“Focus!” Jane snapped. “Where did you leave it?”
Frederick pointed. “On yonder box, dearest.”
The group craned their necks to see more clearly, but Jane snatched the object and hugged it close to her bosom, allowing only an impression of whiteness.
“With this, poetic justice shall be served!” she declared.
“Indeed, it shall be a veritable cataclysm of—”
“Let’s go. We must take it downstairs at once, before anyone notices we’ve disappeared.”
“Of course, dove of my cloudless sky.”
They ascended the ladder, pulled it up behind them, and shut the trapdoor with a thud and a shower of dust.
“Have they gone?” someone asked from across the room.
In reply, guns were drawn yet again. The group emerged from their concealment and stared across the piles of junk.
Bloodhound Bess stared back. She was grinning, albeit only as a consequence of the scar that curved from her mouth to her left ear. Cobwebs draped from her purple hat feathers; dusty sunlight glistened against the long, heavy blade of the sword she employed like a walking stick.
“That was the most outrageous thing I have ever been made witness to!” she pronounced.
“You mean Mr. and Mrs. Blakeney nearly doing themselves an injury snogging?” Lysander asked, winking at Alice as she blushed.
“No. Although I spied them doing so, I have enough intelligence not to bug them about it.”
“Then you mean Captain O’Riley kissing his wife?”
Bess bristled. “No. But you can be sure my mind is a bonfire at the sight of a witch in this room.”
“Then you mean—”
“Jane,” Bess snapped. “I meant Jane. What kind of pirate suggestspayingfor something?!”
The group murmured in troubled agreement.
“Did anyone see what she took from the room?” Daniel asked.
No one had.
“The obvious solution is to waylay her before she hides the item elsewhere,” Charlotte pointed out with witchlike rationale. Then, catching a vexed glance from Alex, she hastily added, “Not that the item is of any importance. Merely if one was curious.”
“I have no curiosity whatsoever,” Bess said. “However, I must be on my way. I only came up here for—er—” Looking around, she snatched up a stained ashtray in the shape of an open-mouthed bulldog. “This. Yes. Extremely valuable antique. Have a customer wanting this exact—er—thing. Tally ho!”
She backed into a section of the wall, causing her hat to tilt precariously, and kicked out with her heel. Nothing happened; she sidestepped, kicked again, and almost fell through a suddenly opening secret door. The others would have heard her running along the hidden passageway beyond were they not busy making their own excuses to immediately depart. With a“descendeo,”Charlotte summoned the ladder from the ceiling, and there followed a skirmish as Alex and Lysander both attempted to climb it ahead of each other. Essieintervened, peppermints exploded everywhere, and, as all three pirates drew their swords, Charlotte sighed with exasperation and levitated over them.
Alice and Daniel hastily departed by way of the door through which Alex and Charlotte had entered. Racing along a dark passageway, they found stairs leading down, at the bottom of which was a door opening to a service corridor. Following this led them to the entrance hall at the same time Lysander and Essie Smith arrived from another direction; seconds later, Bloodhound Bess and Alex ran down the grand staircase, shoving at each other.
“Ah, there you are,” said a laconic voice. Everyone turned to see Jane stroll in. She was carrying several books and, with a placid expression upon her narrow, bespectacled face, she looked for all the world like a fierce piratic heroine’s dull governess. Frederick followed two paces behind.
“Is everyone having a nice day?” she asked, smiling blandly.
They all stared at her in dumbfounded silence. Then Alex gave an insouciant shrug. “Very nice, very relaxing,” he said, sheathing his sword.
Jane’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Rotten O’Riley! I did not realize you were visiting us.”
“Oh, I’m just passing through,” Alex answered. “Taking a shortcut to Dublin. Cheerio, then.” He saluted her, winked at Daniel, and ambled away out the front door.
