by Mez Blume
Dobbs looked scared, then wounded. “Wot? Me? Steal from a couple o’ gentle ladies such as yourselves? Me? The gallant gentleman who went out of me way to find shelter for ye just last night? Me, who never took wot wasn’t mine in all me life –”
“Oh please. Give it a rest.” Imogen kept Dobbs fixed with her steel blue eyes and iron grip on his hand. “Search him, Katie,” she ordered.
I rummaged through the pockets of his coat, his trousers and the little cloth bag he wore slung over one shoulder. What I found was a walking curiosity shop. His pockets were stuffed with handkerchiefs, wallets, rings, plums, coins … I pulled out a lacy hanky with flowers and initials embroidered in pink and held it up to his face. “This is yours?”
Dobbs shrugged sheepishly. “Wot? I like fine things as much as the next gent.”
I stuffed the lacy hanky into his coat lapel. “All right. Where’s the sketchbook?”
Dobbs pretended to be perplexed. “Skitch… sketch… wot was it?”
“The leather folder you stole from us,” Imogen growled, tightening her grip on his hand so he winced. “Hand it over now or we’ll call those policeman back over here and see what they make of your collection of fine things.”
Dobbs took the threat to heart. His confidence drained along with the colour in his flushed cheeks. “Thing is I… I don’t ‘ave it anymore.”
Imogen gave his hand another hard squeeze. “Liar.”
“That’s the honest truth! I admit I took it, but… I sold it.”
Imogen looked ready to pound his lights out. “Sold it? You little—”
“Wait a second, Im.” I stepped between them and gave Dobbs a hard, squinting stare. For all we knew, this might be another one of his cunning acts, and I wasn’t about to fall for it again. “How could you have sold it? It’s Christmas Day. The shops are all closed.”
“Christmas don’t stop ‘im doin’ business, do it?” he answered enigmatically.
Imogen and I exchanged a confused look.
“Stop who?” I demanded.
“The one wot I sold your sketchbook-fingy to.” He lowered his voice as if in deference. “The Old Bargeman.”
“The who?”
“The Old Bargeman,” he repeated more loudly. “Calls ‘imself Capt’n Nemo. Buys and collects all manner of art ‘n’ antiques ‘n’ fings.”
Imogen grabbed Dobbs by the collar again and looked him square in the eye. “Now you listen to me. You’re going to take us to this bargeman, Captain whatever-he’s-called, and explain that that sketchbook was not yours to sell.”
Dobbs laughed nervously. “Can’t do that, miss.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Imogen, you’ve got a louder voice than I have. Call for the police, will you?”
“With pleasure.” She cleared her throat.
“Wait!” Dobbs hung his head in defeat. “A’right. I’ll take ya to ‘im.”
7
The Bella Ramona
“What is that smell?” Imogen pinched her nose as we carefully stepped over a pile of horse manure in the road. “And how do people live in all this soot?”
Dobbs shrugged. “’S just London, innit? When’s the last time you was ‘ere?”
“I live here, remember?”
“Don’t you never look out the winda?”
“Of course I look out the window. It’s just… a lot cleaner where I live.”
Imogen grimaced at some smoke stacks rising up on our right, churning out black clouds that circled the city’s spires and church towers and sat stagnant, like a swamp in the sky. On the road, last night’s snow had been all churned up by cartwheels so that nothing remained but muddy, smelly slush. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Dobbs had led us to a dirty shipping yard littered with boxes, barrels, rat-chewed rope and termite-eaten old boats.
“Where exactly are we, Dobbs?” I questioned, starting to feel the slightest bit concerned that now at last he might be leading us to a den of thugs.
“Ain’t you never been to King’s Cross afore?” Dobbs sounded incredulous again.
Imogen squinted at the buildings as we picked our way through the shipping yard. “If this is King’s Cross, where’s the train station?”
In answer, a shrill whistle belted out of the nearby fog. The next second, a dim light shone through the mist, growing ever brighter until a great, black, roaring steam engine erupted into view. It chugged, picked up speed and soon disappeared again into the murky fog beyond.
