The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection

Chapter 24.

A total yawn

THURSDAY CAME AND IT STARTED WELL – that is to say, the sun came up. But things went downhill from there.

First of all, Ruby was woken early by Consuela.

‘Hey Ruby, get up. Your new bed has arrived.’

‘I have a bed, I’m in it,’ muttered Ruby. She had the covers pulled up to her nose and an eye mask, printed with the words, wake only in case of emergency.

Consuela lifted the mask. ‘Well, your mother has bought you a whole bedroom set so you better snap to it senorita.’

Ruby pulled the covers over her face. ‘Tell her I like it the way it is. I like the space, it’s very Zen, you know what I’m saying?’

‘Well, you can discuss it with her yourself, I’m not interested – but furniture or no furniture she wants you out of here,’ said Consuela.

‘As far as I am aware,’ said Ruby confidently, ‘today is Twinford Blossom Day and that means a local holiday which means I get to stay in bed.’

‘Not today missy,’ said Consuela, tapping her foot. ‘Today you have lunch with the Humberts.’

Slowly Ruby peeled the sheet from her face. ‘You are not serious?’

Consuela who was standing with her hands firmly on her hips nodded. ‘Sorry to ruin your Thursday but you better get dressed missy – rapido.’

Ruby was missing Mrs Digby. She would at least have looked sympathetic.

The thing was, Brant Redfort was a stickler for manners and the very thought that anyone might feel in any way snubbed by a member of the Redfort family made him shudder. There were no two ways about it – she would have to go.

‘Hey, has my jacket been mended yet?’ asked Ruby.

‘No, Hitch sent it away,’ said Consuela.

‘Sent it away where?’ asked Ruby.

‘To the place that’s cleaning your mother’s jacket – Clean and Crisp or something – he says it’s the best for repairs.’

Darn it, thought Ruby, that watch sure would come in handy on a boring day like today – hey, I might even have been able to abseil out of there.

Ruby picked up a T-shirt from the floor – it bore the slogan what a total yawn.

Consuela clicked her tongue. ‘You wear that, young lady, and your mom’s gonna freak.’

‘Yeah, you got that right,’ said Ruby, throwing it back into the closet.

When the Redforts arrived at the Humbert’s impressive home, they were greeted enthusiastically. ‘How wonderful that you all could come,’ and ‘oh Ruby you look just darling in that dress!’ and ‘Quent’s just dying to show you his new magic trick.’

The Humberts were really very nice people – it was just, well, they were also kinda boring.

Quent had invited a few of his friends over and Ruby found herself sitting at what was quaintly referred to as the “kids table”. If that wasn’t insulting enough then the level of conversation she had to endure during lunch was the final slap in the face.

‘Hey Ruby, can you do this?’ Quent was holding his thumb in front of Ruby’s face and was bending it back and forth to show her how it could go in either direction. ‘It’s double-jointed! Isn’t that neat?’

‘Neat!’ said Ruby in an overly bright tone which anyone but Quent might regard as “sarcasm”.

Ruby strained to hear what was being discussed next door in the dining room. ‘Freddie has had had quite the week, haven’t you dear?’ said Marjorie Humbert.

‘I’ll bet he has,’ said Brant, ‘this gold delivery must be big news for your team at the bank?’

‘Oh it’s big news all right but what I haven’t told you – and I say this confidentially just between us,’ said Freddie Humbert, reducing the volume of his voice to a loud dramatic whisper, ‘is that we have a threat to the bank’s security!’

‘Oh my good gracious – can this be true?’ cried Sabina. ‘I heard that Twinford Bank has the safest safe in the whole of the entire country?’

‘And so it has!’ boomed Freddie. ‘But even so it has recently come to light that there is a sophisticated plot to rob the Twinford City Gold the very night after it arrives from Switzerland.’

Brant was astonished. ‘No wonder you have been so on edge – I haven’t seen you on the golf course in days!’

