Because Charlie had trained as a pirate apprentice, he’d been to League headquarters dozens of times, and Hilary had sent him to look through Captain Blacktooth’s windows. Now he strolled around the corner toward Hilary, whistling both cheerfully and loudly. Hilary narrowed her eyes. “What’s the whistling for?” she whispered.
“You said not to act suspicious,” Charlie said, “and suspicious people never whistle.”
Hilary supposed that was true, for none of the wandering pirates had given Charlie a second glance. “Were you able to see anything?”
“Not much,” said Charlie, “but I don’t think Blacktooth’s in his office. He’s got his curtains drawn, and I couldn’t hear a thing when I put my ear to the window.”
“I’ve put my crochet hook to good use,” Miss Greyson said, coming up behind them. “Neither Jasper nor Miss Pimm seems to be anywhere nearby. Frankly, I doubt they’re even on the island.”
Hilary stamped her boots against the cobblestones. “Drat,” she said. “I suppose it wasn’t likely, but I hoped . . .”
“I know,” said Miss Greyson. “I hoped, too.”
“Well,” said Hilary after a few moments, “if Blacktooth isn’t in his office, I suppose we can search through his things. Perhaps we’ll find something useful.”
They had decided on the Pigeon that climbing through Captain Blacktooth’s window would look terribly suspicious and couldn’t be risked, so Hilary had settled on a plan that seemed almost too simple to work. “Are you ready?” she asked Miss Greyson and Claire.
Both of them nodded, and Claire’s pirate hat slipped down over her eyes. “Are you sure there won’t be any guards?” she asked.
“There’s no need for guards when everyone in the building has at least one sword,” said Charlie. “As long as you look piratical and say ‘Arr!’ every so often, you shouldn’t run into trouble.”
“All right.” Claire squeezed Hilary’s hand. “We’ll see you soon,” she whispered, “or at least I hope we will. And please don’t get caught.”
Truthfully, Hilary was more nervous for Claire and Miss Greyson than she was for herself. She was a pirate and a League member—for the moment, at least—and so was Charlie; it would be perfectly natural for them to visit headquarters in the course of their voyages around the kingdom. But if Miss Greyson’s pirate hat flew off her head, or if Claire’s vast pirate coat puddled around her boots, every scallywag in the building would know they were up to no good, and most pirates did not take kindly to finishing-school girls or governesses.
After Claire and Miss Greyson passed through the front door, Hilary and Charlie counted to five hundred before following them. The gargoyle had objected to this part of the plan: although he had tried many times, he had never successfully counted higher than seventy-three. Now he slumped down in Hilary’s bag and made himself useful by calling out occasional numbers at random. “Thirty-eight!” he said. “Eleven! Two! Is it time yet?”
At last it was time, and Hilary stepped up onto the porch. She studied the skull over the door for a moment, trying not to wonder who it might have been in a previous life—a poor buccaneer who’d been punished for unpiratical behavior, perhaps, or a pirate who’d been caught snooping in the president’s private rooms. Then she squared her shoulders, pushed open the squeaky-hinged door, and stepped inside.
The narrow passageway in front of them was lit with torches, and the walls were adorned with artifacts commemorating previous VNHLP presidents: the hat feather of Blackjaw Hawkins, the eye patch of Squinty O’Hara, the peg leg of Pretty Jack Winter, and (Hilary shuddered) the knucklebones of someone named Captain Deadheart. Smaller passageways branched out now and then on either side, with carved wooden arrows pointing the way TO THE ARMORY or TO THE SWIMMIN’ POOL. Pirates strode past them carrying important-looking leather books under their arms, and the air was remarkably full of parrots. Something crunched slightly under Hilary’s boots; she hoped it was birdseed rather than knucklebones.
At last the passageway opened into a high-ceilinged hall, where a wooden arrow pointing straight ahead said TO THE PRESIDENT’S QUARTERS. Hilary grinned as she saw that Miss Greyson and Claire were already hard at work distracting Captain Blacktooth’s secretary, a pirate sitting behind a desk several times larger than he was.
“My charge is decidin’ whether to join the League,” Miss Greyson told the secretary in a thick pirate accent, “an’ she’d like to learn more about it. Can ye give us some information, Mr. Gull?”
