by Tom Banks
‘Yes, I suppose these things are all heirlooms – so they will be mine one day.’
Rasmussen seemed to think about this as if it had never occurred to her before, then she stared fixedly at one spot for a while. Stanley followed her gaze, but couldn’t see anything untoward, so he assumed she was just being cross with him.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be horrible. I like all that … pink … stuff really. Very regal. So, fancy coming to get some more sausage rolls with me? And maybe a cup of tea?’ he said, but she didn’t reply, or even look away.
‘Look, I said I’m sorry …’ began Stanley.
‘I think we’ve got some whistle-blowing to do,’ said Rasmussen quietly.
‘Well, I know it’s usually whistle-blowing at four on a Saturday, but …’ said Stanley, tailing off as he followed Rasmussen’s gaze again.
All he saw was a four-square dance going on, on the dance floor. A foursome made up of Charlie the driver, Snivens the Butler, Crewman Tamp and the Sultana of Magrabor was ducking and diving, twisting and swaying in time to instructions shouted from the front by Mr Lungren, leader of the Orchestra. He watched Tamp duck low and move under the arms of the other three, then spin round and stand at his place back in the square, while other dancers in other squares did the same all around him. Then the Sultana did the same; duck, spin and stand. He saw Charlie take his turn; duck, spin, dip and stand. Then Snivens: duck, spin and stand.
‘Very nice,’ said Stanley. ‘Duck, spin and stand. What does that have to do with …?’
‘Watch again,’ said Rasmussen, as the four dancers moved onto other partners. Charlie was still in their line of sight, now standing in formation with Hawthorne, Tarheel and Mr Fassbinder, all tapping their feet as they waited for the musical phrase to begin again.
‘Duck, spin and stand,’ said Stanley as Hawthorne started the dance.
‘Duck, spin and stand,’ said Rasmussen, almost under her breath, as Tarheel carried it on.
‘Duck, spin, dip and stand,’ they said together as Charlie took his turn, and then looked at each other as Mr Fassbinder moved into place.
‘Dip and stand?’ they repeated, and then jumped up from their chairs.
‘He’s pick-pocketing as he goes!’ hissed Rasmussen.
‘And it’s up to us to stop him!’ said Stanley, as they ran towards the dance floor.
Stanley felt the old thrill of excitement. An adventure seemed in the offing once more! He saw Rasmussen dive in between the legs of the many dancers, and followed her unthinkingly. They dodged, trying not to trip anyone as they made a beeline for Charlie.
‘And he seemed so nice,’ called Stanley as they executed a particularly fancy do-si-do to avoid the tramping feet of an earl.
‘You never can tell,’ called Rasmussen, and Stanley overtook her. ‘Sometimes it’s the nice ones you have to look out for.’
They had arrived by Charlie’s dancing square, and Stanley wasted no time in leaping at the nefarious driver. He grabbed at Charlie’s jacket, and his fingers closed round something. As Charlie spun round in confusion, Stanley yanked his hand away, and with it came a long string of pearls, a slim leather wallet, an assortment of coins, and a medal wrapped in tissue paper. The trinkets flew through the air, and in quick succession Charlie’s face registered shock, anger and a kind of hurt innocence.
Tarheel, Hawthorne and the jowly man called Fassbinder stepped back in amazement. Stanley picked up the pearls, and held them aloft. Behind him, Rasmussen cleared her throat and said, in a loud clear voice:
‘W—’
And then the doors at the far ended of the ballroom burst open. The music, which had been fading away, stopped completely, and everybody, including Stanley, Rasmussen and Charlie, turned to look.
In through the doors, now thrown back on their hinges, strode Able Skyman Abel, carrying his bearskin hat, and with a bump on his forehead the size of a goose’s egg.
‘Upladderly, I muscle in on your violence!’ he called authoritatively, striding crazily across the floor.
‘Eh?’ said everyone to each other, or similar noises of confusion.
‘Unsnappily, I entrust your connivance!’ said Abel again, waving a finger in the air. He stopped briefly, as if realising he was talking drivel.
‘What I mean is, “Unhappily, I must insist on your silence!” I’m sorry, I recently chained a crow to my drain!’ he explained.
A chorus of ‘sorry old chap, no clearer I’m afraid’ and similar phrases rose amongst the ball-goers. Abel seemed to realise he was losing his impetus, and shook his head.
