The Raven had no trinkets or mementos scattered about, nothing personal. Anyone at all might have used it. The space was neat and organized. Everything had a place—either piled, stacked, or laid out in straight lines. A man this meticulous wouldn’t leave his profits, however ill-gotten, to chance.
The room had only one set of shelves, and they were filled with ledgers. Even in so busy an establishment, this had to have been years’ worth of records.
She hadn’t time to look through them for patterns of fraud or evidence of cheating, but she could tell the authorities where to find them once she gave them an iron-clad reason to burst in on the house.
Careful not to disturb the neat stacks, she flipped through the papers on the desk. Insignificant correspondence. A list of goods to be purchased. Another list of repairs to be made to the house. An itemized accounting of recent purchases of furniture and dishware.
This was the man who had likely helped ruin her family. There had to be evidence of his dastardliness somewhere.
One by one, she opened the desk drawers. Packets of cards and bags of dice filled the long, narrow, top drawer. They already knew this house was a gambling establishment. Finding further proof of that wasn’t helpful.
Ana examined the dice, but they didn’t look or feel unusual. She dropped them back in their drawstring bags and returned them to the drawer.
The packs of cards were open, which was odd. To reassure players, packs were usually still sealed when brought to the tables. Ana took out the top pack and carefully fanned the cards. Instead of fifty-two different cards, the pack was made up entirely of aces. The faces were a little different on each card. The backs were of various designs, almost as if someone had gone through several dozen decks from different printers and gathered all the aces. The next pack contained all kings. Another, all nines. Yet another was filled with high cards, all in clubs, again with a variety of designs and styles.
While these might have been a collection of cards removed from several decks, it seemed far more likely that these were cards meant to be slipped into decks. The Raven could snatch from his collection specific cards that would prove most useful in whichever game he would be playing, matching them to whichever deck was being used.
Packs of cheat cards. If Hollis could catch the Raven in the act, the police would have all they needed. Ana flipped back the apron she was wearing and unbuttoned the hidden pocket in her drab dress. She opened her empty drawstring bag and set three of the card packs inside it.
Her loot secure, she closed the desk drawer. She checked that the room was precisely as she’d left it. No one would ever know she’d been there.
Quiet as a sleeping mouse, she pulled open the door, intent on slipping out of the room, the corridor, and the house. But the threshold was not empty.
The woman she guessed was the housekeeper stood there, quite as if she’d been waiting for Ana to open the door.
Ana froze for a fraction of an instant, then she dipped the half-curtsey she’d always seen upstairs maids give the monarch of the belowstairs realm. This housekeeper, however, did not continue on her way.
The woman, looking wearier than her thirty years, said, “You aren’t one of ours.”
Before Ana could even formulate a response, the woman pushed on.
“Are you here to steal something?”
An honest answer, she knew, was not the right one in that moment. “No, ma’am.”
“Did a snatcher drop you here?” The housekeeper gave her a quick once-over. “They’d not ’ave chosen you to be a maid.”
Ana wasn’t certain the reason for the woman’s surety on that score; it was the least of her worries. “Yet, ’ere I am.”
“Why’re you sneaking about the place?” the housekeeper pressed.
No immediate answer popped into her mind.
“You’re trying to escape, ain’t ya?”
For all her skill sneaking about, Ana hadn’t developed a knack for lying. She stood there, silent.
“If I got you out, would you help the rest of us escape?” The woman’s expression turned pleading. “Most of us ain’t here ’cause we want to be. We cain’t get away. We need help.”
Brogan had mentioned Hollis’s suspicion that the staff was being mistreated. He’d mentioned the housekeeper in particular. This housekeeper.
Ana knew dropping her role was dangerous, but she had already been discovered. And the woman before her was every bit as imprisoned as Very Merry had been. How could she say no?
“If all goes well,” Ana said, “I can help. But I ain’t in a position to tell you how.”