“Do you have pamphlets?” Claire asked, leaning so far over the desk that Mr. Gull shrank down in his chair. “I absolutely love pamphlets. Is the headquarters very old? How many pirates are in the League? Have you ever been in a sword fight? Which do you think is more fearsome, a hook or a peg leg?” She glanced over her shoulder and caught Hilary’s eye. “Why, look over there!” she cried, pointing toward a window on the opposite side of the hall. “I believe the queen herself has come for a visit!”
Mr. Gull leaped up and hurried to the window, and Hilary and Charlie slipped past his desk while his back was turned. “Perhaps that’s not the queen after all,” Hilary heard Claire say as they rounded the corner. “I did think she looked terribly odd with an eye patch and a beard.”
“This is it,” Charlie whispered. The plaque on the door in front of them bore Captain Blacktooth’s name, and Charlie jiggled the doorknob. “Locked, of course,” he said.
“That’s nothing a pirate can’t handle,” said Hilary. She held her magic coin in one hand and rested her other hand on the doorknob. “Magic,” she said, “please unlock this door.”
Hilary’s arm tingled, there was a soft click, and the doorknob turned in her hand. “Thank you, magic,” Hilary whispered to the coin as she and Charlie crept into Captain Blacktooth’s quarters.
The door closed behind them, and Hilary turned the lock. “Just in case Blacktooth comes back,” she explained. “We’ve got to leave everything just as we found it.” The room was remarkably tidy and mostly empty; Hilary supposed Captain Blacktooth kept most of his belongings on the Renegade. A battered leather chair sat in front of a fireplace, and books and papers were stacked on a table nearby. In one corner stood a large, sea-weathered trunk nearly identical to the one Captain Blacktooth had delivered to Hilary when he’d welcomed her to the VNHLP, and Hilary’s heart sank at the memory. “Perhaps Blacktooth’s not a Mutineer after all,” she said. She opened the trunk and found nothing but cobwebs. “It’s difficult to believe he’d be so villainous.”
Charlie was rummaging through the spare pirate coats that hung on a tall wooden rack. “Well, he hasn’t got anyone locked away in his office, so that’s a point in his favor. And he keeps his pockets empty.”
The gargoyle’s snout appeared over the edge of Hilary’s bag. “But he didn’t defend us at the Salty Biscuit,” he said. “He was going to let those scallywags run us through. Remember?”
“How could I forget?” said Hilary. “Perhaps he hoped we could defend ourselves—and we could have, you know.” She sat down in the captain’s chair and studied the spines of his books, which had titles like The Pirate’s Guide to Plundering and Five Weeks to a Better Beard. All around the books were piles of papers and folders labeled in Captain Blacktooth’s spindly hand, though to Hilary’s disappointment, none of the folders was labeled VILLAINY.
For ten minutes they sorted through catalogs for seafaring supplies, notes scribbled on VNHLP stationery, and the personal records of half a dozen pirates, but they couldn’t find a single scrap of information that mentioned the Mutineers. Hilary hated the thought of giving up the search, but perhaps it was the only thing to do. She sighed and leaned back in Captain Blacktooth’s chair.
“Hold on a moment,” said Charlie. “What’s this?” He pulled a thick white envelope out from the pages of The Pirate’s Guide to Plundering, where it had been serving as a bookmark. Hilary straightened up at once: the envelope was addressed to Captain Blacktooth in an elegant hand, a
nd its blue wax seal was broken in half.
“So the Mutineers have written to Blacktooth,” she said, taking the envelope from Charlie’s hand. “I wonder what they’ve got to say.”
The gargoyle hopped up and down inside the bag. “Oh, Hilary, open it! You know gargoyles can’t stand suspense!”
“Pirates aren’t much good at it either,” Hilary said, and she pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope. It was covered in the Mutineers’ elegant script, but for a long moment it made no sense at all:
* * *
Mrs. Georgiana Tilbury
REQUESTS THE PLEASURE OF THE COMPANY OF
Captain Rupert Blacktooth
AT A GRAND BALL TO CELEBRATE THE
HIGH SOCIETY DEBUT OF HER DAUGHTER,
Philomena.
SATURDAY AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
TILBURY PARK, NORDHOLM, THE NORTHLANDS.
AN ANSWER WILL OBLIGE.
* * *
Charlie studied the note over Hilary’s shoulder. “An invitation to a ball?” he said. “Perhaps it’s a threat.”
“An invitation to Philomena’s ball,” Hilary corrected, “written by her mother.”
