by Caleb Krisp
It was an astonishing coincidence to see them all gathered under one roof. Thank heavens for my brilliant disguise and my staggering acting skills. Here I was, right under their noses, and those clueless chumps didn’t suspect a thing.
“Who on earth is that?” said Matilda, pointing rudely.
I looked over and saw the object of her disapproval. A woman had entered the ballroom. She wore a long black dress, black gloves, and a small hat, and a veil covered her face.
“It’s probably Mrs. Winterbottom from the village,” said Lady Amelia. “Her husband died in a shooting accident last spring, and she is still in deep mourning.” Lady Amelia sighed. “Poor woman. Her suffering must be hard to bear.”
“Who’s suffering?” Lady Elizabeth had joined our little group.
“Mrs. Winterbottom,” said Lady Amelia. “She is in grief.”
The old bat squinted and cocked her ear. “Mrs. Winterbottom’s in Greece? I saw the blasted woman at church yesterday morning!”
Matilda laughed heartily.
“I’m surrounded by idiots.” Lady Elizabeth huffed.
I peeled away from the group and walked about the ballroom. Stomping on the floor. Pushing on the mirrored panels. All very discreetly, of course. The wall behind the orchestra was rock solid, so there was no possibility of a hidden door. Which only left the wall of mirrors. The secret door had to be there.
“What are you doing, Esmeralda?”
Estelle had slithered up beside me as I was examining a panel of mirror.
“Just admiring the craftsmanship,” I said casually. “They don’t build houses like this anymore, what with the empire crumbling and whatnot—I blame the poor, don’t you?”
“I rather thought you were looking for something,” said Estelle sweetly. “You seem terribly preoccupied by these mirrors.”
“Well, I’m rather fond of my own reflection,” I said, glancing at Estelle through the glass. “Though I find it strange, what with so much to see and do at this great ball, that you choose to spend your time watching me.”
Estelle blushed and giggled. “I confess I have a rather curious nature—do you think it terribly vulgar of me to wonder about what people are really up to?”
“I’m sure you’ve done worse,” I said brightly.
The smile slipped from her face. She turned on her heels and swanned away.
There was a foul smell wafting about the ballroom, and it was hard to miss.
Countess Carbunkle certainly hadn’t missed it. She stood by the banqueting table, munching with great enthusiasm on a lobster claw, her peacock feathers fluttering about as she spoke. “What on earth is that odor?”
“Countess Carbunkle,” I said, with a wave of my upper-class hand, “what you smell is the stench of moldy aristocrats—gout, mothballs, a fondness for horses and whatnot. My grandmother stinks to high heaven, and she is first cousin to the King of Spain.”
“Is she indeed?” said the Countess with an arched eyebrow. “Who is this grandmother of yours?”
“Lady Ophelia Cabbage,” I said grandly. “A very great woman. She was the toast of London before she set sail for India.”
“I very much doubt that.” The Countess smeared some buttery cheese on the lobster and took another hearty bite. “Why have I never heard of her?”
“It is a great mystery,” I said. “Grandmother was a terrific snob. As a chinless countess with bad manners and appalling teeth, you would have been just her cup of tea.”
For some reason, this caused Countess Carbunkle to cough suddenly—sending a piece of lobster shooting across the room, where it landed in the hair of a baroness from Gloucester. Just at that moment, the lady in the black veil passed by. Countess Carbunkle took an instant dislike to her. “Probably that wretched Miss Anonymous,” she grumbled, pointing with her lobster claw. “It would be just like her to slink about looking for gossip to put in that beastly column of hers. I would gladly tear her limb from limb.” Then she laughed unconvincingly. “Just a little joke.”
I felt the moment was right to tell the Countess she had a chunk of lobster hanging from her chin hair. Countess Carbunkle gasped, blushing furiously. “I do?”
“Yes, dear. If it were any longer, you could lower it into the river and catch a salmon.”
