Puzzle 9 National Gallery of Art 

It’s hot when you arrive in Washington, D.C. The kind of heat that makes you not want to do much of anything. At the moment, you don’t feel like doing much of anything.

Teddy has been shooting concerned looks your way the entire walk from the Metro to the National Gallery. He pulls you aside in the East Wing, underneath an enormous Alexander Calder mobile, while Clarissa is off somewhere in the building, probably trying to defeat the portraits of Victoria-era nobility in a “who can look haughtiest” contest, or being snotty to strangers about how to spell “Gauguin” as it should be spelled, instead of how it sounds.

“Listen, boss,” he says. “I know we’ve been at this for a while, but we can’t get complacent.” Then, seemingly working himself up to it, he asks, “How sure are you about that rival of yours?”

At your blank expression, he continues. “Pretty weird that she showed up on this particular mission, right? Why is she still following us, even though we’ve got it all under control? What if she’s working for the Quizzical League?”

He goes on. “I know it’s hard to believe, but even if she’s not, we should still hurry, right? We’re in trouble if they get to it before us!”

You don’t feel like replying right away. Instead, you follow the moving escalator path to the food court, with Teddy trailing anxiously behind you. You pat your hand into the flower beds of the plants near the Cascading Waterfall until you, at last, pull out a silver envelope.

“I think,” you tell Teddy, “we’re not in any danger from the Quizzical League.”

You pop the envelope open, scanning its contents.

“You know,” you say casually. “It’s the funniest thing. These letters are all supposedly from Hortense Q. Geizkragen. But the handwriting in them is different from the handwriting in the first letter we received.”

You give Teddy a long look. He looks back at you, straight in the eyes.

Then he grabs the envelope and runs for it. You watch him go. Luckily, you’d memorized the puzzle.