The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals

by Jordan Stratford

  “That’s his spoon, yes,” said Mary, her hand on Ada’s arm. “And certainly it belongs here, in the British Museum.”

  “I’m sure it does, miss,” agreed the guard.

  “Delighted we are indeed to hear it. Now please admit us.”

  The guard paused. “And do you ’ave an appointment?” he asked.

  “But of course we have an appointment,” declared Ada. “Miss Newdog here has several, as you can plainly see. Are you not well-appointed, Miss Newdog?” she asked of Mary.

  “I do endeavor to be so, Miss Ribbon,” said Mary, rejoicing in the use of their clandestine names, reserved exclusively for Wollstonecraft Detective Agency business.

  “That’s not quite—” began the guard, once again flustered.

  “It is, quite. Honestly,” assured Ada.

  “Quite,” agreed Mary.

  “Right.” The guard nodded. “Well, the director’s office is down this hall, to the left all the way at the end. Mind, there’s a private tour on, so if you see them, pretend you don’t, in a manner of speaking.”

  Mary was about to thank the poor fellow but saw that Ada had already barreled ahead and was well down the hall, so she scarcely had time for a half nod, half curtsy.

  “Richard Lion-Heart’s spoon,” the guard muttered to himself. “Blimey.”

  “I must say, Ada,” Mary said, “that was awfully clever. If not frightfully honest.”

  “I have no way of proving that this spoon did not belong to Eleanor of Aquitaine,” said Ada. “That is for the director of acquisitions to decide.”

  “And are we really going to show it to him?”

  “Waste of time. We’re here to investigate.”

  Investigation was clearly going to be a challenge. They were in the older and already-built bit of the museum, and the halls were stacked with crates and bundles waiting to be placed in the new building once it was completed. The halls managed to be both very tidy and a complete mess at the same time, with very few of the exhibits still viewable.

  “It all seems rather ordinary,” said Mary. “They’re getting ready to move, so it’s a bit of a jumble.”

  “Not just ready to move,” added Ada, “but expand. A lot of the things in these crates are new. To them, anyway.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The crates are new. Not all dusty and manky. Some of these things have been in storage for a very long time, but some of them, well, new crates for new things. Or new old things. Old things they just acquired.”

  “I see,” said Mary, who mostly did.

  “We may not know until we see it. But I hear that tour coming up behind us.”

  “Should we hide?” asked Mary.

  “We should join,” said Ada.

  The girls found a gap between two stacks of new crates and wedged themselves in. They heard the tones of an erudite gentleman apologizing for the disarray of the museum generally, and a small party walked past. Silently Ada and Mary filed in at the rear while the tour guide pointed at and spoke about the few visible paintings and artifacts.

  Mary found herself quite interested, but Ada’s face held a faint scowl. They would follow a procession of large skirts for a half dozen paces, the guide would say something or other for roughly half a minute, and they would all trundle forward another few steps.

  “And this unique item, originally designed to adorn an earl, consists of simple trade goods,” said the guide.

  “Trade goods?” asked a young lady in the small crowd.

  “Yes, things that are traded for other things, rather than using coins. A tahiti hat, for example, in exchange for a metal tool. Or simpler,” said the guide, “a nut for a jar of tuna.”

  “What did you say?” asked Ada, pushing forward to see. In a small glass display case was an odd necklace of rough beads—possibly nuts from some exotic tree.

  “A nut for a jar of tuna?” Ada repeated.

  “Yes, miss…umm…,” said the puzzled guide, not remembering having seen Ada before, or having her as part of his tour group.

  “Who told you to say that?”

  “I’m sorry, miss?”

  “You said ‘a nut for a jar of tuna.’ Who told you to say that?”

  “Well, it’s in the notes we guides are given at the start of each day, when new items arrive.”

  “And this is a new item?” Ada peered closely at the display. On the glass was a small etched plaque, which read simply ADORN EARL.

  “Yes, miss, it arrived only this week, as I recall.”

  “I’m a fool, aloof am I!” said Ada excitedly.

