Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes (23 page)

“Just looks like lines to me,” said Clancy. “Lines and some kinda gobbledygook.” He pointed to the strange code-like word within the mass of lines.

Ruby sat on the bench thinking hard. What was it Lopez had said?
“I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense.”
What if she hadn’t meant the
Twinford Mirror
— what if she had meant an actual mirror? Slowly, Ruby picked up the compact from the ground and reflected the paper in the glass. The lines were the other way around and the letters in the left-hand corner now read:

“Well, still doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Clancy.

“No, me either,” said Ruby.

The bell sounded to signify the end of recess, and Ruby reluctantly headed to class. All she could think about was Lopez, how one day she had been sitting bored to death in a little brown office on Maverick Street and three days later she was dead. It was like LB had said, curiosity can get you killed.

Ruby opened the door to classroom 14B and sat down.

“Remind me,” Mr. Singh was saying, “what’s the formula for sulfuric acid?”

“H2SO4,” said Ruby without looking up.

“Correct answer, Ms. Redfort, but incorrect classroom. If memory serves, I see you for chemistry on Tuesdays.”

Ruby glanced around her. “Oh, I see what you mean, wrong room, wrong class.” She picked up her bag and stumbled through the door and back downstairs to classroom 14A directly below.

Muttering apologies for her late appearance, Ruby made her way to her desk and sat down.

“As I was saying,” said Mrs. Schneiderman, “Khotan was a Buddhist region up until the eleventh century when it came under the ruler Yusuf Qadr Khan and the religion changed. The famous explorer Marco Polo visited Khotan in 1274 — he had heard the stories about the famous Jade Buddha and wanted to see it for himself but discovered that it had long since been smuggled out of the country — no one knows when or by whom.”

“What’s the big deal, Mrs. Schneiderman,” said Vapona. “It’s just jade, right? My mom has jade.”

“Well, where to start, Vapona . . . “ Mrs. Schneiderman was flustered; to say that she found Vapona Begwell very difficult to teach was an understatement.

“Apart from the beauty and significance of the Buddha itself, it is important to remember that this isn’t just any jade, this is translucent jadeite jade — many people regard it as the most valuable kind. Though not the people of Khotan:
they
prized the milky-white nephrite jade found in the region — considered it more precious than gold. And that’s what makes it such a mystery — what was a jadeite jade Buddha doing in Khotan in the first place? How did it get there? Jade is found all over the world, but jadeite jade is not found in China.”

Vapona was yawning rudely. Red Monroe hated to see Mrs. Schneiderman’s feelings get hurt and so she did what Red did best, she pretended to take an interest. “So, Mrs. Schneiderman, where does jadeite come from?”

“Oh, good question, Red. It’s found in places as far away as New Zealand, and as local as California. It’s also found in Alaska, Guatemala . . . and of course Burma, which is the most likely place for the Buddha to have come from. You can tell the difference between jadeite and nephrite not only from their appearance but also because of course they have different chemical compositions.”

Vapona was by now resting her head on her desk and doing her utmost to look supremely bored.

Mrs. Schneiderman looked defeated.

But Ruby Redfort’s brain was working overtime.
Of course
, she thought . . .

“So, Mrs. Schneiderman,” continued Red brightly, “you say jadeite has a different chemical composition from nephrite jade — what might that be exactly?”

“Well now, let me think,” said Mrs. Schneiderman. “I believe it’s . . . sodium, oxygen, silicon, and what’s the other one . . . oh yes, aluminum.”

As she spoke, she picked up her chalk and began to write on the board but Ruby already knew.

NaAlSi
₂
O
₆

Not a word, a formula
.

Ruby’s hand shot up. “Mrs. Schneiderman, could I possibly be excused? I just remembered something really, really urgent that I must do.”

Mrs. Schneiderman looked bewildered. “But, Ruby, this is history. You are in class. How can I excuse you without a note?”

“Good point,” said Ruby, and she began to scribble something on a piece of Redfort headed notepaper. Then she handed it to Mrs. Schneiderman.

“But Ruby, you just wrote this, the ink is still wet.”

“Just wave it around a bit, it’ll dry in no time.” Ruby had already gathered up all her things and was heading to the door.

“But that’s not what I meant, I mean it wasn’t written by your mother.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Schneiderman, my mom would give you the big OK if she was here — look, it has her signature.”

Mrs. Schneiderman looked at the note, and indeed it did.

By the time Mrs. Schneiderman could form a word, Ruby had already skidded down the corridor and was very nearly out of the school gates.

She ran and ran until she reached the pay phone on the corner of the street. Her call was answered after two rings.

“Hey, Hitch, you wanna know what I know?”

“That depends on what you know, kid.”

“Let me rephrase that,” said Ruby. “You WANNA KNOW what I know?”

“OK, now I get it — what have you got?”

“Something I just saw in the mirror,” said Ruby.

