The Adventures of Tintin (11 page)

This is working perfectly
, Tintin thought. Then Haddock pivoted on his heel, heading back to his end of the boat, and as he turned, the oars over his shoulder swept around and knocked both Tintin and Snowy out cold. They slumped in their seats and Haddock kept up his rant. “I know these waters better than the warts on me mother’s face! Every wave of them is like a compass needle. The secrets of the deeps are mine and mine alone!”

He planted himself on one of the rowing benches and slapped the oars into the other set of oarlocks. “Look at the pair of them, fast asleep!” Haddock said. “Typical landlubbers. No stamina these days. Never mind, I’ll get ye there, Tintin.”

It felt good to row, thought Captain Haddock as he dug the oars into the water. They would be in Bagghar in no time, and then they would see about that third model
Unicorn
and this Sheik Whatshisname. Tintin would see that Captain Archibald Haddock was not a man to trifle with.

Back home, Thompson and Thomson rarely had a day that they looked forward to as much as this one. Usually they had to chase criminals, but today’s agenda contained a much more pleasant task. They walked together along the streets near the Old Street Market, scanning the crowd. “He does frequent this area, does he not?” Thomson said.

Thompson nodded. “If our pickpocket does, he must as well, isn’t that right? Ah, there he is.”

As Thompson pointed, Thomson also saw the gray-haired, gloved man strolling down the street. And as they saw him, he saw them. “Oh my!” he said.

“Mr. Silk?” Thompson asked.

“Yes,” Silk said. He looked nervous.

Perfectly understandable, given the circumstances
, Thompson thought. “My name is Thompson.”

“And Thomson,” Thomson said, tipping his hat.

“We’re police officers,” they said in unison.

Silk’s reaction surprised them. “Oh, crumbs!” he said, and turned away, knocking over an old woman who happened to be coming out of a nearby pet shop with a cage full of canaries. The cage broke open as Silk stumbled to the sidewalk, and the canaries fluttered around his head, chirping at their unexpected freedom.

“Mr. Silk!” Thompson said. “Are you all right?”

The owner of the pet shop ran out with a net and began catching the canaries as a passerby helped the old woman to her feet. Seeing that this situation was under control, the two Interpol detectives concentrated on Silk. “Are you all right, sir?” Thomson asked.

“No need to run away, sir.” Thompson dusted Silk off.

Thomson joined in, straightening Silk’s tie. “No, no. You see, yesterday, we very nearly caught the pickpocket who’s been terrorizing the town.”

“Pickpocket,” Silk said.

“We pulled his jacket off,” Thompson went on, “and inside we found a wallet. A wallet with your name and address.”

He held it up, and Silk said, “That’s my wallet.”

“It’s obviously stolen from you,” Thompson said.

“No, no!” Silk cried out, most unexpectedly. “That’s my wallet!”

Thompson and Thomson exchanged a glance. “Are you all right, sir?” Thomson asked.

“We didn’t mean to startle you,” Thompson said. “Let us help you to your apartment.”

Silk’s apartment was just a short distance down the street; Thompson and Thomson knew this from the address in his wallet. They led him there and stopped at the door, where Silk nodded to them. “Thank you so much. No need to come in,” he said, and coughed nervously. “I’ll be quite all right, really.”

“No, but we insist!” Thomson said. He and Thompson shared a sense of responsibility to the citizens of the city. They could not leave an obviously shaken man of Silk’s age by himself, not until they were sure he would be all right. Passing pedestrians looked at them, wondering if they were witnessing an arrest. It would be the most exciting thing most of them had seen in ages.

Thompson did not want to make a scene. The old man was clearly in distress. He waved the gawkers back. “About your business!” he said. “This is a police matter.”

“No need whatsoever,” Silk was saying. “Really, no need . . .”

“Better safe than sorry,” Thompson said. He raised his voice and called out so that everyone could hear. “It’s the least we can do!”

With great relief at being away from the eyes of the crowd, he and Thomson led Silk into his apartment and sat him down in an armchair. “There we are.”

“Oh,” Silk said. “Thank you.”

Thompson and Thomson patted Silk on the shoulder and took a look around the apartment, admiring its neatness and the way that all the wallets on the large bookshelf in the middle of the room were labeled and organized.

Wait . . . the wallets?!

The detectives looked at each other, stunned. “Good grief,” Thompson said. “What’s all this?”

Silk slumped forward in his chair. “It’s my . . . collection.”

“What a lot of wallets,” Thomson observed.

Straightening up again, Silk said, “I can’t help it. It started with coin purses . . . and sort of . . . went on from there, really.”

It is amazing what people would do
, Thompson thought. “You want to be careful,” he admonished Silk. “Haven’t you heard there’s a pickpocket about?”

Nodding, Thomson chimed in, “Yes, he’d love this. Can you imagine?”

The two detectives were not very good at detecting what was right in front of them—but Silk didn’t know that.

Silk appeared to be offended, though neither of the detectives could understand why. “What do you mean, pickpocket?” he said coldly.

“A master criminal,” Thompson said. “A bag-snatching, purse-pilfering, wallet-lifting sneak thief.”

To their disbelief, Silk now seemed to be on the verge of tears. “I’m not a bad person,” he said, his voice quavering in time with the tremble of his lower lip. “I’m a . . . kleptomaniac.”

“A what?” Thompson asked.

Thomson leaned over and whispered in his ear. “It’s a fear of open spaces.”

Ah
, Thompson thought. It was hard to keep track of all the medical terms these days. “Poor man,” he whispered back. “No wonder he keeps his wallets in the living room.”

