The Aviary (28 page)

Daphne went around to Clara’s other side and handed her Mr. Booth’s cane.

“Disarm the traps with this,” she said.

Clara tapped the cane before her but had trouble controlling her aim. Adrenaline and fear had made her clumsy. She bent low and a trap caught at the hem of her dress, but she managed to pick up the gun. The feeling of it—cold and slightly oily—repulsed her.

“Hand it to me!” said Daphne. “Quickly.”

Clara saw the sense in this: Daphne could take the gun, protecting her as she backed away from Jimmy. So she turned to her friend, careful to hold the weapon with the muzzle toward the floor—but it was even heavier than she had guessed, and she shook so badly, the firearm slipped through her hands.

Clara watched the gun drop to the floor and bounce. A spark lit up the dark, and the sound of a gunshot rocked the underground room. She tried to kick the gun forward and succeeded, but a force yanked her backward.

“He’s got you!” yelled Daphne.

Clara felt Jimmy’s hand at her ankle and looked down. One of his fingernails was torn and bleeding, but it was the smile-shaped scar that caught her attention: a thick, jagged welt on the skin between his thumb and index finger.

George hurtled through the air, diving at Jimmy’s head, but the man was willing to endure all manner of scratches rather than let Clara go. When George tried landing on the man’s legs, he thrashed so violently that Clara feared
for the cockatoo’s life. Clara had kicked herself in the ankle so many times trying to injure Jimmy’s hand that she knew she must be covered in bruises.

Finally one of her kicks struck hard, and Jimmy let loose a stream of vile curses. Clara was free of him! She ran to Daphne, who had picked up the revolver, and shouted to George. “What do we do now?”

“He’s getting up, Clara,” Daphne said, her small hands straining to keep the revolver upright.

“Down on the ground,” said George to Jimmy, “or the girl will shoot. Tell him, Mr. Booth.”

But Booth stood trembling with his coat over his head.

“I will shoot,” Daphne said. “So don’t make me.”

“You ought to be turned over someone’s knee and spanked within an inch of your life,” said Jimmy, rising to his feet. “Both of you.” He took two halting steps forward and gave the girls a grin. “Harder than you thought to shoot someone, eh, little one?”

Clara could see the gun quivering in Daphne’s hands.

“Clara?” Daphne said.

Clara didn’t know how much closer they could allow Jimmy before making a decision—but she wasn’t ready yet. “One more step …,” she said.

“Bee-TEEEE-WEEEE!” shrieked Peter.

A glass jar streaked past Jimmy’s shoulder and exploded at his feet, sending up a white cloud of powder. The man choked and wiped his hand across his mouth as another jar fell behind him.

“What the devil?” He stumbled and looked up. A third jar ricocheted off his forehead, streaking the white stuff down his nose, chin, and shirtfront.

Clara held her pinafore up to her face and pulled Daphne back.

“I’m burning,” he said. “Can’t breathe.…”

“It’s lye,” said Mr. Booth with a wheeze. “Don’t rub it around your face.…”

Jimmy pointed to his mouth. “My tongue … Water …”

“There’s a pitcher in the icebox,” Clara said. “Cold water.”

“Give me!” said Jimmy.

“I don’t want to leave Daphne.”

Jimmy limped out of the room as fast as he could manage, hacking, tears streaming down his face. And George flew after.

“Oh dear,” Daphne said, coughing. “Do you think you ought to have let him go?”

“Definitely,” Clara said. “We all have to leave before we’re poisoned! Peter and Helen? Will you accompany us? Mr. Booth, you will follow me and Daphne will follow you.”

“And put your hands behind your head, sir,” Daphne said. “I’ll be watching.”

Mr. Booth did as he was told. Climbing the few steps up to the yard in this posture was difficult for him, and he nearly fell.

“Keep going,” Daphne said. When they reached the aviary, Clara opened the door.

Mr. Booth stood, shaking his head. “I won’t go in.” But Helen and Peter circled him until he stepped into the aviary just to escape them.

Clara slammed shut the cage door and locked it tight, then gestured for Daphne to come with her to the kitchen.

