by Matthew Ward
There could be little doubt now that the giant and dwarf had intended at the very least to maim Arthur’s family, most likely to murder them, and it had only been through grace and good fortune that they had all survived thus far. If only Arthur knew the Treasurer’s identity, he might be able to protect his family against the villain’s deadly tactics.
And then it struck him.
Who had the most to gain from a Whipple family downfall? Who had been present at the last four apparent attempts on the Whipples’ lives? Who would benefit from their new rivalry contract were the Whipples unable to compete? And whom had Arthur’s father openly accused of involvement with the Komodo dragon incident, just the previous night? The more he thought about it, the clearer it became to him. Rex Goldwin and the Treasurer were one and the same.
But if Rex Goldwin was in fact the Treasurer, then Ruby was living in the same house as a murderous madman. Arthur checked his watch. She was now fifteen minutes late. What if her absence was the result of some terrible happening at the Goldwin estate? It was too awful to consider.
Arthur returned the note to his pocket and flipped open the Grazelby Guide in an effort to distract himself. He thumbed through the pages and began jotting down possible record attempts on his notepad as he continued to wait.Soon, Arthur had filled nearly ten pages with prospective records. Looking up from his list, he saw that the sun now sat rather lower in the sky than it had when he’d arrived, enveloping him in the shadow of the winged undertaker. Ruby was still nowhere to be found.
He packed up and started for home.
When Arthur had reached the main road, however, he paused, then turned in the direction of the Goldwin estate. He could hardly return home before determining whether or not Ruby was all right.
In a matter of minutes, the Goldwin house loomed overhead. Arthur walked directly up to the front door and rang the bell.
Now that he believed Rex Goldwin to be the Treasurer, this was truly a terrifying prospect—but Arthur took comfort in the fact that Rex remained unknowledgeable of Arthur’s newfound knowledge. As far as Arthur could tell, Ruby’s father had no reason to deviate from his charming, if arrogant, public persona.
The door swung open, sending Arthur’s heart pounding against the walls of its cage. A dark figure stood in the doorway.
Rita Goldwin was dressed in mourning. She wore a black, slim-skirted suit and matching black veil. Pinned to her lapel, an emerald brooch in the shape of a Komodo dragon hinted at the source of her grief.
Arthur’s anxiety somewhat subsided. But when he noticed the expression on Mrs. Goldwin’s face, he began to wonder if he wouldn’t rather have taken his chances with her husband after all—however murderous he might be.
“You,” hissed the woman in the doorway.
“Um, hello, Mrs. Goldwin,” Arthur said with a forced smile.
Rita Goldwin did not smile back. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here after the devastation your family caused last night. I should sic the lizards on you—and let you explain to them what happened to their brother!”
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Goldwin. Please don’t sic any more lizards on me. I was just hoping to catch, I mean, I thought maybe, er, is Ruby in?”
“I’m afraid Rubilda does not want visitors at the moment,” Rita Goldwin replied curtly. “She’s extremely busy preparing for the World Record World Championships. Frankly, I’d have thought you’d be doing the same, knowing the competition you’ll be up against this year.”
“So then, she’s all right, is she?”
“Well, of course she’s all right. What sort of question is that? She’s simply sacrificing her time for the sake of the family. Is that such a foreign concept to you? Now, if you have no other business here, I really must get back to my own affairs. And please know, the next time I catch you so much as setting foot on our property, I will sic the lizards on you.”
“Oh, right—well, fair enough. Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Goldwin,” Arthur said shakily. Then, remembering his original mission, he blurted, “Maybe you could just tell Ruby I dropped by?”
But before he could get out this last, feeble request, the door clapped shut in front of him. It seemed a bad idea to test the house’s mourning mistress any further, so he turned on his heels and headed for home.
On the way back, Arthur thought about the excuse Mrs. Goldwin had given for Ruby’s unavailability. From what he could surmise, the girl had not been harmed but was presently living under a certain degree of duress within her own home. He only hoped she managed to find a way out of it soon, or he’d be forced to face the investigation alone— a prospect to which he was not looking forward. Of course, there was also the fact that Ruby had quickly become the best friend he’d ever had and he was already starting to miss her—but he did his best not to think about that.
Upon his return home, Arthur spent the rest of the day compiling his list of world record possibilities, his mind wandering periodically to the predicament of his missing partner, or to unravelling conspiracy of giants, dwarves, and neighborhood supervillains upon which he had stumbled. With his cheek plastered to the pages of the Grazelby Guide, he finally drifted off to sleep, his dreams inhabited by cheering crowds and glistening golden trophies.
• • •
The next several days went very much the same. Arthur woke up, visited Abigail and Hamlet at Mr. Mahankali’s cottage, shared a quick breakfast with the rest of his family, started down his list of potential records with Uncle Mervyn, headed over to the Undertakers’ Graveyard to wait for Ruby, then—when she failed to arrive—headed back to the house to continue down the list until he was too tired to proceed.
The exhaustive search for a world record to finally call his own kept Arthur occupied and somewhat contented, but as each day passed, Ruby’s absence weighed heavier and heavier on his soul.