“Station’s that way.” Dobbs pointed in the direction from which the train had come. “But we ain’t goin’ there. Our business is in the canal.”
We followed along as Dobbs meandered through the crates, chains and other junkyard objects and brought us to a towpath along the canal. A dense blanket of mist lay over the water and patches of thick ice drifted on its sluggish current. Nothing else moved down stream except for a pair of ducks and the odd swan, but a number of river barges were moored along the canal’s sides. Most looked abandoned, but one – a handsome, crimson one with gold trim – showed signs of life. Its chimney pipe smoked and the sound of violin music drifted from its one round window.
“That’ll be the Cap’n.” Dobbs nodded towards the barge with a look of apprehension. “’S not too late to turn back and call it a day,” he added with a hint of hopefulness that struck me as suspicious.
I squinted at him. “You’re not really frightened of this old bargeman person, are you? You just want us to forget this whole venture so you don’t lose out.”
Dobbs chewed his chapped bottom lip sheepishly but said nothing.
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not leaving here without those sketches. So stop being a scaredy cat and lead us to that boat,” I added for good measure.
“Scaredy cat? Me?” Dobbs’s face tensed up as if he were wrestling with himself until he exploded. “A’right, a’right. I admit it. I was just ‘oping you’d change your mind about the sketchemy-fingy. I’ll take you to ‘im.” He stepped down onto the icy towpath and spoke over his shoulder. “Mind you, the Cap’n ain’t the jolliest chap as you’re like to meet. Fact is, he’s got the morbs. Keeps to ‘imself mostly. But I reckon he’s pretty well harmless.” With that, Dobbs skipped and skidded along the towpath like a champion figure skater while Betsy did her best to stay at his heels while her elephant-like feet slid out from under her.
Imogen and I hung back as Dobbs approached the barge, removed his hat, rubbed down his shock of hair and rapped on the door with his raw, red knuckles.
Deafening barks answered from inside, muting the violin music. A second later, the door pushed open and a yapping black Labrador’s slick head appeared. We couldn’t see the bargeman, but we heard him shout from inside, “Stand down, Alpheus. It’s only Dobbs, you half-crazed mongrel.” The dog obediently tucked its head back inside. The voice spoke again. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Mr. Dobbs. What have you brought me this time?”
I had expected a different kind of voice from someone called “the old bargeman”, harsher, gruffer. But from what I could hear, he spoke very correctly and softly.
“As it ‘appens, Cap, I’ve brought along a couple o’ ladies wot ‘as got a matter o’ business to discuss with yourself.”
There was a pause.
“Ladies, you say? I’m not in the habit of entertaining ladies, but if it is genuinely a matter of business…”
Dobbs gave us a quick nod, then crossed a little plank of wood that served as a makeshift gangplank and disappeared inside the barge.
Imogen and I looked at each other.
“You sure about this?” she asked.
“I’m sure I have to get back those sketches.”
She nodded.
I stepped first onto the slick plank of wood, bracing myself against the boat’s side. Walking on an icy plank was ten times harder in Victorian boots and with a petticoat blocking the view of my next step.
I nearly lost my footing when, behind me,
Imogen gasped. “Holy smokes! Katie, look.”
She was staring at the barge where I’d just laid my hand. It was partly covering some words painted in gold cursive. I moved my hand away to read it: Bella Ramona.
My stomach lurched. Ramona? This was the last place I’d expected to see the name that had been turning over in my mind for months now. The very name I had been hoping to hear since we had arrived here in Victorian London. Could we really have stumbled upon a clue?
“You were right,” Imogen said. “Seems the sketches have led us to the right place.”
“We’ll soon find out,” I whispered. My spine tingled with excitement as I stepped down into the barge.
Inside, the air was close, warm and smelled of woodfire smoke.
As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, a figure appeared in front of me, tall but stooped over due to the low ceiling. “There are seats by the fire. I’ll put on the kettle,” he said in the same soft voice.
