The Hollow Boy

by Jonathan Stroud

  Holly Munro held a piece of paper neatly inscribed with a short list. “It’s been a busy morning already. You’ve had five new requests so far.”

  Five! George groaned; I sighed. Lockwood ruffled his unkempt hair. “Go on, then,” he said. “Tell us the worst.”

  Our assistant smiled, pushing a stray twist of hair back behind a shell-like ear. “It’s really not too terrible. There’s an interesting-sounding Visitor in Bethnal Green, something that seems to be half-buried in the sidewalk yet hobbles at great speed along the Roman Road, trailing a cloak of shadow.”

  “Following the ancient level of the street,” George grunted. “Another legionary. We’re getting more and more of those.”

  Ms. Munro nodded. “Then there’s a strange hammering in a butcher’s cellar; four orbs of yellow light revolving outside a house in Digwell; and two cobwebby ladies seen in Victoria Park, who dissolve as witnesses approach.”

  “Stone Knockers,” I said. “Cold Maidens. And the lights are probably Wisps.”

  There was a glum silence. “That’s the weekend taken care of,” George said.

  Lockwood nursed his tea dispiritedly. “The legionary’s okay, but the others are pretty yawnsome. More annoying than dangerous. They’re all Type Ones, scarcely even that, but they’ll take a lot of time and effort to quell.”

  “Quite,” Ms. Munro said brightly. “Which is why I declined them all. Except for the Bethnal Green legionary, which I’ve penciled in for Tuesday week.”

  We stared at her. “Declined them?” Lockwood said.

  “Of course. You’re taking on far too much; you have to save your energy for proper cases. The Stone Knocker can be subdued by hanging rosemary in the cellar, while the Wisps and Cold Maidens are outdoors, and so can be safely ignored. Don’t worry about the clients. I’ll send them typed instructions for dealing with their issues. Now, why don’t you tell me about last night’s cases while you drink your tea?”

  We told her, and she sat there making notes to be recorded in our casebook. Then she typed up our invoices and went out to mail them, more or less while we were still sitting around in a daze. Afterward she took more calls, interrogated prospective clients over the phone, made arrangements for interviews, and scheduled a couple of evening visits. She did it all efficiently and well.

  So well, in fact, that within days we found our diary becoming more manageable. As she’d promised, all the really small-time things—stuff that could be dealt with by ordinary people using salt, charms, and wards—were weeded out. Lockwood, George and I were suddenly able to have nights off, and work together on most cases again.

  It was impressive, and I did my best to appreciate Holly Munro, really I did. There was much to appreciate. In so many ways it was hard to find fault with her at all.

  Her manners and appearance were exemplary. She always sat up straight, with her neat little shoulders back, and a bright-as-a-button expression on her wide-eyed face. Her black hair was immaculate; there was never any grave-grit under the manicured nails of her small and pretty hands. She wore clothes well. Her skin looked as smooth and delectable as coffee-colored marble; it had the kind of flawlessness that made you acutely aware of all the fascinating blemishes you called your own. Come to think of it, everything about her had this effect. She was all smooth and clear and shiny, like a mirror; and like a mirror she reflected back your imperfections.

  I was very polite to her, just as she was very polite to me. She was good at being polite, in much the same way as she was excellent at keeping the office floor swept and dusting the masks in the hallway. No doubt she also brushed her teeth well every night and cleaned behind her ears. We all have talents, and those were hers.

  Our relationship consisted of lots of polite little encounters in which Holly’s efficiency rubbed up against my way of doing things. Here’s a fairly typical exchange:

  H MUNRO (sweetly, batting eyelashes): Lucy, hi. Sorry to bother you, I know you’re working hard.

  ME (looking up from my issue of True Hauntings; I’d been up until four the night before): Hi, Holly.

  H MUNRO: Just wondering. Would you like me to move your clothes from the drying line in the storeroom? I’m just tidying up in there.

  ME (smiling): No, no, it’s fine. I’ll do it sometime.

  H MUNRO (beaming): Okay. Only I’ve ordered a new set of shelves for that wall. It’s coming today, and I wouldn’t want the deliverymen to mess your stuff up. I could fold everything for you, if you like. It’s no trouble.

