The Lunatic's Curse (26 page)

‘Well, Dr Velhildegildus,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘I’ve been looking forward to this visit.’

‘I’ll lead the way,’ said Tibor.

Hildred, tidily squeezed into her confined space, watched as Tibor and his two guests went on ahead. Walter secured the boat before following. As soon as they were out of sight Rex crawled out and
stretched his arms, complaining of cramp. Hildred eased herself out with little difficulty and had no such complaints, but she did roll her shoulders with an alarming cracking sound. They waited,
deeming it important to give the forward party time enough to reach the asylum.

‘So that’s Acantha,’ said Hildred. ‘You described her well. But who’s the other fellow?’

Rex smiled triumphantly. ‘It’s Andrew Faye,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear Tibor?’

‘No.’

‘He said, “I’ll lead, Mr Faye.” What a stroke of luck. It must be another meeting of the Society of Andrew Faye and this time he’s turned up in person.’

‘That’s why Mrs Runcible won’t be cooking,’ said Hildred. ‘Come on, let’s go. I want to have a look at this Mr Faye.’

They made for the steps but Rex stopped suddenly and stared hard at the ground.

‘What is it?’ asked Hildred.

Rex knelt and wiped his hand across the rock. Sticky strings of a dark red liquid hung between his fingers. ‘It’s blood,’ he said.

‘Acantha’s package,’ said Hildred. ‘The meat for tonight. Here, someone’s dropped a handkerchief.’ She picked up a folded piece of material from the ground.
‘You can wipe your hand.’

But Rex wasn’t listening. He was transfixed by the substance on his fingers. Before he realized what he was doing, he brought them to his mouth and began to lick them.

Hildred looked at him in utter astonishment. ‘Oh, fingerknots! Rex, what in the world do you think you are doing?’

‘I . . . I don’t know,’ he stammered, looking confused and dismayed and surprised all at once. ‘The smell was so strong and I just wanted to clean my fingers.’

‘Well, at least wait until it’s cooked next time.’

They climbed the steps in silence. Rex was worried. He had tried to laugh off his odd behaviour but inside he was as shocked as Hildred. And not because he had licked the blood. But because he
had liked the taste.

There was no sign of Dr Velhildegildus and his visitors when they reached the asylum but they bumped into Mrs Runcible in the entrance hall.

‘Where’ve you two been?’ she asked. ‘It’s early supper tonight, so’s Dr Velhildegildus can have the kitchen.’

‘Where is he now?’ asked Hildred.

‘They’re all in his study.’

Rex was glad. He didn’t want to see
her
, just Mr Faye, and preferably on his own.

During supper (cold meat and bread with watered down ale – a reasonably palatable meal; there was little that the good-natured cook could do to ruin it) Mrs Runcible, still miffed at the
perceived insult to her cooking, sat mournfully at the end of the table swilling the leaves in a cup.

‘It’s the lady’s,’ she said. ‘I don’t know her name, the doctor hasn’t introduced us, but there’s lipstick on the side you see. She drinks dainty
she does,’ she continued. ‘You should see the way her little finger sticks out. Sign of breeding.’

Rex shuddered at the scarlet stain on the lip of the cup: Acantha’s trademark. ‘What do her leaves say?’ he asked.

‘Difficult to tell,’ said Mrs Runcible. ‘But give me another few cups and I should be able to say.’

After supper, Hildred and Rex went to Hildred’s room and sat debating their next move. Hildred wanted to go back to the torture chamber, as they now called it, but Rex
didn’t. He wanted to spy on Tibor and his guests. ‘I want to get a proper look at Andrew Faye first. I’m certain there’s a connection between him and my father and the other
clues.’

‘We can do both,’ suggested Hildred.

Reluctantly Rex agreed.

‘See? No moaning,’ said Rex tetchily as they made their way down the stinking tunnel to the rocky end wall. He was already regretting agreeing to see the cells
first. He could hardly bear to be there, and he was most anxious to eavesdrop on the supper in the kitchen above.

‘Be patient, I just want to have a look,’ said Hildred. ‘I’ll only be a minute or two.’

