“But you translated Verne’s messages pretty fast.”
“Yeah, but those were word by word, not letter by letter!”
Max shrugged. “I’ll try some. I’m dying of curiosity.”
Quickly he began substituting in the first line:
Hkcta nbk Hgyci Yozzgncut ul Krnxguxjctgxcfs Iuzvfcignkj Kpktny, Fkgjcta . . .
Jldvu pcl Jhoda Oebbhpdiv . . .
“What the—?” He paused in midsentence and checked his work.
“Well, that’s a big help,” Alex said.
“This is a different code than Nigel’s note.”
“Oh, great. They changed it page to page?”
Max shrugged. “I guess.”
“Which means there’s only one thing to do,” Alex said.
Max shot her a look. “Find Nigel.”
Alex’s phone beeped again, and she pulled it out. “It’s Bitsy. She’s waiting by the gate to pick us up.”
“No!” Max said, gathering up the papers. “Tell her we died!”
“If we died, how could we be texting her?” Alex asked.
Max shoved the papers back into the box and slammed it shut. “Tell her I stepped in dog poop. Massive poop that will contaminate her car and eat through the floor. I don’t know, tell her anything! We can’t trust her, Alex. She’s driving a Niemand Enterprises car. We can’t give this secret to the enemy. Let’s find a back exit and text Gerrold.”
“Max, think. Avoiding her would be suspicious. She knows everything—why we’re here, what we’re looking for. But she doesn’t have to know what we just found. Put the papers in the box and put the box in your backpack. I’ll tell her we’re on our way. We’ll play it cool, say we found some old photos, then we’ll figure out a way to get rid of her.”
“OK. Right. OK.” Max let out a breath like an Arctic wind. He nearly busted a zipper trying to stuff the box into his backpack. Together they took the elevator out of the building.
Bitsy’s car was idling at the curb. She waved to them with a broad smile. “Helloooo! I convinced Mummy to let me pick you up. Did you find it?”
“No!” Alex and Max said at the same time.
“Just pictures,” Max said, as he pulled open the rear door. “Old pictures. A box of old pictures. A box of old pictures that can’t be opened.”
“How curious,” Bitsy remarked. “If it can’t be opened, how do you know what’s inside?”
Alex shot Max a panicked look. Now both Alex and Bitsy were staring at him.
Fish. Fish sauce. Fish cakes. Fish rain. Max’s fists were clenching and unclenching. Alex gave him a warning look. Which just made things worse. “You . . . you lied to us!”
“Beg pardon?” Bitsy said.
“Max!” Alex snapped.
“The logo on the back of your car!” Max blurted. “Tell us about that.”
“Oh dear, that thing,” Bitsy said. “I suppose you could say it’s one of the perks of working for old Stinky.”
Max whirled toward Alex. “See? She works for him, and she’s the enemy!”
“Oh, dear Lord, is that what you’re getting all barmy about?” Bitsy asked with a baffled smile. “This was Mummy’s company car. After all, she was married to him.”
Max swallowed hard. “Wait. So . . . you’re his daughter?”
Bitsy threw her head back in a laugh. “Mummy had been married before. When things were dire, I’m afraid Stinky came along and swept her off her feet with lofty dreams of changing the world.”
“Right. Underwater cities . . .” Alex murmured.
“Needless to say, those dreams died quickly. After the divorce, all she got was a modest house . . . and this car.” Bitsy reached out, taking Max’s hand and Alex’s. “I am so, so sorry to have made you fearful. I’ve asked Mummy repeatedly to have that awful insignia removed. To me it is like looking at a swastika. But she claims pulling it off would leave holes in the boot. She’s vain.”
Max let go of her hand. “You make me smell fish.”
“I had a tuna sandwich for lunch,” Bitsy said, covering her mouth.
“It means he’s afraid,” Alex said.
“It means I don’t trust you,” Max added.
“I see . . .” Bitsy thought for a moment. Then, slowly, she unclasped and pulled off her necklace. On it was a large silver locket, which she turned around to show Max.
Engraved on the back was a message. The letters were so teensy, Max had to hold the locket right up close to his eye:
FOR MY KINDRED SPIRIT
ON HER 13TH BIRTHDAY
FIGHT THE POWER
LOVE AND SMILES, BASILE
“The power was Niemand,” Bitsy said gently. “I knew how much Basile hated him. My uncle wanted to overthrow that tyrant, but he was too gentle a soul to do it. He considered me the daughter he never had, and his fight was mine. So you see, I’ve been at this longer than you. Please understand, whatever I can do for you, I will. Just name it.”