‘I mean, I’m sorry, I recently sustained a blow to my brain!’ he explained again, more clearly this time.
‘Aah!’ said the assembled throng, please to hear a sentence that actually made sense.
Beside him, Stanley was aware that Charlie was edging away. Before he could tell Rasmussen, Abel spoke again.
‘Could the Lords and Ladles – sorry, Ladies – step to one side please? I have reason to believe that one of the “servants’’ – he almost spat the word, as he leaned desperately on a potted tree for support – ‘is a … PIE!’
He waited for the reaction this revelation would cause. It seemed to Stanley that he was disappointed to get a few well-meaning comments like ‘Are you quite well, old chap?’ and ‘Come and have a sit down, mate, you’ll feel better’.
Abel looked about himself, confused. Behind Stanley, Rasmussen piped up again.
‘Do you mean “spy”?’ she asked helpfully.
‘Yes!’ snapped Abel. ‘I do mean spy! A sneaking, conniving impostor, here to do the Captain down! We must unmask him forthwith!’
He was now approaching the throng again, his eyes rolling like a frightened horse as he fought against the concussion that was clearly threatening to send him to sleep.
‘No,’ said Rasmussen. ‘Not a spy. A thief.’ And she held up a jewelled brooch that had fallen from Charlie’s pocket.
‘Oh yeah, a thief!’ said a number of voices around Stanley, as people remembered they had been mid-drama when this current drama butted in. Charlie had been sneaking away, but Hawthorne grabbed him firmly by the shoulders. Abel’s rant, however, was not over.
‘A thief, a spy, a tinker, his wife, her brother, a sailor, poor man, beggar man, three potato four. What does it matter? There is a bad’un on the Galloon, and it is up to me to apprehend him!’
‘But we’ve already …’ said Stanley.
Before he could finish the thought, though, a number of things happened with shocking speed. Charlie reached out and grabbed a walking stick from an old man nearby. He swished it above his head, clearing a space around him, and then grasped the head of the stick in one hand and the shaft in the other. To Stanley’s dismay, he pulled them apart, and Stanley realised that hidden within the stick was a sword, which Charlie now held.
‘A sword!’ cried a lady in the audience, and pretended to faint, but as nobody caught her, she quietly corrected herself and coughed in embarrassment.
Charlie stood now in a semi-circle of people, open towards Abel, swishing his sword expertly.
‘I didn’t want no trouble, honest I didn’t,’ he said, almost convincingly. ‘You don’t often see this many jewels in a room, and my dear old mum being ill and all …’
‘Oh, please,’ said a gruff-faced man nearby, and then shushed pretty quickly when the sword point appeared by his nose.
‘I’ve rehearsed for moments such as this,’ said Charlie sternly. ‘So if you’ll please let me finish …’
‘Yes of course,’ said the gruff man. ‘Sorry, old chap.’
‘My creaky old mum is ailing, and only needs a bit of cash for her dear old knees … no, sorry … it’s my mum that’s dear, and her knees that are creaky, not the other way round … and surely no one will begrudge her that. She has been …’ he stumbled over his words, and took from his top pocket a crib sheet, which he looked at before continuing. ‘She has been a working lady since I wa
s knee high to a ninnyhammer, with nothing to show for it. I take only from those what can afford it …’
He was circling now, hoping perhaps to get round Abel and closer to the door, but his luck was not in. Most of the ball-goers were transfixed, and even Stanley was too confused to know what to do for the best, but Abel, in his addled state, had had enough of Charlie’s excuses.
‘Baldercock and poppydash!’ he shouted. ‘Or rather, cockerdash and baldypop! You’re a thief, no better than you should be, and no doubt your mother was the same.’
A gasp went up from the crowd at this insult, and Charlie’s face coloured. He brandished his sword above his head. (Stanley had always wondered what ‘brandished’ meant, and he was interested to see it done. It meant ‘waved about’). Charlie advanced on Abel, who, perhaps because of his recent accident, did not seem quite his usual cowardly self. To Stanley’s surprise, he stood his ground as Charlie approached. From the crowd, a voice called out:
‘Somebody do something!’
But nobody did anything. Stanley was astonished to see Abel stand up tall, and stick out his chin. He was even more amazed to see him raise two thin, pale hands, bunched into weedy little fists.