“I don’t understand,” said the gargoyle. “Why does Philomena’s mother write like a Mutineer?”
“Because she is a Mutineer.” Hilary waved the invitation under the gargoyle’s snout. “Mrs. Georgiana Tilbury must be the one who’s been writing those horrid notes to us, and to Cannonball Jack. Oh, I just knew Philomena was involved somehow! Her mother must be even more villainous than she is.”
“And the Tilburys are friends with Captain Blacktooth, I suppose,” said Charlie, “although I can’t imagine Philomena inviting a pirate to her ball. Perhaps she’s turned over a new leaf.”
“Or perhaps they’re all working together.” Hilary grinned. “I’d bet my hat that Captain Blacktooth and Mrs. Tilbury are both Mutineers.”
“I hope you’re right,” the gargoyle said. “It would be very sad if you lost your hat.”
At that moment, Claire’s voice rang out through the building. “MY GOODNESS!” she shouted loud enough for Hilary to hear. “IS THAT CAPTAIN BLACKTOOTH, THE PRESIDENT OF THE PIRATE LEAGUE, ON HIS WAY TO HIS QUARTERS?”
“Oh, curses!” Hilary shoved the invitation back into its envelope and looked around for a place to hide. There wasn’t any time to make a dash for the exit, but crouching behind the chair wouldn’t do her an ounce of good. “Why doesn’t Blacktooth have more furniture?” Charlie squeezed himself into Captain Blacktooth’s trunk, and Hilary threw herself and the gargoyle behind the coat rack just as a key scraped in the lock.
“What a strange little pirate girl that was,” someone said as the door opened. The voice didn’t sound at all like Captain Blacktooth’s—it was much too elegant, and several octaves too high. Carefully, Hilary pushed aside the sleeve of one of the captain’s many coats and peered through the gap she’d made in the folds of fabric.
Captain Blacktooth had entered his office, but he hadn’t come alone. His guest was a tall woman dressed in peacock blue. She removed her fashionable hat and smoothed her graying hair, looking nearly as exasperated as she had when Hilary had passed her in the Royal Dungeons earlier that week. Now, however, in the clear midday light, Hilary knew precisely why the woman looked so familiar: she was an older, sterner version of Philomena.
“She seemed to have thoroughly terrified your poor secretary,” Mrs. Tilbury continued. “If someone doesn’t keep an eye on her, she’ll grow to be as much of a nuisance as James Westfield’s daughter.”
Hilary prickled. She was not a nuisance, she was a Terror, but perhaps Mrs. Tilbury was too foolish to understand the difference.
“Truthfully,” said Captain Blacktooth, “I much prefer James’s daughter to James himself. I wouldn’t mind sending the dratted fellow off the plank once all this nonsense is finished.” He took off his hat and rubbed the bald spot on his head. “I would have done it months ago if you hadn’t dragged me into his affairs.”
Mrs. Tilbury clicked her tongue. “Now, Rupert, that’s very unkind. James can be rather stubborn, I admit; perhaps that’s where the girl gets it. Honestly, is there nothing that will frighten her away?”
“They do call her the Terror of the Southlands,” Captain Blacktooth pointed out, and Hilary couldn’t help smiling into the coats.
“That may be,” said Mrs. Tilbury, “but I don’t understand why you won’t ask a few of your men to abandon her somewhere miserable for a month or two.”
“She’s a member of the League, Georgiana. I won’t have my own scallywags kidnapped. I’ve already done my best to warn her off.” Captain Blacktooth sat down in his chair and began to shuffle through the stacks of books and papers. “I’m not terribly worried, though. I questioned Pirate Westfield in Queensport, and she doesn’t know anything at all.”
“What about that shabby orphan boy she sails about with?” Mrs. Tilbury asked. “Is he likely to give us any trouble?”
“He’s somewhat handy with a sword, but he’s not a serious pirate. I’ve even heard he refuses to use magic!” Captain Blacktooth shook his head. “He’s certainly not worth worrying about.”
Hilary cringed and looked over at the trunk where Charlie was hidden, willing him not to climb out and challenge Blacktooth to a duel.
“And the queen’s inspectors?” Mrs. Tilbury asked.
“Still perfectly befuddled, as usual,” said Captain Blacktooth, “but I’ve advertised for more pirates to stand guard in case that Hastings fellow stumbles across any smart ideas.”
