The Investigators, Inc. The Mystery of Balding House. Chapter 9. Jenna’s Heart.

Jenna and her daughter Roxie are now with us at the chateau. It was nice to finally meet them and Steffie was overjoyed to have a new friend that was her age. I think Roxie was just as overjoyed meeting Steffie. It will be interesting to see what kind of trouble those two will get themselves into while they play. However, Steffie did find out something for us rather quickly. Jenna’s Dad had always told her about something valuable and the information to find it was hidden in her heart.

She naturally thought it meant her real heart, but Steffie thinks a bit differently about things, not being hindered by preconceived ideas or baggage which often hide the answer that we look for that is hidden in plain sight. The “heart” spoken of by Jenna’s Dad just might be the heart that Steffie found which Roxie was wearing around her neck. A beautiful silver “heart” on a silver chain that Jenna’s Dad had given her some years ago. Jenna had given it to Roxie when she hid her in that little room before being taken by Dancer’s men.

She had just enough time to hide Roxie and some of her favorite things before Dancer’s men arrived. Dancer was kind enough to phone and let her know they were coming for her and not to resist or try to run. He said it would be very unfortunate for Roxie if she did so. That made Jenna scared, so she did the best thing she could, that was to hide Roxie. And she gave her the heart telling Roxie that her heart would always be with her. She also gave her our phone number and her phone to call us if she didn’t return in two days.

Roxie is a brave little 5 year old girl, just like Steffie. When I told Jenna what Steffie had gone through when she had been kidnapped she at first was horrified that the same thing could have happened to Roxie. Then she turned red with anger, wondering how these men could be so cold and cruel to little children. Then it was time to get busy with our case again. “Cristy, where is Cynthia right now?” I asked. “She’s one of the Bad Girls, remember?” she replied. “Naturally, yes, I should have remembered that,” I said. I then communicated with Sky to bring Cynthia home and take Aoife back with her.

I then called Aoife and told her to be ready to leave with Sky. Sky showed up quickly with Cynthia and was off again with Aoife. This all happened in my office, so Jenna and Roxie wouldn’t see what was going on. Then there was a knock at the door a short time later, so I opened it. “Daddy, can Roxie and me slide for a while?” asked Steffie. “Yes, you may do that,” I said smiling at them. Soon they were sliding down laughing all the way! Now, one would think that loud laughter would have been enough to warn everyone that it’s not safe to come up here, especially since the stairs were now a slide.

But, no, that was not the case. Celestine and Carmeline were on their way up when the two little girls came around the curve in the stairs and…”AAAAAAAAAA!!!”, yelled the older two girls and…whump, whump! Then some rolling and screaming and…thump, thump! After some complaining Steffie and Roxie went to play in the tunnels instead and the other two made their way up to my office, groaning every step. I just shook my head. “I want you two to help Cynthia decipher the coded message on the back of Jenna’s heart,” I told them.

“Can we work in a locked room?” asked Celestine, “For safety reasons.” “Do what you want,” I said, “but get to work.” Off they went to find Cynthia who was already working on the letters in her bedroom. They convinced her to move to the library on the third floor which has a door that can be locked. The letters were B W T L D S R D D H R B M V B B B +D D. “Amazing they got all those letters on that heart,” said Carmeline. “It’s a fairly big heart though,” said Cynthia, “these are usually much smaller.” “That’s true,” replied Carmeline, “but how do we make sense of a jumble of letters?”

“They are obviously the first letters of words that form a sentence,” said Cynthia, “and they are not really a jumble, there is a pattern to them. See how they are arranged as I put them all upright on the screen?” “Hmm, sort of a spiral,” said Celestine, “that would suggest it’s telling us to follow a hidden passage in that old house.” “Hmm, that’s why the letters were not all right side up,” said Carmeline, “not just a hidden meaning, but a hidden way to find the answer too.”

“Precisely,” said Cynthia, “now we just need to figure out what each of these words are and we will have our answer. Simple really.” The other two just looked at her, then at each other. “Okay, it will be a bit of work, naturally,” admitted Cynthia, “but with three of us working on this it will go a lot faster.” “True, and considering that there are only thousands of words that could fit each letter,” said Celestine, “we should have this figured out by sometime next year.” “Ha, ha,” said Cynthia, “considering that we are following a hidden passageway, then that will eliminate a lot of possible words, and that makes things a lot easier. The first letter, or letters, will tell us where to find the hidden passageway.”

“Hmm, the clues might be dependent on the placement of furniture or pictures,” said Carmeline, “and that was all removed.” “Yes, I did think about that,” said Cynthia, “perhaps we will need Jenna to help us out a bit to find the hidden door to begin.” So, they asked Jenna to join them, but as she was coming up the stairs…”Watch this one Roxie,” said Steffie, “I turn little picture like this and stairs turn into slide.” “YAAAAAAAAAA!!”, yelled Jenna. Then some thumping and…”AAAAAAAA!!!” followed by a crash and some groaning.

“Grown ups sure are noisy sometimes,” said Steffie, then down the girls went on their slide. Jenna came into the library a short time later, moaning and groaning. “Do all of the stairs turn into slides?” she asked. “Yep, and Steffie found out about how to change them amazingly fast too,” said Cynthia. “I think it would have been safer for me to stay back home,” said Jenna, “now, why did you need me to risk my life?” “Um, we need your help to tell us where furniture was located,” said Carmeline, “it might help us to solve this mystery on your heart.”

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.