‘But what if Andrew Faye leaves tonight? I might never see him again.’

‘I shouldn’t worry about that. They’ll drink too much and then go to Tibor’s study, have a few brandies and probably fall asleep by the fire. You might catch him in the
morning.’

‘But—’

‘Besides, I don’t think that fellow is your mysterious Mr Faye.’

Rex was momentarily silenced. ‘Then who is it?’

‘Cecil Notwithstanding.’

Rex snorted in disbelief. ‘How on earth do you know that? You’ve never even seen him.’

‘I’ll admit it’s a bit of a wild guess but I do have some evidence.’

‘What evidence?’ Rex found Hildred’s logic exasperating at times.

Hildred reached into her pocket and produced a large square of white linen stained blue and red. ‘Remember this?’

‘The handkerchief,’ said Rex disdainfully. ‘What does that prove?’ But then he saw the initials on the corner: ‘C.N.’

‘Cecil Notwithstanding,’ said Hildred matter-of-factly rather than triumphantly. ‘And did you see the state of the man’s fingers? Black and blue from ink. Is that not the
true sign of a journalist? Remember that letter from Acantha?’ she continued. ‘I think Cecil is the fellow who knows too much.’

Rex had to admit that she was probably right; she was nothing if not logical. He tried to play her at her own game. ‘Then the real question is, what does he know? That’s why we have
to see him.’

But Hildred had her ear to the wall again. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said with a disappointed shake of her head. She nodded to the locked door. ‘I think we should have another
look in there.’

Rex hung back.

‘Mr Ephcott always said in cases like these that it is vital to eliminate every possibility. You said yourself you saw Gerulphus come down here the other night. There has to be a reason.
You’ve got your picklock, haven’t you?’

Rex was tempted to say no, but he could see that Hildred was not to be swayed from her quest so he opened the door. ‘Though I don’t know what she thinks she’s going to find in
there,’ he muttered to himself.

The room was as before: pungent and dank, like something from a living nightmare. Hildred went around the walls, holding her lamp up high, looking at everything on the shelves, feeling all the
tools of torture. There was a large empty barrel in one corner and she peered into it for what seemed like an age. Rex stood by the door, distinctly ill at ease, becoming increasingly agitated.
‘This is a waste of time,’ he said. ‘I
really
don’t want to be down here. Can’t we go?’

Hildred ignored him and continued with her silent examination of the room.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Rex exclaimed. ‘You’re not even listening!’ And with that he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Hildred alone in the
chamber.

‘I don’t care what she says,’ he muttered as he stomped up the tunnel. ‘I’m going to see what they’re up to with Cecil Notwithstanding.’

39

It was a few moments before Hildred even noticed that Rex had gone, but when she realized that she was alone she too was furious.

‘I don’t believe it!’ she exclaimed, looking down the tunnel. ‘He’s gone and left me down here. After everything I’ve done for him. What an ungrateful . . .
pig!’ At the door she tutted with exasperation. ‘How stupid can you get? How can I lock the door without a key?’

She noticed a light approaching from beyond the bend down the tunnel, and immediately felt remorseful at how quick she had been to condemn Rex.

But it wasn’t Rex up ahead – it was Gerulphus. Luckily, on account of the fact that he sneezed as he rounded the corner, his eyes were closed so he failed to see Hildred stepping
hastily back into the chamber of horrors.

Hildred didn’t want to be found down here again. Gerulphus might tell Tibor and there was
Indagator
to think about now. Annoying as Rex might be, she didn’t want to ruin his
chances of finishing the project or, of course, solving his mysteries. Thinking quickly, she stepped into the empty barrel and tucked herself into a tight ball.

Upon arriving at the chamber, Gerulphus was surprised, and suspicious, to find that the door was unlocked. He held up his lantern and looked around. Nothing had been disturbed.

‘Those children,’ he muttered as he locked the door. ‘It’s time for a padlock. Unless it’s Dr Velhildegildus? Perhaps he has found a key.’ What matter? His
time was nearly up on Droprock Island.