During their brief consultation, Silk’s mood shifted radically yet again. “Wallets!” he said with joy. “I just can’t resist the lovely little things. It’s a . . . it’s a harmless little habit, really.”

Thompson’s interest was piqued by the rows and rows of wallets. He pulled one from the shelf with his finger as he would have drawn a book from a bookshelf.

What he saw astonished him. “Good heavens,” he said. “Thomson, look at this! His name’s Thompson, too!”

Thomson’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, what a coincidence!” He took a different wallet from the shelf, looked at it, and said, “No, Thompson, this is
Thomson
without a
p
—as in ‘psychic.’”

“No, no, no. It’s
Thompson
with a
p
,” Thompson said. “As in ‘psychologist.’”

“Look at this one,” Silk said, but neither detective paid attention. “A green one that I managed to pick from a pickpocket actually pickpocketing at the time. And this one . . .”

He went on as the detectives grew more and more annoyed with each other. “How dare you, sir?” Thomson was saying, and Thompson answered right back. “How dare
you
, sir?”

“Good heavens, Thompson, you’ve got it all wrong!” They began brandishing wallets at each other as Silk looked back and forth from one of them to the next.

“No, you have it all wrong, and there is a
p
in ‘psychic’!” Thompson exclaimed.

“I’m not your sidekick,” Thomson said in a huff, mishearing him. “You are mine!”

“Smell it, won’t you?” Silk said, pressing a wallet to his face. “Piggy leather. Oh, I love piggy leather.” He was crumbling under the pressure and starting to get delirious.

“How dare you?” Thompson said in great high dudgeon. “I met you first.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you did not,” Thomson insisted.

“Yes, I did.”

“Didn’t!”

“Did!”

“Didn’t!”

All the while they were dimly conscious that poor Mr. Silk was talking to them, but it was vitally important to both Thompson and Thomson that this business of seniority and who was sidekick to whom be sorted out immediately. So neither of them heard Silk cry out, “Listen! I can’t stand it anymore! All right, I’ll come quietly!”

He began to shove wallets into the detectives’ hands, tears in his eyes, saying, “Take them, take them!”

Thomson recoiled. “What are you doing?”

“Take them all!” Silk shouted.

“Stop this at once, sir!” Thomson said.

Thompson caught Silk by the shoulder. “Pull yourself together, man! We can’t take your wallets. Do we look like thieves?”

“Good heavens, Thompson!” Thomson said then. Thompson looked away from Silk to see that Thomson was opening yet another wallet. “This looks familiar,” Thomson went on. “It can’t be . . .?”

Then both of them saw the name and address. “It is!” Thompson exclaimed.

“Tintin!” both of them said together.

TINTIN WAS DOZING
peacefully in the boat until Snowy’s barking roused him. He yawned and stretched and opened his eyes . . . to see Captain Haddock warming his hands over a blazing fire . . . right in the middle of the boat!

“Captain!” Tintin said, sitting bolt upright and scooting back from the fire. “What have you done?”

“No need to thank me,” Captain Haddock said. “You looked a little cold, so I lit a wee fire.” He took a swig from a half-empty bottle that must have survived his fall into the lifeboat from the
Karaboudjan
.

“In a boat!?” Tintin looked around and then back at the fire, suddenly noticing what Captain Haddock had used for wood. “Those are the oars! We need those oars!”

“Yes, yes,” said Captain Haddock. “But not for much longer! Can’t you see the boat’s on fire?”

Tintin leaned over the gunwale and scooped water in his hands, sloshing it into the bottom of the boat. The fire hissed and spat. “Have you gone mad?” he said. “Quick, Captain. Help me! Help me quick!”

Captain Haddock looked shocked at Tintin’s response, as if only then did he realize the consequences of his own action. “He’s right!” the old sailor said, clapping one hand over his face and raising the other to the skies. “What have I done?”

With that he upended the liquor bottle over the fire. “No, Captain! Not that!” Tintin cried out, but it was too late. The fire roared up in a great orange mushroom, the heat of it singeing Captain Haddock’s beard, Tintin’s hair, and even Snowy’s whiskers. All three of them jumped overboard at once.

Tintin flailed his way back to the surface. Snowy paddled in circles around him, sneezing seawater. Around the stern of the lifeboat, Tintin could see Captain Haddock trying to swim with one arm and keep his precious bottle out of the water at the same time. On the boat, the fire burned merrily. There was only one thing to do. Tintin caught hold of the boat’s gunwale and hoisted himself up, pushing down to tip the boat. For a moment, he was balanced perfectly on the gunwale. “Tintin!” Captain Haddock cried. “Don’t get in the boat. It’s on fire, lad!”

Tintin thought of a great many things he might say, but he didn’t say any of them. He dropped back into the water and pulled down on the side of the boat with both hands, tipping it up. It hung on edge, and Tintin pulled harder. He was underwater again, and over his head he heard the rush and gurgle of water pouring into the boat. He got his feet behind him and gave the barely submerged side of the boat a push.

The boat capsized, with Tintin underneath it. He looked up through stinging salt water and saw the fire wink out, doused by the water and smothered from the lack of air at the same time. He kicked out from under the boat and resurfaced at its side, clinging to it by the ridge of its upturned keel. Smoke rose from charred wood and the few remaining embers where the fire had burned completely through the hull.

“Well, this is a fine mess,” Tintin said. Snowy paddled over to him and rested his paws in the crook of Tintin’s arm.

Captain Haddock caught hold of the boat and shook his head sadly. “I’m weak,” he said.

“We’re stranded here,” Tintin said.