Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The Investigators, Inc. The Mystery of Balding House. Chapter 10. Contract.
While Jenna and Roxie were having fun getting to know everyone here at the chateau, plus enjoying the peacefulness of the place, our team back at Jenna’s old house were having a different kind of fun. After we had brought Jenna and Roxie here, the next morning Dancer showed up at the house with the police and a lawyer. He had a contract signed by Jenna stating that she would work for Dancer at his club for a period of 10 years. “Jenna broke her contract with me,” said Dancer, “and that will cost her 1 million dollars, the forfeiture of her property and personal effects.
Unless she decides to come back and work for me and be willing to put Roxie into my care until the 10 year contract has been fulfilled.” The lawyer then added the contract was perfectly legal and Dancer had every right to sue Jenna for the amount stated. “Have you heard of Howard, Shore and Lancer, Inc.?” asked Kat. “No, I have not,” said Dancer, “and I don’t care about them anyway!” “Um, yes, I have,” said Dancer’s lawyer, “they are the top lawyers in the country.”
“So true,” said Kat as she handed a business card to the lawyer, “and they now represent Jenna Cooper. If you have any more questions, or accusations, against her then I would suggest you get in touch with the lawyer named on that card.” “Never mind all of that,” fumed Dancer, “I came here to talk with Jenna and I want to see her right now!” “That’s impossible,” said Kat casually, “Mrs. Cooper is not here at the moment.” “I don’t believe you!” retorted Dancer, “Let me in there, I will find her!” He then tried to push his way past Kat, which was a big mistake on his part.
Now, Dancer is a big man and undoubtedly quite strong, but Kat is much stronger. Kat just put her arms across the doorway and Dancer could not budge her an inch. He kept trying though until Kat had enough and she pushed back, knocking Dancer onto the porch floor. “She attacked me! You both saw her attack me!” yelled Dancer, “I want her arrested right now!” “Actually Mr. Dancer,” said Kat calmly, “it is called self defense. Instead, I could have the Captain here arrest you for attacking me.”
“Um, let’s keep a level head here please,” said the Captain, “I’m sure that Phil…I mean, Mr. Dancer meant no harm. But we really would like to talk with Mrs. Cooper.” “Like I already said, you will have to talk through her lawyer,” said Kat, “Mrs. Cooper is not here and she will not return until Mr. Dancer is in prison.” “Did you hear that?” yelled Dancer, “That’s slander! I will see you in court for that!” “That is not slander Mr. Dancer,” said Kat shaking her head, “it’s a statement of hope that justice will prevail. Now, if you three don’t leave, I will have you arrested for trespassing.”
“What? You can’t arrest the police chief!” screamed a frustrated Dancer. “Um, perhaps we should leave for now Phil,” said the Captain. Soon the three of them were driving away heading back to Dancer’s Club. Meanwhile, Cristy had done some digging and found out that the Captain had married Dancer’s sister. The only judge in town married Dancer’s other sister. The mayor is married to a brother of Dancer. Quite a family affair in that small city. I gave all of this information to Kat and told her to be careful, Dancer likely has men watching the old house and that could be dangerous to the girls if they go outside.
The girls had found all the drapes and curtains for the windows which keeps the girls out of view, especially when the lights are on. Although shapes and shadows still show in some rooms, so caution is still necessary. Meanwhile, back at Dancer’s Club. “Who are all those women?” asked Dancer, “They are not from around here, they are not relatives, they can’t all be friends of Jenna, so they must be a gang of some sort. So, why can’t you arrest them?” “For one thing, this lawyer would not be representing them if they were a gang,” said Dancer’s lawyer, “I would say it’s more likely they are undercover cops.”
“Oh great,” said the Captain, “that’s just what we need, federal undercover police checking into things around here. If that’s true then we are all headed to prison for a long time.” Meanwhile, back here at home the girls are working on decoding Jenna’s silver heart. “This isn’t going to be easy,” said Jenna, “how do we figure out what a bunch of letters mean?” “By thinking about what it is they are trying to reveal to us,” said Cynthia, “and that is, how to find this important item that your father left you. Obviously he wouldn’t make it so hard you would never be able to find it, unless he didn’t want you to find it. But then he would just have not said anything and hidden whatever the item is so it would unlikely be found by you or anyone else.”
She then smiled at everyone. The other three just looked at her. “Right,” she said, “let’s just concentrate on the letters. The first is a B and since the house has secret passages and rooms, then it must be for the word Behind. The W will tell us what it is behind.” “Only word I can think of is Wall,” said Carmeline. “Right, but that isn’t much help since there are a lot of walls,” replied Cynthia, “so it must be a specific wall.” “There was a winter painting on a wall in the living room that was my mother’s favorite,” said Jenna. “Perfect!” said Cynthia, “The W would be for Winter Painting, so there is a door behind that painting.”
The letter T, however, had them stumped for a while. “Hi, what you doing?” asked Steffie, as she and Roxie entered the small library. “Forgot to lock the door,” sighed Celestine, “hmm, what is a word beginning with T Steffie?” “Tunnels!” she said excitedly, “That where we going now, bye!” Off they ran. “Maybe we should let them help,” suggested Celestine. “Okay, we now have ‘Behind the Winter painting, Tunnel.” “L could be for Left turn,” said Carmeline, “or turn Left once in the tunnel.” “Perfect!” said Cynthia, “Then D would be for Down, S for Straight, R for Right, another D for Down again, another D possibly for Door.” “Wow, that was fast,” said Jenna.
“H could mean Hidden and R could be for Room,” said Celestine, “but I’m not sure about the next B and M.” “That has me stumped too,” said Cynthia. “V is easy,” said Carmeline, “since we are looking for something Valuable.” “Then there is three B’s in a row, an X and 2 D’s,” said Jenna, “I’m getting a headache thinking about this. How about I get us a snack?” “Great idea,” said Cynthia. Jenna left the room and suddenly, “YAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” “Maybe we should have reminded her that the kids likely slid down the stairs,” said Carmeline. “Too late now,” said Celestine…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
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.