‘He’s been so busy,’ exclaimed Marjorie.

‘But how could anyone possibly find their way into the bank vaults? I thought they were designed like an actual maze,’ said Sabina.

‘That’s true,’ assured Freddie, ‘navigating your way through the basement is the first problem any would-be bank robber will encounter and that’s before they even get to the safe.’

‘I know all about that Freddie,’ said Dr Gonzales, the museum curator. ‘The museum basement was designed by the very same architect, Jeremiah Stiles, and is almost identical to yours. Great idea to have a maze leading to your bank vaults but not so good if you are trying to locate antiquities in a museum!’

‘Makes the buildings pretty impenetrable though,’ said Freddie Humbert. ‘You have to know the passageways like the back of your hand.’

‘They don’t stand a chance,’ said Marjorie earnestly, ‘not with the security team Freddie has lined up.’

‘Sounds like you could do with some of the experts we have had working on the museum security,’ said Dr Gonzales, competitively. ‘We have gone very high technology.’

‘Yes, that whole Buddha rising through the floor thing – that is impressive,’ agreed Freddie.

‘Not to forget the amazing display cylinder,’ said Dr Gonzales, proudly.

‘Well that’s not so impressive – it’s just glass,’ scoffed Freddie, ‘one knock and it’s in pieces.’

‘Not just glass, unbreakable glass,’ corrected the curator. ‘And it comes with a unique locking device which will be delivered to me and me alone on the night.’

‘How exciting,’ said Sabina, who was just about on the edge of her seat.

To Sabina, the Jade Buddha seemed a whole lot more thrilling than all that dreary old gold.

‘Well,’ grunted Freddie Humbert, ‘I can assure you, it is nothing compared to the City Bank’s security – no one will be breaking in, not if I have anything to do with it. Safest safe in the USA, I promise you that.’

It ought to be, thought Ruby, with the whole of Spectrum working to keep it that way.

‘So how about it Ruby? Ruby?’ Ruby felt a tug on her arm.

‘Huh?’ said Ruby. Quent was pulling at her sleeve, trying to get her attention.

‘You up for a game of sardines?’

Oh boy, thought Ruby. Five eager faces were looking at her. ‘Yeah. Sure I do – nothing I’d like more.’

‘All right!’ shouted Quent triumphantly. ‘You wanna hide first?’

‘Nah it’s OK, you hide Quent, we can all split up and find you.’

‘You don’t want to team up?’ asked one of the other kids.

‘Nah, I’m better on my own – focuses the mind if you know what I mean. Why don’t you guys team up and I’ll go solo.’ She had her notebook with her and a list of things she needed to figure out.

One was:

WHAT DID LOPEZ SEE IN THE MIRROR?

It seemed to Ruby that it was no accident that so little was known about Lopez, she had wanted it that way. But when you leave no clues that in itself becomes a clue. As soon as she’d found a good hiding place, she took out her notebook and studied her questions.

QUESTION:

Why did Lopez stake out the Fool’s Gold Gang?

ANSWER:

Because her life lacked adventure

..................................................

QUESTION:

Why hadn’t she told anyone?

ANSWER:

Because she was breaking the rules

..................................................

QUESTION:

Was she spotted by the gang?

ANSWER:

Certainly

..................................................

QUESTION:

Did they think she was up to something?

ANSWER:

There was no way of knowing

Ruby had the foresight to bring the Spectrum dog whistle with her – she had a feeling it might come in handy. And she was right. Every once in a while, Ruby put the whistle in her mouth, inhaled and shouted, ‘Where are you guys?’ This gave the impression that she was moving around looking for them, rather than sitting on her behind in a cosy linen closet down in the Humbert’s laundry room.

At four o’clock Ruby went and found Quent and his friends who by now had given up on the game and were desperately trying to find her.

‘My gosh,’ she said. ‘You are all so good at this, I couldn’t find you anywhere.’

That evening at five minutes to six Clancy Crew was leaning on the Redfort’s doorbell as if his life depended on someone letting him in.

