As for Miss Pimm, it turned out that after she’d run away all those years ago, she’d opened a finishing school for young ladies. When my assistant and I discovered where she’d hidden all the magic she took with her, we convinced her to return to her job as Enchantress. Miss Pimm and I are still very good friends, for without Miss Pimm, there would be no gargoyle, and without the gargoyle, what would happen to the kingdom? Honestly, dear reader, I can’t bear to think about it.
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
IN THE FEW minutes since Hilary had arrived at Miss Pimm’s, the queen’s inspectors seemed to have multiplied several times over. The school’s main hall was packed practically from floor to ceiling with curious red-jacketed gentlemen who chewed on their pipe stems and waved their magnifying glasses about, while clusters of schoolgirls clutched one another and spoke in small, nervous voices. Although it was well after midday, some of the girls were still dressed in their nightclothes and wrapped in blankets. Hilary felt sure that Miss Pimm would have disapproved severely of the entire spectacle. “And you’re sure she hasn’t simply enchanted herself away?” Hilary asked Claire as they wove through the crowd.
Claire tugged at the sleeves of her green cardigan, which was unraveling at the wrists. Even the dancing sheep embroidered in golden thread was starting to come unpicked. “To be honest,” she said, “I’m not terribly sure of anything. The inspectors refuse to tell us what’s happened, but no one seems to have seen Miss Pimm since yesterday afternoon, and it’s been absolutely hours since she’s scolded anyone in rhyme.”
This was very grave news indeed. “I can’t imagine Miss Pimm missing an opportunity to deliver a good reprimand,” Hilary said. A few months earlier, Miss Pimm had told her in confidence that scolding was the only one of the Enchantress’s duties that she really enjoyed.
“Exactly,” said Claire. “And I don’t think there would be so many inspectors underfoot if Miss Pimm had simply decided to take a holiday.” She brushed past an inspector who was peering at Charlie’s dirt-scuffed boot through his magnifying glass. “What if she’s been stolen away by scoundrels? Or worse?”
“Worse?” The gargoyle’s ears drooped considerably. “I don’t like thinking about worse.”
“I don’t like it either,” Hilary said. They had reached a clearing in the crowd, and she stopped for a moment to gather her thoughts. “Especially not after what Miss Pimm said about peril.”
Claire frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
Hilary unfolded Miss Pimm’s letter and passed it to her. “She wrote to Jasper that she believed she might be in peril, and she wasn’t sure who could be trusted. What if the peril has come along and snatched her up?” She sighed and wished the journey from Otterpool had not been quite so lengthy. “If only we’d gotten here sooner, we might have been able to protect her.”
“Or we might have vanished right alongside her,” said Charlie. He looked rather uncomfortable at the thought of it.
“Well, at least we’re here now.” There was no point in having regrets, Hilary reminded herself, for regrets were thoroughly unpiratical, and they wouldn’t do Miss Pimm a smidgen of good in any case. “We came here to help our friend, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Claire clapped her hands together. “You will?”
“Of course!” said Hilary. “Unless you think it’s wise to leave the search in the hands of these ridiculous inspectors.” She glared at a gentleman who was attempting to dust her elbow for fingerprints, and he scurried away. “If Miss Pimm is truly in danger, she’ll need the Terror of the Southlands to rescue her.”
“And the Terror’s first mate,” Charlie put in.
The gargoyle’s ears still hadn’t perked up, and Hilary put a hand on his head to comfort him. “What do you think, gargoyle?” she asked. “Can you be bold and daring enough to help the Enchantress?”
The gargoyle thought for a moment. Then he twitched his ears so forcefully that his pirate hat nearly flew off his head. “If I couldn’t,” he said, “I’d hardly be the finest gargoyle on the High Seas. We’ll save Miss Pimm and bring her home, and then there will be trumpets!”
THE FIRST THING to do, Hilary decided, was to confront the queen’s inspectors. After their encounter outside the school gate, she didn’t relish the idea of talking to any more red-jacketed gentlemen, but it was possible that the inspectors knew more than they were letting on about Miss Pimm’s whereabouts. “And if they do,” said Hilary, “we’ve got to pry that information out of them—at swordpoint, if necessary.”