“I think we should stay outside,” Daphne said. “It’s the kitchen. That man will have knives nearby.”

The girls stood by the side of the kitchen door, which was ajar. There was no noise inside.

“I’m going to look,” Clara said.

“Not without me, you aren’t.” Daphne crept with her up the wooden steps.

Clara peeped her head in and was thrilled at the sight. Motionless on the floor lay Jimmy while George stood guard over him from the counter.

“Come, Daphne,” she said. “He can’t hurt us.”

Daphne peeked over Clara’s shoulder. “Is he dead?”

“No! Not dead,” said George. “Though he ought to be.”

The girls entered the kitchen and kept their distance from the collapsed man.

Clara poked him with the toe of her boot, but Jimmy remained insensible.

“Don’t get too close, Clara!” Daphne said.

“He’s asleep,” Clara assured her. “I put half a bottle of Dr. Pincus’s Chloral Sedative in the pitcher.”

“You clever girl!”

“It was Frances’s idea. Wasn’t it, George?”

But George remained preoccupied with the body on the floor. “It is the man. The man from the boat. Look at his hand. The marks from my teeth are there.”

Clara peered again at the half-moon scar. “The kidnapper? But Mr. Booth said he was dead.”

“It
is
the man,” George said. “Old now, but mean as ever.” He flapped his wings and flew down by the still-breathing body. “Let’s find his name. Search his pockets.”

Clara knelt down reluctantly while George took his place by the man’s head and Daphne held the gun, just in case. Clara shuddered as she slipped her hand in the man’s warm pocket and pulled out a drawstring pouch. She opened it and saw plugs of tobacco and dollar bills in a clip. She went on to his other pocket and found nothing but a box of strike matches.

“That’s all there is,” Clara said.

“Well, then,” said Daphne, “that’s too bad. But can I put down this revolver now? I hate it!”

“May as well,” George said. “No need anymore.”

“I’m glad we didn’t shoot it,” Clara said. “Here, give it to me, and we’ll put it somewhere out of sight.”

Pointing the barrel down, Daphne started to surrender the pistol but stopped to inspect the handle. “Look,” she said. “It’s engraved.” After peering closely, she announced: “It says ‘J. Dooley.’ ”

“That’s … that’s
my
name,” Clara said.

George paced to and fro. “It is what I feared. The last thing I saw before I went under was this man. He floated on the box with the baby tied to his chest.”

“You think this is the man who raised Elliot on the island?” Daphne asked.

“Could be,” George said.

Clara didn’t want to think about what her father might have endured growing up with Jimmy as his caretaker. “So we’ve been going about with
his
name—Mother and Father and me. It’s unthinkable.”

“You’re still a Glendoveer,” he said. “Nothing changes that, Clara. If a cockatoo can remain a Glendoveer, then so can a Dooley.”

Clara beamed at him. How lovely it would have been to know George as a real, live boy.

Daphne gingerly placed the pistol in the icebox, which seemed as safe a place as any, and brought up the matter of moving Mr. Dooley from the kitchen to the aviary. Clara agreed that they should act quickly, before the sedative wore off.

“Tie a pillow round his head,” George told them. “You have to drag him down the steps.”

“Quite compassionate of you, George, considering,” said Daphne.

But George admitted to no feelings of sympathy. He merely wanted Dooley alive should they need more information about Elliot.

After securing Jimmy Dooley’s head with two goose-down pillows and twine, Clara and Daphne each took one of the man’s feet and pulled him to the kitchen door. When they came to the steps, Daphne kept to the feet while Clara tried to push him from the shoulders.

“Umph!” said Clara. “Could you pull harder from your end? He doesn’t budge.”

“On the count of three,” Daphne said, “with all your might!”

By inches, the girls got Jimmy Dooley down the stairs. With each bump, he made a snorting sound that set Clara’s teeth on edge.

“Keep going,” George said. “It will be easier sliding him across the grass.”

When they came to the aviary, Mr. Booth was sitting on the ground.

“So you’ve killed him, have you?” he said. “Little savages. Makes one wonder how you were raised.”

“Raised better than little Elliot Glendoveer was, I wager,” George said.

