The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead (9 page)

Down the corridor she went.

She hazarded that the reception was most likely guarded by the old hotelier and the Austro–Hungarian soldiers, so she’d already singled out a window with a balcony at the far end as the most promising exit.

It was locked.

The fish knife that she’d wiped on her napkin before tucking into her boot was just the thing to jimmy it open.

The air outside was fresh and cold. Distant mountains, darker against the dark sky, were visible, but everything was lit by moonlight rather than a hint of an approaching dawn. Earnestine took the few steps across the balcony to the railing.

Ah, the hotel was built on a slope and this had added an extra storey to the drop at the back.

“Are you going to fly?”

Earnestine stiffened and turned.

Kroll was standing in the doorway. He opened his dark lantern’s hinged door and threw a band of light across Earnestine’s face. She was forced to squint and look away.

“You shouldn’t survive that.”

“It’s ‘couldn’t survive that’,” Earnestine corrected.

“Ja.”

“Would you like some sausage?” she said holding out her basket.

“I shall wait for breakfast.”

“Very wise. I’ll bid you goodnight then.”

“Goodnight.”

She went past the big man and then down the corridor again. When she reached her door, another opened suddenly. She and Pieter were only a few yards apart, he in his loose shirt and britches and she in her tidy clothes.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night,” he replied.

Before she closed her door, she saw another shadow, low and creeping at the far end of the corridor, move.

She leant against the door listening, but there were too many good–nights in German for her to hazard another attempt tonight. Best thing to do, she thought, was get a good night’s sleep.

Miss Georgina

The bedroom that Georgina had slept in for the whole term seemed an alien place and it was no longer a blessed peace to find herself alone there. Her room-mates, formerly so irritating, were keenly absent. The other beds in the shared room were empty, because the occupants were downstairs in the library as if asleep together.

She packed her things, although it took a long time because she kept pausing at each keepsake. She found a photograph of the family. It had been taken before their mother had gone up the river. There was Earnestine looking regal and little Charlotte smiling foolishly. Their mother seemed maternal, but now Georgina looked at her, she seemed different, haunted, and Georgina knew how their father’s absence had drained her. The arrangement of woman and girls was lopsided, the man’s place was a gap on the left and there was almost a space to pour his presence into if… when he returned. Georgina knew he would return, but their mother had not been able to wait.

And now Earnestine and Charlotte were gone too.

Georgina foresaw further daguerreotypes containing just her own lonely figure pushed against one side of an otherwise empty frame. No, she thought, she would find them and then there would be pictures of all of them, new pictures, coloured with dyes, framed and covering every wall in their house back in Kensington.

There was a knock at the door.

“M– M– Miss.”

“Merry?”

“We’ve looked, everywhere, n– nothing, sorry.”

“That you didn’t find their bodies?”

“N– no, I mean… I’m just… sorry.”

“Packing!” said Georgina.

“I b– b– beg your–”

Georgina went to Charlotte’s room, Merryweather trailing after her. There were six sets of beds, chests of drawers and small wardrobes. She knew which one was Charlotte’s, the untidiest.

Inside Charlotte’s wardrobe, Georgina found a spare school uniform and that silly summer dress, but there were three empty hangers. She’d be wearing her dress and a blouse, but where was her coat? Her blue coat should have been there. Miss Hardcastle did not allow the girl to wear their coats indoors, so the conclusion was obvious.

“The silly girl went out,” Georgina said.

“That’s good,” Merryweather replied. “Is… Isn’t it?”

“No, she’d have got in trouble and Earnestine would tell me off.”

“B– But she could be still alive.”

“Or… outside.”

“I’ll get Caruthers and McKendry to do a sweep.”

“Thank you.”

“What colour is the coat?”

“Charlotte’s is dark blue.”

Merryweather nodded and slipped out onto the landing.

Georgina checked Charlotte’s chest of drawers. Under her handkerchiefs was the old cigar box that Uncle Jeremiah had given her for all her keepsakes. Georgina opened it, feeling guilty but at the same time permitted. It was full of buttons and insignia from cadets, tokens that
those
boys had given her. It was these that had been discovered and it had led directly to their incarceration in this hell hole.