  Mary had no idea what Ada was going on about. Neither did the tour guide.

  “Miss?” he said.

  “Was it a rat I saw?” said Ada. At this the ladies all looked around nervously.

  “No rats, miss! Not at all.” He shepherded the tour away quickly. “Now, if I may direct all of your attention to this next item…,” the guide continued, with the party following. Ada remained riveted to the spot.

  “What are you talking about, Ada?” Mary asked.

  “A clue. Two clues, actually. Two clues that lead nowhere, and that get us somewhere.”

  “If you could possibly back up for a bit and let me catch up…,” said Mary.

  “Pencil,” said Ada, pulling out a folded yellow sheet of paper. She pulled off her right glove with her teeth, biting the tip of one of her fingers. Mary obliged after digging through her own purse. Ada wrote a short sentence and handed this to Mary.

  “A nut for a jar of tuna?” asked Mary, reading.

  “Now read it backward,” said Ada.

  “A nut for…I say, that’s rather clever, isn’t it? But what does it mean?”

  “Nothing! It’s just a palindrome, a word or phrase that’s the same backward as forward. Like ‘tahiti hat’ or ‘bird rib’ or ‘don’t nod’ or ‘evil olive.’ Now try this.” Ada took back the paper and wrote two words.

  “Adorn Earl? I’m trying to read it backward, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Because that one isn’t backward. It’s an anagram. Remember, Miss Anning was sent to a location in Dorset….”

  “Yes, and she said she couldn’t find it,” said Mary.

  “Precisely. Doesn’t exist. Because it’s not a place; it’s a puzzle. Look,” said Ada, taking back the paper yet again and scribbling more before handing it to Mary.

  ADORN EARL

  LEARN ROAD

  “Honestly, Ada, I’m trying but I still…,” Mary began.

  Ada took the paper back once more, wrote again, and returned the paper so that it now read:

  ADORN EARL

  LEARN ROAD

  NORA RADEL

  “Good heavens,” said Mary. “But what does it mean?”

  “It simply means,” said Ada, “that she is trying to get our attention. She’s waving ‘hello’ at us.”

  “So…” Mary hesitated. “What should we do now?”

  “We should wave back.”

  Ada marched on, clearly excited, while Mary trailed in her wake. Mary fully expected Ada to retrace their course through the museum, and wondered what story would be presented to the unfortunate and befuddled security guard. Yet just as she prepared to follow Ada to the right, Ada darted left, through a great doorway, and entered a long, white, and soaring gallery. It had two stories, as it was ringed by a railed balcony glossed with lead-white paint. On the floor were crates and cases bigger than Ada’s bleh, and Mary watched her friend weave between them on some mission she herself could not discern.

  “Ada,” Mary whispered as loud as she dared, “where are we going?”

  “Scene of the crime,” said Ada, without regard for the volume of her voice.

  “The dognapping? That was in Lyme Regis.”

  “Not that crime,” said Ada. “The next one.”

  The girls had seemed to reach their destination. Beautiful arching double doors in stout oak—one slightly ajar. Through it Mary could glimpse a co
urtroom—or at least a room as she had always imagined one to look like. A red carpet, paneled walls, and a judge’s bench with a gavel.

  Ada slipped inside, with Mary fast behind her.

  It was not a courtroom, she realized, but it was close enough. Instead of benches for witnesses arranged around the great room, there were tables for exhibits, each one draped and labeled. The one closest to her was marked 284A, which she did not find to be terribly illuminating.

  “This must be the auction room,” Mary guessed. To the right of the door the girls had entered through stood a main exit, or entrance, she supposed, with no fewer than five sets of double doors for the admission of the public. Through the glass of the doors, Mary could make out a cobbled courtyard, and a green beyond.

  “Yes,” Ada confirmed. “Not sure why they call it an auction, but this is where they acquire things. Buy things, once someone clever and important, like Miss Anning, says the things are real. This makes it official.”

  Before each hidden exhibit was a small wooden easel, with brass hinges.

  “What are these for?” Mary inquired.

