The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

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.

      They seemed innocent enough:

      Lady of advancing years seeks companion with an interest in cats, crochet and ancient history.

      Fitness instructor wanted for fitness phobic Finn.

      Learn to cook Greek style! When you’re done – no need for tiresome dish washing, just throw them over your shoulder!

      Silently, Ruby read page after page. There were hundreds of these absurd clippings, every one from the Twinford Mirror – there was nothing remotely suspicious or sinister about any of them.

      What was it that Lopez saw?

      After about an hour of reading Ruby shouted out to Blacker. ‘So what made you look out for personals in the Twinford Mirror?’

      ‘Well that’s an interesting story,’ said Blacker, walking out of his room and sitting down on a box next to Ruby. ‘The police picked up a known felon, by the name of Fingers Macgraw – he was driving an expensive car that didn’t belong to him and he couldn’t really explain how he had come by it. Anyway, when the car was searched it had a whole batch of these personal ads stuffed in the glove compartment.’

      ‘So? Fingers read the personals – there’s no law against it.’

      ‘Right, but there was no way they belonged to Fingers; there wasn’t a single finger print of his on them. It was obvious he didn’t even know they were there. In any case what would he be doing with newspaper cuttings? Fingers can barely read – he is strictly a feel it and steal it kinda fellow – nothing complicated about him.’

      ‘And this looked complicated?’ said Ruby.

      ‘It looked like it was something,’ said Blacker. ‘A whole lot of carefully collected newspaper ads and tips from the Twinford Mirror – I mean why? What do they mean?’

      ‘They look pretty random,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s just it – they are so random, it made us wonder if they were random, if you get my drift. And why didn’t the person they belonged to ever contact the police to report the car missing? It was a good car – almost new.’

      ‘But the police must have run a check on the license plates, found the owner?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Sure they did. We know who the car was registered to but it turned out to be the same dead woman who supposedly visited the bank.’

      ‘Well, I agree that is pretty suspicious,’ said Ruby.

      Blacker nodded. ‘So we ran the ads by Lopez to see what she thought.’

      ‘And how long before you knew you were on to something?’ asked Ruby.

      Blacker pointed at another whole row of files. ‘Lopez started reading the Twinford Mirror very closely – wasn’t until she had filled all of these before we began to see exactly what was going on with the personal ads.’

      ‘Boy, you people must really have patience,’ said Ruby, pulling file two from the shelf. ‘What was it she worked out?’

      Agent Blacker smiled. ‘Sorry, but LB wants to see if you can find that out for yourself.’

      For the next couple of hours Ruby barely moved from her chair – she just sat there, reading clipping after clipping.

      Most of the clippings were personal ads. Some were titled TOP TIPS: People would write in from all over to suggest ways of, for instance, getting a cat down from a tree, or how to get shoe polish off a pair of corduroy pants. The pieces were at worst boring and at best faintly amusing but there was nothing suspicious about them – nothing, that is, until Ruby spotted the pattern. They were using a number of different variations on the same code, taking the first letter of the ad and then letters at fixed intervals, discarding the rest. The first code Ruby deciphered used every fifth letter to convey the secret message. After some tinkering, Ruby also discovered something else: three dots in a personal ad seemed to indicate a question mark in the coded message. After that you started again with the first letter.

      As Ruby deciphered each short piece, it became clear to her what was going on – five or more people were communicating to each other about something and it wasn’t about how to get shoe polish off a pair of corduroy pants.