronet!” exclaimed Jane, looking up from the pages of her book.

  “What’s that?” asked Allegra.

  “A titled gentleman. Sir Caleb Gulpidge is a baronet. His fiancée, Lizzie, is third cousin to Mrs. Somerville by marriage. He’s here in my book.”

  Ada was not used to hearing about people being both alive and in books at the same time.

  “What book is that?” she asked, her attention surfacing from the broad grey sheets of the newspaper.

  “Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage,” replied Jane. “It lists absolutely everybody worth knowing.”

  “How? Why?”

  “It is a guide to people of Society.” Ada could hear the capital S and cringed a little. “And yes,” said Jane, who could barely contain herself, “you’re in here as well, Lady Ada!”

  “Let me see that.” Ada held out her hand.

  “Certainly, Lady Ada.” Jane beamed. Mary shot her a look, but it was no use. Jane had already turned the page to “Byron.” There Ada was, complete with her horrible first name, Augusta, and her father, George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron, deceased), and her mother, the baroness, Anne Isabella Milbanke. Birthdays and everything.

  “Am I in there?” asked Allegra.

  “No,” stated Ada, finding the fact curious.

  “Why not?” Allegra countered.

  Jane interrupted. “We don’t speak of such things.”

  Mary patted the back of Allegra’s hand. “All kinds of simply delightful people are not in that book, I’m sure,” she said with a reassuring smile.

  Ada handed back to Jane what seemed like the most boring book in the world.

  “What about her book?” asked Allegra.

  “Whose book? What book?” said Ada crossly.

  “Mrs. Somerville. You had her book.”

  “Oh that!” said Ada, excited now. “Steganographia. It’s pretending to be a book about sorcery, but it isn’t. That’s the amazing thing.”

  “Sorcery!” exclaimed Allegra. “Wizards? Spells and stuff?”

  “Yes, but no. It’s actually a book about codes. It’s just disguised as a book about sorcery.”

  “Ada,” interjected Mary. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Steganographia,” continued Ada, “is a book about codes—about making codes look like other things, so nobody even notices there’s a code. And the book itself is pretending to be about sorcery. It’s a book about things being disguised as something else that is actually disguised as a book about something else.”

  “I say, that’s awfully clever,” agreed Mary.

  “Awfully confusing, more like,” said Jane.

  At this small rudeness, everyone looked out the window except Jane, who returned to her book, which she knew mattered even if Mary didn’t like it.

  “What do we have,” said Ada blankly. Mary knew that this was a kind of question, and that it was her job to answer it, or at least begin to.

  “Lizzie, a distant cousin of Mrs. Somerville, is engaged to be married to a Sir Caleb,” Mary began. “Her father was to make some grand, happy announcement, but then he tragically died without telling anyone what it was. So there’s a tragedy, and a mystery. And now there’s to be a wedding.”

  “She thinks he’s fishy,” said Ada.

  “Well, Mrs. Somerville thinks something’s fishy. Because she doesn’t care for him. Not much to go on, honestly.” Mary sighed.

  “She also mentioned an estate manager,” said Jane.

  “Mr. Brocklehurst, yes,” said Mary.

  “What’s an estate manager?” asked Allegra.

  “Someone who manages all the business of a great estate—the farms, properties, rents, taxes,” Mary replied.

  “Fishy?” asked Ada.

  “We shall have to see,” answered Mary.

  The carriage rattled on in the rain, Jane purring over new Society connections in her book, Ada returning to the newspaper, and Mary staring out the window. Allegra daydreamed of striped tents and rings of sawdust, of juggling flaming hoops. But the long ride through the grey autumn drizzle and splootching mud squelched all thoughts o
f adventure. She sighed.

  Mary gasped.

  She stood stock-still in the gloomy grey-green front room of Dedlock Hall, pointing at a young, pale girl with auburn hair. “You!”

  Jane was horrified. This was her first time in the home of a baronet, or at least the home of someone who was going to marry one, and her sister was behaving appallingly. As if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Mary, do calm down,” said Jane as calmly as she was able, which wasn’t very.

  “You,” said Mary, still pointing. “In the park. By the College of Physicians this morning. In the rain. Like a ghost. It was you.”

  “I can assure you, Miss Godwin,” said Lizzie, a bit taken aback, “I spent the morning here, safe and dry, drawing.”

  “I can corroborate,” boomed Mr. Brocklehurst, a boiled cabbage of a man. He was dressed well enough, in many layers of tweed, appropriate for a man who spent much of his time outside. “Lizzie is a most capable artist, and I passed her often to admire her progress.” He spoke like a gentleman, though his accent suggested muddier roots.

  Sir Caleb nodded his agreement, though he had gone a bit pale at the mention of a ghost.

  “This is impossible…,” Mary protested.

  “Obviously,” said Ada.

  “No, I mean, this morning. There was a girl in the road. It was you, I swear.” Mary turned to her sister. “Jane, you saw.”

  “I’m sorry, Mary, but I saw no such thing.” Jane was very proper in her manners in such company, and sounded very grown-up, if a bit snarkish. “I remained in the carriage while you dashed out into the road and then ran shrieking into the park.”

  “I wanted to see if she was all right,” said Mary in her own defense. “We nearly ran her over. It was a girl, or a ghost, who looked exactly like you, Miss Earnshaw. But then she vanished, and she must have gone somewhere. Girls don’t just disappear down rabbit holes.”

  “I’m certain,” interjected Mrs. Somerville, “this is all merely a curious coincidence. The weather was most inclement.” She looked at her audience and started to explain, “Inclement means—”