Out of desperation, Arthur formulated a plan to both contact his partner and expedite their investigation.
On the seventh day, he set his plan into action.
That morning, his family had planned a trip into the city to stock up on supplies for their pre-championships surge in record breaking. It was just the thing his plot required.
Arthur rose earlier than usual and drafted a copy of the letter he’d received in the birthday cake from Sammy the Spatula. He then sketched two copies of the Treasurer’s note, taking extra care to replicate the details of the fiery crown on the Treasurer’s seal.
After tucking Sammy’s original letter and a copy of the Treasurer’s note beneath his mattress for safekeeping, he sealed the copy of Sammy’s letter and the original Treasurer’s note, along with a brief explanatory message, inside a large envelope. He addressed the envelope to Detective Sergeant Greenley and placed it inside his knapsack. Then he hurried downstairs to join his family as they marched outside and piled into the car.
The drive from the Whipples’ country house to the city took a little under an hour, and Wilhelm parked the car just off Haggle Street, the main thoroughfare in the District of Distinctive Objects.
While the rest of his family searched the shops for the World’s Strongest Rope and the World’s Lightest Running Shoes, Arthur ducked into The Fearsome Feather: Record-Breaking Books and Uncommon Collectibles.
There, he traded a mint-condition Cannibal King rookie card for a unique printing of Joss Langston’s Manslaughter Park—certified to be the First English-Language Novel Illustrated in Color—which he had inquired about by telephone the day before.
Arthur secured a table outside a nearby café while he waited for his family. He retrieved a black pen, a handwritten note, and a small shipping box from his knapsack. Arranging the items on the tabletop beside his newly acquired copy of Manslaughter Park, Arthur opened the unsealed shipping box and slid out a typewritten letter that he had produced the night before:
Joss Langston Appreciation Society
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International Head Office
Dear Miss Rubilda Goldwin:
Thank you for your entry in the Joss Langston Appreciation Society’s recent essay contest. We are pleased to inform you your essay entitled “Secret Codes & Hidden Messages in the Works of Joss Langston” has won our Grand Prize! Enclosed, please find a highly-collectible, RECORD-HOLDING copy of Miss Langston’s gripping novel Manslaughter Park.
Congratulations on your win! We look forward to hearing more from you in the near future.
Yours Sincerely,
Art H. Urwin
President,
Joss Langston Appreciation Society
Arthur set the letter aside and opened the leather-bound novel to its first page. He uncapped the pen and set about encoding the contents of his handwritten note into the pages of Manslaughter Park, using the simplest cipher he could think of.
On the first page, he selected a d and an e within the novel’s existing text and drew a short line beneath each of the two letters. On the second page, he underlined the letters a and r. On the third page, he underlined a space and then another letter r.
Slowly flipping through the book, Arthur continued the procedure, methodically underlining two characters per page, and then crossing out the corresponding characters on his handwritten note. He felt a bit guilty defacing a world-record-holding artifact in this manner, but “desperate times” and all that.
A half hour later, Arthur finally crossed out the last handwritten character on his note and closed the book with a sigh of satisfaction. All his partner had to do now was string the underlined characters together into words and sentences to uncover the following message:
dear ruby, i really hope you are not dead. i went to the graveyard on saturday at noon as we discussed, but you did not turn up. i dropped by your house, but your mother informed me you were not seeing visitors. i have gone to the graveyard every day for the past week, but have yet to see any sign of you. i will continue to visit the graveyard every day at noon until you arrive or send word. i have made some breakthroughs in the case that i am eager to share with you. on the northern wall of your estate, at the one-hundred-thirty-seventh spike, you will find a hollow stone. inside, i have enclosed a facsimile of a mysterious note i found the night of the komodo dragon attack, after catching a glimpse of the giant mr. overkill. i suspect it to be a clue of vital importance. i have sent the original to d.s. greenley for analysis and now await his reply. if you are in fact alive, i have reason to believe you may be in some danger, so please be wary. yours sincerely, arthur
His only hope was that Ruby’s parents would not open the book for much more than a superficial glance. Indeed, he was counting on Rex and Rita Goldwin’s disdain for their daughter’s taste in literature to keep the message hidden from unwanted viewing, and their love for record-breaking objects to keep the message safe from the rubbish heap. Only time would tell if his strategy worked.
Arthur slipped both the freshly encoded novel and the fake cover letter from the Joss Langston Appreciation Society into the shipping box, then closed the package and sealed it shut with a strip of packing tape.
He left the café, dropping the parcel addressed to Ruby and the envelope addressed to D.S. Greenley into a nearby post-box, then made his way back to the car to rejoin his family.
After returning home later that evening, Arthur concealed his other sketch of the Treasurer’s note inside one of the ceramic rocks he had received for his birthday and stole away to the outskirts of the Goldwin estate. He scaled the wall and planted the rock beside the 137th iron spike as he had described in his message.
There was nothing left to do but wait.
• • •
On Tuesday, after three days with no word from Ruby, Arthur finally received a letter.
He ran up to his room and shut the door behind him, then tore open the envelope and unfolded the enclosed piece of paper. Unfortunately, it was not a message from Ruby. It was, however, the next best thing.
