Tregarthur's Crystal: Book 4 (The Tregarthur's Series)

by Alex Mellanby

  We sat having tea in china cups in a fancy room at the hotel. Demelza told us that the decoration was chintz. It looked dangerous to me, ornaments and lace everywhere, the sort of things I could end up knocking over. And I was looking really really stupid in my suit although Demelza said I fitted in and she was right. All the men looked really really stupid. And sweaty. I forgot to take off my hat, a waiter coughed at me.

  ‘What now?’ Demelza’s new confidence was annoying and we didn’t answer. ‘Go on, you must have a plan.’ We still said nothing.

  I ate a cake and wished I hadn’t. It was fine on the plate, tasted like sawdust. We still said nothing.

  The only thing we had to go on was the one page taken from Miss Tregarthur’s book. The page that Jenna had hidden when HG threw the others into the fire. Only Jenna and I knew we had it and I didn’t want to share anything with Demelza. For lots of reasons.

  It didn’t matter.

  ‘Look,’ Demelza butted into our silence. ‘You’ve got that piece of paper, the one you think I don’t know about, let’s see it.’

  ‘Fine.’ Jenna slapped it on the table, rattling the cups. I held onto the plate of cakes.

  It didn’t tell us much. Someone called Marie Curie had discovered radium. The page gave the name of a laboratory but no address. There might have been more but we only had the one page with a picture of her and her husband.

  ‘It doesn’t sound English,’ Demelza was still the only one doing any talking. ‘French?’ Demelza went on: ‘The fashion looks French,’ said our expert in clothes.

  There was a sudden bang and a cloud of smoke outside the hotel. I leapt up, this trip had made me jump at loud noises.

  ‘Just a car backfiring,’ Jenna held my arm and I sat down again.

  ‘And look at the car!’ Demelza squealed as a very large, shiny and noisy vehicle passed the window.

  ‘When were cars invented?’ I had no idea, it was something to say to hide my embarrassment.

  ‘About now, I guess,’ Jenna said, and we fell silent again. Jenna and I needed to have this talk on our own, we needed to get rid of Demelza and she knew it and I didn’t think she was going anywhere. She surprised us.

  ‘You aren’t going to tell me anything,’ Demelza said. ‘Not going to say anything with me here, so give me some of the money and I’ll meet you back here in an hour.’ We didn’t have watches but there were clocks on many of the buildings.

  Jenna and I exchanged eyebrow raising looks and a shrug. Jenna told me to do what she had asked. I handed her one of the white £5 notes.

  ‘That should keep her busy,’ I said, as she left.

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ Jenna shook her head. ‘What’s she up to? No point in asking if we trust her because we don’t.’

  ‘I guess it’s best we keep her with us, might get some warning. You’re right she will be planning something.’ I could still see Demelza walking down the street, looking in shop windows.

  ‘You can stop watching now,’ Jenna tapped me on the arm.

  ‘I …’

  Jenna leant in and kissed me on the cheek. ‘It’s ok.’

  That made me blush and the waiter coughed again. Kissing was another thing not allowed.

  ‘Let’s go and check out Masterson’s house.’ Jenna stood up. ‘Come on.’

  We had picked this hotel hoping it was in the part of London we remembered. After asking a few questions in the hotel we found out Masterson’s house wasn’t far away. He was even more well-known than before, his house in an expensive part of town.

  His road looked much the same as before, some different street lights, bigger trees, less smell – probably even more expensive since our last visit.

  Outside the house there were several horse drawn covered wagons. They were being loaded from a door at the side.

  ‘He’s moving,’ I said, pointing at the chests, furniture and statues being carefully packed.

  ‘What now?’ I said, as we stood across from the building which I still felt should be a town hall.

  ‘See what happens.’ Jenna pointed; there was Demelza crossing the road, looking from side to side, not for horses or cars, she was checking who was watching her. I suppose she didn’t notice us in our new clothes, we fitted in.

