by Holly Webb
Contents
Title Page
31 Albion Street, London
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Collect the whole series
Copyright
“Come on, Eddie!” Maisie hurried across the pretty square, eager to get to Alice’s house. Now that Alice was home from her smart boarding school, Maisie had hoped she would see her best friend more often. But it seemed like ages since they’d had a proper talk, and Maisie didn’t have all that long before Gran would want her back home to help with supper. She scurried up the steps to the house and banged the shiny brass knocker. Eddie sat down on the top step looking exhausted, even though Maisie had carried him for part of the way.
“Good afternoon, Miss.”
Maisie blinked in surprise – it wasn’t the smart parlourmaid she’d expected who had opened the front door. Alice’s family had more servants than they knew what to do with, but this harassed-looking girl had been just a housemaid the last time she’d visited.
Perhaps Elizabeth is having her afternoon off, Maisie thought. She was rather glad – the parlourmaid always looked down her nose at Maisie with her faded dress and small, rather scruffy dog peering round her ankles.
“I’ve come to see Miss Alice. She should be—” Maisie started to say, but the girl just nodded and stood back from the door.
“She’s in the garden, Miss, playing in her tree house. You’re best off going out through here.” She waved Maisie into a small parlour, its French windows standing open, and then hurried away.
Maisie stared after her. It felt as though something rather odd was going on. “This way, Eddie,” she murmured, and they took the path down the garden to the giant tree where Alice had her beautiful little house. It had been a present from her father. It sat in the crook of the branches, quite high up, with its polished windows glinting in the sunlight. Alice cleaned the tree house herself – it was the only housework she ever had to do.
Maisie sighed as she began to climb the wooden staircase that wound around the tree trunk. Gran had said that she could come to visit Alice, but Maisie knew quite well that she’d have to make up for lost time when she got back to 31 Albion Street. Gran was probably making a long list of jobs this minute.
Still, Maisie had a good hour before she had to worry about that. She hurried up the last few steps calling, “Alice! Alice!”
The door flew open and Alice bounced out, dragging Maisie into the tree house and hurrying her into one of the pretty flowered armchairs by the window. “Oh, Maisie, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen you!” she said, handing both Maisie and Eddie a biscuit, then sitting down and beaming.
“I suppose it is a fortnight,” Maisie agreed. “Are you all right, Alice?” she asked, a little worriedly. Alice looked pale and, even though she was smiling, there was a frown line running from her forehead to her nose.
Alice sighed. “You’ll think I’m being silly.” She glanced sideways at Maisie and then looked down again hurriedly.
“I promise I won’t.” Maisie reached out to take Alice’s hand. Her friend’s nails were bitten, she noticed in surprise. Alice never bit her nails. She was always so very neat and tidy.
“Really, what’s the matter?” Maisie asked again.
Alice let out a huge sigh. “It’s Papa. He’s behaving so strangely. It started not long after he and my stepmama came home from their honeymoon. He was blissfully happy – they both were. But now he looks anxious all the time. I’m sure he’s got thinner and he hardly talks to me at all. He’s always rushing in and out, going to meetings. And it’s not that he and Mama have discovered they don’t like each other after all, or anything like that. Mama looks worried, too, a lot of the time. But they won’t tell me why! Whenever I ask, they say it’s nothing and that I’m just imagining it, but I’m not, Maisie, I’m really not.” Alice stopped, took a deep breath, and stared at her friend. “I’m so glad you’re here. If you hadn’t visited today, I think I might have come to you and asked you to investigate. I’m absolutely convinced that something strange is going on. It’s a mystery.”
Maisie spent the rest of her visit trying to calm Alice down and promising her that of course she would investigate if Alice wanted her to. But she didn’t really believe that there was anything wrong. Mr Lacey was so nice, and so sensible, and he was very, very rich. Why would he be involved in a mystery? Maisie was almost sure that Alice was making something out of nothing.
But as Alice was escorting her and Eddie back to the front door (she had very ladylike manners), she suddenly stopped and clutched Maisie’s arm so hard Maisie nearly squeaked.
“What is it?”
“Papa! That’s his study, I can hear him walking over to the door!” Alice nodded towards the door in the dark panelling and hauled Maisie backwards, so it looked as though they were just walking into the hallway. It would appear that they’d run into her father by chance.
Sure enough, the study door opened, and Mr Lacey came out into the hall as the girls walked past.
“Oh, Papa! Maisie came to visit,” Alice said, rather fast.
Her father didn’t seem to notice the odd tone in her voice. He nodded politely and smiled at Maisie, but he looked distracted.
“Could you tell your mama I won’t be in for dinner, Alice dear?” he murmured. “I must go down to the office…” Then he kissed his daughter, seized his hat from a little table by the door and hurried out without even putting on a coat.
“You see?” Alice muttered, as the door slammed behind him.
Maisie nodded. Mr Lacey hadn’t seemed quite himself, she could see what Alice meant. And, now she thought about it, there had been an odd smell as he leaned over to kiss Alice goodbye.
“Tea!” Maisie said suddenly. “I’ve never noticed him smelling of tea before.”
