Moonlocket

by Peter Bunzl

  “But your papa told us not to leave Brackenbridge,” Robert said.

  “Oh, fiddlesticks to him!”

  “Perhaps we could telegraph,” Malkin proposed. “It would be a long way to go on a whim.”

  Lily shook her head. “Telegraphing’s no good. Whatever clues there are, we’ll need to be there to find them.”

  “Jack might’ve been already,” Robert said.

  “Or he might not,” Lily replied. “We can but try.”

  She pushed a loose lock of hair back behind her ear. This business felt like the start of a new adventure. Something told her it would be as dangerous as their last – after all, they were going up against Scotland Yard’s most wanted criminal. But Lily wasn’t scared; she knew what she had to do.

  It was as her mama had always said: Trust your heart. It will make the right choices.

  Sometimes Lily found these words hard to keep in mind, but today she was glad she remembered them. Papa may have decided it wasn’t safe for her to be out in the world with the Cogheart. He may have thought she wasn’t able to look after herself. But she was going to prove him wrong.

  She didn’t need to hide away and she didn’t want to. She had decided. She would help her friend Robert solve his mystery, and find his ma and the diamond, no matter what. But they would need to act quick if they were to stay a step ahead of Jack.

  “We’ll go to London in the morning,” Lily said. “And find the next clue.”

  After all, there was really no excuse not to. They’d half a locket, with a map and a secret code, a theatre flyer and an address in Queen’s Crescent. It was enough to get started. And if they needed help, they could always look in on Papa, or Anna, when they arrived.

  Lily lit a fresh candle, then stood and replaced A Popular History of Modern Magicians on the shelf. “If we’re going to leave first thing tomorrow,” she said, “we should probably ask Mrs Rust to make us a packed luncheon to take, or a picnic basket.”

  “Good idea,” Robert said. “And, while we’re at it, I’m rather peckish now.”

  “Me too.” Lily’s stomach rumbled hungrily at the thought of eating. She consulted the clock on the mantel. It was almost ten thirty. They’d been so busy working that they’d missed out on their evening meal. “That’s strange,” she muttered. “I wonder why no one called us to dinner?”

  “Let’s go and find out, shall we?” Robert opened the door.

  Out on the landing, all the lamps were unlit.

  “Something’s up,” Lily whispered. “It’s too quiet.”

  They slunk silently downstairs to the main hall and Malkin sniffed about a bit. Finally he wandered off down the corridor and jumped up, scratching the surface of the kitchen door.

  “This way,” he barked.

  Robert and Lily pushed open the door and found Miss Tock and Mr Wingnut sitting frozen still at the kitchen table.

  “We were so busy all day,” Robert said, “that we forgot to wind them. They must’ve wound down extra-quick from all the worry.”

  “I’ll get their keys,” Lily said. “I think I left them in Papa’s study.”

  She was interrupted by Mrs Rust, who walked across the room, juddering slowly towards her. The mechanical cook had not quite wound down yet. Each step was more creaky than the last, and she had started to repeat movements and words.

  “Water…tanks and watch…dogs!” she said. “Someone knocked…but when I opened…when I opened the door… I saw nobody… And…all… I could…find…found…was…this…stuck…th…ere.”

  She held out her arm to Lily but jittered to a stop a few feet away. Lily stared at the object in Mrs Rust’s stilled hand and her breath quickened, her pulse thudding in her ears. It was a Jack of Diamonds.

  “He’s here!” Lily snatched the card from Mrs Rust’s fingers and looked around queasily for any sign of Jack.

  Malkin scampered about, snuffling at the four corners of the kitchen. “He may have been,” he said. “But he never set foot inside.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Robert.

  Then they heard a smashing sound coming from the study upstairs and slow, quiet footsteps creeping along the hall.

  Lily doused their candle and they stood in the dark. Listening.

  The footsteps were coming closer.

  A hinge creaked directly above them.

  “That’s your room, Robert,” Lily whispered.