The gentleman in charge, Inspector Hastings, had established his headquarters in Miss Pimm’s private office. “I think that’s awfully rude of him, don’t you?” Claire said as she rapped her fist against the door. “Poor Miss Pimm. Disappearing is enough of an insult to one’s pride without losing one’s office as well.”
The door squeaked open just enough to allow a gentleman’s round, bespectacled head to poke through. “Who’s there?” the gentleman asked. Then he blinked and adjusted his spectacles. “Pirates? My goodness! I’m afraid I don’t allow pirates in my office.”
The gentleman attempted to close the door, but Hilary pushed past him and settled herself in a chair. “I’m the Terror of the Southlands,” she said, “and I need to speak to Inspector Hastings at once.”
Charlie and Claire hurried into the room as the gentleman took off his spectacles, rubbed at them with a handkerchief, and replaced them on his nose. He seemed on the verge of saying a number of cross things, but when Hilary moved her hand ever so slightly toward her cutlass, he resorted to giving an irritated sniff. Hilary was rather pleased to see that at least someone in the kingdom had the good sense to be impressed with her.
“I am Inspector Hastings,” the gentleman said—rather too grandly, in Hilary’s opinion—“and since I have done you the favor of welcoming you into my office, pirates, I hope you will do me the favor of keeping your weapons to yourselves.” He sat down behind Miss Pimm’s desk, which was stacked high with all manner of notebooks and papers, though the inspector had cleared out a small area amid the stacks to make room for his tea service. He took a sip of tea and surveyed the row of pirates in front of him, wrinkling his brow at Claire and wrinkling it further still at the gargoyle. “Have you come to confess to the crime, then?” he asked. “Or to deliver a ransom note, perhaps?”
“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Hilary. “Miss Pimm happens to be a friend of ours, and we’re here to find her. Would you be kind enough to tell us what you know about her disappearance?”
Perhaps Mr. Hastings was not quite as impressed with Hilary as she had hoped, for he nearly spit out his tea. “Reveal the results of our investigation?” he said. “To a band of pirates? Why, it’s out of the question! If I broke protocol in such a fashion, the queen herself would throw me in the Dungeons—and rightly so.” He put down his teacup and folded his hands. “If you are truly the Enchantress’s friends, you may rest assured that my men and I have the matter of her disappearance well in hand. We hardly need assistance from a group of scallywags without a magnifying glass or a dusting brush to their name.” He glanced sideways at Hilary. “You don’t have a dusting brush, do you?”
“No,” said Hilary, “but I really don’t see—”
Mr. Hastings nodded. “I thought as much.”
“You know, Terror,” Charlie said slowly, “it’s possible that the inspectors haven’t learned a thing. Perhaps Mr. Hastings won’t share his information because he hasn’t got any information to share.”
Hilary grinned at him. “I do believe you’re right, Pirate Dove.”
“He’s not right at all!” cried Mr. Hastings. “I’ll have you know that we’ve received some valuable evidence from the young lady who witnessed the crime. She observed a most unscrupulous individual lurking near this very room!”
“A witness?” Claire leaned forward. “And who might that be?”
Mr. Hastings raised his chin and looked down
his nose at each of them in turn. “That information,” he said, “is confidential. It is certainly not to be shared with pirates—or with schoolgirls, for that matter.” He laid a protective hand over a sheet of paper on the desk. “And don’t imagine for one moment that I’ll be willing to share my list of suspects, either. My men had to sort through the Enchantress’s appointment book for nearly an hour to compile it, and they are already searching for the villains in question.”
“When they find the villains,” the gargoyle remarked to Hilary, “they’ll probably dust them.”
Hilary eyed the steaming teapot that stood at Mr. Hastings’s elbow. Then she gathered her courage and gave the inspector her most charming High Society smile. “I understand your predicament, sir,” she said. “We wouldn’t dream of asking you to share your list of suspects.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “We wouldn’t?”
“Absolutely not.” The charming smile was beginning to hurt Hilary’s cheeks; however did High Society ladies sustain it? “I see you’ve finished your tea, Mr. Hastings. May I pour you another cup?”