Max turned away, looking at the locket. Kindred spirit meant ‘soul mate.’ Basile had a terrible singing voice and sometimes bad breath, but he had a really good soul. Max trusted him. And it sure looked like Basile trusted Bitsy.
Max handed the locket back to Bitsy. “Do you still smell fish?” she asked with a smile.
“I think it must be the tuna sandwich,” Max replied.
“Max?” Alex said. “Are we good?”
Max nodded.
Taking a deep breath, Alex said, “OK, I think we may have an uncle too, Bitsy. One we never knew. That old guy who slipped us the note at the funeral home . . . we need to find him.”
“I never did actually see him,” Bitsy said. “What did he look like?”
“Old,” Max said. “Not much hair. Skinny.”
“Well, that narrows it down to half the men in London,” Bitsy drawled.
“A few minutes before we got to the funeral home, our driver almost hit him in the street by accident,” Alex said. “Somehow he managed to get out of the way. Amazing reflexes. Like an acrobat. Or a dancer.”
“He told us his name was Nigel,” Max added.
Bitsy’s frown loosened. She pulled out her phone, did a quick search, and held out the screen to them. “Was it this fellow?”
Max and Alex gazed at a black-and-white image of a bare-chested ballet dancer in midleap. His chest muscles gleamed, and he stared into the camera with a confident smile. Printed across the bottom of the image was the name NIGEL HANSCOMBE.
Alex pinched the photo out to look at the face. “That’s him, I think!” Max blurted. “A lot younger.”
“So he was a famous dancer?” Alex asked. “What happened?”
“His fame didn’t come from dancing, exactly,” Bitsy said, flipping into the article that accompanied the photo. “He was second understudy for the corps de ballet in the Northeast Swansea Terpsichorean Troupe. What made him famous was the thing that cut his career short. It was an errant trapdoor in a production of Swan Lake, which opened when it was supposed to stay shut. Injuries all over his body, his left eye nearly lost. After that, Hanscombe disappeared.”
“Bummer,” Alex said.
“Go back to the search,” Max said. “Can we get some contact information?”
Bitsy’s thumbs began working the phone again. As she scrolled down a list of hits on Nigel’s name, buried among all the ballet references was a link that read ST. STEPHEN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH SHELTER AND SOUP KITCHEN, 55 WESTBY LANE, OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK, REV. JONAS P. MUDGE, MANAGER N. HANSCOMBE.
Max smiled. “Bingo.”
13
THE Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church basement smelled of cabbage, which might have explained the puckered-up face of Reverend Jonas P. Mudge. “And what exactly is the nature of your business with Mr. Hanscombe?” he sniffed, peering through thick glasses at Bitsy, Max, and Alex. “We are quite busy here, and—”
From behind him a voice called out, “Let them in, Jonas, fiddledeedee, lunch is over and I’m a free man.”
/>
“As you wish, Nigel,” the reverend said, stepping aside.
Down a dim, narrow corridor walked a bent but quick-moving silhouette. As he emerged into the light of the open door, he smiled. One eye drooped, but the other shone as brightly as in the photo of his younger self. Looking from Max to Alex, the eye quickly became moist with emotion. “Glorious,” he said. “So my instincts about you were correct. Please. Come in, children. Reverend, we shall be in my office.”
He led them into a small side office with no windows. Flicking on a light, Nigel gestured to the corner, where several folded metal chairs were propped against the bare wall. Max, Alex, and Bitsy unfolded three of them as the old man sat on a battered wooden desk. With a smile, he thrust out his arms joyously. “What a banner day this is! How utterly enchanting to see you again—”
“We need facts,” Max said. “Are you really who you say you are—a relative of Gaston, the nephew who shot Jules Verne?”
Nigel’s face flinched with surprise. He focused on Max, his good eye steel-gray and steady. “Well, we don’t stand on ceremony, do we? The facts. Yes, Gaston is my ancestor.”
“Did you know about the list that Queasly had saved?” Max pressed.
“A list?” Nigel replied. “I thought Gaston had written a rather long work.”
“I think that’s probably lost,” Max said. “The club never got it. But Gaston made a short summary. You didn’t know that?”
“No.”
“So you didn’t know where it was hidden?”
“No. Did you find it?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Max said.
Nigel let out a high-pitched squeak of a laugh. “You drive a hard bargain, young man. I like that.”
“Did you know you gave us a code that only worked on one page?” Max pressed on.
