The Secret of the Writer's Ruse

Emily Jones and Matthew Parker of the Jones and Parker Detective Agency have been in a long dry spell with no mysteries to solve. Then, at the library, Emily accidentally collides with their schoolmate Morrie Rydell, scattering his armload of research books. As they gather everything up, a mysterious volume turns up among them: The Writer's Ruse by Mary Malloway. Emily, who has read every Malloway mystery at least ten times, has never heard of it, and she gasps that it "could be the literary find of the century." Inside the cover is a handwritten inscription addressed to "my darling magpie," hinting that a writer named Ann West and her missing eleven days will lead the reader out of a maze, and that more help waits in "pictures with meaning behind them." It is signed by "Auntie Mary" in June 1975, the very month Malloway died. Morrie politely bows out of the investigation, saying the two of them are the experts, so the detectives divide the work: Emily takes the book's donor code to Mr. Whittaker, the library board's secretary, while Matthew digs into Ann West.

At Whit's End, Mr. Whittaker muses that not all secrets are sinful; the Bible says a trustworthy person keeps a secret, and what matters is whether keeping or telling one helps or hurts people. But when Emily reaches for the book, it has vanished from her bag, and in its place sits one of Morrie's books about the Enigma machine. Refusing to panic, she recites the donor code from memory, which points to something called the Fergus Estate but gives no address. Meanwhile Matthew learns from Eugene, volunteering at the library, that Ann West was a British spy novelist so convincing that many believed she was a real spy, and that in December 1955 she vanished for eleven days, sparking a massive search, only to reappear claiming no memory of where she had been.

Digging through the library's donor archives, the detectives find that the Fergus family donated the book just days after Malloway's death, and that a Dr. Nancy Fergus once funded a whole library wing. Old newspaper files downtown produce a stunning photograph: Dr. Fergus arriving at Odyssey General Hospital with her baby daughter Maggie and visiting author Mary Malloway, dated December 10, 1955, right in the middle of Ann West's missing days. Maggie, they realize, must be "Magpie." Mr. Whittaker recognizes the name Maggie Fredericks as a teacher he once worked with, and conveniently still knows her address.

At her house, the elderly woman produces the photo album Mary gave her, titled Pictures with Meaning Behind Them. Emily realizes the title is a clue: the meaning is literally behind the pictures. Written on the backs of the photos, in Mary's own hand, is an astonishing confession. Mary befriended a real spy named Charlotte, and the two shared their deepest secrets, including Mary's: she was both Mary Malloway and Ann West. When Charlotte searched a dead enemy spy's hotel room for the British government, she found something unexpected left behind: a baby girl. Rather than hand the child over to officials, Charlotte kept her, and Mary spent her famous eleven missing days using money and contacts to smuggle them both to America, where Charlotte became Dr. Nancy Fergus, mother of little Maggie.

It seems like the case of a lifetime, until the woman beams, "Wasn't that a satisfying mystery?" That calm reaction, from someone who has supposedly just learned she was adopted from a spy's hotel room, makes the detectives suspicious. Emily starts poking holes: why would a woman in hiding pose for a newspaper photo? Why would no one notice that Malloway and West looked exactly alike? Why stop for snapshots while fleeing the country? Cornered, the woman admits her real name is Eden Hope, and Mr. Whittaker steps out of hiding to confess the truth. The whole mystery was staged. Eugene forged the newspaper photo and donor records, on the condition the truth would come out, and Morrie planted the book and then secretly swapped it out of Emily's bag so they could not examine it too closely. Morrie explains that the two detectives had been moping around for weeks without a case, so he built one for them. Emily and Matthew admit they loved it, and Matthew declares, "I never feel more alive than whenever I'm solving a mystery with Emily." Morrie hands back The Writer's Ruse as a memento of their most unusual case.

But the story ends on two uneasy notes. Alone, Morrie admits it was a risk to show the detectives a page of his playbook, then concludes with satisfaction that no one in this town could ever keep up with him. And Mr. Whittaker, sensing that Morrie's kind gesture hides something more, prays about the secret that feels unsettling, asking, "You're the revealer of secrets, Lord," to make clear whatever he needs to do next.