Though my head could nearly have brushed the ceiling if I stood on tiptoe, the boat felt twice as big from the inside. A small foyer with hangers for hats and coats led to a cosy living room with a burning woodstove where the bargeman knelt over a copper kettle. Whatever lay beyond the main cabin – I guessed it was Captain Nemo’s sleeping quarters – was hidden behind a curtain.
Small though the Captain’s home was, every last bit of space – walls, ceiling and floor – displayed the oddest assortment of things: shelves lined with inkwells of every shape, a collection of Chinese fans displayed on the wall, figurine soldiers and antique maps, an easel in the corner with a half-finished painting.
Though my eyes wanted to carry on roving over all the eccentric bits and bobs, they kept returning to that unfinished painting of a girl in a simple, white dress standing in a grassy meadow. Only her back was visible, her long, black hair falling in waves to her waist. Her brown hands were lifted up to the sky, as if she were praying. My eyes wandered to a little desk beside the easel. There lay Ramona’s sketches, all strewn about as if the bargeman had been looking through them.
“Shiver me timbers!”
I jumped, interrupted from my observations by a loud croaking voice and the sound of flapping wings.
“Walk the plank, scurvy dog!”
An enormous raven was swinging from a perch hung from a ceiling beam.
“Don’t mind Billy Bones. Intelligent, but it seems he can’t be taught manners,” the bargeman said as he set a tray with mismatched tea mugs on an upturned crate beside the fire. It was not until he came towards me balancing a cup and saucer that I noticed the bargeman’s right toes turned severely inwards causing him to walk with a limp. I smiled and took the cup, trying to act as though I hadn’t observed the disability.
“Walk the plank, scurvy dog!” the raven squawked again.
The two dogs, stretched out happily in front of the wood stove, raised their heads. The Captain, however, ignored the insult and gestured to some stools placed around the tea things. He waited for the three of us to be seated, then limped over to a high-backed armchair, sat with a grunt of pain, then took a pipe from his waistcoat pocket and began filling it. I stole a glance at him over my tea mug as the embers lit up his dark face.
He was handsome, I thought, in a stern, pirate-like way. His hair, which had been dark but was greying at the temples, was pulled back into a ponytail. It was hard to tell his age through his thick black beard and heavy eyebrows, which hovered like two thunderclouds over stormy eyes.
What with the bad leg, the black beard and the burgundy handkerchief tied around his throat, I almost felt that we really were aboard a pirate ship, inside the captain’s quarters. It was giving me a terribly hot, prickly feeling as I sat there stewing beside the wood stove.
The captain didn’t speak for what felt like a long time. He just crossed his legs and smoked his pipe as if we weren’t there at all. I wondered if perhaps he was waiting for us to speak, so I said the thing weighing on my mind. Clearing my throat, I casually observed, “It’s an interesting name for a barge, Bella Ramona. Did you name it after someone in particular?”
He blew smoke from his nostrils. “Just had a nice ring to it is all. Better than, say, Bella Bertha.” A very slight smile flickered on his lips and vanished.
Intuition told me he was concealing something. “Then… you don’t know anyone by the name Ramona?”
His eyes narrowed. “What sort of business was it you wanted to discuss?”
Dobbs, who seemed even more fidgety and nervous than I felt, piped up. “It’s a bit o’ business, like I said, Cap’n. Regardin’ that leather folder I sold ya last night.”
“What about it?” the Captain grumbled impatiently.
Dobbs whistled, then laughed nervously, then actually seemed at a loss for words.
“The thing is,” I started, still trying to sound casual, “the sketchbook Dobbs sold you didn’t actually belong to him. It belonged to me, and he…” I glanced at Dobbs who was chewing his bottom lip fiercely. “We had a bit of a… misunderstanding. I didn’t technically give him permission to sell it. So, we’ve come to ask if we might… just… have it back… please?”
The bargeman leaned forward in his chair, fiddling with a gold ring on his little finger. “Well now, let’s see. I paid good money for that leather, and how was I to know it wasn’t lawfully acquired by Mr. Dobbs here? If I give it back, I lose out on business. Buying and trading, that’s how I make my living, Miss…”
“Watson,” I said.