A sudden thought drove Georgina out of the room and along the corridor. At the far end she raised her hand to knock, felt foolish and then went into Earnestine’s room. As a Prefect, this small cubby hole had been an extra privilege. She looked in the wardrobe: Earnestine’s dark red coat hung there along with her spare school uniform and a sensible formal dress. It meant something, Georgina knew, and Earnestine would ‘tut’ and tell Georgina to pull herself together: it was obvious.

Georgina slapped her forehead: come on, come on.

Charlotte’s coat was missing so she had gone outside. Earnestine’s was in her wardrobe, so she was inside the building. Earnestine’s bedside cabinet had a top drawer and her sister’s belongings were neat and organised: a place for everything and everything in its place; except that there was a place with nothing in it. A long and narrow gap for something long and narrow like… what? Georgina sat on the bed and tried to imagine the long and narrow object in her hand. A box maybe, or a set of ribbons… Georgina started sobbing, quietly but uncontrollably. Earnestine would know what to do, but Georgina did not.

“Georgina! Georgina!”

Georgina grabbed one of Earnestine’s handkerchiefs and wiped her eyes.

“Here,” she shouted. “Here.”

Merryweather’s cries increased and Georgina went to the door to shout along the corridor.

“There you are,” Merryweather exclaimed, and then more softly, “you worried me.”

“I was looking in my sister’s room for clues.”

Merryweather nodded, agreeing, the colour coming back to his cheeks. He reached out, hesitantly, and Georgina found she was doing the same. Their fingers almost touched, but Earnestine’s handkerchief came between them and the moment passed.

“What is it?” Georgina asked.

“Mac’s found something interesting in the East Wing.”

Georgina felt aggrieved: they must search the grounds, not the East Wing: “We weren’t allowed in the East Wing.”

“Perhaps they went exploring,” Merryweather suggested.

“Exploring!” Georgina practically shouted at him. “Earnestine wouldn’t allow that.”

“Let’s s– s– see.”

At the entrance to the East Wing, Georgina hesitated at the rope barrier and the ‘Out of Bounds’ sign. She could hear Miss Hardcastle’s shrill tones and feared the woman’s wrath, even though she knew that the Principal was lying in the library. Perhaps the woman would rise from the dead and haunt her, just like Hideous Helga, for trespassing. It took all her courage to step over into the forbidden realm.

“What is it?” Caruthers was asking when they arrived.

McKendry was crouched down again: “Austrian brand,” he explained. “Both the cigarettes and the clothes. Austro–Hungary or thereabouts, I’d say.”

“How many?”

“No more than a half a dozen. There was a struggle here.”

Caruthers turned, smoothed his moustache and looked at Georgina questioningly.

“Not the people who attacked. I saw them arrive and there were three or four dozen at least.”

“There’s a mystery here,” Caruthers muttered.

McKendry picked up a Two of Diamonds. Other cards, a mix of face down and face up, lay across the slate flagstones. McKendry turned over a Jack, just like he’d turned the young girls’ faces upwards for scrutiny. Georgina looked away, putting her hand to her face.

“The young lady’s sister, her coat is m– m– missing,” Merryweather spoke in hushed tones. He was trying to be kind, Georgina knew, but it gave the cellar the air of a mausoleum. “She might be outside…”

Dead: that seemed to be the unspoken word. Charlotte, little Charlotte, must have met the attackers outside and Earnestine, of course, the eldest sister would have been protecting her, while useless Georgina was saving her own worthless skin.

Caruthers smoothed his moustache in thought, and then said, “The answer isn’t here.”

“I guess we won’t be the first to climb that mountain,” McKendry joked.

“I’m sure the peak won’t be going anywhere,” Caruthers replied. “We should go into town and let the Bürgermeister know.”

“So much for avoiding entanglements.”

They carried on talking, planning, and discussing the alternatives: the Bürgermeister, going it alone, contacting someone called Major Dan, but Georgina wasn’t taking it in. She felt wooden and useless, a spare part and… strangely, she had been staring at it for such a long time without realising what she was actually seeing. Leaning against the upturned card table, where it had rolled, was a long and narrow object, a cream tube: Earnestine’s–

She cried out: “Flashlight!”