  H MUNRO (beaming): Okay. Only I’ve ordered a new set of shelves for that wall. It’s coming today, and I wouldn’t want the deliverymen to mess your stuff up. I could fold everything for you, if you like. It’s no trouble.

  H MUNRO (beaming): Okay. Only I’ve ordered a new set of shelves for that wall. It’s coming today, and I wouldn’t want the deliverymen to mess your stuff up. I could fold everything for you, if you like. It’s no trouble.

  ME: Don’t worry. (I was a big girl. I could fold my own pants.) I’ll do it later.

  H MUNRO: Brilliant. The men are coming in about twenty minutes. Just so you know.

  ME (trilling laugh): Oh, okay…I’ll do it now, then.

  H. M.: Thanks so much.

  ME: No, no. Thank you.

  All the while, Lockwood and George would be somewhere near at hand, smiling genially like two pipe-smoking dads watching their offspring playing happily in the garden. I could almost see them congratulating each other that their new employee was turning out so well.

  And of course she would, in the end. I just needed to give her time.

  One individual who didn’t share this common view was the skull in the jar. Holly knew of its existence—she frequently had to dust around it—but not that it was a Type Three that could communicate with me. The skull didn’t like her. Her arrival in the office each day was the cue for much elaborate rolling of eyes and puffing out of cheeks behind the silver-glass. On several occasions I caught the ghost making appalling faces directly behind her back, and then winking at me broadly as she turned around.

  “What’s with you?” I growled. It was late morning, and I was having a restorative bowl of cereal at my desk. “You’re supposed to be a secret, remember? You know the rules: minimal manifestations, no rude faces, and absolutely no talking.”

  The ghost looked wounded. “I wasn’t talking, was I? Do you call this talking? Or this?” It pulled a rapid series of grotesque expressions, each one worse than the last.

  I shielded my eyes with my spoon hand. “Will you stop that? The milk’s curdling in my cereal. You need to quit the tomfoolery when she’s around, or I’ll lock you up in the storeroom.” I stabbed at the granola decisively. “Understand, skull: Holly Munro is one of the team, and you need to treat her with respect.”

  “Like you do, you mean?” The goggling face grinned at me. Today its two sets of fangs alternated from the top and bottom gums like the teeth of a zipper.

  I took a mouthful. “I’ve got no problem with Holly.”

  “Hark at you, Queen Fibber. I’ve told porkies in my time, but that shocks me something awful. You can’t stand her.”

  I could feel my cheeks flushing; I collected myself. “Er, that’s a slight exaggeration. She’s too bossy, maybe, but—”

  “Bossy, nothing. I’ve seen the way you stare at her when she’s not looking. Like you’re trying to pin her bleeding to the wall with the power of your eyes.”

  “I so don’t do that! You’re talking complete nonsense, as usual.” I returned primly to my breakfast, but the flavor had gone out of my granola. “What about you?” I said. “What’s your problem with her?”

  The ghost looked disgusted. “She’s got no time for me. Wants me gone.”

  “Well, don’t we all?”

  “Ghosts aren’t tidy enough for her. You see how she’s neatened up that collection of relics downstairs? All those haunted trophies you’ve collected? Half of them tossed out, the others made safe, with
new iron locks on the cases….She likes everything under her thumb. Who knows, perhaps that includes A. Lockwood, Esquire. Which is maybe another reason you aren’t so happy, eh?” It gave me an evil sidelong grin.

  “Absolute twaddle.” And of course it was. Anything the skull said was false, by definition. It had often tried to stir up trouble in the house. I was fine with Holly. Really I was. So she was well-proportioned. So her hair was all glossy. So she looked as if her lips had never been the wrong side of a second doughnut in her life. What was any of that to me? I didn’t care one bit. She wasn’t perfect, by any means. Probably, for example, if I’d thought hard enough about it, I could have found something flawed about the width of her thighs. But I didn’t need to. None of that was important. I was an agent. I had other things to do.

  I left the room soon after. I wasn’t that hungry anyway.

  I went to the rapier room to practice a few moves on Esmeralda and let off a little steam. It wasn’t long before our new assistant herself put her head around the arch.

  “Hi, Lucy.”