“Well then, Miss Watson, you see my predicament.” He never raised his voice, but something in his soft, persistent way of speaking made me horribly uneasy.
I swallowed, determined to stand my ground. “Then Dobbs will pay you back your money. Right Dobbs?”
Dobbs cast an anxious look from me to the bargeman and back. “Can’t, Miss,” he whispered.
“Why not?” I whispered back, though I was quite sure the bargeman could hear every word.
“’Cause… I spent it. Them apples an’ things them bobbies was chasin’ me for weren’t stole. I bought ‘em fair an’ square.”
“Except you didn’t,” Imogen said in a voice intended for all to hear. “You bought them with money you made selling stolen goods.”
Dobbs raised his palms helplessly. “Sorry, Miss. Can’t very well sell back them apples now, can I? Wot I ‘adn’t already et up or gave to Samson - ya know, my unfortunate mule friend – I dropped in the chase.”
I could tell Imogen was only just restraining herself from putting Dobbs back into a chokehold. A lot of good that would do. It was clear Captain Nemo would not give in unless there was something in it for him. I looked down at the satchel in my lap. In it were most of my greatest treasures in the world: my detective notebook, Ramona’s sketches (until Dobbs got his smudgy hands on them), and the Serpent Stone. The stone was a little piece of Cherokee Country, a reminder of Wattie, Ka-Ti, Jim and the others. But the sketches, they were more than just keepsakes. They were my connection to Ramona, my only hope of finding her. I knew what I had to do.
“Mr.… sorry, Captain Nemo, perhaps we can make a trade?”
He sat back and stroked his beard. “What did you have in mind?”
I opened my satchel, felt for the stone and lay it on my open palm for him to see.
Nemo leaned in closer, took one look and laughed. “A rock for a leather folder? Not really a fair trade, is it?”
“It isn’t just a rock,” I persisted. “It’s a legendary Native American stone, supposed to possess great magic.” The frown on his face made me regret mentioning the magic bit. “Well, anyway,” I fumbled, “It’s a unique artefact, so it must be worth more than an ordinary piece of leather.”
Captain Nemo sat back and began to turn the ring ‘round and ‘round his finger again. “I might agree, Miss Watson. If…”
“If what?” Imogen asked impatiently.
He stopped turning the ring and wove his fingers together. “If it were just an o
rdinary piece of leather. But as it happens, that leather folder is full of rather extraordinary sketches, which makes me reckon there must be an extraordinary story as to how you came by it.” He watched me intently.
This was my chance to watch him too, to find out what he wasn’t telling us. “Those sketches belonged to a woman. A woman with the same name as your boat.”
I saw his eyes flicker as I said it. “Are you sure you’ve never met anyone by that name?”
Every muscle in his face was tensed. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or pain in the lines between his eyebrows, but his voice was stone cold. “What if I have? What’s she to you?”
“She’s… a relation,” I answered, trying to keep the surge of excitement from gushing up into my voice. I had been right. The boat’s name was no coincidence. He knew Ramona.
“A relation?” He looked at me suspiciously. “You don’t look like her much.”
And now he had just admitted it. “We’re… cousins. Distant cousins. On my father’s side.” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to ask. “Do you know where I can find her?”
His eyes fixed on mine for another second, then dropped. “I can’t help you. I knew her once, but that was long, long ago. I’ve not seen her or heard of her since.”
With that, he pushed himself out of his chair and reached for his walking cane. But as he stood, his eyes betrayed him, flickering momentarily towards the half-finished painting on the easel.
I was on my feet without realising it. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
He didn’t turn around. “Like I said, it was long ago. Before she left.”
Left? My heart did a somersault. “But when did she leave? And where did she go?”
The bargeman whirled around, his eyes flaming with anger. “I’ve told you, haven’t I? I don’t know. I can’t help you. You want to know what became of her? Ask Phineas Webb.” He turned his back to me again and braced himself on the little desk that held the scattered sketches.