That’s what it had been.

The others looked round as she sprang forward and grabbed hold of it. She held it aloft for them like a trophy.

“It’s Earnestine’s flashlight.”

Caruthers didn’t know the term: “Flashlight?”

McKendry did: “It’s a torch, Yank word. That’s a Misell Electric.”

“Father gave it to Earnestine when he came back from New York. The American policemen use them. I got a ribbon. Charlotte got lead figures.”

She pressed the button and shone the yellowish light over their faces illuminating them, flicking it on and off as their father had explained.

“It was her prize possession,” claimed Georgina. “She wouldn’t forget it or lose it unless… there was a struggle here, you said.”

“They kidnapped her and killed the others,” said Caruthers, mulling it over.

“She didn’t use it for everyday use, the batteries don’t last, she only used it when she went exploring.”

As soon as she’d said it, Georgina thought how wrong it sounded:
no exploring, no trouble, no adventures
; that was Earnestine’s mantra.

“She found something then,” said Caruthers “before…”

“They’re alive,” Georgina insisted.

“I hope so,” Merryweather said. “I’m sure they are.”

“Let’s operate on that assumption,” Caruthers said. “We’ll go to town and send a coded telegram to Major Dan and–”

Georgina butted in: “Excuse me, but you’re military men, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Miss,” Caruthers replied and the three men stood taller.

“Why aren’t you with your regiment?”

“We’re here to–”

“You’re spies.”

“Oh no, Miss, we’re not spies, we’re more… er…”

“Gentlemen adventurers,” McKendry said.

“Gentlemen, yes,” Caruthers agreed.

“Yes,” Merryweather said, “spies have to have p– p– permission from M–”

“Yes! Merry! Whereas we are simply on holiday.”

“To climb a mountain?” Georgina added.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“To look at the view.”

“Excellent views from the top of mountains.”

“To spy on the land.”

“Indeed, in a sightseeing manner, but tonight I think we’ll be staying here,” Caruthers announced firmly.

“Is that wise?” Merryweather asked.

“Probably not, but as I see it whoever did all this has left. They are unlikely to return, whereas if we go blundering about in the dark, we might run into them, as it were, and that would be unfortunate.”

“Perhaps we should return to the hut?” McKendry said.

“Hardly a place for the young lady,” Merryweather argued.

“I’m sure we’ll find suitable accommodation where the teachers slept and so forth.”

“I’m sleeping in my dormitory!”

Georgina was surprised by her own outburst and rather embarrassed to be the centre of attention suddenly.

“Well, I’m sure we could organise a… sort of…” Caruthers trailed off. “This is quite delicate.”

Caruthers shuffled slightly, rubbed his moustache; McKendry adjusted his handlebar and tugged his chin puff, and Merryweather stared out ahead.

“There are other dormitories off the same corridor,” Georgina said.

They nodded in agreement.

Back at Georgina’s dormitory corridor, she indicated various options. The men selected a dormitory closer to the landing tacitly deciding to put themselves between the sleeping young lady and anything that might come up the stairs.

“There might be… you know,” McKendry was saying as he and Caruthers went to inspect their bunks.

“I’m sure a medal winner like yourself can cope with ladies undergarments,” Caruthers boomed from inside.

Georgina found their difficulties amusing. She smiled for the first time in an age, but that suddenly seemed wrong. She shouldn’t ever be happy again, because… but best not to think about that. She found herself standing with Merryweather just inside her room, which was somewhat improper, but these were extraordinary circumstances and the door was open.

“D– d– do you have everything you need?” asked Merryweather.

“It is my usual room.”

“Yes, of course… sorry.”

“Do you have a medal?”

“I have a couple.”

“What for?”

“India.”

“You must show it to Charlotte when we find her.”

“Yes.”

“She likes that sort of thing.”

Georgina was conscious of how small her room was. It had appeared spacious for the three roommates, but now this man seemed a giant in a doll’s house. His presence was awkward and embarrassing. She quite liked being with this man, but… oh dear.

“You can’t be in here with me alone,” she said.

“N– n– no?”

“It isn’t seemly.”

“No, no, of course n– n– not. Sorry. So sorry, sorry, I apologise, of course.”