CHAPTER 20

Surprise, surprise.

Two minutes after Mom received the bulletin about Uncle Timothy’s daring escape (apparently—and no one’s exactly sure how he pulled this off—he’d found a way to flush himself down the toilet), Inspector Gorky paid us a visit in our jail cell.

“Greetings, American Kidd family,” he said.

“Hello, Inspector,” said Mom politely. “What brings you down here to our dungeon?”

“Most likely the Saint Petersburg Metro,” said Larissa, because some tour guides never shut up. “It is the deepest subway system in the world, and the fare for a single journey to anywhere in the city, including this jail, is about one American dollar.”

“They still use tokens, or zhetons, the size of large coins,” added Storm, because she was still in that nerd-off with Larissa.

Inspector Gorky rolled his eyes.

“Guards?” he called out. “Kindly escort Miss Bukova to a different cell. One that is far from here.”

“B-b-but—”

“It will give you more to talk about on your next guided tour!”

A pair of prison guards came and hauled Larissa away.

“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” demanded Mom after Larissa was gone.

“No,” said Gorky. “I simply wish to prevent her from hurting my ears. Now then, you are, I am given to understand, treasure hunters?”

“Chya,” said Tommy. “Only like the best in the world.”

“Ah. So you can shoe a flea.”

“Huh?”

“That’s another Russian expression, Tommy,” explained Storm. “It means we’re talented.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s cool. Thought he was saying we had fleas.”

“I need your help,” said Gorky. “I do not trust billionaires. They will hang noodles on your ears.”

We all looked to Storm.

“That means they’ll lie to you.”

“Just so,” said Inspector Gorky. “Now then, from what my colleagues at the SVR, our Russian intelligence agency, tell me, you Kidd Family Treasure Hunters are used to deciphering clues? You can find a needle when one is sewing in a haystack, da?”

“What’ve you got?” asked Mom, trying to cut to the chase.

“Something I did not want Miss Bukova to see or hear.”

The inspector explained that he’d seen Viktor Zolin’s flunky snatch the clue envelope off the floor in the museum.

“Later,” Gorky went on, “when the bodyguard was scooping up a pile of dog poop from the museum’s marble floor, the envelope slipped out of his coat pocket. I picked it up before he realized he had dropped it. Being an inspector, I decided to inspect it. I broke the seal, memorized the message, and dropped the envelope back on the floor.”

“Did the guard pick up the envelope again?” asked Mom.

“Yes.”

“Um, didn’t he think it was kind of suspicious that the wax seal was broken?” asked Beck.

“No,” said Gorky. “He assumed it cracked open when it hit the hard marble floor.”

“Seriously?”

Gorky shrugged. “He is a muscle-head, da?”

“The wax seal,” I asked, “was there an E and a one stamped into it?”

“Da. How did you know this, youngest male Kidd?”

I puffed up my chest a little. “Like you said, Mr. Gorky. We’re treasure hunters. We know stuff.”

“What did the message say?” asked Beck.

“It was very strange. And in English too. I wrote it down.”

And Inspector Gorky handed us the second clue to the whereabouts of the Enlightened Ones’ secret treasure trove.

Mom immediately tapped it into her smartwatch and sent it to Dad.

And now, we’ll give it to you.