Silence.

“You still there, Hitch?”

“I’ll pick you up, kid.”

“Then I better tell you where I am.”

“I know where you are, kid, you’re on the corner of Lime and Culver.”

“How’d ya know that?” asked Ruby, genuinely amazed.

“I have this little device that tells me which pay phone you are on and exactly where it is,” replied Hitch.

“Creepy but cool — I must remember never to lie to
you
about my whereabouts. Better be quick, I just ditched school and there could be consequences.”

“I’ll handle that. Be with you in ten.”

Eight minutes later Hitch’s car pulled up.

“You’re early,” said Ruby.

“Watch must be fast,” replied Hitch. “So what’s this all about?”

“Buy me a soda and I’ll tell you.”

Hitch shrugged. “You drive a hard bargain, kid.”

When they reached Blinky’s Corner Café they sat down at one of the lemon-yellow booths at the far end where it was quiet.

“OK,” said Ruby in a low whisper. “You know how I thought Lopez might have taken the code with her up that mountain?”

Hitch frowned.

“Well, now I got proof, the only thing is you’re not gonna be too happy about how I got it.”

Hitch raised an eyebrow.

“I know, I know, LB’s gonna be mad as a snake but you can just tell her I cracked the code. ‘I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense.’”

“You’re telling me you cracked the Lopez code?” said Hitch.

“I sure am,” Ruby nodded.

“And how did you do that, kid?”

“OK, well, you gotta promise not to freak out.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Hitch.

“Well, it gets worse; the thing is, I know Lopez worked out the fountain was the Fountain Hotel, and I know she went there herself, and what’s more I know she was spying on a woman in a hat with a veil — the same one from the bank, I think — and that she picked up a piece of paper she wasn’t meant to pick up. I also know that she got caught doing it.”

Hitch’s eyebrow was working overtime. “And how do you know all this?”

Ruby shrugged. “Let’s just say I did some research. You see I began to wonder if this avalanche was really an accident — I mean, maybe someone wanted her dead.”

“I’m beginning to see your point of view,” said Hitch.

“Now for the tricky part,” said Ruby.

“The tricky part? I thought you playing at detective was the tricky part.”

“No, you’ll see — it gets worse. I needed to find the piece of paper and I had a feeling that Lopez might have had it with her when she died, and thinking about Lopez and how smart she was made me think she would never have left it just lying around in her hotel room — she had to have it on her.”

“Kid, I don’t like where this is going — please don’t tell me you took a look through her things.”

“It was the only way to know for sure,” said Ruby. “And it’s not like I didn’t ask.”

Hitch frowned. “Go on.”

“Well, I found one thing that didn’t make sense — why would she take a powder compact mountain climbing?”

“And why would she?” asked Hitch.

“Because she used it to hide this.” Ruby placed the ratty piece of notepaper on the table. Hitch looked at it.

“Looks like a lot of lines to me — like a maze puzzle . . . some kind of plan or map?”

“Yep, that’s what I think it is — I’ll bet it’s a map of the Twinford City Bank vaults.”

“So? We knew they had that,” Hitch said, shrugging.

“But,” continued Ruby, “when you look at it in the mirror like . . .
so
, it becomes a map of the City Museum basement — Jeremiah Stiles designed the two buildings as mirror images of each other.”

Hitch said nothing — just waited for her to continue.

“And you see this writing in the far corner here —
NaAlsi
₂
O
₆
?”

Hitch nodded. “Is it a storage room number? A code number for one of the antiquities?”

“Not exactly — it’s a formula,” said Ruby.

“A formula for what?” said Hitch.

“A formula for something that the people of ancient China considered
more
precious than gold.”

“Jade?” whispered Hitch.

“Those creeps aren’t coming for the gold,” said Ruby. “They’re coming to steal the Jade Buddha of Khotan.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Hitch.

“Lopez got confused — got the whole thing the wrong way around. She was sorta right but wrong — until she saw it in the mirror.”

“I think it’s time you explained all this to LB,” said Hitch, dropping some bills onto the table. He patted her on the back. “Kid, you’re a genius — a soon to be dead genius, of course, but a genius nonetheless.”

LB GAVE RUBY QUITE A DRESSING-DOWN
about breaking in to the Maverick Street office.

“You had no right to break in to a Spectrum department,” she said.

“It wasn’t
technically
a break-in,” Ruby had countered. “I mean technically you did give me the key code — I just let myself in is all.”

“If you want to get
technical,
Redfort, you took something that wasn’t yours, and
technically
that’s stealing.”

LB wasn’t too happy about the trip to the Fountain Hotel either. “Why in the name of good sense didn’t you tell Agent Blacker about your hunch and let him handle it?” Of course Ruby had her reasons, reasons that involved not ratting on Lopez, reasons that involved wanting a piece of the action, but she couldn’t see a whole lot of point in going into them.