  “Hey, Holly.” I continued shuffling around the dummy, feinting with the rapier, sneakers sending up little clouds of chalk dust. My sweatshirt was pretty damp. I was timing myself, trying to keep going for ten minutes without stopping. It was good exercise as much as anything.

  “Gosh, you do look warm,” Holly Munro said. She wore her usual white shirt and pinafore dress and was just as unrumpled and sweat-free as when she’d shown up for work, hours before. “I’ve been calling around, talking to old Rotwell contacts. They’ve put me in touch with an exciting new client. Not from Whitechapel.”

  I stood back, wiping wet bangs out of my face. “Well?”

  “Don’t let me interrupt you. She’s coming in tomorrow morning. Very urgent.”

  “Did she say what it’s about?”

  “‘A matter of life and death,’ apparently. Something nasty in her house. But she’s arriving at ten o’clock sharp.”

  “Okay.” I steadied the dummy on its chain and resumed pacing around it, keeping my weight balanced on my toes.

  “You’ll be there?”

  I made a series of small stabbing motions on either side of Esmeralda’s battered old bonnet. “Well, where else am I going to be? I live here.”

  “Of course. I just thought maybe ten’s a bit early for you.”

  “Not at all. I’m always up, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, I know. But not always dressed. It might put the lady off if you were sitting there in those big saggy old gray pj’s of yours.” She gave a little laugh.

  “Don’t worry, Holly,” I said. “It’s no problem. No problem at all.”

  I thrust at Esmeralda and skewered her right through the middle of her neck. The dummy swerved away with the impact, twisting the rapier clean out of my hand. I stood there, hands falling to my sides, watching it swing.

  “Ooh, glad I’m not a ghost,” Holly Munro said. A tinkling laugh, a waft of perfume, and she was gone.

  At precisely ten o’clock the following morning, our client arrived. She was a Miss Fiona Wintergarden, a tall, willowy, somewhat desiccated lady in (I judged) her early fifties. Her hair, cut short and sensibly, was approaching rain-cloud gray. She wore a cream twinset and long black skirt, and a pair of small golden spectacles on the crest of her angular nose. She sat perched on the lip of the sofa with her knees tight together and thin hands folded in her lap. Her spine was ramrod straight, her bony shoulders forced back against the fabric of her cardigan like the stumps of dragon wings. If she’d had a bust, it would certainly have been thrust forward; as it was, the effect was aggressively demure.

  The employees of Lockwood & Co. positioned themselves around her. Lockwood reclined in his usual chair. George took the seat to the right of the coffee table, and I the one opposite. Our newest member, Ms. Holly Munro, sat slightly back from the rest of us, legs neatly crossed and with a notebook and pen held ready on her knee. She would take notes on the meeting. Eighteen months before, when I’d just joined the company, I’d had a similar role. But I’d never thought to sit so close behind Lockwood that I could lean forward and speak quietly in his ear or, by virtue of my proximity to the leader, tacitly become the second-most important person in the room.

  There were thick slabs of carrot cake on the table, beside the obligatory tea. This, I thought, was a miscalculation on George’s part. New company etiquette dictated that we couldn’t eat cake unless our client did, and Miss Wintergarden didn’t seem like a carrot cake type of person. And indeed she ignored the plate when it was offered to her and only sipped once at her cup before setting it aside.

  The fire in the hearth leaped and sparked, casting angular red shadows along the side of our client’s face. “It is good of you to see me at such short notice, Mr. Lockwood,” she said. “I am at my wit’s end and simply don’t know what to do.”

  Lockwood gave an easy smile. “By choosing us, madam, you are already halfway to a solution. Thank you for selecting Lockwood and Co.—we know there are many alternatives out there.”

  “Indeed. I tried several others, but they are not taking on new customers at present,” Miss Wintergarden said. “Regrettably, there seems to be an ongoing kerfuffle in Chelsea that is being given priority by all the major agencies, and I was forced to cast my eyes a little lower than I would otherwise have done. Still, I understand you are considered reasonably competent, and also cheap.” She gazed at him over the rims of her spectacles.

  Lockwood’s smile had become a trifle stiff. “Er, we endeavor to give satisfaction as far as we are able….May I ask the nature of your trouble?”