The note read as follows:
A.W.—
Communication received. Meet in the city—Friday, 21:00 at the Broken Record. Ask for a “Mr. Green.” Will discuss further.
—D.S.G.
Arthur smiled. The investigation was back on. Now he only had to retrieve his partner.
• • •
When Friday morning arrived, Arthur had yet to hear from Ruby.
He waited at the graveyard for nearly an hour before finally accepting the fact he’d be meeting Sergeant Greenley alone that night. Arthur rose from his lookout spot with a frown, brushed himself off, then turned around—and practically collided with a dark-haired, green-eyed girl.
“So, how’s the investigation going, Detective Whipple?” Ruby asked nonchalantly, as if two full weeks had not passed since their last meeting.
“What?” Arthur said with a start. “Where did you come from? Where have you—?”
“Sorry it took me so long to get away. Ever since the hide-and-seek disaster, Rex and Rita have had the house on lockdown. Nonstop training every day. They’ve only just eased up enough to let me out for an ‘oxygen renewal session.’ Honestly, I’d almost rather be back on the compound. It’s been absolutely killing me not being able to get out here to the graveyard, which, I might add, is even better than the one in Manslaughter Park—though, of course, you can’t really beat the one in Southanger Cemetery. It’s good to see you, by the way.”
“Wh—yeah,” Arthur stammered, still recovering from the shock of Ruby’s abrupt appearance, “it’s good to see you too. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever see you again . . . but, I take it you deciphered my message?”
“Yep—though I think my baby brother could have figured that one out. You might want to work on your ciphers a bit.”
“Well,” said Arthur in an injured tone, “I had to make it simple, didn’t I? How else could I be sure you’d get the message, since we hadn’t established a set code language? I know lots of codes. Have you heard of the one where you list the letters of the alphabet in one column, then reverse their order in a second column and then use the corresponding letters to write a hidden message? Yep? Just an example. What about the one where you assign a letter to each key of the piano and then record a tune with a secret message encoded in it? Didn’t think so. That’s a good one. Maybe next time you won’t be so hasty to judge someone on his knowledge of ciphers without taking a look at his codebook first.”
By this time, an impish grin had formed on Ruby’s lips.
“What?” Arthur demanded.
“I’m only teasing, Arthur,” Ruby giggled. “You did great. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? I got this, didn’t I?”
With that, she held up Arthur’s hand-sketched copy of the Treasurer’s note, which he had planted atop the Goldwins’ wall for her to find.
“Ah, you did, didn’t you,” said Arthur, his tone softening. “Sorry for getting defensive. I guess I take a bit too much pride in my ciphering skills.”
“As well you should.”
Arthur smiled bashfully, then moved on to more pressing matters. “So. You’ve read the Treasurer’s note.”
“I have indeed,” Ruby replied.
This was what Arthur had been dreading. How did he tell his friend and partner that he suspected her own father of being a maniacal villain and the key player in a plot to murder his family? If only there were a greeting card for this sort of thing.
“So,” Arthur stalled nervously, searching for the right words, “what did, er, how did you—”
“Yeah,” Ruby said matter-of-factly, “I’m pretty sure Rex is the Treasurer.”
“What?” exclaimed Arthur. “You too?”
“It seems fairly obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, who else has as much to gain from your family’s demise? Who always happens to be around when something goes wrong with them? Not to mention the fact he�
��s just painted a ten-foot canvas of that flaming crown symbol and hung it over his bed.”
“Wow. Really? Well, are you all right then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, knowing your father might be a lawless criminal—are you all right?”
“He’s not my father, Arthur.”
Arthur frowned. “I know you think he’s not your father, but this is a serious situation. You probably shouldn’t be relying on hunches here.”
“I’m completely serious,” protested Ruby. “It isn’t just a hunch anymore. They’ve as good as said it.”
“Really?” Arthur replied, suddenly intrigued. “What did they say?”
“Well, the other day I was hiding in a cupboard to avoid afternoon calisthenics, and I overheard Rex and Rita discussing the World Record Championships of the World—”
“World Record World Championships,” Arthur corrected.
“Whatever. And Rex was going on about how easy it would be to defeat your family, but that he was a bit worried I would somehow destroy everything he’d worked for—which is a typical topic of discussion for him. ‘Rubilda is definitely a weak link,’ he said. ‘If only there were a way to make up for her embarrassing lack of ambition. We really should have adopted another daughter when we had the chance.’”
She paused here as if expecting a response, but Arthur just stared at her blankly.
Ruby bristled. “Well? That proves it, doesn’t it?”
“Does it really?” Arthur replied. “I mean, granted, it probably won’t be earning him any records for World’s Best Father, but I don’t quite understand how it proves you’re not his daughter.”
“Didn’t you hear me? He said ‘we should’ve adopted another.’ Why would he say ‘another,’ unless they had already adopted a daughter?”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure he didn’t mean ‘adopted another daughter?’ Like, in addition to the biological daughters they already have?”
“That’s not how he said it. I could tell he meant ‘adopted another.’” Ruby exhaled, then snapped, “Look—you weren’t there, were you?”