‘Do your worst!’ he snarled at Charlie.
‘Alright!’ said Charlie. He ducked down to gather up a handful of his dropped swag, and then rushed at Abel. The fainting lady fainted for real this time. Stanley instinctively grabbed a bun from a nearby waiter’s tray and threw it at Charlie, to no effect.
Rasmussen shouted, ‘Look – a lion!’ but no one was fooled.
Stanley watched, in slow motion, what appeared to be Abel’s inevitable end. But suddenly from the corner of his eye, he saw a blur. Something moved impossibly quickly, with a kind of whooshing sound, and then Charlie was fighting for his life. Somehow, between Charlie and Abel, had come Fassbinder, the jowly faced guest. He had no sword of his own, but he was jinking and swaying, avoiding Charlie’s every attempt to hit him, and leading him away from Abel. He spun on a heel, and Charlie swung at him, but he was no longer there – he poked Charlie in the nose, and slipped away, while Charlie grew crosser and crosser. He swung more wildly, which only served to make Fassbinder’s movements seem yet more graceful.
At one point the onlookers thought Charlie had made contact, a swift stab towards Fassbinder’s right eye, but no, Fassbinder was still moving fluidly. He was trying to wear Charlie down, and it was working. If Charlie tried to turn away, back towards the crowd or towards Abel, there was Fassbinder, standing on his foot. If Charlie attacked more forcefully, Fassbinder seemed to melt away almost to nothing, before coming back at Charlie with a wedgie or a tickle. Eventually it became like a dance, and the audience started treating it as an entertainment. The band even struck up, and the crowd began to clap along, which only made Charlie yet more cross. But eventually he slumped to the ground, and threw his remaining swag down in front of him. ‘Here, take it!’ he yelped. ‘I don’t want it any more. Just make him stop embarrassing me!’
The crowd yelped wildly, and a few burly crew members stood Charlie up. Fassbinder was gathered back into the throng, where Stanley heard him being suitably self-deprecating about his abilities. Behind them, Abel was apparently coming round from his concussion, to find himself he knew not where, being clapped on the back by revellers.
‘Erm …?’ he said, to no one. ‘Did I say … do your worst?’ and he sat down heavily on a chair.
‘Will you take him to the Captain?’ said Stanley, now standing by Charlie.
‘No need,’ said Rasmussen, pointing to the open doorway. There, accompanied by Clamdigger, who had run off to get him at the first sign of trouble, was the Captain. His greatcoat had been cleaned and pressed, his moustache was looking extra shiny, but he was still the same Captain, in his second-best hat. He took in the scene grimly, before his eyes rested in turn on Abel, Charlie, and then Mr Fassbinder.
‘My apologies,’ he rumbled, ‘to the Gallooniers. I apologise for being absent once more in a crisis. To our guests, I apologise for this unseemly to-do. It is many years since crime was known aboard the Galloon.’
He approached the little group holding Charlie, and spoke quietly to his face.
‘You will be provided with transport to leave. You will go home to your mother and make a new life for yourself. Be diligent and honest. Do good where you can. Stop making excuses. One day you may return and I will see about offering you a berth. Go.’
Some people in the crowd gasped, and some murmured disapprovingly, but Charlie himself just gulped quietly, and walked from the room, followed by Clamdigger. Stanley and Rasmussen looked at each other, and Rasmussen shrugged. Stanley saw Ms Huntley, who had been dancing away with the best of them, shed a single tear.
The Captain turned once more to the throng. ‘We all owe thanks to Mr Fassbinder, and of course to our own Skyman Abel. Heroic efforts both.’
Stanley looked at the bewildered Skyman Abel, who seemed to grow in stature once again with this praise. He even stood up and bowed, though he quickly clutched his head and sat down again. Fassbinder waved a hand humbly, and sat down amongst his new admirers.
‘Please!’ called the Captain over the rising hubbub. ‘Do not let this stop us enjoying the party. To the Count’s birthday!’
‘To the Count’s birthday!’ cried the crowd, many of whom had now found their glasses, snacks and dancing partners once again.
Stanley turned to Rasmussen, who was watching the Captain move through the crowd.
‘So we weren’t quick enough on this occasion, but it turned out alright in the end,’ he said, draining a glass of juice he had just taken from a tray.