  We saw Demelza reach up and use the door knocker. A great big brass knocker that we could hear from across the road. A man appeared in the same uniform as we had seen before. Demelza started arguing, the man started to close the door on her, she pushed against it.

  ‘Go away,’ we heard the man say loudly as he shoved her backwards and did push the door shut. Demelza turned around with her best cross face. I waved and she looked even more cross. We went over to her.

  ‘Hopeless,’ Demelza said.

  ‘I thought you were going shopping.’ Jenna gave a half smile.

  ‘I was … just happened to end up here so I thought I’d knock, see if he was in.’ Demelza gave an expected lie.

  ‘What did that man say?’ I asked.

  ‘Told me to go and not in a very nice way,’ Demelza said, in her spoilt little girl voice.

  Jenna spun her round while saying, ‘Did you tell him anything?’

  ‘No … no … of course not … what should I have said?’

  ‘You should have waited for us,’ Jenna snapped.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that. Anyway you’ve no idea what to do, have you?’ Demelza pulled away.

  We were starting to draw attention to ourselves. The wagon loading men had stopped loading.

  ‘Try again,’ I said, to stop the argument and stepped up to the door. I banged loudly, very loudly.

  That brought the man back, he saw Demelza. ‘I told you, go away, no hawkers, no work, go away.’

  I wondered what a hawker was, but not for long because I wasn’t going to let him close the door. I shoved. He didn’t expect that and stumbled backwards shouting for help. We piled into the large hallway. Most of the statues had been taken away. More servants appeared, six of them. They were ready to throw us out.

  ‘Where’s the bomb, Masterson?’ I shouted and my voice echoed against the marble. ‘Is Alice Tregarthur here?’

  That didn’t stop the servants, who were already pushing us towards the door.

  The library door opened and Masterson came slowly out. Older, balder, fatter than before, with lines on his face – worried lines.

  ‘You,’ he blustered. ‘You,’ he repeated. ‘You … came back.’

  ‘Moving are you? Thought you could run?’ I said, shrugging off one of the servants who had tried to take my arm. It was obvious we knew his master and he wasn’t sure if he still had to throw us out.

  The lines on Masterson’s face sagged and I knew I was right. ‘That’s what you’re doing, running, moving out. Has Miss Tregarthur been here?’

  Again his face gave away the truth.

  ‘And you haven’t made her bomb, have you?’ Jenna’s turn to say her bit. ‘Where’s she gone now? What’s making you leave in such a hurry?’

  It wasn’t just his face that sagged as Masterson said, ‘You’d better come in here,’ and he turned back into the library. We pushed through the servants and followed. Masterson sat heavily on a chair as we came in.

  ‘She’s going to ruin me,’ he almost cried with his head in his hands.

  I looked at Jenna, then at Demelza, before it came to me. This fitted with what HG had told us about Masterson. Miss Tregarthur would use it. ‘She’s going to tell everyone you are a German spy isn’t she?’

  From the look on his face there were two obvious facts. One I was right, but more importantly it was true. He really was a spy.

  ‘You’re leaving the country, aren’t you? And I guess you did have a copy of the pages from Miss Tregarthur’s book? You’ve handed them over to your friends in Germany. Am I right?’

  Masterson couldn’t stop his face giving him away. Surely he couldn’t have been a very good spy?

  ‘The bomb?’ Jenna let that hang in the
air.

  Masterson sat forward. ‘They don’t believe in the bomb, no one believed me, I tried …’ He suddenly realised what he was about to say, to say that he tried to get people to believe in a nuclear bomb that might have been dropped on London.

  ‘What did they believe?’ I wondered what sort of spying he had actually been doing. What other ideas in Miss Tregarthur’s pages had been more believable?

  It was clear that Masterson must have felt he had said too much. ‘What do you want?’

  I think he realised who he was talking to, realised he didn’t have to be scared of us at all. He recovered his snarl. In a moment of transformation he changed from the cowardly man I had met before, into someone who felt their own importance.

  ‘What is it that you want?’ he said. ‘I’m a very busy man.’