“I have children. I cain’t bear for them to live out their lives like this.”
“I’ll send help,” Ana vowed, slipping past her. “But I cain’t do anything if I don’t get out o’ here m’self.”
“I can get you out.” The housekeeper assumed a strong and unbowed posture, walking beside Ana toward the servants’ stairs and then down into the belowstairs realm where the housekeeper reigned supreme.
“What’s your name?” Ana asked quietly.
“Serena.”
Ana would remember that, and she would find a means of helping the woman and her children escape this imprisonment. Somehow, she would.
They moved toward the garden door, the same one Ana had used to get inside. She was nearly out when a mountain of a man appeared in the doorway, blocking most of the light spilling in. The housekeeper stopped on the spot. She watched this new arrival closely, wide-eyed, worried.
“Who’s ’is?” The man’s gravelly voice echoed with angry authority.
“A new maid.” Serena’s worry quavered in her voice. “I’m trainin’ her. It’s her first day.”
Ana dipped a curtsey, mimicking the awkward but earnest efforts of inexperienced servants. She kept her gaze lowered enough to be deferent but not so much that she couldn’t watch the encounter.
“She’s a pretty ’un,” the man said. “Wasted as a maid, she is.”
“I think she’ll do well here,” Serena insisted. “The genn’elmen’ll enjoy seein’ a pretty face bringin’ ’em their victuals and drinks.”
The man studied Ana too closely for her comfort. Serena was shaking beside her, though she was doing a commendable job of hiding it.
“Pretty enough, I suppose.” The man’s tar-black whiskers twitched with a sneer. “Dressed as drab as a moth, though.”
“Clothes can be changed,” Serena said.
“Take ’er up to the dressing room,” the man said. “Find something better.”
Serena bobbed a curtsey. Ana did as well. For the first time, she was afforded a good look at the man’s hands. He had all his fingers. Very Merry had warned her the man behind this operation was not Four-Finger Mike as Hollis had assumed. And this very much appeared to be the person in charge: the infamous, dangerous, deadly Mastiff.
Ana was in a world of trouble.
by Lafayette Jones
Chapter V
The day of the Spirit Trials arrived cold and cloudy, but the school was in bright spirits. Spirit Trials were the highlight of the entire term.
Ace and his crew entered the cricket pitch with a great deal of swagger—Ace in front, Pudding directly behind him, with Bathwater and Snout on either side. The other First Form teams were assuming their places, but none with quite so much confidence.
Pudding pointed to the seats where the staff sat. “Which one of them is Higglebottom?”
Ace shrugged. “Couldn’t say.”
“You don’t know?”
“No one knows. Might not be any of them. He runs the school, but no one sees him or knows who he is.”
Pudding gave him a look thick with doubt. “The teachers and staff must know.”
Ace shrugged. “If they do, none of them will say so.” The identity of Higglebottom
was one of the afterlife’s great mysteries.
“And that doesn’t bother anyone?” Pudding was clearly having trouble accepting this.
“It is what it is,” Ace said, repeating a phrase he’d heard more times than he could count during his own time as a Perishable. “School runs smoothly. The big decisions go over well. No use restringing a fiddle that plays in tune.”
Pudding eyed the gathered staff through most of the welcome speech given by Professor Rattlebag as well as the instructions from Professor Dankworth. Ace was grateful Pudding’s event would be last or else he might have been too distracted to even take part.
Artful Dodging was first. Ace slapped Snout on the back, managing to send his hand all the way through him.
He grimaced, knowing all too well how unnerving that sensation was. “Apologies.”
But his teammate was too focused to take note of it. His gaze never left the animals gathered in the middle of the pitch. He watched the students who made the run before him, seeing what they did and how the animals reacted.
“You’ll be brilliant,” Pudding said quietly. “Even if I don’t cheer out loud for you.”
They’d all decided it’d be best if Pudding kept mum. His voice didn’t echo or rattle enough. The others would notice if he spoke too often.