Helen, Peter, and George cornered Mr. Booth as Clara and Daphne tugged Dooley into the cage. When the aviary was locked, Clara pulled up a chair to keep an eye on the two men. Daphne went to get food for their prisoners.

Clara was curious when her friend returned with half a loaf of bread under one arm and a sloshing tin bucket.

“Bread and water?” Clara asked.

“It’s prison food, from what I’ve read,” Daphne said.
“And I don’t trust these two with glasses or tableware, so they’ll have to make do.”

After the food was inside, Daphne also pulled up a chair. Mr. Booth dunked his hands in the pail, took a few sips, and glared at the girls.

“Are you going to sit and gawk at me?” he asked. “The indignity. You realize that you cannot get away with this.”

“No? How will you explain why you came here with an armed henchman to meet two little girls?”

She sounded brave, but Clara knew that Mr. Booth was right. If Elliot was not found, how could her treatment of this old man ever be justified? And Daphne—what trouble she would be in. Surely the Aspinals would never let her darken Clara’s doorstep again.

But there was nothing she could do about that now. Anxiously, Clara scanned the skies for black birds, praying to soon catch a glimpse of Frances and Arthur winging their way home in triumph.

The afternoon passed sluggishly. At times, Clara would try to engage Mr. Booth in order to find out more about her father, but the old man had now decided not to speak except to say that he was innocent.

From time to time, Jimmy would snore or paw the air as if in a nightmare. His injuries only worsened as he slept. His upper lip, for instance, had swollen to several times its normal size, and the tip of his nose was purple from the caustic lye. One of his eyelids grew dusky and wouldn’t close properly.

Daphne and Clara would occasionally sneak each other worried looks, and once were caught by the canny Mr. Booth.

“If you let us out now,” Mr. Booth said, “no one will be the wiser. I’ll call a carriage and tell them my friend’s had a
pinch too much brandy. We’ll be off, the two of us, and never speak of this sorry episode again.”

The girls had no intention of letting the men go, but Mr. Booth continued to insinuate that their plans would fail.

“What time is it?” he said, checking his pocket watch. “Two o’clock? How long do you think it would take someone to row from Razor’s Slip to Oddshaw Island, catch a ferry, and return to Lockhaven?”

Neither Clara nor Daphne knew the answer to this question, and Mr. Booth recognized it.

“So I’ll be spending the night here?” he’d say. Or, “Do you think Jimmy might need a doctor? His breathing is dangerously shallow.” Or, “If he dies, you’ll be spending your next twenty birthdays in a women’s prison.”

This remark made Peter so mad, he chattered angrily until Booth backed down.

“When we want more out of you, we’ll ask for it,” George said.

Something in the harsh tone of the cockatoo’s voice got through to the sleeping Jimmy Dooley. He smacked his lips and groaned, then touched his injured eye.

“Water,” he said.

Mr. Booth shambled over and flicked water from the bucket onto Jimmy’s face. He propped himself up on one elbow and drank greedily.

It was then that Clara thought she heard a voice in the house.

“Is that your mother, do you think?” Daphne asked.

The girls soon got their answer when they heard Ruby squeal. “What’s this? Who’s put chewing tobacco on my table?”

“Clara!” called Harriet, still inside the house.

Clara looked to Daphne. “Go home! Now!”

“Certainly not,” Daphne told her. “I won’t abandon you.”

“Please,” Clara said, tugging her from her chair. “Run home and don’t say a word. It’s important to me to know you’re home safe.”

Daphne stood her ground, but Clara implored her.

“Please. For
me
. If I’m in trouble now, you may be able to help me later—but only if you are free.”

Daphne understood this appeal. “Then you must leave a sign when you’re safe. I will be back in the morning if I don’t hear from you.”

“Hurry!” said Clara. She squeezed her friend’s hand and let her go.

When she passed the aviary, Mr. Booth was tending to Jimmy Dooley, urging him to get up. George, Peter, and Helen stood guard at the top of the cage. The injured man groaned so loudly, Clara was sure that someone might hear him in the house. In fact, she did not know why neither her mother nor Ruby was in the backyard looking for her yet.