“Why hasn’t this woman been recruited? She sounds like a valuable asset.” Certainly much more valuable than she, assuming the lady was possessed of an able body as well as a bright mind. Perhaps if this hobbyist inventor joined the D.O.G.S., Margaret might withdraw into an assistant’s role, putting yet another safeguard between herself and fieldwork.
Professor Quimby sighed as though about to pronouncea great travesty. “Unfortunately, the woman suffers from marital bliss.”
Ah, that explained it. The Daughters of Genius Society had but two rules—defend your sisters and defend your spinsterhood. For marriage, as stated in theHandbook for Lady Inspectors, precludes a lady from fieldwork, and men, as is common knowledge, make a lady’s life rather complicated.
At least ... that’s what Margaret had heard, for she hadn’t any personal experience with men. Being seated in a wheelchair seemed to have, quite literally, lowered her from a gentlemen’s purview. Aside from Papa, Grandpapa Stanton, and members of household staff, no man bothered to look down and meet her gaze. Thus, when she’d come of age, Margaret had resolutely declined her parents’ proposition of a coming-out ball, debut Season, and launch into the marriage mart. Why raise their hopes and waste their resources?
It was senseless to offer a damaged good no man would care to buy.
“As I was saying, Inspector Kingsley, this noblewoman is in the habit of donating her intellectual property for the pecuniary benefit of those in need, but it has recently come to her attention that a person, as yet unidentified, has seen fit to rob a recipient of her charity.”
Margaret leaned forward, interest piqued.
“Said noblewoman recently invented a voice-box mechanism for a talking doll. She gifted this invention to a dressmaker living in the East End, who’d fallen on hard times following an illness. The noblewoman instructed her to file an application for patent under her name and gave her the direction of a burgeoning new toy company that might manufacture the product. The dressmaker followed her instructions, but a few weeks later, she received a letter of rejection from the patent office, stating that a patent had already been granted to a similar device.”
A foreboding sensation niggled Margaret’s stomach. “Let me guess ... a talking doll—featuring her voice-box design—hit the market shortly thereafter?”
“Precisely. The noblewoman saw the doll in a store and purchased it for the purpose of inspecting its mechanics, only to confirm that the voice box was not only similar, but identical to her own. The Widow would like you to compare the designs yourself, as an unbiased third party, and validate the claim of theft before we proceed.”
The chief produced the original rejected patent application, including a sketch of the noblewoman’s design and an iron model built to scale. Beside these, she placed a doll, rather macabre in its state of undress and partial deconstruction, which allowed for examination of the mechanism within its torso.
Margaret was beginning to understand why the Widow had requested her expertise. She relaxed, just a touch, in her chair. Perhaps this case wasn’t beyond her abilities after all. Methodically and meticulously, she studied each item in turn. Theft, of any sort, was a serious allegation, but theft of intellectual property carried a singular sort of gravity she felt all the keener being the third in a family lineage of inventors. Only when she was certain beyond doubt did she at last render a verdict.
“I concur with the noblewoman’s assessment. These designs are one and the same. A thief in the patent office seems a logical conclusion. Which begs two questions: Can the theft be proven, and is the thief working alone?”
“Those are the very questions the Widow has tasked us to answer by means of the utmost discretion. The noblewoman wants to keep her name and that of her dressmaker out of the papers. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to compare the voice-box design on file at the patent office with the rejected application. If they match, we’ve proof enough to move on to phase two.”
“I am needed to compare the patents after one of the others has retrieved it, then?” Jane, being most experienced in clandestine work, was the obvious choice for such a job, but she didn’t have the mechanical knowledge required to validate the patent comparison.
“The Widow wants the patents compared at the patent office, lest we risk alerting the thief to our investigation or contaminating proof of a crime. Preservation of evidence is of equal importance as discretion and makes matters easier for the Widow when she passes along our intelligence to the proper authorities. That’s why you were summoned, Inspector Kingsley. She wishes you to compare the patents personally. Therefore, by her special request, you’ve been assigned as the lead inspector on this case of the purloined patent.”
Lead inspector?“But, Professor, we had an agreement. Before I pledged membership to the society, you said—you promised—I wouldn’t be asked to conduct investigations.” Margaret gestured toward her wheelchair. “I’m not fit for fieldwork, ma’am.” She was hardly fit for everyday life.
“I reminded the Widow of the terms of your membership and told her I’d not force you to take an assignment against your will. After all, our inspectors are not paid employees, but independently wealthy volunteers. She’s not forgotten the extent of your physical limitations.”
“Then why does she persist in wishing me to take this case?”
“Because, as the Widow brought to my remembrance, there’s not a single lady in the organization who doesn’t have limitations and areas of weakness—that’s why our inspectors are trained to work as a team. You may be assigned as lead inspector, Margaret, but you’d not be working the case alone. You’d be working as one part of a sisterhood.”
She knew the chief meant her words to encourage, but they served only to stoke her fear. What if her limitationscaused her to let her sisters down? What if her weakness caused her to fail them all?
“The case is not complicated or perilous. You’d simply infiltrate the patent office, compare the patents, and then return everything to its place before making a report of your findings. It couldn’t be more straightforward. If necessary, the Widow is prepared to grant you a lengthy sabbatical upon completion of your mission to give you ample time to recover from any additional physical strain. So, what say you, Inspector? Will you take the case?”
Margaret’s brain struggled to process all the possible variables she might encounter. It was as though the chief had dumped a box of spare parts on her desk and asked her to tell, just by looking at the jumbled mess, if she thought she could build a working steam engine. “May I have some time to think it over?”
“Of course. You can give me your official answer tomorrow.” The chief pressed a button on the desk, unlocking the door and subsequently ending the meeting.
Margaret nodded. Rotating her wheelchair, she fled the office as the door opened automatically before her, smacking against something solid that toppled onto the floor.
“Ooof!”
As the mechanized door shut again, Margaret found Helena knocked flat upon her rump in the otherwise vacant corridor. Her leather satchel had toppled open, sending her glass vials of botanical samples rolling along the hardwood.
Margaret crossed her arms. “Eavesdropping, Helena? Really?”
Freckled cheeks freshly flushed, no doubt from another expedition into the wilds of Hyde Park, Helena assumed an expression of innocence. “My dear Maggie, you know I’d never eavesdrop on a confidential briefing between the chief and a fellow inspector.” A white lop-eared rabbit peekedaround her friend’s shoulder, and Helena smirked. “Miss Flopsy Cottontail, however, has no such compunction.”
“Now’s not the time for scruples, lad, but for frankness and sense.”