  A floorboard groaned. Jack was getting closer, coming down the servants’ staircase behind them. Lily’s eyes darted towards it. It was too late to get out of the house, but in the far corner, the cellar door stood ajar.

  “Quick!” she hissed. “Down there!”

  Robert shook his head. “It’s the first place he’ll look.” He scanned the room. “Jack can’t possibly know how many mechanicals we have,” he whispered, snatching an old coat from the back of a chair, and a colander from the drying rack. “Put these on and sit at the table,” he told Lily. “Between Mr Wingnut and Miss Tock. Try to keep as still as possible, like you’ve run down.”

  Lily did as she was told.

  Robert swiped a saucepan from a hook above the range and stuck it on his head, then he stood behind Mrs Rust, and froze.

  A moment later Jack stepped into the kitchen. His eyes flitted about the room. Lily’s stomach clenched fearfully, but she stayed frozen. Luckily they were lit only by moonlight, hidden enough in the shadows.

  Jack noticed the open cellar door and stalked towards it. “You can’t fool me, boy,” he called, peering round its edge. “I know you’re hiding down there with my Moonlocket. I was watching, and I saw you take it from the shop.”

  Lily counted the steps as he descended – ten in total. As soon as they heard him reach the bottom, she and Robert ran across the kitchen and slammed the door. Jack came pounding back up the stairs, but Lily turned the key in the lock just in time, as he rattled the handle on the other side.

  Robert leaned against the door and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Horrible to think that this person who seemed to wish them harm was technically his grandfather. The only thing worse would be if Jack discovered Robert was his grandson. He fervently hoped that never happened.

  “That won’t hold him for long,” Lily said. “How quickly did he pick the lock last time?”

  “In a few minutes.”

  “We need to slow him down.”

  They took in the room. On the counter was a bowl covered in a tea towel. Robert whipped the tea towel aside and discovered a lump of dough that Mrs Rust had left to rise for tomorrow’s bread in the bottom of the bowl.

  “That!” He pinched off a large piece, and stuffed it in the keyhole, while Lily grabbed a chair and wedged it under the door handle. “We need to leave at once,” she whispered, stepping away from the door so there was no chance Jack might hear. “We shall go to Papa in London as we planned. We’ll be safe there.”

  “What about the mechanicals?” Robert asked. The cellar door handle was shaking. He put a hand up to still it.

  “We’ll hide them in the pantry,” Lily said quietly. “No harm will come to them there. They can sleep until we get back. Malkin, you guard the cellar, bark if the door starts to open.”

  Malkin nodded and took up an alert position beside the rattling chair.

  Meanwhile, quick as they could, Lily and Robert dragged the three mechanicals into the pantry. All the time the handle on the cellar door rattled as Jack fiddled with the lock. They hadn’t long. Finally, when all the mechanicals stood upright among the baskets of vegetables and canned food, Lily drew a curtain across the doorway to hide them and beckoned to the fox.

  “That’ll have to do,” she said.

  Malkin glanced at the Moonlocket around Robert’s neck. “Anyway,” he said, “they won’t be Jack’s first thought when he gets out.”

  Robert put a hand on the locket. It felt comforting, but Malkin was right, it was also a magnet drawing Jack to him – of that he was certain.

  They
ran to the hall, and into the vestibule. Robert took down a light jacket and Lily her summer coat. Malkin only needed his winding key, which was kept on a chain around his neck. There was some money for emergencies in the hall dresser, and this was definitely an emergency! Lily counted out the bills and stuffed them into her purse, before wedging it into her pocket beside her watch, coins and her precious ammonite stone. She picked up the carpet bag, with the items she’d packed for Robert and herself the day before. “Is that everything?” she asked.

  Robert nodded. “Yes, let’s go.”

  If they hurried to the airfield on their bicycles, they’d be in time to catch the last overnight zep to London, and then they could make their way to Queen’s Crescent. What they’d find there, nobody knew. But perhaps, for Robert, it would bring him a step closer to his family.