  “Documents,” Ada replied. “The statements by the clever and important people. That say the things are what they are supposed to be.” Ada didn’t look at Mary through all of this, nor did the inflection of her voice change. She was looking for something, counting down, which took up the parts of her brain other people use for chatting and explaining things. “Aha,” she said finally. “Two twenty-one B.”

  The box, for indeed it was a box, was barely a forearm deep, though it was twice as long as Mary’s arms spread wide. Without any concern for clandestineness, Ada tugged on the canvas drape, and the box wobbled threateningly.

  Ada stared at the revelation for a full second.

  “Fake,” she said, and tried to fling the canvas back over the box. Mary had hardly any time to inspect it, only catching a glimpse of an animal skeleton in white plaster.

  “You seem very sure,” said Mary, smoothing out the canvas. As she was taller than her friend, Mary was able to set the cloth to rights again.

  Ada stood stock-still for a second, gestured with an open hand in Mary’s direction, and added a single word.

  “Paper.”

  A few minutes later, the girls were back in the bustling main courtyard, where they dodged masons’ carts and cranes and workmen.

  A large basket swung toward them, accompanied by a shout of “Watch out!”

  Ada and Mary ducked as the enormous wicker cube, creaking on giant ropes, nearly knocked their bonnets off. The package landed heavily on the gravel in front of them.

  “What is it?” Ada asked a workman as he jumped from his crane to be sure they were all right.

  “Cotton, miss, from America. For packing up the displays, afore we move ’em,” he said.

  “No, no. What’s this basket?”

  “It’s just a cotton crate, miss. Bit larger than we usually see ’em. Like a giant’s picnic basket, eh? Brobdingnagian.”

  Mary was impressed by the word.

  Ada was impressed by the basket….

  They began to walk north, and the hammering began to grow distant. Ada was elated, despite not having found anything that seemed directly pertinent to the case.

  “Oh, oh, I can see why she likes this,” said Ada, grinning.

  “Who?” asked Mary.

  “Nora Radel! Once she finds the note we left her, it should all get rather more interesting between me and my archnemesis.”

  “Archnemesis? Nora Radel is your enemy?” Mary asked. Then, “Wait—I thought you left that note on the display for the Sons of Bavaria? What did you say?”

  “Yes, yes. They are in this together. My note simply says that the Sons of Bavaria have the wrong dog. And that we have the right dog, Miss Anning’s dog. Also that we are perfectly happy for them to go through with their plan of forcing her to authenticate the fake ichthyosaur so long as we get half the money.”

  “I say…isn’t that…criminal?” said Mary.

  “It’s not a real plan,” said Ada. “It’s a counterfeit plan, because we are counterfeit criminals, and those are counterfeit dinosaur bones. That is why this will work. I’ve signed it with a counterfeit criminal name.”

  “You have a counterfeit criminal name?”

  “The Sphinx of Black Quartz,” said Ada decisively. “Only it’s not my criminal name. It’s hers. Or at least it’s one of my current theories.”

  “You’ve lost me completely,” said Mary.

  “The Sons of Bavaria won’t understand. They’ll panic, and they’ll be afraid. But she’ll know. And that’s what matters.”

  Mary and Ada walked past Marylebone Road and found the gate to the servants’ alley, which ran behind the row of great houses. They opened the gate discreetly and crunched their way along the gravel to Ada’s back garden. By using servants’ paths and the back door, they hoped to avoid Lady Noel.

  But as they approached the back door to the upstairs kitchen, the door opened of its own accord. Or, rather, according to a white-gloved and bewigged footman of Gran’s. Gran herself stood stock-still just inside the doorway, expressionless.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Noel,” Mary began. “We were just in the garden, taking some air.” She felt bad for lying, but it clearly wasn’t working, and she wasn’t sure if that should make her feel better or worse.

  “Miss Godwin,” said Gran, her snarfling pug clutched to her chest, “you have proven your company to be a detriment to Lady Ada’s recovery. Therefore, your services are no longer required.”

  “Services?” said Ada. “Mary is my friend!”