‘Hey! Where’s the fire?’ said an irritated Consuela.

But Clancy just shouted ‘sorry’ as he ran up the stairs two at a time.

He burst into Ruby’s room and plopped himself into the huge beanbag and said, ‘So?’

‘Jeepers Clancy, take a breath.’

‘So what were we doing yesterday in Everly?’ he asked

‘Well I sorta had this hunch that the code breaker I have replaced – well, am standing in for – had a secret.’

‘A secret, how do you mean?’

‘I think old Agent Lopez got bored of sitting at her desk cracking codes and started to wonder what it would be like to be an action agent. So one day there she is getting her nails done when bingo, she figures something out and rather than call one of the trained action agents she decides that she will go and stake it out herself.’

Clancy was impressed. ‘How’d ya figure that?’

‘I got a little clue in the form of a pencil.’ Ruby dropped the Fountain pencil in Clancy’s lap. ‘I found it behind Lopez’s desk, and then I figured she must have worked out that the fountain in the code was the Fountain Hotel.’

‘Nice work Rube.’

‘So now I see why I can’t find the missing code in the files.’

‘Why?’ asked Clancy

‘Because it isn’t in the files, it’s on that little piece of paper that Lopez picked up.’

‘But Felix said there was nothing on that piece of paper,’ said Clancy.

‘Maybe nothing you could see,’ corrected Ruby, ‘but what if that was the point?’

‘How dya mean?’ said Clancy

‘OK, so the lady writes something on the pad like so.’ Ruby took out her ballpoint pen and wrote something on her notepad. ‘Then she tears off the top sheet and walks away, leaving the blank pad on the table for her accomplice to pick up.’

Ruby tore out the page and handed the pad to Clancy. ‘And I’ll bet if you rubbed a soft pencil over that blank sheet you would see the message.’

Clancy did as Ruby suggested and the impressions made by Ruby’s pen were revealed on the paper.

‘Pretty smart,’ said Clancy. ‘But how come Lopez didn’t tell anyone?’

‘Because she didn’t want to get into trouble with Spectrum,’ said Ruby. She paused. ‘And you see now I find myself in exactly the same position. What do I do? Should I tell LB how Lopez is not the goody-goody they think she is or what?’

Clancy was torn. He understood the problem: never rat on a friend or ally – that was his rule. He would rather die a thousand horrible deaths than betray a comrade.

‘I can see another problem,’ said Clancy.

‘Yeah and what’s that?’ said Ruby. ‘You are going to be in the same trouble yourself if you tell Spectrum how you know what you know.’

‘You’re not wrong there my friend, I just gotta get some proof and then they’ll listen.’

‘And if you can’t?’ said Clancy.

‘Then I just have to convince them with the old Redfort gift of the gab.’

‘Good luck with that,’ said Clancy.

When Clancy and Ruby walked into the living room they were greeted by a smiling Mr and Mrs Redfort, who were sitting on lawn furniture while Hitch set up a brand new slide projector. Hitch gave her a look which Ruby took to mean, “better you than me”.

‘I’ll make some popcorn,’ she said, and she and Clancy disappeared into the kitchen. Clancy chatted excitedly while Ruby set up the popcorn popper.

‘Hey you two,’ called her mother, ‘almost ready!’

‘Just coming,’ said Ruby, adopting the face of a condemned man.

‘Hey Clancy,’ came Brant’s voice. ‘Come and tell us what you have you been up to – we haven’t seen you for a while.’

Clancy reluctantly slipped off his stool and went into the living room.

While Ruby waited for the corn to pop she felt around in her pocket, pulled out the keyring and started sliding the rainbow coloured letter tiles up down and across. Maybe it transforms into something cool, she thought. But no, it really did seem to be just some dumb old puzzle. She had made a word: ‘FLY’.

Big deal, she said to herself.