  The church clock in the village read quarter to midnight. Lily, Robert and Malkin cycled past it and rushed towards the airstation. Lily had the bag in the basket on the front of her bicycle, Robert pedalled along at her side and Malkin ran ahead.

  As they approached the airfield, they could see the bulging shape of the airship tethered beside the docking platform. The last of the passengers were already making their way up the gangplank.

  They sped to a stop outside the gates of the main building and concealed their bicycles in some raggedy bushes nearby.

  “We’ll just have to hope they’re still here when we get back,” Lily said.

  Malkin trotted towards the door of the ticket office, but Lily grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Wait, Malkin,” she cried. “You’re not allowed on the passenger deck of an airship, you’re going to have to be smuggled aboard in my carpet bag.”

  There was much struggling and argument, with Malkin complaining about being squashed away with their scruffy clothes. But in the end he agreed, curling up in the carpet bag, and they managed to close it over him.

  Lily bought the two cheapest tickets from the clerk at the bookings window, then they ran breathlessly through the doors and onto the platform where the airship was waiting to depart. They arrived as the gangplank was about to be taken away, and ran up it just in time.

  The mechanical porter took Robert and Lily’s tickets, examined them, and stamped them with a metallic stamp on the end of his finger, then returned them.

  “You’re in third class, Master, Miss. Cabin Five. Unreserved seating. Second on your left, off the main passageway. Please mind your heads on the beams as you pass through to your cabin!” he said as he closed the door behind them.

  “Thank you,” Robert called back. He and Lily followed the narrow corridor in the direction the mechanical steward had indicated, towards the bow of the ship. Robert glanced out of the portholes at the waiting room and platform below, and the depot behind it, half-expecting Mr Wingnut, Miss Tock and Mrs Rust to arrive and try to stop them. He couldn’t wait to travel by airship again – it’d been six months since his last flight, and he’d never been on a public zep like this before. He hoped there would be time to look around while they were airborne. He was still a little scared of heights of course, but as long as he didn’t look down while they were taking off, he’d be all right.

  “Here it is!” Lily had found Cabin Five and slid open the door. Third class was a lot more rudimentary than Robert was expecting – an oblong space with a large porthole window, which framed a view of the airdock, and banks of wooden bench seating down either wall with luggage racks above. The compartment was full to the brim with overnight travellers in grey suits, who sat packed together on the wooden benches, facing one another with stony expressions. Some had felt blankets to cover their knees; one hunched fellow, slouched at the end of the row, had a bowler hat pulled down over his face and was trying to sleep.

  Robert and Lily fought their way through a tangle of feet towards the last two seats near the porthole at the far end. The luggage rack opposite them was nearly full and they needed all their strength to lift their heavy carpet bag into it. The man with the bowler hat over his face tutted at the inconvenience they were causing, but didn’t get up to offer help, and neither did anyone else.

  Finally, with both of them standing on tiptoes, Robert managed to gain that extra bit of leverage to shove the carpet bag in between two suitcases. A little mechanical groan came from inside it but Lily covered it with a yawn.

  When they turned to sit they discovered a woman with a grey swirling bun of hair had arrived, and taken one of their spaces. “That’s our spot,” Lily complained.

  “You should’ve sat in it then,” the woman admonished. She settled herself in, shutting her eyes. “Could you be a little quieter! I need my sleep.”

  “We were stowing our baggage, you old baggage,” Lily grumbled, but she made sure it wasn’t loud enough for the woman to hear.

  She and Robert struggled into the single free space, sharing it between them. Despite the time it had taken them to get settled, and the fact that the engines were puttering, the airship hadn’t moved yet. Robert peered out the window. A steam-wagon was parked up on the airfield. It looked almost like John’s, but surely it couldn’t be? Before Robert could get a closer look, someone dashed across and began moving it from the flight path. And finally the airship began to lift off.