  ‘Probably we want to save the world,’ Jenna started and then said: ‘But for now, we need to know what’s happened to Alice Tregarthur.’

  ‘And we need more money,’ Demelza added.

  With his confidence restored he was harder to deal with. He was in his mansion, surrounded by his servants, a successful man, who were we? Demelza asking for money was simpler to deal with than answering our questions.

  He thought he would be able to pay us off. That was probably what he was more used to doing. His money was his power. He gave no answers when we pressed on German war plans, but was quite happy talking about money. We should not have let that happen.

  Any threat of exposing him as a spy was laughed off, we had no proof, just suspicions. Perhaps Miss Tregarthur had some real proof, but we had none. Masterson might have kept a copy of the pages from her book, pages about weapons. But we couldn’t prove anything.

  So it was strange when he made another offer of help: ‘You need to find Alice Tregarthur and take her back, you say? I really can help you with that.’

  Whoa, what had he just said? We had not mentioned anything about taking her ‘back’ anywhere. I could see he would like the idea of removing Miss Tregarthur. That would stop her denouncing him as a spy but we hadn’t said anything about taking her back.

  ‘Where is this ‘back’ place?’ I thought I had caught him out.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t talk about that,’ was his answer and his only answer when we asked him what he knew about the moor, the robed man, or the Hanging Stones.

  ‘Can’t talk or won’t talk?’ Jenna pushed him.

  ‘Both.’ And that for him was an end of the discussion. He rang for his butler, offered us lemonade. We might have saved his daughter from the bear but in this room we were the children.

  ‘The robed man said you would help us?’ I tried not to whine but I didn’t succeed. Masterson might be of no use with bear attacks but here in his library he made me feel useless.

  ‘And I will help.’ I think he added ‘dear boy’ but my head was swimming. Even Demelza was awfully quiet.

  Masterson stood, walked to his fireplace, put a hand on the mantelpiece and turned to us as though giving a lecture. ‘She’s gone to France. Told me she has to find Marie Curie in her laboratory. Said she has to have something called radioactivity.’

  I would have liked to throw him into the flames but the fireplace was empty, no fire.

  Masterson went on, ‘You will need to go there too. I will have my secretary make the arrangements.’ He rang the bell again. ‘We won’t need to meet again.’ He started for the door which opened and his secretary came in.

  ‘Ah, Derek,’ Masterson said. ‘Look after them, will you?’

  ‘Hang on.’ I jumped up.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, as though I was being annoying.

  I couldn’t think of anything. Masterson stopped at the door. ‘If you get that woman, just contact Derek.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’ Jenna plonked herself down in Masterson’s chair.

  ‘Well, if you don’t … well, it’s too bad … just too bad, but don’t come here again.’ Masterson disappeared through the door.

  We were left with Derek who had a foreign accent. He told us he would make all the arrangements for us to go to France.

  ‘Do we need passports?’ Demelza asked, sounding as though this was a holiday trip.

  ‘No. Passports are not needed,’ Derek’s clipped voice dealt with all our questions. ‘I will bring tickets to your hotel tomorrow.’ He stood, obviously we were being dismissed.

  We didn’t trust any of these people but what else could we do? I wondered if Masterson would just vanish to Germany without doing anything for us. My hope was that the robed man on the moor had some power over him, but it was only a faint hope.

  We were a pathetic group walking out into the hall which echoed with our footsteps now that everything had been removed. I felt as though we’d just had a visit to the head teacher. Something that always went badly for me.

  Another door opened. A girl ran out, flung her arms around Jenna, then turned and did the same to me.

  ‘I’ll make sure he looks after you,’ she said, before we heard a voice calling ‘Julie’.

  I only just recognised the girl we had saved from the bear. Masterson’s brave daughter, now older. We left and walked to our hotel. We hadn’t told Derek where we were staying and he hadn’t asked.

  A few streets later Demelza stopped and pointed. ‘Hang on. That’s the place, the coffee shop, the one we went to with HG. I bet he’s in there.’ She made for the door.