“More pirates!” Mrs. Tilbury sighed. “The house shall be overrun with them. They had better not poke about in the china cabinet or tread mud on my good carpets.”
“I’ll be sure to tell them so,” said Captain Blacktooth cheerfully. “Ah, here are the notes I needed.” He stood up and replaced his hat. “Shall we discuss them over lunch?”
“At one of those horrid little groggeries?” Mrs. Tilbury wrinkled her nose, reminding Hilary strongly of Philomena. “Can’t we go somewhere more civilized?”
“Not on Gunpowder Island,” Captain Blacktooth said, “and the crowd at the Sword and Seahorse raises such a ruckus that we won’t be overheard.” He turned, and to Hilary’s horror, he stared directly at the coat rack. “Should I change into the crimson coat, I wonder? I’ve been wearing this blue one for days.”
Hilary stood as still as a sail without a breeze. She wanted to reach for the gargoyle for comfort, but she didn’t dare to move her hand; she hardly dared to breathe. If Captain Blacktooth caught her now, he wouldn’t just expel her from the League; he’d run her through on the spot—and if he wavered, Mrs. Tilbury would surely do it instead. Don’t change your coat, she thought fiercely. Oh, please don’t change your coat.
Captain Blacktooth took a step toward the coat rack.
“Don’t be absurd, Rupert,” Mrs. Tilbury said. “Crimson is a color for winter, and it’s the height of the summer. Simply everyone is wearing blue this season.” She flourished her own peacock-colored hat. “Now, let’s depart, if you please. You know I can’t abide waiting.”
When Captain Blacktooth had closed the door behind him and turned his key in the lock, Hilary shoved the coat rack aside and hurried over to the trunk. “Did you hear that?” she whispered as she pushed back the lid to let Charlie out.
“Every word.” Charlie coughed and tried to brush the cobwebs from his coat. “Especially the part about how I’m not a serious pirate.”
Hilary held out her hands and pulled him out of the trunk. “Never mind what Captain Blacktooth thinks. He’s a Mutineer, after all, and I’m sure it’s quite piratical to be disliked by villains.”
Charlie shrugged. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Are you sure?” Hilary asked.
“Quite,” said Charlie flatly. He pulled a spider from his shoulder and put it in Hilary’s bag for the gargoyle to munch on. “Who was that woman with Blacktooth? I couldn�
��t see anything through the keyhole.”
“That,” said Hilary, “was Philomena’s delightful mother. From what Blacktooth said about sending pirates to guard her house, it sounds like they’re keeping Miss Pimm at Tilbury Park. Perhaps they’ve got Jasper there, too.”
“And now we can rescue them!” the gargoyle cried.
“I hope so.” Hilary looked out the grimy window, where Captain Blacktooth and Mrs. Tilbury had just begun to stroll down the hill. “Come along; let’s fetch Claire and Miss Greyson.”
“Good idea,” said Charlie. “I don’t think I can stand to stay in this place another moment.”
Hilary marched into the hall, put one hand on Claire’s shoulder and the other on Miss Greyson’s, and looked down at the secretary’s head. “Arr!” she said. “Have these pirates been bothering you, Mr. Gull?”
The secretary quivered.
“Don’t worry. I shall take them away at once. But before I go, I’d like to ask you a question, if I may.”
Mr. Gull nodded. “Of course, pirate,” he said in a tremulous voice. “How can I assist you?”
“I’d like to know why that elegant woman in peacock blue was roaming these halls with Captain Blacktooth,” Hilary said. “Surely High Society ladies are not allowed at League headquarters?”
“N-no,” said Mr. Gull, “they’re not. But we always make an exception for Mrs. Tilbury.”
“And why is that?”
Mr. Gull sat up a little straighter. “Because,” he said as though nothing could be more obvious, “Mrs. Tilbury is Captain Blacktooth’s sister.”
“I WAS TERRIBLY worried!” Claire said as they hurried through the cobblestone streets toward Gunpowder Bay. “I was sure Captain Blacktooth would recognize us, but Miss Greyson had the good sense to step behind a potted plant, and I don’t think the captain has ever bothered to give me a second look. So we were all right, but then I saw him going into his office with that horrid tall woman, and I knew you’d be caught!” She paused for a breath. “So I shouted.”
The Terror of the Southlands Page 16