  “I am being plagued by a supernatural phenomenon.”

  “Naturally. Which is?”

  The lady’s voice sank low; a thin wattle of loose skin, hanging beneath her jaw, wobbled briefly as she spoke. “Footprints. Bloody footprints.”

  George looked up. “Well, I’m sorry you’re upset.”

  Miss Wintergarden blinked. “No. I mean they’re bloody. Footprints made of blood.”

  “How fascinating.” Lockwood sat forward in his chair. “This is in your house?”

  “I fear so.”

  “Have you seen the prints yourself?”

  “Certainly not!” She sounded almost offended. “They were first reported by the youngest members of my staff—the boot boy, the cook’s lad, and others. None of the adults have witnessed them, but that hasn’t stopped a ridiculous panic from spreading through the house. We have had scenes, Mr. Lockwood. Scenes and resignations! I was very put out by it. I mean, they’re servants. Servants and children. I don’t pay them to indulge in squealing hysterics.”

  She glared around, as if daring any of us to disagree. As I met her gaze, I took away the impression of a humorless, rather unintelligent person, for whom only prim correctness and snobbery kept the terrors of the world at bay. That’s what I picked up from a quick look in her eyes, anyhow. No doubt she thought I was great.

  Lockwood wore his gentle, placatory face, which he often used on Whitechapel housewives. “I entirely understand,” he said. “Perhaps you had better tell us all about it from the beginning.” He lifted his hand as if to pat her reassuringly on the knee, but then thought better of it.

  “Very well,” Miss Wintergarden said. “I live at Fifty-four Hanover Square in central London. My father, Sir Rhodes Wintergarden, bought the property sixty years ago. He was a financier; I expect you will have heard of him. As his only daughter, I inherited it on his death and have remained there ever since. In twenty-seven years, Mr. Lockwood, I have never once been troubled by ghosts. I do not have time for them! I do a great deal of work for charitable organizations, and host functions that are attended by many important people. The head of the Sunrise Corporation is a personal friend of mine! I cannot allow my house to gain a dubious reputation, which is why I have come here today.”

  None of us said anything, but there was a perceptible quickening of interest in the room. Hanover Sq
uare was an expensive location; if Miss Wintergarden was truly wealthy and well connected, success with this case might give Lockwood & Co. the very push it needed. Lockwood in particular seemed newly alert.

  “Can you describe your home?” he asked.

  “It is a Regency town house,” our client said, “in one corner of the square. It has five stories—a basement level, containing the cellars and kitchens; the ground floor, which holds the reception rooms; an upper level with my personal chambers—a library, music room, and so forth; the third-floor bedrooms; and finally the attic level, where many of my staff—those who bother to remain!—have cots. The stories are connected by a curving staircase, a notable construction in mahogany and elm, designed by the architects Hobbes and Crutwell for the first owner of the house.”

  I shuffled in my chair. Lockwood’s smile had faded, and George was staring longingly at the cake. We knew the signs; Miss Wintergarden, like so many of our clients, enjoyed the sound of her own voice. We would be here for a while.

  “Yes, the staircase is easily the finest on the square,” she continued, “with the most elegant and deep stairwell. When I was a child, my father tied my pet mouse to a handkerchief and launched it from the top. It parachuted down—”

  “Excuse me, Miss Wintergarden.” Holly Munro had glanced up from her notepad. “We need to hurry you a little. Mr. Lockwood is extremely busy, and we only have an hour scheduled for this meeting. Only relevant historical matters need be discussed here. Let’s keep to the essentials, please.” She gave a brisk smile, one that turned on and off as if a kid were fiddling with the switch, and bent her head to the pad.

  There was a pause, during which Lockwood shifted around in his chair to stare at his assistant. We were all staring. George even had his mouth wide open, which made me relieved that he hadn’t yet had any cake. “Er, yes,” Lockwood said. “Well, I suppose we do need to muddle on. These footprints, Miss Wintergarden. Tell us about them.”

  The lady had been gazing contemplatively at Holly Munro. She pursed her lips. “I was about to do so, and my speaking of the staircase was entirely relevant, for it is there that the bloody footprints are found.”