“It’s from the warehouse at the docks,” Alice said sadly. “He’s there all the time! A lot of his ships are importing tea. It’s very … very… Oh, you know what I mean, it makes a lot of money. Tea, and beautiful china, and silks and tobacco – lots of things.” She waved at a table full of exotic-looking china just inside the door of the drawing room. Maisie had already noticed it – her gran loved pretty china, and she’d been thinking how much Gran would admire the pattern with its sprays of fanciful flowers, all edged in gold. “Please tell me you’ll investigate, Maisie. I’m sure that something is terribly wrong.”
Maisie was still thinking about Mr Lacey’s strange behaviour as she walked past 31 Albion Street – she was planning to enter through the back door in the yard. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice the carrier’s cart pulling up behind her. She only turned round when a boy yelled, “Oy! Ginger!”
“What?” Maisie snapped at him. She hated it when people made comments about her red hair.
“Got a parcel for you. Maisie Hitchins, right? You’re popular. Brought you a parcel a couple of weeks back, didn’t I?”
“Oh.” Maisie nodded. She couldn’t be rude to him if he was delivering a parcel – and she didn’t care if the boy made comments about her hair now, anyway. It had to be another package from her father!
Daniel Hitchins was first mate on a merchant navy vessel, and Maisie hadn’t seen him since she was very little. But now he was on his way home – slowly. His ship was taking a roundabout sort of route and had to call at various ports on the way, so his presents came home before he did. The last time she had heard from him, he had been in Egypt.
“Thank you!” she called, waving to the boy as sh
e dashed into the alleyway and round to the back door. “Gran! Gran! A parcel!”
Her gran was sitting at the kitchen table with one of their lodgers, Mr Smith. Strictly speaking, lodgers weren’t supposed to sit in the kitchen, but Mr Smith was a special case. He was a sailor, too – in fact, he had sailed with Maisie’s father, as ship’s cook. He was retired now, but Maisie thought he missed the sea. He missed cooking, too, and somehow he’d persuaded Gran that she needed his help in the kitchen. Maisie certainly wasn’t complaining. Mr Smith peeled potatoes faster than anyone she had ever seen – even though he only had one working eye. The other eye had been replaced with a bright blue glass one, which rolled around in a most disturbing manner. Now he looked curiously at the parcel, eyeing the string and sealing wax.
“From your dad, is it?” he asked wistfully.
“I think so,” Maisie nodded eagerly.
Mr Smith passed her his clasp knife to cut the string. She undid the layers of brown paper, and brought out a letter and a beautiful wooden box, so smooth it felt like silk, with brass corners and a brass lock that was engraved with fantastical dragons. Maisie stroked it admiringly and turned the key. It opened with a well oiled click, revealing a parcel of papers, tied up with more string and sealing wax.
“Whatever’s all that?” Gran asked curiously. “You’d better read his letter, Maisie.”
Maisie nodded and unfolded the closely written sheet.
Dearest Maisie,
Just a short note before I send this off to you. Tell your gran I am on my way home, not too far away now. I bought this box months ago when we were at Pekin, China, and I have been using it to keep all my papers in. Just letters and such, if anyone asks. But that’s not quite true. I want you to keep them safe, Maisie. Don’t let anyone read them but you. Something strange has been going on, something I first noticed while we were in China. Strange and worrying, and I’ve been puzzling over it ever since. Perhaps your sharp eyes will catch something I haven’t. Think it over for me, Maisie, and I shall see you soon.
From your loving father,
Daniel Hitchins
Maisie blinked down at the note. “It’s just some old letters,” she murmured. “He says to keep them safe for him, that’s all.”
She could feel her cheeks reddening, partly with keeping a secret from Gran and Mr Smith, but also with delight. She ran her fingers over the engraved eye pattern on her carnelian pendant. Her father had sent her another special mystery to solve!
That night, Maisie curled up in her bed with Eddie close by her on the rug. She was weary – there had been a lot of housework to do after her visit to Alice’s, and she felt as though she had been running around all day. But even though a little bit of her longed to snuggle up under her patchwork quilt and sleep, the rest of her was wide awake and eager to look at the letters in her precious box.
There were several sheets of loose paper, she realized, as she lifted them out and untied the string. But most of the pile was actually a battered old notebook with limp cardboard covers, much worn and stained.
Maisie opened it carefully and began to flick through the pages. Her father seemed to have used it as a sort of memory book. He had stuck in postcards and strange-looking faded flowers. There were little sketches of his shipmates, too, and they made Maisie giggle – all of them seemed to be very odd-looking.
After a few pages, the book became more serious. The notes seemed to be set down more carefully, as if the subject was more important.
September 14th
Another ship lost. Belle of Arcady. And so soon after the Sarah-Rose. Am beginning to have suspicions.
Most valuable cargo. Ivory and tea. Someone could make a lot of money selling that off on the sly.
Or it could be the ship owners themselves, claiming on the insurance. Report the ship as lost, and just repaint her and rename her. Happens more than you might think.
But is it happening here? Perhaps am just too suspicious for my own good.