From her hiding place Hildred’s eyes followed Gerulphus’s every move. She was nervous but also excited. What exactly was it that brought this laconic oddball back here again and
again? She watched with fast-beating heart as he went to the panel with the branding irons. She heard the turn of a key, saw the panel swing open and then, to her great surprise, Gerulphus was
gone. But this was no magic trick; Hildred didn’t believe in that. There was a logical explanation for everything. So, with no thought for her own safety, only for her curious mind, she
crawled out of her hiding space, ran to the closing panel and just managed to slip through before it silently shut.

While Hildred was in pursuit of Gerulphus, Rex was creeping down the stairs to the kitchen. Assailed on his descent by the delicious aroma of Acantha’s stew, he licked
his lips constantly. Unfortunately his plan – if plan it could be called, so flimsy was its premise – was immediately thwarted. The sound of chairs being pushed back across stone and
loud voices put him in a panic and he turned tail, raced back up to the hall and dived for cover under the main stairs.

Barely seconds later Acantha and Tibor and their bearded guest appeared from below. Of the three, the stranger (Rex was still not wholly convinced he was Cecil Notwithstanding) seemed the worst
for wear. Unsteady on his feet, he needed support on both sides from his fellow diners.

‘This way, Cecil,’ said Tibor, dispelling in one fell swoop Rex’s lingering doubts. ‘We’ll go to my study for an early nightcap.’

Rex gritted his teeth. How come Hildred was always right!

‘I think I musht have had a little too mush of that fine wine,’ slurred Cecil. ‘A Fitzbaudly bottle, you say. A very good year, but powerful shtuff!’

Acantha and Tibor, exuding an aromatic cloud of mouthwatering smells, exchanged sly glances behind Cecil’s head as they passed by the hidden watcher. Unaware of Rex creeping along in their
wake, the two of them half carried, half dragged Cecil all the way to Tibor’s study, his limp feet leaving parallel lines in the pile. Knowing this really was Cecil Notwithstanding brought
little comfort to Rex. He was unsure what to make of it all. This was the man his father had said to trust – yet here he was, dining with his arch-enemy, Acantha, and Tibor, the man who had
promised to liberate him from said enemy. Something didn’t add up.

The study door closed and Rex put his ear against it. I had never thought to be such a regular eavesdropper, he mused. Perhaps I should invent some sort of machine that is able to listen through
doors.

He cupped his hand and listened intently but in truth he didn’t hold out much hope. The dinner conversation would surely have been more enlightening, but Hildred’s insistence on
going down to the tunnels had prevented his catching that. So Rex was resigned to hearing little more than the chink of the brandy bottle and snoring.

But he was to be surprised. Very surprised indeed.

‘Now, Mr Notwithstanding,’ he heard Tibor croon. ‘You just settle yourself down here. You say you are interested in my Lodestone Procedure. It’s a very relaxing
experience. What was that? Safe? Oh yes, perfectly safe, I assure you. Perfectly safe indeed!

Lodestone Procedure? thought Rex. He had not expected this!

Hildred was some distance behind Gerulphus but was able to track him by the light of his lantern. Lacking her own, she couldn’t afford to let him get too far ahead.
Neither could she afford to be squeamish as, in a flash of inspiration, she broke a bony hand from one of the many skeletons in the cavities, and placed a joint at each turn to mark her ever
descending path.

After a short while, and many turns left and right, and a near miss with a deep hole, the light ahead remained steady.

What’s he doing? wondered Hildred, but she didn’t dare go any closer. Then the light was on the move again, but slower this time, dipping rhythmically as if Gerulphus was hauling
something along in short bursts of effort.

At the next turn Hildred just caught sight of Gerulphus taking a left in the distance. He
was
dragging something but she couldn’t see what. She walked on quickly and came to an open
iron-barred door. Another cell, and all the way down here! The floor was covered in fish bones and there was a small piece of embroidered red cloth caught on the door. She took it then hurried on.
Gerulphus’s light was no longer visible but she could still see, for now she was bathed in the familiar blue glow of the underground chamber.