From the kitchen she could hear Clancy doing his best to fake enthusiasm. ‘Wow, Mrs Redfort that looks like a great portrait of your shoes.’ And, ‘nice close-up of your thumb’ And, ‘Gee, Mr Redfort, that’s a very snowy picture of snow.’

‘Isn’t it?’ beamed Brant Redfort, proudly.

‘And what’s that one, Mr Redfort?’

‘Oh that’s the tile floor of the airport.’

Ruby started making the drinks; she took a long time about it. As she turned the blender off, she could hear her mother saying, ‘And this is us at the airport, just before that funny little man with the moustache spilled his drink over me.’

‘Oh, there he is honey,’ said Brant Redfort. ‘Boy, was he in a hurry.’

Ruby turned the blender on again. How am I gonna explain Clancy to Hitch? she wondered. But maybe I don’t have to, Clance won’t blab, Hitch need never know. Ruby poured the liquid into highball glasses and put them on a tray. The conversation hadn’t gotten any more interesting.

‘And who are these people?’ asked Clancy, in a desperate attempt to sound interested.

Bad move, Clance my old pal, said Ruby to herself. ’Cause now they’re gonna tell ya.

‘Well,’ started Sabina, ‘that couple there, they’re the Zimmermans, and that’s Mr Rodrigez and let me think, oh yes, the blonde couple must be the Summers, and the redhead in the background there, did we meet her honey?’

‘No, darling,’ replied Brant

Oh boy! Poor Clance. Better get him outta there before he loses his mind.

Ruby entered the room, all smiles. ‘Fruit cocktail anyone? Hey, where’s Hitch?’ she said looking round, ‘I thought he wasn’t leaving until eight?’

‘He looked at his watch and suddenly decided that he had to go out and fix something in the yard,’ said Clancy pointedly. ‘It seemed kinda urgent.’

‘I’ll bet it did,’ said Ruby, glancing up at a slide which showed her mother and father looking into each others eyes while biting into the same strudel.

Chapter 25.

Some likely suspects

RUBY GOT UP VERY EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, walked into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, made a face at herself and said, ‘Ruby my old pal, you look terrible.’

Her mind was buzzing with thoughts – she had not been sleeping well.

She went downstairs. Hitch was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘that was a neat trick you pulled last night, disappearing at the last minute.’

‘Well, it wasn’t planned. I got a strange signal on my watch – flashed up for just a second. Didn’t make any sense – like a call from beyond the grave.’

‘Huh?’ said Ruby.

‘It was a signal from a non-existent agent,’ explained Hitch

Ruby paused before dropping some bread into the toaster. ‘Meaning, an extinct agent?’

‘Yeah, he’s dead all right – though there’s not a soul in Spectrum who doesn’t wish he wasn’t. I had to check it out, though of course it was nothing.’

‘This dead agent, he wouldn’t be this guy Bradley Baker would he?’

Hitch flinched, almost imperceptibly but Ruby caught it. ‘It’s confidential,’ was all he said.

Ruby let the subject drop. She was thinking about another extinct agent – just what had happened to poor old Lopez?

But all she said was, ‘Well, call it what you like but I figure you were saved from a fate worse than Chinese drip torture.’

‘I’m glad you survived it kid. So you know I’ve got to ask you – you going to have anything to report tomorrow?’

‘Maybe,’ said Ruby. ‘I just need to check out a couple more things before I know for sure – but I’m close.’

‘That’s not what Froghorn said – he seemed to think you’d struck out.’

‘Yeah well, you know Froghorn – always likes to rain on someone else’s parade.’

Ruby’s toast popped up and Hitch slid it on to a plate.

‘Looks like you’re out of time kid – LB wants to see you today.’

Ruby looked down at the plate and instantly lost her appetite.

‘Redfort, report to Spectrum at 0800 hours’

When they arrived, Buzz informed them that LB was giving a briefing to some of the Spectrum staff.

‘She’s in the cinema room – looking at key suspects for the City Bank robbery.’