Maisie turned over the pages eagerly, flicking past more postcards and a fragment of a poem. Ah! Here was more about the case.
October 2nd
Almost sure now that there is some sort of swindle going on. I heard that the Lily May was lost with all hands two years ago, but I swear I have just seen her again. That mermaid figurehead, I’d know it anywhere. I was a cabin boy on the Lily May, she was my first ship! Old Captain Jones liked his mermaid to be perfect – I must have touched up that paintwork whenever we put in at a port. I’ll always remember her – the way the drops of resin seeping from the wood made her look as if she were crying. Surely there couldn’t be another the same?
Maisie sucked in her breath excitedly. A clue, a real clue! The notebook was fascinating. Maisie didn’t know what all her father’s sailor talk meant – he kept mentioning the strangest things: reefs and tackles, Andrews and barks. A lot of it didn’t make sense. But she thought she understood the mystery he was trying to solve. Someone had been making ships disappear. They would be claimed as lost at sea, and then the thieves could sell off the cargo and sail the ship away to be repainted and renamed. The crew would have to be in on the crime as well, of course, Maisie thought, frowning to herself. Or else they’d have to be sacked before the ship was “lost”. She shuddered. Sacked, or perhaps just got rid of. Permanently. It would be more realistic, wouldn’t it, if some sailors went down with the ship?
Her father had drawn a sketch of the figurehead under his notes – a beautiful wooden statue of a girl, staring out from the very front of the ship, just under the bow. She was carved with long, waving hair and tears on her cheeks, and Maisie could see the beginnings of her mermaid tail, before she merged into the wooden boards of the ship itself.
Maisie was sure her father was right – he couldn’t have made a mistake. And she was convinced that with his description and the drawing, she would recognize the weeping mermaid herself.
Maisie was polishing the wooden banisters of the stairs up to the first floor, when the doorbell rang. It pealed on and on, and then the person at the front door began to bang the knocker, too. Eddie, who had been sleeping curled up on the landing, jumped up and began to bark as if it were burglars. Maisie could hear Professor Tobin, who had the first-floor rooms, muttering. “Oh, dash it!”
The professor wasn’t usually grumpy, but Maisie suspected that the noise might have made him jump and upset his bottle of ink. It was probably all over his papers. And his desk and the carpet. She sighed and galloped down the stairs to open the door, before whoever was there broke the knocker clean off.
“Alice!” Maisie was quite astonished. For a start, Alice was there all by herself, without her stepmother or a maid. There was a hansom cab just pulling away from the pavement – Alice had come in a cab, all on her own! And Maisie simply couldn’t believe that it had been Alice making all that noise. Her friend was always so very polite.
“What on earth’s the matter?” Maisie demanded, taking in Alice’s reddened cheeks and glittering eyes.
“Oh, Maisie, I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue like this,” Alice said, her words tumbling over each other as she hurried into the hallway. “I simply had to come and see you.” She stopped all at once, and then swallowed. When she spoke again, her voice was squeaky and breathless. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”
“What?” Maisie stared at her. “Whatever do you mean?”
“We’re leaving.” Alice sat down suddenly on the bottom step of the stairs. “We’re going to China,” she told Maisie. She sounded as though she didn’t quite believe it herself.
“You can’t be!” Maisie shook her head. “Alice, that’s the other side of the world. You can’t go there!”
“We have to,” Alice sighed.
Maisie sat down on the step next to her friend and put an arm round her.
“Why?” Maisie murmured.
“Papa’s business. I’ve found out why he’s been looking so worried. Three of his ships have foundered, Maisie – that
means they were lost at sea. It’s terribly sad, of course. The men aboard must have drowned. And it means that all the cargo was lost, the tea, and silks and things. The ships are expensive to build, too.” She was silent for a minute, and then she added, “Altogether, it means that Papa has lost an awful lot of money. He is … almost ruined.”
Maisie nodded slowly. Alice’s father was very rich, and Alice had only ever been a rich man’s daughter. Maisie had a feeling that Alice didn’t know how to be poor.
“That’s dreadful. Oh, Alice, I’m so sorry. But I don’t understand. Why does that mean you have to go to China?”
“All three of the ships disappeared close to Chinese ports,” Alice explained. “Papa wishes to try to find out what has happened. He suspects that perhaps they were sunk on purpose. He says that maybe he has made an enemy who sank the ships for revenge!”
Maisie stared at Alice doubtfully. She couldn’t imagine calm, sensible Mr Lacey saying anything so dramatic. But at the same time, the story reminded Maisie of what she’d read in her father’s notebook. Who could have thought that the shipping trade was so dangerous?
Alice frowned. “It does seem like something out of one of those Penny Dreadful magazines that your friend George reads. But honestly, Maisie, Papa did say that, and he sounded awful. He’s told me before that some of the other people in the shipping business are terrible cut-throats, but I never thought he meant it quite like that.” She leaned her head on Maisie’s shoulder. “Our house is to be let out to strangers,” she murmured. “I wonder who will sleep in my room? Oh, I do hope they’ll look after my lovely tree house…”