  ‘Wait,’ I called. I wasn’t sure we wanted to meet HG again. We’d dumped him on the moor with the white robed man. What would he do if he saw us, even if he was inside?

  The coffee shop hadn’t changed much, still with posters outside with wonderful claims about their coffee. Demelza didn’t wait but strode through the door. Jenna and I stayed outside.

  It wasn’t long before we heard the screams and Demelza ran out on to the street.

  ‘He’s barmy.’ Demelza dragged us off, running.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘He was there, sitting with all his mates at a table, He must have become more famous because they were all listening to every word he said, some even writing them down. I sat down near to him and he didn’t recognise me at first. Must have thought I was another groupie fan. He was going on about another book he’s writing.’

  We’d made it to the end of the street. Demelza looked back, no one was following.

  ‘Go on,’ Jenna said.

  We weren’t used to Demelza telling us things – without the threat of torture – but she obviously wanted to tell us all about this.

  ‘I took a cup of coffee from the table – much better, the sugar actually dissolved. And I was going to tap him on the shoulder and ask him how he was, but I didn’t have to. One of the men started praising HG’s time machine book, saying how wonderful it was. So I said, loudly, “Oh you did write it then?” Well, he turned to me and lost it when he realised who I was.’

  Demelza resorted to giggling. ‘He went on about how I’d tricked him, how he’d met up with people in white gowns and been put in a dungeon. But he was gabbling away and slowly wound himself into a terrible state and started throwing things, so I got out.’

  ‘I guess the white robed man on the moor scared him off.’ It made me laugh as well, not really fair on poor old HG, but I had to remember he wasn’t quite as nice as he might have been. Probably should be in jail after that brothel incident.

  ‘Perhaps we had better read his book,’ Demelza was still giggling. ‘We might be in it.’

  Paris

  -15-

  Trusting Derek, or at least having some faith in Masterson’s daughter, meant we were waiting in a small room at the hotel called the ‘salon’.

  ‘Lounge,’ Demelza told me.

  The restaurant chintz had run out before they got to this room. The walls were yellow and the carpet green. Overall it gave a feeling of nausea. We sagged in heavy arm chairs, the sort you wouldn’t expect a guest to damage or even move from their positions around the ro
om, arranged like a waiting room, and we waited.

  Derek arrived, clearly he hadn’t needed us to tell him where we were staying. I suppose they were in the business of spying. Derek sat down and sniffed at us. He obviously thought it was beneath him to deal with people like us. ‘You must do exactly as I say,’ he said, with his accent getting stronger. He wasn’t really any older than we were, and we’d met more frightening people.

  ‘No we don’t,’ Jenna shook her head.

  ‘You must …’ Derek looked at each of us and frowned.

  ‘You tell us what you have planned and we’ll tell you if that’s what we are going to do.’ Jenna lifted herself on to the arm of her chair, a stronger position looking down on him.

  Derek flapped, ‘Mr Masterson says you have to do this.’

  ‘We don’t have to do what he says either,’ I joined in. ‘If we don’t like it, we’ll have to go and have another chat with him.’

  That hit home. The last thing Derek wanted was us to go back to his employer, it would make him look ineffective. Masterson didn’t want to see us again.

  ‘It’s alright, Dick.’ Jenna patted him on the arm.

  ‘Derek,’ he corrected her and jerked away.

  ‘Sure Der...ick, let’s hear what you’ve planned.’

  Derek moved us to a table at the side of the room. Another heavy piece of furniture. We stood around as he put documents down and tried to explain. Jenna kept interrupting, she was enjoying this.

  ‘It is best you go on a tour, with a company.’ He showed us a brochure. It was an English company which arranged trips to France. ‘They take groups to visit Paris, see the Eiffel Tower, museums and art galleries.’

  ‘Why don’t we just go on our own?’ Demelza must have been thinking of EasyJet.

  Derek gave her another sniffy look. ‘They have guides who speak English. They will stop you getting lost. You don’t speak French.’