The Countess grabbed a napkin and wiped her chin, and in doing so smeared the buttered lobster claw across her gray dress. That made her gasp again. “Just look at the stain,” she cried. “How beastly! How humiliating!”
“Nonsense,” I said, feeling rather sorry for the silly creature. “I can remove that in a flash.”
I grabbed the napkin from her hand and dipped it in a glass of champagne. Then dunked it in a bowl of cranberry sauce.
“What are you doing?” said Countess Carbunkle, beginning to back up.
“Saving the day,” I said with a winning smile. “This mixture will take that stain out in no time. For best results, I usually require a spoonful of crushed beetle wings, but there isn’t time.”
“This dress cost me a fortune!” she shrieked.
“Well, that’s not your fault, dear,” I said, attacking the stain with gusto. “I’m sure it looked perfectly lovely on the mannequin.”
The Countess backed up toward the banqueting table in an effort to escape my reach. Though why, I couldn’t say. “Get off me!” she snapped.
At that point, things took a turn for the worse. For some strange reason, Countess Carbunkle did not want my help. In fact, she seemed to view it as a form of sabotage! Which is why she was pulling away, her buttocks pressed against the table, her back arched. Which is also why the enormous peacock feathers sprouting out of her hat made contact with a flickering candelabra. And caught fire. The flames roared to life and spread across her feathers like a forest fire. Within seconds her entire hat was burning up.
A pair of dames standing nearby began to shriek.
Countess Carbunkle sniffed the air. “What on earth is burning?”
“You are, dear,” I said.
The Countess straightened up and caught sight of herself in the mirrored panels. Which is when she began to scream like a woman whose hat was on fire.
Naturally I was happy to assist. By then the fire was spreading rapidly toward her hair. So I had to act quickly. I looked around for a suitable method of quelling the flames. And found it the moment my eyes flew to the banqueting table. “Brace yourself, Countess Carbunkle!”
“What for?” she shrieked.
Rushing at her like a bull, I pushed hard on the Countess’s shoulders, sending her flying back onto the table. Her landing wasn’t especially elegant; gravy boats and pheasant went hurtling into the air. Then I leaped onto the table top and slammed her head into the centerpiece—and her hat, indeed her entire head, splattered into the gigantic red-and-blue jelly of Butterfield Park.
The delicious dessert smothered the flaming hat. As Countess Carbunkle’s head sank deeper into the jelly, it squished around the sides of her face and spluttered over the top of her dress and up her neck. It had worked a treat! The entire ballroom fell silent. Even the orchestra stopped playing.
“You . . . you . . . stupid girl!” thundered Countess Carbunkle.
“Help her, you fools!” barked Lady Elizabeth, directing two gawking footmen toward Countess Carbunkle. They hurried over and pulled the Countess off the table. Great chunks of jelly were stuck to her hat and the sides of her face. But she arranged herself with great dignity. Head high. Jelly falling from her ears. There was a small amount of sobbing. And some rather unkind accusations.
“There is a jug of water!” she bellowed at me. “Could you not have thrown the water at my hat instead of pushing me into the centerpiece?”
“Now there’s a thought,” I replied. “Countess, you looked awfully rattled. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable lying back on the banqueting table with the other desserts?”
The Countess responded by grabbing a baked potato and throwing it at my head. I dropped dow
n just in time. The potato sailed over me and hit a violinist in the nose. He went flying back—and as he did, he reached for anything to halt his fall. The closest thing was a candelabra mounted on the wall. So he grabbed it.
But no one was paying the violinist any attention. It seemed the whole ballroom had gathered around Countess Carbunkle, trying to sooth her distress. But while the guests and the waiters fussed over a jelly-covered aristocrat, I had my sights set on the violinist. It seemed that only I had noticed the candelabra bend when he grabbed it, then snap back into place as he fell to the floor. Bend and snap back. Rather like a handle. And that right after, the mirrored panel closest to the orchestra had popped open—just a crack. To the untrained eye, it might seem like nothing at all. But I knew exactly what it meant.
“The door,” I whispered.
11
“I am ruined!”