Snout’s turn arrived. He closed his translucent eyelids, pressed his ethereal hands together. Slowly, the light drained from him. He could still be seen—total disappearance wasn’t taught until Fourth Form—but he was much easier to miss.
With silent, careful step, he cautiously moved behind the redtick hound sitting at the ready. At one point, its ears perked, but it didn’t turn around, didn’t take notice.
“That’s one success,” Ace whispered to the rest of the team, watching from the edge of the field.
Snout took the same approach with the gray-and-white striped tabby. Again, a tiny twitch of an ear, the littlest bit of awareness, but no real notice. He was going to hand the team a full-marks finish.
At the last minute, the cat spun about and hissed, back arched and fur on end. Snout returned to his usual near-opacity, shoulders drooping. He’d been blasted close.
The cat who had snatched victory away swished its tail and sent Snout a sassy look. It had known what it was doing, making him think he’d bested it. Bathwater’d had the right of it when he said cats were malicious.
The score card was displayed. They were penalized only two points for the cat catching Snout, no doubt owing to his having crossed almost the entire distance.
Ace leaned toward Pudding. “Bathwater’s bang up with Churchyard Chase. He’ll fetch us full points easily.”
And he did. The Perishable stand-in, a mop wearing a woman’s dress and being flitted about by one of the professors to look almost like a living person, rushed about the churchyard, darting in one direction until Bathwater showed up and scared it back. In half the time of the other competitors, Bathwater had herded the mock-Perishable to the headstone of Kipper Kettlesworth, the destination he’d been given moments before the chase began.
Their team received full marks, placing them in a tie with Cropper’s team.
“Next up,” Rattlebag called out once the Churchyard Chase was completed, “‘Is That the Wind, or Is This Place Haunted?’ Teams, select your competitor.”
“That’d be me.” Ace tossed the others a cocky smile—he’d perfected that ghostly facial expression early on in his days at Higglebottom’s.
The others heckled him, jesting that he would be the lowest-scoring First Form in history, but no one was actually worried. Ghostly sounds came easily to Ace.
His turn arrived. He met Rattlebag at the center of the pitch and waited for his instructions.
“Wind at a distance,” Rattlebag requested.
Ace made precisely that sound. In another year or two, he would learn how to make his voice actually emerge at a distance, but the appropriate volume was all the Trials required of First Forms.
“Wind inside the house.”
That one was trickier, since Perishables would know there was a jig afoot if they heard wind right beside them but felt nothing. Beginning haunters weren’t meant to reveal that ghosts were nearby, simply lay the groundwork for the more advanced ghosts to build on. Still, Ace was not the least challenged by the request.
“Otherworldly gurgling,” Rattlebag said.
Ace did so.
“Muttered gibberish that sounds vaguely like someone speaking a language other than the one the Perishable speaks.”
That one was Ace’s favorite. “Tippione traw groppier mantar.” He kept the sound in the back of his throat and spoke without opening his lips. Sound could still emerge from a ghost’s closed mouth, just more garbled and confusing. “Lessier noddle cooppinter.”
Even Rattlebag looked impressed. He motioned Ace back to his team.
When the score was posted, it was the very top mark, a perfect score.
“That puts us in first place,” Bathwater said. “As long as Pudding wears his shroud well, we have victory in the bag.”
“And our ticket to Second Form,” Ace said. “We’ll be riding high.”
Some twenty minutes later, after all the other teams had chosen and sent out their competitors, Pudding put the tattered shroud over his unghostly head and made the walk across the pitch.
They’d practiced for hours, trying to make him look like an expert without looking like too much of one. He was doing a fine job . . . for a Perishable, at least. Ace couldn’t help thinking again what a shame it was Pudding wasn’t actually dead.