  “And see how excitable such a friendship has made you!” chided Gran. “To bed with you at once, child, and I shall fetch the doctor to see what harm this ‘air’ you speak of has inflicted. As for you, Miss Godwin, it is inappropriate that you should enter this house.”

  “Inappropriate?” said Mary, offended.

  “Don’t talk back, child; it is unbecoming for a young lady. Ada, bed, now. Good day, Miss Godwin.”

  “But—” Mary began.

  “Good. Day,” pronounced Gran as she took a hand from Charlemagne and grabbed Ada’s arm roughly, pulling her inside.

  The footman closed the door, not with a slam but with an emphatic click that was at once perfectly appropriate and utterly dismissive.

  Mary stood alone in the garden as the December rain resumed.

  Anna had also clearly been given a stern talking-to from Gran, for she said little as she helped Ada out of her clothes and into her nightdress, tucking her back into bed.

  Ada surprised herself a little. She should be furious, fuming, outraged.

  Incendiary.

  Instead, she felt unperturbed, and said so.

  “I am unperturbed. This changes nothing.” Ada wondered briefly if there was such a word as “perturbed” and realized there must be, and she made a mental note to look it up after.

  “It would seem, Lady Ada, that with everyone banished from the house, and you confined to bed, it must change everything.”

  “It’s still a good plan,” mused Ada.

  “Lady Ada,” Anna said, “your grandmother has her footmen stationed at every entrance to the house, with strict orders that you are not to leave under any circumstances.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Ada. “She can’t send me to bed. I’m a criminal mastermind.” She paused for a moment and added, “More or less.”

  “That’s as may be, Lady Ada,” said Anna. “However.”

  “Still a good plan,” repeated Ada, with a grumble this time.

  Ada pondered while Anna brushed and put away Ada’s clothes.

  “Can you send some letters for me?” Ada asked.

  “I can certainly try, Lady Ada,” answered Anna. “But I fear that Lady Noel is watching me very carefully. Any letter I send for you is likely to be read. She doesn’t want you excited.”

  “Hmm,” said Ada. “One that I have in min
d is pretty exciting. We’ll have to be clandestine.” Ada had a thought. “Can Mrs….Chowser do it?” she said, thinking of the cook.

  Anna smiled. “You remembered her name! Well-done. Yes, I’m sure she will run a special errand for you and deliver your letter.”

  “It’s a good plan,” said Ada once again, a little more at ease. And she settled in to make more good plans involving seamstresses, ship riggers, and a quantity of coal….

  Ada awoke before the dreary dawn. And she felt marvelous. Electric. It was as though she had spent several weeks being sucked dry by leeches, only to then spend an entire day not being sucked dry by leeches.

  It was too soon to expect a reply from Miss Anning—Mrs. Chowser had delivered the note detailing Ada’s plan to the Golden Alder Inn only the previous evening. But there was much to prepare to put her plans into action. She needed supplies.

  Under Ada’s bed were a pair of slippers and a cast-iron pot. At the pot’s bottom was some kind of charred material, which she couldn’t quite remember putting in there or setting on fire, not exactly, and thought she should best chip it out before anything else went in there, just in case. This she did with the aid of a very large wrench, which while barely fitting in the pot did an excellent job of crushing the black gunk into soot, which Ada poured into the fireplace grate. Mostly.

  The potassium nitrate crystals, which she had saved from a previous experiment involving a cannon, were precisely where she had left them. The rest were baking supplies, and that meant the kitchen.

  Ada opened her door silently and looked for her grandmother’s watchful footmen. Seeing none, she nearly went down the main stairway out of habit, but then chose the servants’ stairs, just in case. The dawn offered just enough light to let her go about without a candle, which would have drawn attention.

  The first stair gave a terrible creak that Ada knew was louder in her head than it was in the house. Still, she held her breath as she crept her way down to the upstairs kitchen, and down further to the servants’ hall, and the main kitchen in the back. There was a flicker of firelight, the coals still glowing from the night before. Ada’s shadow stretched long and strange against the bricks of the kitchen wall.