“Not exactly. I don’t really know how the codes work.”
“Do you have any other code keys?”
Nigel’s eyebrows shot way up. “Well, well . . . I believe I do.” He nearly floated off his desk, spinning around to sit in a chair. From a file cabinet he pulled out a metal box of his own and spun a combination lock to reveal another metal box, which he unlocked with a key. Inside that was a third box guarded by a finger pad, and from that he pulled out an unmarked manila envelope. His fingers were shaking. “You will forgive my nerves. I had given up hope, and as I have no children, these documents would have died with me.”
He spilled out a small stack of papers, each about the size of an index card. Max recognized the one on top. “V minus two, C plus one,” he said. “We used that one already. It decoded the first page.”
“Ah,” Nigel said. “That would explain why the card is labeled on the back with a 1. Code one for page one.”
“Splendid!” Bitsy said. “Where is the one for page two?”
Max quickly found the card labeled 2, then turned it to the front.
“What on earth—?” he murmured.
“Wagon wheels,” Bitsy said. “How . . . eccentric.”
Alex groaned. “How is this supposed to help us?”
“This one,” Nigel said, “has remained a mystery.”
Max drummed his fingers on the table. They let out a dull pudududum . . . pudududum . . . “I’m not getting why there’s a drawing of wheels. This is a code. A code is about letters.”
“Yes, lad, I have looked at this many times,” Nigel said. “I can only assume that the text on top is crucial. It refers to ‘an arrow’ . . .”
“But there are two arrows,” Bitsy said.
“It also says ‘MZ hub’—whatever MZ means—and there are two hubs,” Max said.
“Aren’t M and Z random letters?” Alex said. “Two letters, two hubs? Maybe that’s a start. You put the letters into the hubs?”
“Why would you do that?” Bitsy asked.
“I don’t know, for some crazy, code-y reason?” Alex said.
Nigel opened a drawer and pulled out a pencil. “Be my guest.”
Max took it and wrote carefully on the card:
Max stared at it a moment. “So what does ‘an arrow’ mean?”
Pudududum . . . pudududum . . .
“Will you stop that?” Alex snapped.
“Perhaps the arrows indicate which way to spin the wheels?” Bitsy suggested.
“This is a code, not a toy,” Nigel said.
Max slapped his hand down on the table. “Maybe it’s not ‘an arrow’! M and Z are two random letters, right? Two letters, followed by their location—‘hub.’ So maybe A and N are meant to be two random letters too. Then that top line could mean ‘A, N arrow.’”
“So if we put the M and the Z in the hubs,” Alex piped up, “we can put A and N where the arrows are!”
“Clever!” Bitsy said. “Looks like the circles are dividing the alphabet. The first one is A through M, and the second circle is N through Z.”
“Where do the other letters go?” Max murmured. Pudududum . . . pudududum . . .
Alex smacked her hand down over Max’s. “Max, there are twelve lines in each circle. M and Z are in the middle, so there are twenty-four letters left. So if you had a letter at each end, they’d all fit!”
Max nodded. “The first half of the alphabet in the first circle, the second half in the second circle . . . letters arranged around the circumference, like numbers on an analog clock . . .”
He quickly filled in more letters:
Max jumped up from the table. “Y-y-y-yes! Got it!”
“It’s . . . lovely,” Nigel said. “But what does it mean?”
Alex peered at it. “I’m thinking it’s a substitution. You swap each letter with the letter on the opposite side of the circle, connected by the line—so A for G and G for A. Same with B and H, C and I, and so on. The ones in the middle, M and Z, swap with each other.”
Bitsy leaned over the desk, pulling out page 2.
Hkcta nbk Hgyci Yozzgncut ul Krnxguxjctgxcfs Iuzvfcignkj Kpktny, Fkgjcta nu nbk Jcyiupkxs ul g Yohyngtik ul Otyvkgeghfk Xkpufoncutgxs Czvuxngtik nu nbk Bozgt Xgik
Yohzcnnkj hs Agynut nbk Zgatclciktn
Hkact qcnb Cycy bcvvoxcy, ghupk gff gtj qcnbuon qbcib tunbcta igt bgvvkt.