‘Did it?’ said Rasmussen. ‘You know, I’m sure he got him in the eye. It went “clink”. And how can he move like that? And what’s that Skyman Abel’s reading? Why did he say spy instead of thief? Lots of questions still to answer.’
‘Clink?’ said Stanley. Then: ‘Perhaps he’s a dancer. A note of some kind. His brain was mixed up,’ to each of Rasmussen’s questions in turn. He looked across the room to where Abel was now standing up, holding a piece of paper in each hand.
‘Erm … Captain?’ Abel was calling. ‘You’d better see this. And you, Ms Huntley …’
‘I’m so sorry, Jack, I’ve been a fool, I really have,’ Charlie was saying, as he was being fastened into the boatswain’s chair by Clamdigger.
‘You have,’ said Clamdigger seriously. ‘But you have another chance. Use it.’
‘I will. I will. He’s a good man, that Captain.’
‘He is that. Mind how you go, Charlie, and no more of this nonsense,’ said Clamdigger, swaying Charlie out over the side of the Galloon before taking to the winch handle once more.
‘That Fassbinder can move like no one else I’ve ever met. It didn’t seem human. Do you know the scariest thing?’ called Charlie, as he descended into the fog.
‘No, what’s that?’
‘I thought I’d killed him. I could have sworn I stuck him in the eye!’
And with that, Charlie was gone.
A short while later, things were almost back in full swing. The Count was at the centre of a circle of well-wishers, and Stanley heard him saying he had never known such a happy birthday as this. The Bilgepump Orchestra was playing some slower, more soulful numbers, and the lighting had dimmed slightly – the party was entering its second phase, as night drew in over the mountains outside.
But Stanley and Rasmussen were not relaxing. After the drama of the foiled robbery, they had watched as the Captain and Ms Huntley had read the two notes, one from Cloudier and one from Fishbane. The Captain’s face was hard to read at any time, but it was clear to Stanley that whatever was in the note had caused Ms Huntley some concern. She frowned and shot a glance at the Captain that could almost be called disapproving. Stanley guessed, correctly as it later turned out, that Cloudier had gone off on a mission of her own. The Captain and the Chief Navigator had had a whispered conflab as soon as th
ey had read the note, and then Ms Huntley had hurried away, Stanley knew not where. From that moment, the ball had, to all appearances, gone on untroubled by events. But there was an undercurrent of unease, and Stanley and Rasmussen made it their business to find out what was going on. Stanley continued to dance, and also to help people to snacks and drinks, and he found that this was a great way to eavesdrop and gauge the mood of the room.
‘Tiny pie, sir? Volly-vont, madam?’ he said to a table full of mixed ball guests, who were busy chatting away.
‘I simply haven’t seen him since before we left Eisberg,’ the Count was saying slightly blurrily.
‘He’ll come home when he’s hungry,’ brayed a toothy man in a flappy hat.
‘He’s a valet, man, not a lapdog!’
‘Yes – not nearly so loyal!’ replied flappy hat, and Stanley was pleased to see the Count turn his back on this unpleasant man and engage his neighbour. Stanley moved on.
‘Kweesh?’ he said to a group standing by the dance floor.
‘He moved like no one I’ve ever seen,’ a lady in a long black dress was saying. ‘Almost inhuman!’
She was shushed by her friends as Fassbinder walked past, so Stanley assumed he was the cause of her amazement. Someone took a piece of quiche from Stanley, then he popped the tray down on a table, and hurried over to where Rasmussen was pouring fizzy water for a table of parlour maids.
‘Mr Pill the valet’s still missing, and Fassbinder’s the talk of the town …’ he reported.
‘Shh!’ said Rasmussen. She was clearly listening to the parlour maids’ chatter.
‘My Bert’s cousin Fred lives onboard the Galloon,’ one was saying with a kind of urgent glee. ‘And he says that the anchormen have been called away – which must mean we’re going to be on the move!’
‘On the move?’ said another. ‘But the party’s still going on! We can’t …’
‘We can,’ interrupted Rasmussen, ‘if the Captain wants to.’
She turned to Stanley and continued.
‘I think he planned to wait until tomorrow to head off, but something in those letters persuaded him to move more quickly. No one here will even notice unless they go outside, and no doubt we can be back here in time for everyone to be on their way soon enough,’ she said, moving round the table filling glasses.