Countess Carbunkle was sitting on a chair, wheezing a great deal, as a horde of noblewomen fanned her face and assured her that of course she could show her face in high society again. Though a short exile in Romania might be just the thing. But I was barely paying attention.
A door. There was a door. And I was certain Anastasia Radcliff was somewhere on the other side of it. So I headed toward it at speed.
“Making a run for it, are you, Cabbage?” shouted Matilda.
“Just checking on the injured violinist,” I called back. “They are a fragile bunch.”
The violinist in question had found his feet. And was about to rejoin the orchestra as they began playing again. I stopped at the side of the stage. Stole a glance at Matilda. She was now ordering Bertha to cut her a slice of cake. With the music playing, and the dancing resumed, I crept over to the mirror. It was just as I had thought. The panel was open just a crack, a seam of darkness etched around the mirror.
I opened it and prepared to slip inside. Now, the trouble with opening a door is that the light from the other side floods in. Which has a terrible habit of startling bats. When I stepped through the door, I found myself in a narrow, dim passageway. What I didn’t see were the beams running along the ceiling or the three bats hanging from it. That is, until they squawked violently as the light flooded in, flapped their wings, then flew straight out the mirrored door and into the ballroom.
Bats do a few things remarkably well. They flap about, making a great racket. And they scare people half to death. As the bats swooped and swerved, flying in tight circles over the banqueting table, the guests began to scream violently.
“Bats!” cried a chunky duchess.
“Run!” shouted a lord, pushing his wife out of the way as he raced for the door.
“Fetch my musket!” barked Lady Elizabeth. “I’ll blast them to bits!”
A great many guests seemed to run for the door all at once. Which created something of a jam. That led to a small amount of panic. A touch of pandemonium. I felt slightly responsible for the chaos. So I quickly came up with a solution.
The bats were circling madly, looking for a way out. So I would give them one. I charged across the room, mounted the banqueting table, and leaped between slices of pork and duck, then jumped down the other side. “Fear not!” I shouted. “The bats will soon be away!”
I bolted to the red velvet curtain, found the thick cord at the far end, and pulled it as fiercely as I knew how. The curtain parted in the middle and flew toward either end. Which was brilliant. I was about to start opening the windows to give the bats an escape when I looked down and made a rather unexpected discovery. It was the source of the odious smell that filled the ballroom. The package of cheese that I had dropped behind the curtain during my late-night visit was still there. Only now it had been torn open and was being fed on, rather rabidly, by what appeared to be several hundred mice.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the rodents. The mayor’s wife gave a bloodcurdling scream, then took the top hat off her husband’s head and threw it at the mice. Which was a great mistake. The mice, up to their ears in rancid cheese, scattered like the wind, darting across the ballroom.
“Mice!” cried one woman, then another. Panic spread about the ballroom rather rapidly—as did the mice. At least fifty of them scurried up the tablecloth and began feasting on the food, while others darted about causing bedlam.
With the bats swooping and the mice scurrying, the ballroom had taken on the atmosphere of a sinking ship. Several women were overcome with the vapors, while a group of men threw chairs and fruit at the pests. The whole place was in an uproar. Women panicked. Men pretended not to. One of the maids attempted to climb the curtains. And Lady Elizabeth waved her cane in the air and called again for her musket.
“Why must every ball we have end in complete disaster?” howled Matilda to her mother.
That felt like the perfect moment to make my exit. I dropped down, scurried under the table with several of the mice, and jumped to my feet. Then headed straight toward the secret door. When I reached it, I glanced about. Spotted Bertha in the crowd. She nodded her head. I nodded back. Then I slipped unnoticed from the unruly ballroom.
The tunnel was narrow. Bare brick walls. Dirt floor. Apart from a sliver of light slipping in from the ballroom, all was darkness. I felt my way along until the floor dropped away. A steep staircase loomed before me. A faint glow shimmered below. I hurried down.
