A Very Unusual Pursuit
ALSO BY
CATHERINE JINKS
The Paradise Trap
The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group
The Reformed Vampire Support Group
The Genius Wars
Genius Squad
Evil Genius
Living Hell
Allie’s Ghost Hunters series
Eglantine
Eustace
Eloise
Elysium
The Pagan Chronicles
Pagan’s Crusade
Pagan in Exile
Pagan’s Vows
Pagan’s Scribe
Pagan’s Daughter
www.catherinejinks.com
C
ATHERINE
J
INKS
First published in 2013
Copyright © Catherine Jinks 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The
Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
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A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the
National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74331 306 0
Cover and text design by Design by Committee
Set in Stempel Garamond 11/17 pt
This book was printed in November 2012 at McPherson’s Printing Group,
76 Nelson Street, Maryborough, Victoria 3465, Australia.
www.mcphersonsprinting.com.au
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Jill Grinberg
Contents
14. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BILLY CRISP?
23. THE MOST PECULIAR PROPOSITION
27. AN INVITATION TO BREAKFAST
The front door was painted black, with a shiny brass knocker that made a satisfying noise when Alfred used it.
Rat-tat-tat.
Birdie spied a lace curtain twitching in the drawing-room window.
‘Someone’s at home,’ she remarked. Alfred said nothing. He looked tired after their long walk – but then again, he always looked tired. His grey moustache drooped. His shoulders were bent. His brown eyes sagged at the corners under his wide, floppy hat-brim.
Suddenly the door was flung open. A housemaid in a white cap peered at them suspiciously, her gaze lingering on Alfred’s frayed canvas trousers and baggy green coat. ‘Yes?’ she asked. ‘What’s yer business?’
Alfred removed his hat. ‘The name is Bunce,’ he replied in his gravelly voice. ‘I came here on account of I were sent for.’
‘Sent for?’ the housemaid echoed.
‘A Miss Ellen Meggs sent for me, by passing word through Tom Cobbings.’
‘Oh!’ The housemaid put a hand to her mouth. ‘Are you the Go-Devil man?’
‘The bogler. Aye.’
‘And I’m Birdie. I’m the ’prentice.’ Because Birdie was very small and thin and pale, she was often ignored. So she liked to wear the most colourful clothes she could find. This summer her dress was a dull cotton drab, but she had added a little cape made of yellow satin, very soiled and creased, and there were red feathers on her battered straw hat.
Stepping out of her master’s shadow, she beamed up at the housemaid, eager to make friends. The housemaid, however, was too flustered to notice Birdie.
‘Oh, why did you knock on
this
door?’ she lamented. ‘The hawker’s door’s downstairs by the coalhole! Come in quick, afore the neighbours see you both.’ Hustling Alfred and Birdie across the threshold, she slammed the door and said, ‘
I’m
Ellen Meggs. I’m the one as sent for you. My mistress knows nothing o’ this, nor won’t neither, if I have my way.’
‘Ain’t she in?’ Birdie asked shrewdly, glancing through the door to her left. It opened off a handsome entrance hall that Birdie thought finer than anything she had ever seen in her life – a lofty space with carpet on the stairs and paper on the walls and a bronze statue in one corner. The cedar joinery gleamed, and the air smelled of lemon.
But there was a broom propped against the hatstand. And through the door that she’d spotted, Birdie could make out furniture swathed in dust sheets.
‘Mrs Plumeridge is at the seaside for her health,’ Ellen replied. ‘Oh, but there’s other old cats across the way that
never
leave their parlour windows, and they’ll have seen you come in, sure as eggs!’ She stamped her foot in frustration, her round, pink face growing even pinker under its frizz of sandy hair.
Alfred sighed. His shoulders were slumped beneath the weight of his sack, which he never let his apprentice carry, no matter how desperately she pleaded. ‘What’s yer particulars, Miss Meggs?’ he inquired. ‘Tom Cobbings had none to give, save for yer name and where I’d find you. Is there a bogle in this house?’
Ellen opened her mouth, then hesitated. Her gaze had fallen on Birdie, whose blue eyes, freckled nose and flyaway curls looked as delicate as fine china. Birdie knew exactly what the housemaid was thinking, because everyone always thought the same thing.
Only Alfred understood that Birdie was a heroine, brave and quick and valiant.
‘I ain’t afeared o’ bogles, Miss Meggs,’ Birdie announced. ‘Though I’m only ten years old, I’ve helped bring down many a one. Ain’t that so, Mr Bunce?’
‘Aye, but we’ve heard enough from you, lass.’ Alfred was growing impatient. Birdie could tell by the way he shifted from one ill-shod foot to the other. ‘What’s yer particulars, Miss Meggs?’ he repeated. ‘Who gave you me name?’
‘A friend,’ Ellen answered. ‘She’s Scotch, but lives here in London. She said you got rid of a worricow, or some such thing, as lived in a coalhole in Hackney and took a little shoebinder’s child.’ She threw him a questioning glance. When Alfred nodded, she continued hastily, ‘Hearing that made me wonder about the chimney sweep’s boys. For we’ve lost two in the past month, and I cannot believe they
both
ran away.’ By now she was anxiously fiddling with her apron, crushing it between her restless hands, then smoothing it out again. ‘In the Dane Hills, where my ma were raised, a creature they called Black Annis used to eat children. And would tan their skins for its adornment, or so I’ve heard—’
‘Tell me about the sweep’s boys,’ Alfred interrupted. ‘They went missing, you say?’
‘From this house,’ Ellen assured him solemnly. ‘They disappeared up the dining-room chimney, and no one’s seen ’em since.’
‘Perhaps they’re stuck,’ Birdie proposed. She knew that sweeps’ boys often became wedged in chimneys, where they sometimes died.