Gjj nbk ygfohxcuoy gtj igngfsncigffs zgxpkfuoy kllkiny ovut nbcy yohyngtik, jkxcpkj lxuz nbk luffuqcta qgnkx yuoxiky:
* Vxkykxpkj qcnb nbk nctinoxk ul iucf joyn lxuz nbk Eumbcz Xcpkx
* Krnxginkj lxuz nbk xkj iugn ul nbk gticktn qkn xcpkx buxyk lxuz nbk yuoxik ul nbk Xcpkx Ynsr
* Ngekt lxuz g aufl hgff’y iktnkx ct nbk lgn zuotngcty ul Zkrciu
* Jkxcpkj lxuz nbk hfgie yzkgx ul knkxtcns lxuz Gxzgtju ul Egnbzgtjo
* Xkyiokj lxuz g bun igpk ct nbk quxfj’y iufjkyn fgtj zgyy
“This will take forever,” Bitsy said. “You have to replace every single letter?”
“Ugh,” Alex groaned.
“Can we have a bite to eat first?” Nigel asked.
But Max was already writing. “Eat all you want. I’m working.”
14
Hkcta nbk Hgyci Yozzgncut ul Krnxguxjctgxcfs Iuzvfcignkj Kpktny, Fkgjcta nu nbk Jcyiupkxs ul g Yohyngtik ul Otyvkgeghfk Xkpufoncutgxs Czvuxngtik nu nbk Bozgt Xgik
Yohzcnnkj hs Agynut nbk Zgatclciktn
Being the Basic Summation of Extraordinarily Complicated Events, Leading to the Discovery of a Substance of Unspeakable Revolutionary Importance to the Human Race
Submitted by Gaston the Magnificent
Hkact qcnb Cycy bcvvoxcy, ghupk gff gtj qcnbuon qbcib tunbcta igt bgvvkt.
Begin with Isis hippuris, above all and without which nothing can happen.
Gjj nbk ygfohxcuoy gtj igngfsncigffs zgxpkfuoy kllkiny ovut nbcy yohyngtik, jkxcpkj lxuz nbk luffuqcta qgnkx yuoxiky:
Add the salubrious and catalytically marvelous effects upon this substance, derived from the following water sources:
* Vxkykxpkj qcnb nbk nctinoxk ul iucf joyn lxuz nbk Eumbcz Xcpkx
* Preserved with the tincture of coil dust from the Kozhim River
/> * Krnxginkj lxuz nbk xkj iugn ul nbk gticktn qkn xcpkx buxyk lxuz nbk yuoxik ul nbk Xcpkx Ynsr
* Extracted from the red coat of the ancient wet river horse from the source of the River Styx
* Ngekt lxuz g aufl hgff’y iktnkx ct nbk lgn zuotngcty ul Zkrciu
* Taken from a golf ball’s center in the fat mountains of Mexico
* Jkxcpkj lxuz nbk hfgie yzkgx ul knkxtcns lxuz Gxzgtju ul Egnbzgtjo
* Derived from the black smear of eternity from Armando of Kathmandu
* Xkyiokj lxuz g bun igpk ct nbk quxfj’y iufjkyn fgtj zgyy
* Rescued from a hot cave in the world’s coldest land mass
A slap on the desk woke Alex up. She lurched up from a curled-up position on her chair. Her back hurt, and each click of the old clock on the wall sounded like a bone breaking.
“Brrrmff!” snorted Nigel, who had been slumped over his desk, also asleep.
“Chhhhh . . .” snored Bitsy, who was on the floor, using her coat as a mattress.
“Read it . . . read it . . .” sang Max as he danced around the room, singing to an old Michael Jackson tune.
With a groan, Alex picked up the decoded page and read. Nigel leaned forward and angled the paper so he could see it. Now Bitsy was staggering over too. “He finished?” she said. “How long have we been here, a week?”
But Alex was barely hearing her. The message was turning her brain inside out. “This is amazing, Max.”
“Brilliant . . .” the old man said.
“Well, Kathmandu is familiar because I know someone there,” Bitsy said. “But what does the rest mean? ‘Isis hippuris’? ‘Coil dust’? ‘Wet river horse’? ‘Golf ball’s center’? ‘Black smear of eternity’?”
“Isis hippuris is a type of coral that’s also called sea fan, which we already have,” Alex said. “No idea about the rest.”
“This doesn’t scare you?” Bitsy said.
“We’ll figure out the locations,” Max said. “Kathmandu is a start. It’s in Nepal and Nepal has yaks, and yaks are my favorite animal.”
Alex burst out laughing. “Uh, Max . . . ?”
“What?”
“You said you never wanted to travel again.”
“I don’t. I want a normal life.” Max sighed. “But Evelyn wants a normal life too. And she can’t have one.”