“By all means.” Mr. Hastings leaned back in his chair. “Thank you, pirate. I knew I could make you see reason. You’re not much of a Terror after all, are you?”
Hilary aimed her charming smile directly at Mr. Hastings, picked up the teapot, and dumped its contents onto the desk.
A great river of tea streamed over Mr. Hastings’s papers and cascaded onto Mr. Hastings himself. “You clumsy scallywag!” he cried, leaping up and overturning Miss Pimm’s chair in the process. “Look what you’ve done! That’s my evidence!”
Hilary hurried around to the other side of the desk and began to pat the papers dry with a tea towel. “I’m terribly sorry!” she said, taking great care to knock over a pile of notebooks with her elbow. “I never should have offered to pour your tea. Pirates are notoriously bad at it.”
“It’s true,” said Charlie, reaching across the desk and scattering a sheaf of papers to the floor. “As a general rule, pirates are quite untidy.”
“I can see that!” Mr. Hastings snapped. He bent to retrieve his documents, but Claire sprang up from her chair and crashed into him at high speed, sending the papers flying in every direction. Hilary had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud as she wiped the pool of tea from the inspectors’ list of suspects.
“Get out!” cried Mr. Hastings, who was now thoroughly steeped in tea. “For goodness’ sake, wreak your piratical havoc somewhere else! And tell my lieutenant that my shirt needs cleaning.”
The pirates nodded gravely and marched out of the office, through the main hall, and out the front door. When they had reached the safety of the school’s front steps, however, they collapsed into laughter. “That poor inspector,” said Claire. “He thrashed about so much that I was quite tempted to wrap him in newspaper and sell him at the fishmonger’s.”
Charlie looked around and lowered his voice. “Did you get a good look at his notes, Hilary?”
“Only the list of suspects,” Hilary said, “and I’m afraid it’s awfully peculiar. It’s only got one name.”
The gargoyle hopped up and down in her bag. “Who’s the villain, then?” he asked. “Is it a fearsome brute? A heartless rogue? A sea monster?”
The gargoyle looked so eager that Hilary was reluctant to dampen his mood. “Actually,” she said, “it’s a pirate. The inspectors think Miss Pimm has been kidnapped by Cannonball Jack.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Charlie at once.
Hilary couldn’t believe it either. “He’s a friend of mine,” she explained to Claire, who was looking puzzled. “We met when I became Jasper’s apprentice. Oh, you must remember him; he was at the wedding. He’s got a hook, a peg leg, and an eye patch, and he spent half the night dancing reels with Miss Pimm.”
“Oh, yes.” Claire nodded. “That pirate. He didn’t seem like the kidnapping sort.”
“He’s not!” said Hilary. “I suppose he can be fearsome from time to time, but that’s his profession.”
“Still, he ended up on the inspectors’ list somehow.” Charlie looked concerned. “I don’t suppose they’ll tell us why they suspect him.”
“Then we’ll have to find out for ourselves.” Hilary settled her pirate hat more firmly on her head. On the Pigeon, she had become used to listening to Jasper make plans and give orders, but it was rather refreshing to give those orders herself, even if she didn’t sound nearly as confident as Jasper did. “Cannonball Jack usually anchors the Blunderbuss in Pemberton Bay. If he’s really got Miss Pimm aboard his ship, then we’ll know where she’s gone, and if he hasn’t, he might have some idea of what’s happened to her—but either way, we’d better reach him before the inspectors do, or they’re likely to make a complete hash of things.”
Charlie considered this. “It’s a good plan,” he said, much to Hilary’s relief.
“Nearly as good as one a gargoyle might make,” the gargoyle agreed.
For a moment, Claire was quiet. “Hilary,” she said at last, “I was wondering . . . Well, without Miss Pimm here, the entire school is a bit of a mess, and I overheard the games mistress talking about canceling the whole summer term.” She tugged at her sleeves so sharply that an entire row of stitches squirmed free from her cardigan. “I’m not sure I can bear to go home and work at the fish market until she’s found. I know I’m not a pirate, not really, and I’m sure you don’t need a schoolgirl to help you—though I am quite good at embroidery, and I can play a bit on the tin whistle—but anyway, oh, do you think I might come with you?”