At the bottom was a large chamber. The floor was damp and pungent. A torch hung from a bracket, throwing scarlet light at the darkness. At one end, a wooden peg stuck out from the wall. On it was a key. At the other end were two lengths of chain and two shackles. One had a woman fixed to it—fastened at the wrist.
Anastasia Radcliff was squatting on the floor, hugging her knees. A tangle of dark hair concealed her face. Her nightdress was stained and tattered. She rocked back and forth. And hummed that familiar lullaby.
“It’s all right, dear,” I said softly.
My words startled her. She stopped humming. Sniffed the air.
“I have come to get you out of this place,” I whispered.
The madwoman squeezed her legs tighter and began to hum again. I looked about. Saw the key again. While the length of chain was too short for Anastasia to have reached it, I had no such restriction. Grabbing the key, I hurried back to her. While there were a great many unknowns spinning through my mind, of one thing I was sure—there wasn’t much time.
“I have a friend, her name is Bertha,” I said as I slipped the key in the lock. “She is going to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere far from here.”
I turned the key, and the shackle snapped open. I wanted to shout with joy! Instead, I looked through that tangle of hair, hoping to reach the woman inside. “Anastasia, I know who you hum to day and night, and I promise that if you go with Bertha, we will find your child, and the two of you will be together again.”
Anastasia Radcliff fell silent. Her hand reached out—her fingers caked with dirt—and grabbed my arm. “My . . .” Her voice was small and wounded. “My . . . baby?”
“Yes, we will find your baby. But right now we must get you out of this house.”
“Well done, Miss Pocket.”
As I leaped up, Anastasia scrambled into the corner. Lady Elizabeth stood at the bottom of the stairs. And beside her was Countess Carbunkle. And Estelle Dumbleby. They all looked terribly pleased with themselves.
“We hoped you would discover this little dungeon before tonight,” said Lady Elizabeth. “We did everything but draw you a map, yet still you couldn’t find it.” She smiled wickedly. “But better late than never.”
How did they know who I was? My disguise had been a smashing success.
“After you escaped from Lashwood,” said Estelle, stepping toward me, “I realized that Lady Elizabeth and I shared a common enemy—you.” She reached out and ripped the nose from my face. Then pulled off my wig, throwing it aside.
“Miss Dumbleby agreed to assist us in luring you to Butterfield Park,” said Lady Elizabeth, “in return for accommodating Miss Radcl
iff. The dungeon has room enough for two lunatics, so we struck a bargain.”
I was stunned. The whole thing had been an elaborate trick? A scheme to bring me to Butterfield Park on the trail of Anastasia? In short, a trap? The awful truth must have carved its way across my face.
“Now she understands,” said Estelle, her voice ringing with delight. “You have been played for a fool, Ivy. How does it feel?”
I made no reply. Behind me, Anastasia had begun to hum again.
“Silence!” shouted Estelle.
I looked at this trio of villains, and only one of them had me puzzled. “What have you to do with this, Countess Carbunkle?”
“Need you ask?” she sneered, pulling a piece of jelly from her hair. “You ruined my life, Ivy Pocket—made me a laughingstock from Paris to London! And tonight you have done it again. The only balm for my humiliation is to witness your destruction.”
“That’s rather unkind, dear,” I said, pulling out my false teeth and letting them drop to the ground.
“Your residence at Butterfield Park is only temporary.” Lady Elizabeth walked across the dungeon, the torch throwing hideous shadows across her wrinkled flesh. “In a few days, when things calm down, you will be taken to a house in the north—a cell has been prepared for you there that will make this place look like a palace.”
“The house is mine,” said Countess Carbunkle. “When Lady Elizabeth wrote to me in Spain detailing her plans for you, she hoped I would be willing to provide suitable accommodation.”
“That way,” chimed in Estelle, “there is nothing connecting you and Anastasia to either Lady Elizabeth or myself.”
“The perfect crime,” said Lady Elizabeth. “You brought that wretched necklace to Butterfield Park, Miss Pocket, and filled my granddaughter’s head with nonsense. She is dead because of you, and for that you must pay.