Hitch led the way down a black and white tunnel until they reached the circular doorway of the screening room.

‘You better wait here kid, this is highly confidential – I’ll call you in when we’re done.’ Hitch entered and the door locked shut behind him.

Ruby stood around gently kicking at the wall until she heard footsteps running down the passageway. Agent Blacker appeared, out of breath and even more crumpled than usual.

‘You meant to be at this thing too?’ he wheezed.

‘Yeah,’ replied Ruby. ‘I forgot the password – talk about dumb!’

‘No worries,’ said Blacker, ‘we can probably slip in unnoticed if we sit in the back – I know all this stuff anyway so I’m not missing anything.’

He tapped in the password and they crept in silently; a projector was whirring and grainy pictures were being thrown up on to the screen, twenty or so people sitting listening as LB talked. Ruby caught sight of the back of Hitch’s head, and sank as low as she could into her seat; Agent Blacker made himself comfortable, propping his feet up in front of him. Projected large was the image of a big, thuggish looking man in a raincoat.

‘I wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark night,’ whispered Ruby.

‘I wouldn’t want to meet him on any night,’ replied Agent Blacker.

The next picture came up: a strangely comical face – ugly, sinister even but definitely comical.

There was a wave of muffled laughter from the Spectrum audience.

‘I see you have taken an instant liking to our dear friend Hog-Trotter,’ said LB. ‘Not as funny as he looks I’m afraid.’

‘Is he as stupid as he looks?’ said a young man in the front row.

‘Oh, never underestimate this portrait of crime – where HogTrotter is concerned it’s always wise to bear in mind the cliché “never judge a villain by his face” – however ugly that face may be. He is strangely good at second-guessing people and quite the intellectual. I wouldn’t rule him out.’

LB clicked the button again.

‘Wow, he doesn’t look like the criminal kind,’ whispered Ruby, peering at the green–eyed, sweet-looking man who filled the screen.

‘Ah yes, Baby Face Marshall – now he always surprises everybody,’ replied Blacker.

‘He’s dangerous?’ said Ruby doubtfully.

‘Quite the cold-blooded killer,’ hissed Blacker. ‘You see Baby Face, don’t bother calling for Mommy – run!’

Ruby gulped. She was used to the baddies she saw on TV. There the murderers always seemed to have a hump, or hooked hand, or half a dozen gold teeth, something to give them away, but this guy looked like he might run the local pet store. The projector clicked on and up came the face of a woman.

‘Valerie Capaldi, also known as Nine Lives,’ said LB.

‘Wow, she’s pretty,’ said the same mouthy young man.

‘Not as pretty now,’ replied LB. ‘A couple of years back she got into a nasty tangle escaping one of our agents – I would imagine she has a fairly ugly scar across her left eye. Be kind of hard to miss – they call her Nine Lives because she has cheated death as many times as any cat.’

The woman on the screen didn’t look the type, Ruby thought – in fact she looked like someone her parents might know.

‘She’s a decadent sort and pretty stylish,’ continued LB, ‘though I would be surprised if she were involved in a gold heist – jewels and precious stones are more her style. She was trained by this gentleman.’ Click. ‘Fenton Oswald – he loves planning a good robbery, enjoys the challenge but he is strictly speaking more of a jewel thief – spends most of his time in Europe.’

He looked an ordinary sort of man – the picture showed him exiting a jewellers in Berlin. He was wearing tinted glasses, a tweed suit and carried a rolled umbrella.

Then came a very different sort of face, the kind of face you might expect to appear in an old movie, very melodramatic looking with slicked grey hair and pointed sideburns. The nose was long and elegant which gave the face a dignified look, but the chiselled cheekbones were those of a gothic villain. His clothes were different too, long black coat and pointed black shoes, polished to a high shine. The slide was aged and the picture black and white. LB clicked past him without explanation.

‘Who was that guy?’ asked Ruby.

‘Oh him?’ said Blacker. ‘That was the Count.’