Hilary laughed. “Of course!” she said. “I’d be honored if you’d come along as pirate’s assistant.”
Charlie’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly became very busy examining the buttons on his coat.
“Really?” Claire flung her arms around Hilary. “Oh, thank you, Hilary—I mean, Pirate Westfield. I won’t let you down, I promise. And thank you too, Pirate Dove. I’ll just take a moment to gather my things, and then we’ll all be off to rescue Miss Pimm!” Claire hurried up the steps. “I believe this is the most thrilling thing that’s happened to me in months.”
When Claire had pulled the door shut behind her, Charlie took off his hat and scratched his head, making his hair stick out in several directions at once. “Are you sure we should let her come with us?” he asked. “I mean, she’s a High Society girl—or at least she will be when finishing school is done with her.” Charlie shivered. “And she doesn’t even seem to mind it.”
Hilary grinned at him. “You don’t mean to tell me that you’re scared of Claire.”
“Of course I’m not!” said Charlie—rather hastily, Hilary thought. “A pirate is never scared. But Claire likes ball gowns, and embroidery, and manners . . .”
“And she’s perfectly capable of being a good pirate,” Hilary said firmly. “She helped us find treasure last year, didn’t she? And she did a lovely job of crashing into Mr. Hastings.”
“Besides,” said the gargoyle, “she’s very good at scratching me behind the ears.”
Charlie shrugged. “All right. If you think she’ll be a good pirate’s assistant, I suppose I can give her a chance.”
“Thank you.” Hilary picked up Charlie’s hat and handed it back to him. “Now, if you’re done being entirely silly, I believe we’ve got an Enchantress to find.”
* * *
THE QUEEN’S INSPECTORS
KINGDOM OF AUGUSTA
DILIGENCE, LOGIC, DISCRETION
Report to H.R.H. Queen Adelaide regarding
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MISS EUGENIA PIMM
Report No. 1
FIELD INSPECTOR: John Hastings
LOCATION: Pemberton, Augusta
CASE STATUS: Mildly Irritating
Inspector’s Comments: Your Highness, I was summoned to Miss Pimm’s Finishing School for Delicate Ladies this morning through a message from a pleasant young High Society lady. It appears that Miss Eugenia Pimm, Enchantress of th
e Northlands, has either misplaced herself or been misplaced by an unknown villain. We believe she left her home yesterday evening for a dinner appointment with an acquaintance and never returned.
It appears that the Enchantress is now too far away from Pemberton to be traced by magic, and in any case, very few of my men have the strength or talent to track down missing persons in this manner. We are forced, therefore, to rely on more traditional forms of detection. Inspectors have been outfitted with magnifying glasses and fingerprint kits.
Every inch of Miss Pimm’s office is perfectly neat and proper, suggesting that she departed the school calmly and without a struggle. She seems to have left several of her magic pieces behind unguarded, suggesting that she planned to return to the school in short order. However, Miss Pimm’s favorite magic piece (a golden crochet hook that she carried everywhere, according to her students) is nowhere to be found. We can only assume it is still in her possession.
Thanks to evidence supplied by the pleasant young lady I mentioned earlier, we have identified a nefarious-sounding gentleman named Cannonball Jack as our prime suspect in Miss Pimm’s disappearance. I have sent my best inspectors to interview this individual and detain him if necessary. I must admit, however, that I am concerned about a number of points:
First, who is most likely to have captured the Enchantress? I would list the Enchantress’s enemies here, but such a list would fill the streets of Pemberton, for many people from High Society to the High Seas wish her ill.
Second, who is capable of capturing the Enchantress? She is a powerful woman and would be difficult to overtake by magical means. Our villain must therefore be remarkably strong—or perhaps he is an even stronger magic user than the Enchantress herself. If my men are forced to confront such a powerful individual, they will surely require assistance; therefore, I am requesting that thirty additional inspectors be dispatched to Pemberton at once. I would, of course, humbly accept any token of aid that Your Highness might be willing to supply to our cause.
The Terror of the Southlands Page 5