  Robert gripped his armrest, butterflies fluttering inside him. In spite of everything they’d been through, he was still a nervous flier, and the events of this evening were making him more so. He wanted to be up in the sky and as far away from danger as possible.

  Their take-off turned out to be smooth, with barely any crosswind. Soon the zep’s engines were at full power and she rose steadily, in a slow and stately motion, like a soap bubble.

  Lily fell asleep almost immediately, her head lolling on Robert’s shoulder, her tresses of hair bright red against the grey wool of his coat. Robert wanted to join her in a doze, but what with the shudder of the wooden benches and the pistons and pipes pounding and gurgling in the wall, he found he just couldn’t drop off.

  Instead, his mind drifted back to the incredible revelations about his family. How could Jack Door, the criminal they’d had to lock in the cellar, be his grandfather? And what about his ma? Jack had disowned Selena, but by cutting Robert out of her life, she’d essentially done the same thing to him. Why?

  He fiddled with the chain around his neck, making the Moonlocket dance against his chest. Jack knew Robert had it. The thought ran through him like a chill. Glancing up, he checked Malkin and the bag were still safe before shutting his eyes and tipping his head to one side, leaning it against Lily’s. He smelled the fresh buttery fragrance of her hair, and felt her chest rising and falling with each breath, beside his. He knew he needed to come up with some sort of plan for the dangers that lay ahead, but he was too tired to concentrate now…and, pretty soon, he too fell into a deep sleep.

  Robert woke to find a bright light blinking down on them through the luggage rack. Beside him, Lily’s head lolled against the headrest of the seat. He checked her pocket watch. Nearly four o’clock in the morning – they would be arriving in London soon, if all was well.

  At the far end of the cabin, a figure in a black coat and battered bowler hat was stepping out into the passage, pulling the door shut behind him. Instinctively, Robert felt for the Moonlocket around his neck. It was still there, thank goodness! But something wasn’t quite right…

  He stood and took his cap from the coat hook above him, glancing up at the luggage rack. It was empty! He shook Lily awake. “Someone’s taken Malkin!” he cried.

  Blearily, Lily pushed the hair from her face. “What? When?” The words came tightly from her throat.

  “Just now. Look!”

  She squeezed from their shared seat and surveyed the cabin. “The man who was sitting at the far end…”

  “He’s left,” Robert said.

  Lily’s chest ticked with panic as she tried to recall what the man looked like. It was no use – all she could remember was a few tufts of black hai
r curled round the edge of his bowler, which he’d pushed down to hide his face.

  She gripped the arm of the woman next to them. “Where did that man go?” she asked, pointing at the place where he’d sat.

  The woman yawned and considered the question.

  “How would I know?” she said finally. “He ain’t returning, though. He took his bag. There’s been such comings and goings, some of these fellows get up every few minutes to use the water closet. It’s quite unbelievable.”

  “Which way is the water closet?” Robert asked.

  “Right…no, left!”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Lily squeezed up the narrow footway to the door, kicking people’s feet and bags out of the way. Robert followed, almost tripping over the shoes of the last man in the row, who jolted awake, and watched with uninvolved interest as Lily pulled aside the sliding door of the compartment and let in the cold air.

  “Quick!” she cried, and she and Robert raced down the corridor.

  Turning sharply at the starboard end, the corridor rose up a short flight of stairs into the first-class lounge. It was dark, except for the moonlight coming in through the large viewing windows.

  “There he is,” cried Robert, pointing out the man in the bowler, who was walking across the far side of the room, pulling their bag along behind him. Robert felt confused. Who was this new villain? He looked taller than Jack…

  Over the soft rumble of the engine, Lily could make out Malkin’s muffled cries from within the bag. “Where’s that man taking Malkin?” she exclaimed, pushing past empty tables and chairs.

  “And what’ll we do if we catch him?” Robert raced behind her, accidentally tipping over a trolley filled with cutlery, which clattered to the floor.

  “Fight!”

  “D’you think we can fight such a big fellow?”