‘The Count of what?’

‘The Count von Viscount. If you think he looks like something from some old B-movie then that’s because he is.’

‘He used to be an actor?’ asked Ruby.

‘Not an actor but a director – there’s a theory that he turned to crime when all his movies were trashed by the critics. Some say he was a little ahead of his time – the movie-going world wasn’t ready for him back then. Still isn’t – too dark, too strange, too dangerous. Unfortunately, he became a much more successful criminal than he ever was a film maker – only one of our agents ever met him and lived to tell the tale.’

‘Who was that?’ asked Ruby.

‘Oh, no one’ said Agent Blacker, quickly. ‘No one you would know’

Bradley Baker? wondered Ruby

‘It’s been a long time since we heard from the Count,’ said Blacker.

‘But he’s a contender?’ asked Ruby

‘Oh, he’s been off our radar so long we are wondering if he isn’t pushing up daisies – that, or he retired.’

‘How would you know if you had heard from him?’ asked Ruby.

‘You can recognise a Count von Viscount crime because it is always bizarrely melodramatic. You can be sure if someone is dangling you over a bubbling volcano rather than just dropping you into it then it is almost bound to be the Count.’

‘That’s a comfort,’ said Ruby.

‘Of course, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him myself but they say he was always very charming – right up until the moment he decided your time was up.’

Ruby shivered.

Suddenly the lights came on – the briefing was over. Ruby managed to slip out, hidden amongst the crowd; in the corridor she adopted the pose of someone who was fed up of waiting.

A short while later Hitch stuck his head out of the door. ‘You’re up, kid.’

When Ruby walked in, LB didn’t waste time with hellos.

‘So Redfort, anything to report?’

Ruby tried to look confident, even if she didn’t sound confident. Here goes everything. She cleared her throat. ‘Um, not quite but almost.’

‘What does that mean?’ said LB.

‘I think I have almost figured something out but I kinda need, well, I sort of wondered if I could, you know…’

‘Spit it out Redfort.’

‘Take a look at Lopez’s stuff.’ The words sort of hung stupidly in the air; LB didn’t say anything but Ruby could gauge what she was thinking by the scowl on her face.

‘What “stuff”?’

‘The stuff she had with her when she died in that avalanche.’

‘And why would you need to look through Lopez’s backpack? What does it have to do with anything?’

‘I just thought maybe she could have had the missing code with her,’ said Ruby.

LB looked at her as if she hadn’t heard quite right.

‘Lopez was a professional, do you even know what that means? She wouldn’t dream of removing classified evidence from Spectrum and take it with her on vacation – up a mountain!’

It did sound kind of preposterous when put like that but Ruby persevered. ‘But the thing is, I’ve been thinking, what if everything isn’t quite as it seems? What if Lopez found something, but she didn’t tell anyone that she had found that something, but instead decided to check it out herself?’

‘You’re talking crazy kid – why would she not tell anyone?’

‘Because she was bored?’ suggested Ruby

‘Because she was bored?’ LB clearly couldn’t believe her ears. ‘This isn’t an installment of Nancy Drew, this is the real world and in the real world Spectrum code breakers don’t just run around playing hero because they get bored.’

‘But you see I think that’s what coulda happened and I think she found something and someone saw her find that something – someone who didn’t want her to find it – so they bumped her off.’

‘Redfort! She died in an avalanche – let’s not let our imagination run away with us. It was an accident! Lopez was a desk agent not some action hero.’

‘But you see,’ said Ruby, ‘the code isn’t anywhere in the files so Lopez must have had it with her.’

‘What you mean is that because you can’t find it, then it can’t be there.’

‘No, I know it isn’t there because…’

Ruby tailed off, she could hardly tell LB how she knew it wasn’t there. Instead she simply had to stand there looking like some dumb kid until LB, exasperated, waved for her to go. When Ruby got to the door LB said, ‘by the way, you’re out of here – you failed and that’s all there is to it.’