Pudding changed up his pace a couple of times, sometimes slowing as if needing to regain his confidence. And he’d gained a real knack for bending at the knee, below the shroud so no one could see, and tipping to one side. It was the perfect picture of someone sinking a foot through the ground. He would recover, take a moment to collect himself, then walk forward again.
“A convincing performance,” Bathwater said, his tone one of relief.
“I plan to call for an encore,” Snout said.
“I plan to go straight to whichever Second Form dormitory catches my fancy and claim my bed.” Ace wasn’t delaying that move one moment longer than he had to.
Pudding was almost to the edge of the pitch when the heavy-laden skies burst open, and rain poured down like a waterfall. Rain wasn’t generally of much concern among ghosts, but it did make the non-afterlife items they interacted with heavier and trickier to move.
At the end of the field, Pudding stood beneath an increasingly weighted shroud. It clung and grabbed at his form beneath it. So much for the subtlety of First Form hauntings. Still, subtle or not, Pudding had been by far the best in his test. They had their victory!
Cropper rushed across the pitch toward him. Rattlebag was drawing closer as well.
“C’mon, lads,” Ace said. “Something’s afoot.”
They arrived in time to hear Cropper say, “A rain-soaked shroud is too heavy for a First Form to hold up. No First Form—not even Ace—could do this.”
Gads, if the fellow wasn’t right about that. They’d worried about Pudding giving away the game by being too good at his challenge. They hadn’t counted on the rain making that glaringly obvious.
“He ain’t an upper Form,” Ace said. “My word of honor.”
Cropper and Rattlebag looked at him, clearly attempting to find the gap in his words. More testers and onlookers had drawn nearer.
“He’s not an upper Form,” Rattlebag repeated. “But he doesn’t seem to be a First Form, either. What, then, is he?”
Rattlebag reached for the edge of the shroud. Ace watched, worried. They would soon know if Pudding’s chalk disguise was good enough to fool a professor at close range.
The shroud yanked off him and floated to the ground. Ace groaned at the sight before him. Ra
in had sent the chalk running down Pudding’s face in translucent gray rivulets, revealing ample amounts of his Perishable complexion.
A collective gasp swirled around the crowd. Whispers began immediately.
Rattlebag’s eyes took on a threatening glow. “All four of you. Higglebottom’s office. Now.”
Never had Hollis waited so long for a game of cards. The Raven was making a show of greeting all the gentlemen who’d come to watch. Most mimicked his appearance of pleasure, though there was no mistaking the heaviness in their eyes. How many of them had been ruined within these walls? How many suspected they’d been cheated and hoped to sort out how? How many simply found enjoyment in seeing someone else lose everything he had?
Hollis had learned during his school years that appearing disinterested, even bored, set the perfect tone. His competitor would realize Hollis didn’t care how many connections or supporters the man had, while also being convinced that Hollis wasn’t the least nervous about the coming match.
He and Fletcher had undertaken a few brief greetings before sitting at the card table, silent and stoic, showing neither worry nor anger nor excitement, and waited.
At first, the Raven ignored them. But as the minutes passed, he began glancing their way, his expression growing increasingly curious, then frustrated. The man’s efforts at displaying his vast network of supporters—most of whom Hollis knew weren’t there to cheer the Raven on—grew ever more pointed.
Occasionally the two of them made comments to each other. Everyone made note of it, though most attempted to appear as if they hadn’t.
“Very mild weather we’re having at the moment,” Hollis said at one point.
“Boringly so,” Fletcher answered.
After another long stretch of silence between them, Fletcher spoke again. “The Metropolitan Railway is due to expand. That’ll be a convenience.”
“For those traveling that direction,” Hollis said.
“Very mild weather in that direction,” Fletcher observed.
“Boringly so,” Hollis drawled.
They made a point of only discussing inane topics. It confused the people around them. Starting a game off-balance was a dangerous thing. That was most of Hollis’s opponents’ downfalls: they did not for a moment believe he was a dangerous thing.
The Gentleman and the Thief Page 23
